Facebook "Share" button is going to be the next big thing

What is this Share link/button?
After Facebook changed it's home page - News feed layouts - one of the major highlights was the share link. It appears after all your public shares like status updates, photos and videos. it was already there for web sites but wasn't significant until the news feed change. See below

After introduction this has been one of the mostly used features in Facebook. It can be called the RETWEET button of Facebook. Why its mostly used is because 

• You like the content 
• Your friends might not have access to it directly  

Once shared - The original post shows the no.of shares - See below

This can be a good measure for viral aspect of content in Facebook.

If the same links is shared by many people it will appear as one story with lots of share links like below. This can be a handy tool for video sharing - specially videos from youtube.

Next line of viral videos in Youtube will use Facebook share button to go viral in Facebook.

What will happen in days to come?
Looking at the current trend this is going to be a key feature of  Facebook. More and more users and brands will make use of the share button in following ways


Brands

• Brands will use photos/videos and try to make them viral through the share button
• Brand web sites will focus on putting the share button on their pages

Facebook Users

• Users - Your day to day Facebook friends will post more quotes, photos, videos.etc with the intention of sharing

Few People already using the share button effectively

Kajuwattha Eksath Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/Kaju.Waththa.Eksath

Whats up Colombo Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/WhatsUpColombo

Don't know whether intentionally or by random because not many people are talking about this (Globally) yet. 

First it was comments, then came likes, now the buzz word is going to be "SHARE". Feel free to share your thoughts about the future of this feature on Facebook by commenting below. 

Volkswagen Beetle "Think Small" - Best advertising campaign of 20th century

Went through it when reading an advertising book. Tweeted and found quite good responses and thought of blogging it out.

Background
It was the launch of a small car for VW who was known for big, spacey cars. Following is the Ad

Created by an agency called DDBin the 1950s. Famous campaign not only because it boosted sales and created brand loyalty. But it changed the whole ad industry to come up with "filling the hole" positioning strategy.

It's recognized as the best advertising campaign of the 20th century by "Advertsing Age" - Magazine. Any similar campaigns in Sri Lanka?

What is iOS and Whats new in iOS 5?

Everybody’s rushing to download the new version of Apple operating system. For those who are new to the scene, iOS is an operating system like Windows XP, Linux which is made for Apple handheld gadgets  like ipods,iphones and ipads.

Though Sri Lanka is a Microsoft Windows dominated country interms of OS, Apple handheld devices are penetrating in to the market very well. This is clearly shown by low prices in second hand iphones and ipads.Used iPads are going even at 40,000-50,000 Sri Lanka rupees. I predict iphones and ipads to capture a significant phone and tablet market in Sri Lanka by end of 2012. Only thing remaining is for major carrier to offer iphones – But that looks like lots of work for a country like us.

Like I explained in iphone 4S SIRI article,im going to point out whats new in iOS 5 the latest version which was made available to public today.

1. New notification system – This is the biggest upgrade. Notifications are the notices about new receivables like SMS, Tweets.etc and how they are shown to the user while he’s using another application.
2.   iMessage – Blackberry BBM was the most popular internal messaging platform in phones which got crashed all over the world yesterday. In a previous post I explained how London rioters used this secure messaging Apple is also entering in to the market with this chat-email-MMS like feature with new iMessage service. Im sure this is going to be a hit because there are many chat freaky iphone users than Blackberry professionals.
3.  Twitter Integration – The popular social network – only second to Facebook is directly included in iOS5 so you can tweet while using other applications.
4. Better Photo capabilities – iOS5 has made it lot easier to take photos by getting volume control buttons to be used in taking a photo. And photo editing and sharing has been made lot easier for all you artistic dodgers.

How are you finding your new update in ipod, iphone or your ipad? Feel free to share.

Apple launches slightly improved new iphone with cool feature - SIRI

Everyone was so hyped out about the anticipated iphone 5 launch held yesterday - October 4th. Some were disspointed that its iphone 4S and not iphone 5 exactly. Bascially what they have improved is

1. Faster processor - 7 times faster than the previous iphone 4
2. Better camera - 8MP camera, iphone 4 had only 5MP
3. Voice recognition ability - SIRI
4. Price :  iphone 4 is only $199

Faster processor & better camera are minor additions - So no surprises why current iphone users are dissappointed. But i find the voice recognition feature interesting. It can read your SMSes, reply, search wiki.etc. So cool - Watch the video below.



(Following is for people who have no idea what an iphone is)
I mean i know Nokia has the best phones. Whats I-Phone?
Its basically a phone made by Apple computers. A trendy phone that was marketed so well that it created an i-culture around it. The key was the app-store which gives you all different types of apps. See the Sesame street video about iphone apps - There's an app for everything.



Are you still dissapointed about iphone 4S? Feel free to comment below.

A post about iphone market/prices in Sri Lanka coming up...

Reasons why Facebook changed the news feed (Facebook Home page)

Im sure its no news that there was a major change of the Facebook home page or technically known as the news feed last week. Following are some of the major reasons for the change.

1. Lack of activity 
Im sure many of you have seen the complaints like "Facebook is boring". There were even Facebook pages opened on the topic like the one below.

The main reason for this was what i call the "Facebook updates vicious cycle"

This cycle led to all the people complaining – Facebook news feed is boring. The result was people moving to much faster platforms like Twitter where you are compelled to update more often.

Initially Facebook tried to solve this by introducing the recent updates link. But since “most important” was default many people didn’t know about it. How Facebook has tackled this issue is by introducing the ticker which shows dynamic updates. And also by introducing the fast feed which constantly shows you “more updates” just like in Twitter.

2. Competition
On 20th September Google+ opened to everyone. And there was huge enthusiasm amongst those who didn’t have Google+ profiles. I can remember in certain forums those who didn’t have G+ talked really big about it – not knowing it was idling for those who have. Facebook should have really wanted to steal the momentum.

If you think there are more reasons/other reasons – Feel free to comment below