‘AmazonCare’ Might Be The Next Page Amazon Takes Out Of Apple’s Playbook

Amazon might enjoy only very thin to nonexistent margins on its Kindle hardware, according to most industry watchers, but it looks to be cooking up a plan to extend device sales revenue thanks to extended warranties. That’s according to trademark filings uncovered by GigaOM in a new report today. The wording of the application suggests Amazon is following Apple’s lead, hoping to replicate the Mac maker’s success with its AppleCare extended hardware protection plans.

GigaOM notes that Amazon’s patent is almost identical to Apple’s but it would apply to “Kindle” products, and goods and services associated with that name. The trademark would cover “maintenance, repair, updating and installation services,” as well as troubleshooting services, and a second trademark filing associated with the first extends to “insurance and warranty services.”

In the consumer electronics space, extended warranties are big business. As a former employee of Best Buy myself, I can tell you that margins on big-ticket items like PCs were razor-thin, and that the Product Service Plans (PSP) we were encouraged to shill were the real moneymakers, along with accessories. Best Buy has never been very open about how much of its bottom line comes from the PSPs it pushes, but they’re clearly of key value to the retailer’s bottom line, given how hard they push them, And of questionable value to consumers  given that nowadays, merely telling a Best Buy employee that I used to be one when they launch into their PSP pitch is almost always enough to get them to stop.

Apple has done a better job of making its own AppleCare service appeal to consumers, and many disinterested third-parties will actually recommend picking them up. The company has faced legal challenges in Europe around AppleCare and how it works with EU regulations guaranteeing consumers two years of basic protection on consumer electronics purchases, but Apple is resolving those issues and continuing to offer its extended warranties in affected countries, albeit differently than they’re sold in the U.S. and other locations.

Amazon partners with a third-party provider, Service Net, to provide Kindle extended warranties, but in doing so, it’s leaving money on the table long-term. An AmazonCare (they won’t be so brazen as to actually call it that) offering would help it add revenue to device sales with relatively little cost. That’s something which would provide a lot of upside for a gadget-maker that now needs to compete with Google on pricing, a company which is arguably more willing and able to ignore profit margins on hardware in pursuit of getting its devices into more hands.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

‘AmazonCare’ Might Be The Next Page Amazon Takes Out Of Apple’s Playbook

Amazon might enjoy only very thin to nonexistent margins on its Kindle hardware, according to most industry watchers, but it looks to be cooking up a plan to extend device sales revenue thanks to extended warranties. That’s according to trademark filings uncovered by GigaOM in a new report today. The wording of the application suggests Amazon is following Apple’s lead, hoping to replicate the Mac maker’s success with its AppleCare extended hardware protection plans.

GigaOM notes that Amazon’s patent is almost identical to Apple’s but it would apply to “Kindle” products, and goods and services associated with that name. The trademark would cover “maintenance, repair, updating and installation services,” as well as troubleshooting services, and a second trademark filing associated with the first extends to “insurance and warranty services.”

In the consumer electronics space, extended warranties are big business. As a former employee of Best Buy myself, I can tell you that margins on big-ticket items like PCs were razor-thin, and that the Product Service Plans (PSP) we were encouraged to shill were the real moneymakers, along with accessories. Best Buy has never been very open about how much of its bottom line comes from the PSPs it pushes, but they’re clearly of key value to the retailer’s bottom line, given how hard they push them, And of questionable value to consumers  given that nowadays, merely telling a Best Buy employee that I used to be one when they launch into their PSP pitch is almost always enough to get them to stop.

Apple has done a better job of making its own AppleCare service appeal to consumers, and many disinterested third-parties will actually recommend picking them up. The company has faced legal challenges in Europe around AppleCare and how it works with EU regulations guaranteeing consumers two years of basic protection on consumer electronics purchases, but Apple is resolving those issues and continuing to offer its extended warranties in affected countries, albeit differently than they’re sold in the U.S. and other locations.

