Facebook announced on Monday 9th April that they would be buying the leading photo sharing application ‘Instagram’ for a total of $1Bn in cash & stocks, marking their biggest acquisition to date.

Instagram, launched in October 2010, allows users to take pics, digitally filter them & share them to various social networking sites including Instagram itself. The application has accumulated 30million users since January 2011 & 5million pictures are uploaded daily.

Upon its launch, Instagram was only supported on iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch. Earlier this month the application was extended to work with Android Camera Phones running 2.2 (Froyo) or higher, seeing more than a million downloads within the first 12hours. The app is distributed via iTunes App Store & Google Play.

Both CEOs posted the acquisition announcement on their respective platforms, adding that the companies would continue to run independently, though the staff would be integrated & work together to strengthen and grow each company independently in areas where the other has achieved success. Mark Zuckerburg’s statement added that Instagram users would continue to be able to share their pics with users of Facebook’s competitor social networking sites as they had been able to before. They will also maintain the ability to have followers & follow other people independently on Facebook.

Users have expressed worry about Facebook’s Privacy policies being carried over to Instagram because of the acquisition, & that Facebook would use information on them gained from Instagram to target Ads to them. Some even adding that they will be closing their Instagram accounts.

With Instagram currently being a fully Mobile Application, the purchase will give Facebook a much sought after ‘in’ to the mobile market.

The acquisition is sure to strengthen Facebook as a force given that the companies are both built on Photo Sharing & have done relatively well in their own rights. We will be watching to see what great ideas & improvements are brought to both these products with the fresh ideas & outlook the new staff will bring to each company.

References:

http://blog.instagram.com/

http://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100318398827991

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram

http://mashable.com/2012/04/09/facebook-instagram-buy/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/facebook-acquires-instagram-for-about-1b/2012/04/09/gIQA180H6S_story.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2012/04/11/what-facebooks-acquisition-of-instagram-means-for-brands/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-voakes/the-numbers-behind-facebo_b_1418406.html

Apple announced on Wednesday that they would be releasing the third generation iPad to their Retail Stores & the Apple Online Store in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK; along with Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands today.

From March 23 the new iPad will be available in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast 3G networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.** Additionally, iPad 2 is available at a more affordable price starting at just $399.

The Wall Street Journal reported that consumers were lining up outside Apple Stores around the world looking to buy themselves the computer device, furthering Apple’s lead in the fast growing Tablet Market and sending the company’s share price to a record $600.01 (R4587.72) extending the market worth of the world’s most valuable company to almost $560 billion.

The official launch date for the iPad 3 in South Africa is yet to be announced. So we wait for the beloved iPad to hit our shores in anticipation.

Sources:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/03/14New-iPad-Arrives-in-the-US-Nine-Additional-Countries-on-Friday.html

http://www.euronews.com/business-newswires/1439175-apple-touches-record-high-as-ipad-3-sales-run-hot/

http://www.ponder.co.za/ipad3-release-date-and-what-to-expect/

I wonder how many of you are reading this article on your mobile device or iPad/tablet while waiting for your kids’ school to come out?  I will not be surprised if 40-50% of you are.  Mobile is the fastest growing industry in the world and the future of the internet.

Currently, iPhones account for 58% of mobile internet usage, and 17% come from iPads. . Furthermore, over 74% of the world population own mobile devices, which calculates to over 5 billion people worldwide!  Google also estimates that they have seen a 500% growth in mobile search from 2008 to 2010.

The statistics are borderline unbelievable, actually, but a great reminder as to why it is so important to make websites mobile friendly.  Operative word to this is, of course: Optimisation.

Optimisating mobile sites would include the following:

1. Content: Keep in mind that your computer has a bigger screen than a mobile; put only the necessary information on your mobile site.
2. Design: Try to avoid large images on your mobile site. Too many images can influence the amount of traffic to your website. The reason for this is large images takes longer to download on a mobile device and this can lead to a click away from your website.
3. Navigation: Put bigger buttons on your mobile website. Today, most of the smartphones are touch screens and bigger buttons makes it easier for a user to click on it and this will also make the navigation much easier.
4. Bigger: As discussed earlier, the screen of a mobile is smaller than a laptop screen, make your content, text, images bigger and put important links in big buttons.

After you have optimized your mobile website, make sure you test to see what the site will look like on all kinds of devices (Android, Iphone, Blackberry, Windows Device and an iPad) before you go live.

Can you believe it’s already the end of January 2012. In this article I will quickly recap on some highlights of 2011 and what we can expect in 2012 when it comes to technology world-wide and in South Africa.

2011

One of the most exciting launches in 2011 was the launch of the iPhone 4S, officially launched in South Africa December 16th 2011. The new member of the iPhone family has a dual core processor, improved camera (8 megapixels) and improved video capturing capabilities. With this Apple set a new standard for the development of Super Phones.

