Has Facebook made photos better?
Yesterday’s announcement and post by Facebook product manager Sam Odio entitled “Making Facebook Photos Better” has inspired me to ask the question. ”Do you think that’s true?”
The default reaction might be to think this is “facial recognition” software. According to Annika Heinle of Facebook Corporate Communications, “this is not facial recognition software in the sense that it recognizes specific people. Instead it is a facial detection feature that finds faces in photos.” There in lies the difference, a big one. The intent of the software is to make it easier to tag photos – which I think is a good thing.
This all stems from the recent corporate acquisition of Divvyshot, the creators of this software. A smart investment since there are over 100 million photos uploaded a day according to Odio.
Still, one might ask since Facebook continues to struggle with a large segment of users who are revolting against their privacy policies, will this go any further? Some might see this as yet another step in the wrong direction, albeit a small one in this case. Certainly Facebook’s track record with respect to privacy is abysmal, bad move after bad move so there it is reasonable to question the social networking giants’ intentions.
What do you think? Conspiracy, smart acquisition, don’t care either way? Leave your thoughts here and we’ll use them on the radio show…
UPDATE: Canadian lawyer launches class-action suit against Facebook as covered by CTV, and Canadian Press.
Do you think this lawsuit has a chance? Would you participate?
Certified General Accountants of Alberta
This Friday is going to be a really fun day, as I’ve been asked to provide a keynote address to the Certified General Accountants of Alberta. I’ll be presenting on the topic of social media for business and all of this will be taking place in one of the most beautiful places and tourist destinations in Alberta, Canada and frankly the world. – Jasper.
The Social Accountant
This association of accountants, many of which I’m sure will be from major centres such as, Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary but also I suspect from locations all across Alberta. The Certified General Accountants of Alberta is one of many chapters from across Canada as of the national association. I’ve been performing some research as I typically do prior to a speaking engagement and I have found some very interesting uses of social media by accountants and accounting firms. There’s also a large opportunity to mature this usage in many areas which I look to cover in Jasper. Over all, social media is still a relatively new concept for the majority of this industry of professionals and I’m excited to be presenting some of what I would consider the social media basics, as well as, some advanced concepts that will help those Alberta accountants in the room interested in generating new revenue to get started with social right away. For example, the opportunity to become a “social accountant,” a term I will define further during my presentation and what that would mean in terms of general awareness for the accounting firm that takes this advice to heart.
Another benefit to this opportunity is that I get to travel out of the Edmonton area and that is welcomed, especially as it falls on a weekend, so I will be taking the opportunity to breath some fresh mountain air and return to Sherwood Park at some point on the weekend.
Also, here’s an article I wrote on “understanding social media” that was published in CGA Magazine in December of 2009.
Name that show
As is the custom here at fusedlogic, we’re evolving yet again. I’m excited to announce the creation of a brand new radio show on a local station. I’m not naming the station at the moment as we still have a few things to negotiate. That said, I don’t anticipate things will take long to complete. Being the host of a new radio show that’s all about social media is a huge responsibility and tough task, one which I take very seriously and cannot accomplish alone. More on that in a minute.
What will the show be about?
Educating the general public about all things social media will be the primary purpose. We’ll also delve into closely related topics such as Government 2.0 and other key trends and opportunities that you’re a part of. The objective is to learn and share about this exciting area of Internet activity.
Let’s talk content
We’d really like to make the show about you and how you engage within the social web, not only here in the Edmonton region but also across Canada and beyond. So a large amount of the content will be describing and interpreting the things that you do and say while using your favourite social technologies and tools. All will be recognized as being equal. Whether you’re a full-time blogger who is also a mom, a photographer who tweets or a business developing cool Web 2.0 apps, doing something interesting within social is all that it would take to be considered for the show. We’ll focus on the business side of social as well of course. The do’s and don’t's and everything in between. There will be technology reviews, interviews and special in studio guests. We’ll cover recent developments and announcements too. Your show ideas will play a large part on how things unfold.
We need a name.
What value would a show about social media have if the audience didn’t contribute in the making of it? So, we’d like to ask you for your help before we even get started. We need your help with naming the show. There are a few show name ideas floating around but we would really appreciate your input.