Amazon partners with a third-party provider, Service Net, to provide Kindle extended warranties, but in doing so, it’s leaving money on the table long-term. An AmazonCare (they won’t be so brazen as to actually call it that) offering would help it add revenue to device sales with relatively little cost. That’s something which would provide a lot of upside for a gadget-maker that now needs to compete with Google on pricing, a company which is arguably more willing and able to ignore profit margins on hardware in pursuit of getting its devices into more hands.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

‘AmazonCare’ Might Be The Next Page Amazon Takes Out Of Apple’s Playbook

Amazon might enjoy only very thin to nonexistent margins on its Kindle hardware, according to most industry watchers, but it looks to be cooking up a plan to extend device sales revenue thanks to extended warranties. That’s according to trademark filings uncovered by GigaOM in a new report today. The wording of the application suggests Amazon is following Apple’s lead, hoping to replicate the Mac maker’s success with its AppleCare extended hardware protection plans.

GigaOM notes that Amazon’s patent is almost identical to Apple’s but it would apply to “Kindle” products, and goods and services associated with that name. The trademark would cover “maintenance, repair, updating and installation services,” as well as troubleshooting services, and a second trademark filing associated with the first extends to “insurance and warranty services.”

In the consumer electronics space, extended warranties are big business. As a former employee of Best Buy myself, I can tell you that margins on big-ticket items like PCs were razor-thin, and that the Product Service Plans (PSP) we were encouraged to shill were the real moneymakers, along with accessories. Best Buy has never been very open about how much of its bottom line comes from the PSPs it pushes, but they’re clearly of key value to the retailer’s bottom line, given how hard they push them, And of questionable value to consumers  given that nowadays, merely telling a Best Buy employee that I used to be one when they launch into their PSP pitch is almost always enough to get them to stop.

Apple has done a better job of making its own AppleCare service appeal to consumers, and many disinterested third-parties will actually recommend picking them up. The company has faced legal challenges in Europe around AppleCare and how it works with EU regulations guaranteeing consumers two years of basic protection on consumer electronics purchases, but Apple is resolving those issues and continuing to offer its extended warranties in affected countries, albeit differently than they’re sold in the U.S. and other locations.

Amazon partners with a third-party provider, Service Net, to provide Kindle extended warranties, but in doing so, it’s leaving money on the table long-term. An AmazonCare (they won’t be so brazen as to actually call it that) offering would help it add revenue to device sales with relatively little cost. That’s something which would provide a lot of upside for a gadget-maker that now needs to compete with Google on pricing, a company which is arguably more willing and able to ignore profit margins on hardware in pursuit of getting its devices into more hands.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

EU Issues Formal Objections Against Samsung For Patent Abuse

The European Commission has delivered a “statement of objections” to Samsung’s leadership, in which it claims that Samsung was abusing its standard-essential patents in preventing Apple from making use of the same. Providing written notice is the next step in the EC’s investigation of Samsung, which began due to the Korean company’s many injunction requests and lawsuits filed in EU member states against Apple, and which isn’t going away despite Samsung having dropped all of its injunction requests in EU countries.

From here, the next step is for Samsung to formally reply to the charge from the EC, and ask for a hearing in front of regulators to defend its position. Once the Commission makes its judgement on the violations, following any defence mounted by Samsung, the gadget maker could face a fine up as much as 10 percent of its annual sales. The patents in question are related to 3G UMTS wireless communication, which Samsung had agreed to license with fair terms to its competitors in Europe.

“Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market. However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike,” Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in statement released to Reuters on the subject.

