I was a long time user of an early pioneer location-based site Plazes dating back to July 2005. Then in 2008 the announcement was made that the acquisition of Plazes was made by Nokia. After absorbing their 13 or so employees it still functioned but became very dormant. I would have thought Nokia would jump on the opportunity to integrate an existing location-based service into their phones directly. Instead I watched it languish.
It seems that recent announcements points to Nokia Maps for Plazes data. Unfortunately I cannot find a single piece of it. Locations are muddled, past reviews and check-ins seem to be non-existent. So I found a tiny link for their Pulse beta.
What is Nokia Pulse™?
Nokia Pulse is an exciting new way to check in with the people you care about most—your family and close friends.
Nokia Pulse automatically tags the photos, updates, and links you send with your location. So every conversation, from pickups and drop-offs to meet-ups, is as instant, private, and simple as sending a text, but far more useful and engaging.
And because it’s integrated with Nokia Maps, finding people nearby, discovering new places, and getting directions is a snap.
Pulse only runs on very specific phones and a mobile web interface for the rest. Windows Phone 7 was the first choice listed. You must have a Nokia account to use the service so it would have been nice if they ported over my login information and history into Pulse from Plazes. it appears they had no intent. With almost 1200 Plazes across 12 countries I have a lot of historical data there.
Plazes service Radar also appears in Pulse showing you close locations and people based on your contact list. Once again I have to rebuild this in the Nokia Maps world so I have lost all of that connectivity.
Attempts the last few weeks to log into Plazes to see if I can export the data in some format return a single sad screen:
We are making the service better to handle your request the way you expected. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Check back in a minute or two.
Shame on Nokia for not taking advantage of an existing user base and historical data.
Google Affiliate Network (GAN) closing – are publishers mad?
Fri, May 17th 2013 2:13p Chris Miller Google Affiliate Network, abbreviated GAN, announced it is closing on July 31, 2013. Payments will process through October 31, 2013 before total shutdown. We should note this is the second time GAN has closed down.
According to your GAN Online Program Terms and Conditions and AdSense Terms and Conditions, we will suspend all GAN services, except for certain reporting and payments functionality, on July 31, 2013. On October 31, 2013, we will suspend and terminate any remaining GAN services.
Many [read] Keywords: application
google
network
96
Instagram tagged photo feature is the next Facebook step
Sat, May 4th 2013 10:17p Chris Miller As Instagram prepares to map your Instagram username on their service to your Facebook account name, tagging people in photos is a logical step. Identifying individual in photos is very powerful helping map and strengthen the social graph Facebook continues to build.
Imagine you post a photo in Facebook now, all the prompts ask you to please tag the other person. Including the recognition they use to actually put a square of peoples faces. It encourages you to do that tagging step of the oth [read] Keywords: connections
facebook
integration
profile
security
239
Posterous sends final notice and backup plan
Thu, Apr 25th 2013 9:36p Chris Miller Posterous, acquired by Twitter, announced back in Feb 2013 that it would shut down April 30, 2013. They have now issued an email reminder and steps to archive your content.
On April 30th, we will turn off posterous.com and our mobile apps in order to focus 100% of our efforts on Twitter. This means that as of April 30, Posterous Spaces will no longer be available either to view or to edit.
Right now, you can download all of your Posterous Spaces including your photos, videos, and documents.
H [read] Keywords: application
archive
email
google
mobile
twitter
323
Google Keep – you keep that to yourself thanks
Thu, Mar 21st 2013 4:32a Chris Miller The mistake by Google accidentally showing Google Keep and now launching it has me thinking. I use Google products daily. I enjoy Google products. I have also learned that Google pulls the plug on them when they feel like it. So for this reason alone I may stay away from Google Keep.
Arstechnica wrote a piece a few weeks ago about Google Keep being in the works as an alternative to Evernote.
Google is prepping to launch a cloud-based notetaking service to compete with Evernote and Simplenote. [read] Keywords: notes
applications
google
interface
506
My Google Reader replacement choice
Thu, Mar 14th 2013 8:20p Chris Miller Google Reader has been a core tool in my consumption arsenal. Feedly and Flipboard will be replacing it as my full time solutions. RSS feeds allow me to scan, select or ignore hundreds of articles in minutes. Once you mastered the Google Reader keyboard shortcuts you could fly through hundreds of feeds. Feedly will replace that portion while Flipboard will handle social browsing.
Now that Google Reader has announced the exact ending date every system is pushing to be your chosen solution. He [read] Keywords: google
interface
mobile
414
SxSW App Recap for 2012 – the living and dead | TheSocialNetworker Episode 40
Tue, Mar 5th 2013 3:25p Chris Miller Paul Steel and Chris Miller revisit the apps from SxSW 2012 and discussed what is still in use, what closed and what apps didn’t make the cut in daily usage.
Here is the list we run through:
Isis
Gopago
Ban.jo
Borglar
Arball
Draw Something
Foreca.st
5Degrees
Waddle
Zamp.io
Screenburn
and more..
Read Paul’s blog at LivingLifeMobile and Chris Miller here on TheSocialNetworker.
Subscribe to the YouTube playlist for all of the social media mobile and web app reviews from Spiked Studi [read] Keywords: mobile
318
Social media rules in parenting plans during divorces?
Thu, Feb 21st 2013 2:34p Chris Miller A recent stream of articles and paid advertisements from attorneys are pushing you to include social media rules into parenting plans during divorces. This is different than how social media is often being used in court to show someone in negative light or even as a forced means of communication (Skype).
That idea of managing a child’s online footprint is becoming part of the conversations during a divorce and even after custody settlements as social networks become nearly ubiquitous ways of s [read] Keywords: facebook
network
profile
security
skype
409
SxSW app previews of GonnaBe and Bonfyre | TheSocialNetworker Episode 39
Thu, Feb 14th 2013 12:31p Chris Miller Paul Steel and Chris Miller open the South By Southwest 2013 floodgates with app previews of GonnaBe and Bonfyre. SxSW and SxSWi has become a pivotal launch point for mobile applications. In many instances a make or break scenario. Here is the breakdown of these two applications in the video.
GonnaBe looks to take the place of Forecast and Plancast as a more functional response to location and event planning for you and your acquaintenances. It uses only Facebook Connect for authenticatio [read] Keywords: applications
facebook
mobile
365
SlideShare is not sharing well – TheSocialNetworker Episode 38
Mon, Feb 11th 2013 7:09a Chris Miller I was an avid user of SlideShare and happily uploaded slides until they made some changes making it difficult for anyone to find content. SlideShare took it upon themselves a couple of years ago and remove the ability to create events and grouping of slides. They also have serious issues with returning valid search results for simple queries into slides that were even recently uploaded. Take a look at the video first to see how they are restricting the user from getting the most out of SlideShar [read] Keywords: linkedin
852
Little Bird with Marshall Kirkpatrick | TheSocialNetworker Episode 37
Fri, Dec 21st 2012 10:35a Chris Miller Little Bird launched in 2011 under the watchful eye of CEO and co-founder Marshall Kirkpatrick. This Twitter tool helps you quickly find and analyze who the top experts are, including their social graph and interaction with each other, based on keywords you select.
The simple and very clean interface of Little Bird allows you to quickly begin building reports or even viewing some sample live reports they have built for you. There seemed to be a heavy push toward wine and cheese in those sample [read] Keywords: application
blogging
interface
twitter
After absorbing their 13 or so employees it still functioned but became very dormant. I would have thought Nokia would jump on the opportunity to integrate an existing location-based service into their phones directly. Instead I watched it languish.