Please offer your ideas and “name that show!“
Important: By submitting or suggesting a show name idea, you agree to let us use the name free and clear without compensation. If we use a show name as submitted by an online audience member then we’d definitely like to thank-you for helping us out by acknowledging you on the first show as the person who submitted the idea. In particular, I’ll mention your twitter handle, website and blog if you have one too. You’ll get full credit for naming the show on air and the first coffee mug we produce for the show with the new name will be given to you.
Where to submit?
I’d like to suggest that we use futureedmonton.ca then we can track the top 10 name submissions in the comment section based on votes. If you make the top 10, we thought we’d give each of you a special coffee mug from the show (once they’re produced) just for submitting and participating in this exercise. We can use Twitter for idea exchange and a hashtag for the discussion similar to #yegshow. I like futureedmonton.ca because it has a simple submission and voting process already built-in which makes it much easier to track ideas. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Name ideas
Here are a few words to get the ideas flowing regarding the show’s name and we’re completely open to others. Also, please don’t be offended if one of the submissions isn’t chosen. We’re all working together on this and there are a few different factors that must be considered.
Thank-you in advance for all your ideas and contributions! We have to choose the name by this coming Tuesday at 12 noon MST so get your ideas and votes in quick.
Empire Ave – The Psychology of Influence
I believe “influence” is critical to success within the social web. Notice I didn’t say the largest follower numbers. I believe there is a difference. I’ve seen people with hundreds of thousands of followers not be able to motivate nearly that number of people to RT, let alone much of anything else. Does it make it easier to do certain things if you have massive numbers? Since I myself do not have hundreds of thousands of followers I can only assume that it does, although managing those relationships would be very difficult, if not impossible.
What I can speak to is how I personally use Twitter and other social technologies to build targeted, meaningful relationships one at a time. I’ve seen many people ask whether they should take Empire Avenue seriously. That’s a fascinating question and one that integrates well into the mention of “influence” and targeted relationships.
There is a key element related to Empire Avenue, which is defined as an “influence stock exchange,” and hot Edmonton start-up, that I find interesting. Response within this new online community is a stock purchase, trade, sale, or vote. Outside, on say Twitter, it’s stock promotion, discussion about Empire Avenue itself, or simply business as usual. Is that all? No.
There’s an underlying motivation to do other things within the social web to in some way garner the attention of potential stock holders. Even at this early stage of platform development, you can see “communities” forming. Geographically, the home Edmonton area is quite strong. California is growing as are other parts of North America. If we stay within that geographic parameter, then we see interesting interactions happen. One Edmonton area Empire Avenue stock will look to conspire against another, all in fun of course, to devalue a stock. This mischief proves that the Empire Avenue brand is capturing “mind space.”
Other behaviours are being impacted as well, for how long this will be sustained is unknown. I asked the follow question on Twitter:
Has Empire Avenue changed your online behaviours?
There were some interesting responses that demonstrate change and engagement.
Tamara Stecyk (e) TAMARA and Jodine Chase (e) JCHASE both stated they think about blogging more as a result of being on Empire. Morgan Smith (e) MORGAN stated:
@fusedlogic I tweet more. I ask myself what I offer with my tweets. Asked what makes someone popular on the ‘net?’ A: content.
William Reichard (e) XCUT started his day by saying on Twitter:
“Gotta make a big push, open strong on Monday. #empireave.” He also followed up on my question above by saying he was “more addicted,” and then promptly bought shares in (e) FUSED and I reciprocated. Which brings up another great point. Did I feel compelled to buy shares simply out of obligation or did I see value in his stock? I saw value because of the conversational exchange we had and if William tends to do that in general, he’s demonstrating an ability to build new relationships and that is what I value within the use of social media.