This all began with the EU opening its investigation back in January. At the time, it explained that the reason for the investigation was due to Samsung’s pursuit of “injunctive relief in various Member States’ courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards.” Samsung tried to defray any potential fallout of this by dropping its requests for said “injunctive relief” earlier this week. That hasn’t stopped the formal charges, but it may help Samsung plead its case when it responds to this written request, helping it to eliminate or lessen any potential fine that might result.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

EU Issues Formal Objections Against Samsung For Patent Abuse

The European Commission has delivered a “statement of objections” to Samsung’s leadership, in which it claims that Samsung was abusing its standard-essential patents in preventing Apple from making use of the same. Providing written notice is the next step in the EC’s investigation of Samsung, which began due to the Korean company’s many injunction requests and lawsuits filed in EU member states against Apple, and which isn’t going away despite Samsung having dropped all of its injunction requests in EU countries.

From here, the next step is for Samsung to formally reply to the charge from the EC, and ask for a hearing in front of regulators to defend its position. Once the Commission makes its judgement on the violations, following any defence mounted by Samsung, the gadget maker could face a fine up as much as 10 percent of its annual sales. The patents in question are related to 3G UMTS wireless communication, which Samsung had agreed to license with fair terms to its competitors in Europe.

“Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market. However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike,” Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in statement released to Reuters on the subject.

This all began with the EU opening its investigation back in January. At the time, it explained that the reason for the investigation was due to Samsung’s pursuit of “injunctive relief in various Member States’ courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards.” Samsung tried to defray any potential fallout of this by dropping its requests for said “injunctive relief” earlier this week. That hasn’t stopped the formal charges, but it may help Samsung plead its case when it responds to this written request, helping it to eliminate or lessen any potential fine that might result.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

EU Issues Formal Objections Against Samsung For Patent Abuse

The European Commission has delivered a “statement of objections” to Samsung’s leadership, in which it claims that Samsung was abusing its standard-essential patents in preventing Apple from making use of the same. Providing written notice is the next step in the EC’s investigation of Samsung, which began due to the Korean company’s many injunction requests and lawsuits filed in EU member states against Apple, and which isn’t going away despite Samsung having dropped all of its injunction requests in EU countries.

From here, the next step is for Samsung to formally reply to the charge from the EC, and ask for a hearing in front of regulators to defend its position. Once the Commission makes its judgement on the violations, following any defence mounted by Samsung, the gadget maker could face a fine up as much as 10 percent of its annual sales. The patents in question are related to 3G UMTS wireless communication, which Samsung had agreed to license with fair terms to its competitors in Europe.

“Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market. However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike,” Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in statement released to Reuters on the subject.

This all began with the EU opening its investigation back in January. At the time, it explained that the reason for the investigation was due to Samsung’s pursuit of “injunctive relief in various Member States’ courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards.” Samsung tried to defray any potential fallout of this by dropping its requests for said “injunctive relief” earlier this week. That hasn’t stopped the formal charges, but it may help Samsung plead its case when it responds to this written request, helping it to eliminate or lessen any potential fine that might result.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor “Poke”, An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook has just announced its newest standalone app called “Poke” which lets people send photos, videos, pokes, or text Facebook messages to their friends that expire after a few seconds. The launch confirms AllThingsD’s report from earlier this month. Poke is a big move into the ephemeral messaging space for Facebook, and it could give it even more data on who your closest friends are.

Facebook was convinced it needed an expiring messages app. Snapchat’s iOS and Android apps were gaining serious traction with young users. Over 50 million photos are getting shared on Snapchat each day for a total of 1 billion traded on the service compared to Facebook’s 300 million photos shared a day. Clearly there was something magical about self-destructing media.

Seems that Facebook didn’t want to wait for Snapchat to get so big it’d have to make another costly acquisition like Instagram and instead decided to compete early. We heard rumors that it had made overtures about acquiring Snapchat, but when the founders decided to stay independent, Facebook built its own version in just 12 days. Why would Facebook’s Blake Ross share that fact? Beacause it’s that kind of tenacity and lack of red tape that attracts great talent to come work at Facebook. It’s also a signal to startups about just how fast Facebook can steamroll them.