After months of speculation Google launched their new attempt at Social Media. Google Plus (Google+) was launched in mid 2011. The platform seems to be a combination of features from existing social media platforms and is visually very plain and simple to understand. It remains to be seen if Google+ will play a big role in Social Media or will it come to an end like its predecessor Google Wave.

YouTube got a little renovation. In 2011 YouTube improved the user experience of their website. They changed the layout to make navigation and finding channels easier and also made it visually more appealing.
Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5B, a dedicated Android partner, which will enable Google to supercharge the android ecosystem.

2012

Mobile! I think a lot of tech companies will be focusing on building better and more functional mobile applications as the market for smart and super phones is exploding. Mobile penetration in Africa especially is higher than some European countries. I think we’ll see a lot of innovation in the mobile application sector especially in terms of location based services, social networking, mobile commerce and mobile banking. I think we’ll also see advances when it comes to mobile hardware especially battery life.

Social media should have a large impact on search engines delivering more personalized search results than ever before. I also think Google and other large search engines will take social media more in account when it comes to delivering organic search results using user generated information to establish whether a website is a good resource or not. See Marcel’s article: The Impact of Personalized Search on SEO

Android will probably increase their market share in mobile device operating systems with the purchase of Motorola Mobility.

Whatever is in store for us for the year 2012 – it will be an exciting year for technology. I am sure we’ll see great innovation in technology in general and especially in mobile devices.

Being a huge iPhone fan I usually can’t wait when they announce something new. It was no different this time when they announced that IOS 5 would be available for download the 12th of October. It’s been out for more than a month now and I had time to play a bit.

After the 700MB+ download and some backup and restore issues, I got it installed, luckily with no loss of data, and I was good to go. I started playing around immediately to see what is new and how it will affect and improve my use of the phone.

Apple added over 200 new features in the IOS 5 and I will go over the major, more obvious ones as well as a couple of other features that I thought were pretty cool.

Notification System

The new IOS has a notification system that makes things easier to access than ever before. By just swiping your finger from the top down you will access this menu. It shows the weather, upcoming calendar events and any other apps that have unread notifications. The new notification also only shows a small alert while you are busy working on another application, so it is not as distracting as in the past. You can also open notifications from the lock screen by swiping your finger across it the same way you unlock your phone.

Newsstand

The Newsstand application automatically updates your subscriptions to newspapers and magazines. The newspaper store is also integrated into newsstand so it is easy to get access to subscriptions.

Reminders

You now have a built in reminders app that allows you to create reminders as well as lists of reminders. You can also set reminders to go off when arriving or leaving a certain location.

Twitter

Twitter is now integrated with a lot of Twitter enabled apps on the iPhone. With this, you can open up the ‘More options’ menu in the gallery, and tweet straight from there. The same applies when you are browsing the web and want to share something immediately.

Safari Reader

The Safari reader functionality lets you save a website article to read later in the ibooks format that allows for easy reading. You can also change the font sizes in the reader.

Camera

You can now double tap your Home button to get into the camera application and then take pictures by pressing the up volume button. You can also select to view a grid in your camera and swipe to view your album instead of pressing the preview button.

iMessage

iMessage allows you to communicate between IOS 5 users. It automatically picks up if you have IOS 5 and use iMessage and is integrated with your normal messages app.

Wi-fi Sync

With iOS 5 your device can now automatically sync when it is connected to wi-fi and plugged in to power. You can carry on working while it is syncing in the background.

iCloud

iCloud stores your music, documents, photos, calendar and more. It can then wirelessly push that to all your other devices.
These are some of the more known changes. The next couple of features are ones that were not shown in Apple’s intro videos of the IOS 5.

Dictionary

IOS 5 defines any word that you type in any application after you have selected it and tapped on it.

Usage

You can now see usage per application under the general settings menu. In the past you were not always sure how much space an app is taking up, but now you don’t have a problem with that anymore.

Custom vibrations

There are a few new options under the accessibility options menu in settings. One of these features is Custom vibrations. There are a couple pre programmed ones but you can also create your own ones under the contacts section of the OS. You can then give each of the contacts that you want their own unique vibration, so by the way the phone is vibrating you will be able to know who it is.

LED flash alerts

You can also enable LED flash alerts that will activate the LED whenever an alert goes off.
Triple-click home touch
The triple-click home can be assigned a couple of functions such as activating the Voiceover, white on black, zoom or assistive touch.

Emoji

Emoji is now a keyboard you can add, it is built in and you don’t need to install the app anymore.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts allow you to predefine any phrase that you often use and give it a shorter abbreviation. For example for “on my way” you only have to type “omw” then it will suggest the whole phrase to you. This can be found in the Keyboard menu.

Weather

The weather feature gives you hourly updates if you click on the current day.
I am thoroughly enjoying this new Operating System – and have especially enjoyed playing with it to get to know all the features. I think it’s well worth continuously learning more.