Travis Tripp (e) ZOD responded to my question like so:
@fusedlogic yes i started 2 blogs and joined twitter…
I know there are many other stories related to Empire Avenue not only within the Edmonton social media community but abroad. The “YEG” community is becoming well known for being quite active. In fact, Adriel Hampton (e) ADRIEL in San Francisco has mentioned it in blog posts and on Twitter. I’ve noticed Adriel start a new posterous blog called Game Mechanics to keep his Empire Avenue thoughts rolling along (there are others too). SIDEBAR: I recently had to change my opinion that Adriel was a robot since he was live on our show last week. The robot belief came about because of the sheer amount of content he puts out, the guy is truly a multi-tasker and influencer as he current sits atop the leader board. One thing he’ll have to work on as an Investigator for the City Attorney’s office in San Francisco is the ability to use Skype while at work for our next show, but I digress.
If you’d like more information on the foundation of Empire Avenue, Alain Saffel has written a nice overview blog post on the subject. The future for Empire Avenue is to build community. Many might not be patient enough to wait the short time for that to take hold. I view that as a mistake and like other new communities there is a segment that will dash. What we’ll see is that those who had some idea of how to provide value online enter and stay on Empire Avenue, others who don’t understand that stay to ride the wave, and still more transient elements come and go. Regardless, the future looks bright for this highly-talented and entrepreneurial band of coding and business nomads that believe they have something here. Many including me think the same.
What are your thoughts on the idea of Empire Avenue? Is it a method for building trust in your brand, corporate or otherwise? Is it simply the mention of an (e) TICKER name on Twitter that is enough for you to invest or do you perform more indepth research?
Greater Edmonton Region Speaks
Thursday was the inaugural launch of fusedlogicTV – “On The Road.” A made for web live TV series we intend to continue and bring to a neighbourhood near you. Contingent on sponsors and interest of course.
I’m not going to run through the entire show play-by-play, but I would like to mention a few key take-aways. Technically, we had very little really go wrong with the day. Oh sure, there were guests I’d never met until seconds before going live, guests without pants, pet cameos, names I got wrong, a lack of food all day and not wanting to chow down on camera means I was operating on fumes. Which probably contributed to situations with panelists where I rudely cut them off in mid-sentence, not intending to be rude, but what are you going to do? All in a days work on fusedlogicTV. One thing is for sure, we had no shortage of great people on the show. I’m so gratified that nearly everyone we asked was able to participate.
Another key moving forward is that we have some fine-tuning to do on our production. I believe we can make programming improvements that will help the next show flow a bit better. We gave everyone at least a half-hour on the show, and it seemed to me with all the panels, there simply wasn’t enough time to cover all that we wanted to. In each and every case, we could have talked for hours. A tribute to the quality of the guests, they were great.
In particular, I want to mention that this had an effect on the time that our Open Government panel had to speak. Compounding the issue was that I elaborated a bit too much and because of some technical things with cell-phones, Skype bandwidth etc, I might have come off a bit rude cutting things off on air. That was totally not my intention when setting the stage for a question or response from our panelists. A panel that collectively could fill days of airtime with their wisdom and knowledge on Open Government was distilled down to a few moments each.
Note to self, “Walter, shut-up and let your guests speak, ya bonehead.” That’s something I’ll definitely work on for next time, less the presenter and more the listener.
I tend to get really passionate about the topics and excited about the guests. Listening more will be part of my personal journey, something my wife will be happy about too.
Laughter
Of course, having said all of the above, if you caught our pro-sports with Allan Watt from the Edmonton Oilers, David Jamieson from the Edmonton Eskimos and the Team1260′s Kyle Chase, there was certainly no shortage of banter, laughter and great discussion going on. Also, Kyle was kind enough to join us at the last minute and I wasn’t aware until literally seconds before going live who he was by face. I said, “Hi, what’s your name?” “Kyle Chase, Team1260.” I said, “Kelly, great to meet you.” Thankfully, there was no shortage of people there to correct me, thanks Allan. I got it right on air, watch the segment and notice Kyle shakes his head up and down as I mention his name.
More laughter was had on Skype with Duleepa (Dups) Wijayawardhana, CEO of local Edmonton start-up Empire Avenue. This is a serious contender and we had lot’s of opportunity to tackle some of the misconceptions that are floating around on Twitter, and elsewhere. During the interview the battery on Dups’ laptop was about to die so he said, “Please excuse me while I move, I didn’t anticipate this and I don’t have any pants on.” Just shortly after that his cat decided to be the star of the show and walked into camera…awesome TV!