How Do You Poke?

The Poke app brings the classic contentless message into the mobile media-sharing age, but it’s actually a completely separate feature. Facebook explains that the app is designed to let you contact friends from wherever you are and show them what you’re doing. Here’s how the announcement describes how the app works:

“With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you’ve set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app. “

Essentially you pick a type of message to send — either a poke, text, photo, or video — and choose a friend or multiple friends to send it to. You can then set the expiration timer, add a location, overlay text or draw on a photo, and then send it. Recipients get a push notification with a little voice saying “Poke!”, open the Poke app, see your name and what type of message you sent, and then hold down on the message thread to view the content until the timer runs out and the message disappears.

The app is all mobile and completely separate from Facebook’s other apps and desktop site. If you Poke someone on Facebook.com by going to their profile, they won’t get that Poke in the App, and nothing you do in the app can be seen outside of it. There’s currently no way to view Poke app messages on the web.

For now the Poke app is iOS only, but you can expect a release for Android soon as Snapchat is already there. Poke was built in under two weeks by a small team led Facebook’s veteran Director of Product Blake Ross, so there’s probably a lot of development still left to get it where Facebook wants it to be. There’s a chance that self-destructing media could make its way into Facebook’s main app, as the company has said that power users of its standalone apps like Camera and Messenger are guinea pigs for features it’s considering for the flagship apps.

As for privacy, Poke simply links back to the main Facebook terms of service, which would imply Facebook can save all the content from the app until you delete your account. However, a Facebook spokesperson tells me “All Poke messages are retained for two days after being read, to help facilitate abuse reporting.” After that their encryption keys are deleted making unreadable. The statement references the fact that users can flag messages as inappropriate if they’re getting nude or otherwise alarming Pokes. Facebook also gives paranoid Pokers have the option to clear their inbox so any unread messages are instantly destroyed.

A Poke To The Gut For Snapchat

Poke is pretty unabashed clone of Snapchat. Both apps let you draw and overlay text on photos before you send the little timebombs. They also notify the person you’re chatting with if you take a screenshot of what they sent you. For a quick reference, check out this chart comparing the features of the two apps.

Poke adds some useful extras. It offers simple text messages, in addition to video and photos. You can add a location to where you record a Poke message. Also, in Poke you can have group conversations, whereas on Snapchat you can message multiple people at once but not keep them all in a thread.

One thing Poke does lack is the ability to message people in your phone book, not just Facebook friends. In terms of design, Poke’s biggest flaw right now is a slight delay from when you hold on a message to when the content appears and the timer starts ticking. This caused me to lift my finger to try tapping again, canceling the previous view. Snapchat’s quickness is highly revered by its users, and Facebook will have make Poke more responsive, but otherwise the app feels well crafted.

Poke is a big problem for Snapchat, which is unfortunate for the small, scrappy team out of Stanford. GigaOm reported Snapchat is in the middle of closing a big round of funding led by Benchmark Capital, and our sources indicate it’s raising over $10 million at a $70 million valuation. That value might fluctuate with Poke’s release. It certainly validates the space, but only by bringing an 800-pound blue gorilla into it. It seems Snapchat CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel see this as confirming his company is working on something important, as his response to the launch of Poke was “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Poke has some big advantages it will bring to the fight with Snapchat, most specifically in distribution. Facebook does some nifty things to onboard people. If someone else uses the Poke app to send you a message, but you haven’t installed Poke yet, you’ll get a push notification from you main Facebook app asking you to download Poke. Facebook also routinely cross-promotes its standalone apps with banners at the top of its primary apps. For example, a download button for Poke at the top of Facebook for iOS which has around 125 million users could drive tons of installs.

The question now is whether users will be comfortable sharing on Poke. Snapchat’s outsider status gave it some street cred, especially amongst teenagers who view Facebook as a tool of the generation before them. After Facebook’s privacy troubles over the years, some people don’t fully trust it.

