social network + video: some practises

Have you ever thought of watching videos with your friends and chatting at the same time? Do you think it will be a revolution of social media? Here are some actions from the explorers.

ClipSync  states their action as "leading the social TVrevolution". People can enter any chatting room at any time to watch TV with other users. Their comments will become bubbles which occur on the screen once the comment is added. Everyone can share their ideas and let others see immediately. Imagine you are watching AFL or World Cup with your friends, don't you feel excited to chat with others while the game is on? ClipSync make this way as their advertising path as well. This idea bring them $500 million dollar as sponsorship by the company Real.

YouTubeSocial makes full use of the rich video resources from their mother youtube. All the videos in youtube can be used for chatting. For example, if the address is www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXX , then you just need to change it as www.youtubesocial.com/watch?v=XXX, then you have successfully created a room for us to watch and chat together. You can login in your facebook account and share the video to all your friends to let them join you.

Google also has such idea. Goole + Hangouts allows people to add youtube videos while using Hangouts and many people can watch and chat through text or voice.

Do you guys think it will be a great start of new social network revolution? 

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Quirky: a new way of online retailing

Quirky was founded in 2009. It is a online retailing store specializing social product. It seems normal, but it has a unique selling point.

The most special point is all the products Quirky sells are designed and produced by Quirky social community. Every member can provide designing ideas and product description. They can also vote to decide the most popular product they wish to produce and give suggestions. Each week Quirky selects the most popular product plan and makes it come true. The person who provides designing ideas will be the inventor and have the authority to design logo, packages and other details.

While most online retailing companies are competing price, quantity and promotion of the product, Quirky chooses a totally different way to gain market share and loyal customer. Do you think this DIY style online retailing plus social network will benefit the marketing outcome?

The role of social network in London riots

When discussing the role of social network in London riots, many people may firstly point out the negative effects. It is disturbing to find reports of the role of social media in orchestrating criminality have been accumulating – with particular insight being offered in Jonathan Akwue's note about Blackberry Messenger.

However, I personally think that social network is playing more positive role in the recovery of this riot. In the article "Social media can help riot-hit communities recover", we can find traffic to the local social network Harringay Online increased significantly on Sunday, along with related activity captured on HOL's Twitter stream.

"What is striking about HOL's role is that while media coverage was dominated by spectacle and emotion, the site was quietly fulfilling the kind of role the politicians call for: sharing information, challenging misinformation, urging calmness and offering reassurance."

Here are some examples:

"There are simmering tensions and we need to be especially careful not to jump to conclusions about who was behind last night's events. A sad, sad day for our neighbours."

"I've just deleted a post that was calling for the most severe retribution. I understand the sadness, but I don't want this site to be used for intemperate calls for reaction."

"Does anyone know what is being done for these poor people, or if a fund has been set up to help them?"

Moreover, a site named riot clean-up has been established. There are already more than 58,000 following its twitter and thousands of tweets are sent organising activity across London and bringing people together to clean-up.

Facebook also has actions. The biggest group so far is the Post riot clean-up: let’s help London, which already had around 5,000 members at 10 am and 7,000 by mid-day.

The conclusion is: social network is just a tool. It can be used for destroying, but it can be used for constructing as well. Here I wana say Chinese government REALLY SUCKS. When the high-speed rail tragedy happened, the announcement of the spokesperson, the attempt to hide the truth, and the action to remove tweets doubting the government make every Chinese angry. If you always ban our right to know the truth, how can you offer us to support what you have done?

Would you like a free coffee?

Jonathan Stark is the author of "Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript". These days he made an interesting experiment: if you go to this page and do as the follows:  

1. Save this picture on your smartphone:
2. Go to a Starbucks
3. Order a coffee.
4. Hold the picture in front of the barcode scanner.
5. If there is enough money on my card, the POS will beep and your coffee will be paid for.

It is true. Jonathan Stark uploaded his card information and pay 30 dollar to offer someone a free cup of coffee. If you follow his twitter, you will see how the balance of the card changes. He welcomes everyone to tweet the picture of coffee, the Starbucks location, and receipt. He also shows how to give others a coffee. You may wonder is there any fool would like to pay for other's coffee? Well, after one day, Jonathan found the money in his card increased. Does that mean this game can last longer than we think?

In my opinion, if any drink or fast food company would like to open a account to allow all the consumers to charge and use, this would be a good advertising way. FREE is attractive for many people, and the company may develop relative promotion activities like coupons, membership credits or gifts to encourage charge the account and purchasing the product, brand awareness, interest and even loyalty will be achieved.

If Starbucks get successful because of Jonathan's game, who would like to be the next one to buy you a coffee or something else?