Thank-you to our guests
The proof of a great show is in the feedback. Thankfully that has been very positive on many fronts. From in studio guests, panelists, viewers in our chat room, by email and online. I’d like to thank each and everyone one of you for providing feedback. We look at each one as a chance to improve or continue in a positive direction. You make us better. Please continue to speak-up and let us know. Do you see value in a regular video podcast telling the kind of stories we did on Thursday?
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the support from the community. The show is only as good as the people on it and the discussion and we had wonderful people and organizations participate. Here’s the list in no particular order.
| Panelists | Title | Organization |
| Adriel Hampton | Investigator | City of San Francisco, City’s Attorney’s Office |
| Roxanne Carr | Councillor | Strathcona County |
| Don Iveson | Councillor | City of Edmonton |
| Don Westman | Councillor | Fort Saskatchewan |
| Jaqueline Biollo | Councillor | Beaumont |
| Gerry Gabinet | Economic Development Officer | Strathcona County |
| Kent McMullin | Economic Development Officer | Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) |
| Dups | CEO | Empire Ave |
| Jerry Aulenbach | Realtor | YEGHelps |
| Alain Saffel | CEO | Page One SEO |
| Felicia Dewar | Blogger | |
| Sue Huff | Trustee | Edmonton School Board |
| Mark Suits | Journalist | Edmonton Journal |
| Greg Gazin | Freelance Tech Journalist | Sun Media |
| Miles Hunt | CEO | Base HD |
| Gord McCallum | CEO | First Foundation |
| Chris Moore | CIO | City of Edmonton |
| Sarah Schacht | CEO | Knowledge is Power, Seattle |
| Allan Watt | VP | Edmonton Oilers |
| Dave Jamieson | Director, Communications | Edmonton Eskimos |
| Gilbert Allan | Local Director/Producer | |
| Franco Imbrogno | Local Actor/Producer/Educator | |
| David Bates | CEO | Tyrant Motion Pictures |
| Don Norris | CEO | Bamboo Strategy |
| Alexis McMillian | CEO | Christie Communications |
| Archie McLean | Journalist | Edmonton Journal |
| Shauna Scott | Freelance TV Director |
More of the great feedback regarding our show includes one viewer’s comments that we had “too many good guests,” they would have liked a shorter show possibly. We’ve also had feedback that we’ve reached new audiences as people who would have never consumed a live video podcast in the past tuned-in or showed up to witness it in person.
Thank-you to our sponsors
As I said live, a show like this cannot go forward without the kind support from the business community we were fortunate to receive. Our lead business sponsor was First Foundation, Gord McCallum and his team including Sheila Hawkins stepped-up and said we want to be a part of this. They put together a great panel including Kelly from CMHC, whom I only met a minute before going on air, and Stephen Lau, a successful Realtor. Great discussion regarding how people should prepare for applying for a mortgage. Watch the high-priced car loan folks, it can prevent you from getting that new home.
The Golden Rice Bowl equals fantastic authentic chinese food. I know this for a fact because after the show all of us were exhausted and Miranda Lau, the owner came by, took one look at us and said, “you guys sit down and eat, I’ve got food coming for you.” and boy was it good. This is not the first meal I’ve had at the Golden Rice Bowl but it was a clear reminder as to why the place is packed much of the time.
What’s next?
Well certainly our archived video will be up as soon as Mr. Evan (I broke my hand) Adnams can work to get the video up on fusedlogic.tv for those who missed the live show to watch. One thing I will caution everyone on. We had lower than preferred upload bandwidth so our playback quality will suffer a bit as a result. Still that’s mostly us being perfectionists.
Certainly, we’re looking for interesting stories to cover and we’ve received many requests to do “free” shows. Unfortunately, there is quite a production that goes on to do this right and with high production values. If you’d like to have a show for your organization, region or cause we’d love to help, we just cannot afford to help everyone for free or at a discount. We are happy to work with you on getting some funding for your project via the sponsorship model, for the the right show that works really well. We’ve generated over 100,000 viewer minutes in 2010 just with the few shows we’ve done, there’s more eyes looking at fusedlogicTV everyday and your great stories are the reason why.
How would you like to use live streaming video?