If Snapchat actually was mainly a sexting app, it’d probably be fine despite Poke because people would be scared to intermingle racy photos with their widely accessible Facebook presence.. But it’s not all about sexting. Snapchat is mostly for sharing goofy photos that months or years later might seem inane but at the time are hilarious. Using Poke for a few minutes I already get the feeling it can handle this silly and addicting use case well. I’ve already gotten a few laughs out of it.

Poke could successfully slow the growth of Snapchat and deter others from entering the space, which would keep more sharing in the Facebook ecosystem. Inevitably the question is how Facebook will make money on Poke. Right now there’s no ads. One day there might be, but its launch seems more focused on creating something fun for users while boxing out a potential disruptor. Mark Zuckerberg pulled the rug out from under Myspace, and he doesn’t want anyone doing the same to him.

Even if it doesn’t earn money directly, Poke is very important to Facebook. The people you send ephemeral messages to are often your closest friends. Facebook needs to know this intimate social graph to be able to tune its news feed and other parts of the service to show you the most relevant content. Because really, if you send someone a photo of you with a purple mustaches drawn on top, you probably want to see what they’re sharing with everyone else.

Click to view slideshow.

You can download Poke from the App Store here.

And there’s a cute little Easter Egg in it. If you drag your messages list all the way up, you’ll see the text “I’ll find something to put here”. This is the same text Mark Zuckerberg left in the bottom of the Facebook.com footer in the early days of the site.

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor “Poke”, An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook has just announced its newest standalone app called “Poke” which lets people send photos, videos, pokes, or text Facebook messages to their friends that expire after a few seconds. The launch confirms AllThingsD’s report from earlier this month. Poke is a big move into the ephemeral messaging space for Facebook, and it could give it even more data on who your closest friends are.

Facebook was convinced it needed an expiring messages app. Snapchat’s iOS and Android apps were gaining serious traction with young users. Over 50 million photos are getting shared on Snapchat each day for a total of 1 billion traded on the service compared to Facebook’s 300 million photos shared a day. Clearly there was something magical about self-destructing media.

Seems that Facebook didn’t want to wait for Snapchat to get so big it’d have to make another costly acquisition like Instagram and instead decided to compete early. We heard rumors that it had made overtures about acquiring Snapchat, but when the founders decided to stay independent, Facebook built its own version in just 12 days. Why would Facebook’s Blake Ross share that fact? Beacause it’s that kind of tenacity and lack of red tape that attracts great talent to come work at Facebook. It’s also a signal to startups about just how fast Facebook can steamroll them.

How Do You Poke?

The Poke app brings the classic contentless message into the mobile media-sharing age, but it’s actually a completely separate feature. Facebook explains that the app is designed to let you contact friends from wherever you are and show them what you’re doing. Here’s how the announcement describes how the app works:

“With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you’ve set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app. “

Essentially you pick a type of message to send — either a poke, text, photo, or video — and choose a friend or multiple friends to send it to. You can then set the expiration timer, add a location, overlay text or draw on a photo, and then send it. Recipients get a push notification with a little voice saying “Poke!”, open the Poke app, see your name and what type of message you sent, and then hold down on the message thread to view the content until the timer runs out and the message disappears.

The app is all mobile and completely separate from Facebook’s other apps and desktop site. If you Poke someone on Facebook.com by going to their profile, they won’t get that Poke in the App, and nothing you do in the app can be seen outside of it. There’s currently no way to view Poke app messages on the web.

For now the Poke app is iOS only, but you can expect a release for Android soon as Snapchat is already there. Poke was built in under two weeks by a small team led Facebook’s veteran Director of Product Blake Ross, so there’s probably a lot of development still left to get it where Facebook wants it to be. There’s a chance that self-destructing media could make its way into Facebook’s main app, as the company has said that power users of its standalone apps like Camera and Messenger are guinea pigs for features it’s considering for the flagship apps.

