Wednesday, November 16, 2016
SOHN
by Rob Hope via One Page Love
Phil. Casabon
by via Awwwards - Sites of the day
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Web Summit 2016: IoT, Learning, Chatbots, Biohacking & More
53,056 people from 166 countries descended on Lisbon for this year's Web Summit. I'm not sure if this makes it the world's largest startup event, but it's damn big.
I have attended startup events around the world and have often found them obsessed with nothing but raising money. Whilst the topic was in abundance at Web Summit, it also had enough of something for everyone, with discussions on technology, design, ethics, futurism, and more. If you're not interested in discussion, but would rather just network and party, you will also have a full schedule.
At times it can feel like we are reaching 'peak startup,' and with a number of the exhibitors I spoke to at Web Summit, it almost feels like we are close to or past that point. Half-baked ideas, startups that serve startups that serve startups, unclear explanations and a growing body of people who talk a lot but say absolutely nothing (booth training for startups — now there's a startup idea).
Nestled amongst all the bluster are diamonds worthy of your attention and time, and in this article I intend to highlight as many as possible, alongside trends and topics to watch for or avoid.
New Navigation & Input
I have always had an interest in digital museum guides since attempting my own for my final university project. Modern portable devices and augmented reality have made new levels of interaction possible, and arm23 from Milan has an app platform that mixes location, audio, video and image recognition into one cool package.
I have been embracing a lot of new input mechanisms recently, loving my Lenovo Yogabook, and taking a good hard look at Windows tablets. Taking the concept further is Hypen from Mexico. They are creating a pen-shaped device that communicates the movements you make via Bluetooth. The company is still figuring out the use case, but the applications for creative pursuits are compelling.
[youtube VkTleQPe758]
Whilst motion tracking isn't a new concept, Heptasense moves the processing to a cloud-based API, which enables developers to keep processing off a device, and updatable to meet new trends and opportunities.
And for fun, what about waving your hands in the air to make music? Well Kagura will help, or at least make you look cool trying.
[youtube 2JkBKd9cgCU]
Practical IoT Applications
The Internet of Things is rapidly growing, and with that growth it brings a lot of trite, pointless, or insecure use cases. One area embracing and using IoT to undertake actual, viable work is industry and commerce.
Watgrid uses sensors to monitor liquid properties for a variety of industries including fuel, wine and more.
[youtube H6A9y67ZR-0]
One of the big issues with consumer IoT devices are all the competing device protocols, so I love discovering tools like Muzzley that aim to bridge the gaps between them all.
Alongside these companies creating their own specific IoT offerings were platforms for developers looking to create their own. Many offer similar features, and are in private betas, so assessing the differences and value can be hard. Suffice it to say that unless you are planning to offer something amazingly new to the IoT space, it's already becoming crowded.
[youtube KSPxSNxjkzs]
For something a little different, try the look app that lets you use other people's cameras to watch events, locations, or whatever else you want to watch from your couch.
Learning
If you're reading this post then you understand the benefits of learning. Teaching people to code has been big business the past couple of years, but running alongside these profit-making ventures has been a variety of more innovative projects. If you are interested in creating your own startup around education, then you need to start investigating how the educational component can be combined with other forms of technology. Simply delivering courses no longer cuts it.
"I am the Code" not only provides coding education to African girls, but is also creating its own Raspberry Pi-based computer that students learn to assemble in their first lesson.
Kubo is an example of a growing wave of 'learning robots' that help children learn how to code. The video below explains it better than I can, but I love these ideas and am working on a round up of options.
[youtube 8fPvcI73eDI]
Whilst the majority of the startups at Web Summit were from the global north, there were a dozen or so from Latin America, and only a handful from Africa and India. I have often wondered why these large continents, full of interesting projects and people, are often so underrepresented. Is it purely cost, visa reasons, or something else?
In an interesting conversation I was told that in much of the developing World, a new global language is emerging in pictures, animated gifs and short videos. This explains some of the hunger for apps that support these formats, and I encourage you to investigate this trend in your projects and ideas.
Chat, Chat, Chat
Messaging clients, chatbots and services to create and supplement them were everywhere at Web Summit. Again, many were similar, but I found a few interesting ideas lurking in the chatter.
Unbabel are one of Lisbon's success stories, and deservedly so, bringing translation to right where you need it: the chat window. Their platform plugs straight into Salesforce, Zendesk, and other tools via an API, providing machine and human translators to allow support staff and customers to speak in their own languages.
And if you want to get started creating your own bots? There are lots of options, but I especially liked recast.ai as they integrate well with existing developer platforms, and have a visual drag and drop creator for non-programmers.
App and Away
There were plenty of apps to be seen at Web Summit, but also a growing acknowledgement that viable apps are a dying breed. Entrepreneurs and developers are looking for new cross-platform and web-based alternatives that allow for speedier development, but also better tracking and analytics. I wont repeat a long list of cross-platform options here (including new options I discovered), but suggest that you research the growing trend of delivering app-like experiences through web apps, especially from Android and Google.
Continue reading %Web Summit 2016: IoT, Learning, Chatbots, Biohacking & More%
by Chris Ward via SitePoint
Why Multimedia Content is Important (infographic)
Would you rather spend 15 minutes reading a blog post or five minutes watching a video on the same subject? Or perhaps you’d rather view the information laid out visually in an infographic. No matter what your answer is to these questions, everyone is going to have different preferences, because everyone learns differently. That’s why small businesses should not limit themselves to producing text content alone. Yes, blog posts are much cheaper to make than a video or an infographic, but multimedia content is an essential part of today’s content marketing strategies, especially for small businesses.
Multimedia content can help boost your conversion rates and change how users interact with your social media accounts. Competing for people’s attention is difficult, and because the human brain processes visual information much more quickly than it processes text information, multimedia content is a fantastic way to attract potential customers. That doesn’t mean you have to overspend to create great multimedia content. Certainly you’ll need to set aside a budget for some high-quality multimedia content, but it’ll be worth your while in the long run.
Learn all you can about multimedia content so that you know who to hire and where to invest your dollars. Free information online will teach you about the different styles of multimedia content so that you can decide how to best spend your content marketing budget. Even simple videos answering frequently asked questions or giving how-to advice are great resources for small businesses to produce. Scroll down to check out a handy CopyPress infographic covering the styles of multimedia content and showing how to choose the style that will fit your business’s needs best.
by Irfan Ahmad via Digital Information World
Versioning Show, Episode 16, with Ethan Marcotte
In this episode, David and Tim are joined by Ethan Marcotte, a well-known designer who coined the term Responsive Web Design. They discuss the inspirations behind responsive design, the challenge of tailoring content to users, the advantages of responsive prototypes over static comps, and dealing with self doubt.
Continue reading %Versioning Show, Episode 16, with Ethan Marcotte%
by M. David Green via SitePoint