As for privacy, Poke simply links back to the main Facebook terms of service, which would imply Facebook can save all the content from the app until you delete your account. However, a Facebook spokesperson tells me “All Poke messages are retained for two days after being read, to help facilitate abuse reporting.” After that their encryption keys are deleted making unreadable. The statement references the fact that users can flag messages as inappropriate if they’re getting nude or otherwise alarming Pokes. Facebook also gives paranoid Pokers have the option to clear their inbox so any unread messages are instantly destroyed.

A Poke To The Gut For Snapchat

Poke is pretty unabashed clone of Snapchat. Both apps let you draw and overlay text on photos before you send the little timebombs. They also notify the person you’re chatting with if you take a screenshot of what they sent you. For a quick reference, check out this chart comparing the features of the two apps.

Poke adds some useful extras. It offers simple text messages, in addition to video and photos. You can add a location to where you record a Poke message. Also, in Poke you can have group conversations, whereas on Snapchat you can message multiple people at once but not keep them all in a thread.

One thing Poke does lack is the ability to message people in your phone book, not just Facebook friends. In terms of design, Poke’s biggest flaw right now is a slight delay from when you hold on a message to when the content appears and the timer starts ticking. This caused me to lift my finger to try tapping again, canceling the previous view. Snapchat’s quickness is highly revered by its users, and Facebook will have make Poke more responsive, but otherwise the app feels well crafted.

Poke is a big problem for Snapchat, which is unfortunate for the small, scrappy team out of Stanford. GigaOm reported Snapchat is in the middle of closing a big round of funding led by Benchmark Capital, and our sources indicate it’s raising over $10 million at a $70 million valuation. That value might fluctuate with Poke’s release. It certainly validates the space, but only by bringing an 800-pound blue gorilla into it. It seems Snapchat CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel see this as confirming his company is working on something important, as his response to the launch of Poke was “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Poke has some big advantages it will bring to the fight with Snapchat, most specifically in distribution. Facebook does some nifty things to onboard people. If someone else uses the Poke app to send you a message, but you haven’t installed Poke yet, you’ll get a push notification from you main Facebook app asking you to download Poke. Facebook also routinely cross-promotes its standalone apps with banners at the top of its primary apps. For example, a download button for Poke at the top of Facebook for iOS which has around 125 million users could drive tons of installs.

The question now is whether users will be comfortable sharing on Poke. Snapchat’s outsider status gave it some street cred, especially amongst teenagers who view Facebook as a tool of the generation before them. After Facebook’s privacy troubles over the years, some people don’t fully trust it.

If Snapchat actually was mainly a sexting app, it’d probably be fine despite Poke because people would be scared to intermingle racy photos with their widely accessible Facebook presence.. But it’s not all about sexting. Snapchat is mostly for sharing goofy photos that months or years later might seem inane but at the time are hilarious. Using Poke for a few minutes I already get the feeling it can handle this silly and addicting use case well. I’ve already gotten a few laughs out of it.

Poke could successfully slow the growth of Snapchat and deter others from entering the space, which would keep more sharing in the Facebook ecosystem. Inevitably the question is how Facebook will make money on Poke. Right now there’s no ads. One day there might be, but its launch seems more focused on creating something fun for users while boxing out a potential disruptor. Mark Zuckerberg pulled the rug out from under Myspace, and he doesn’t want anyone doing the same to him.

Even if it doesn’t earn money directly, Poke is very important to Facebook. The people you send ephemeral messages to are often your closest friends. Facebook needs to know this intimate social graph to be able to tune its news feed and other parts of the service to show you the most relevant content. Because really, if you send someone a photo of you with a purple mustaches drawn on top, you probably want to see what they’re sharing with everyone else.

Click to view slideshow.

You can download Poke from the App Store here.

And there’s a cute little Easter Egg in it. If you drag your messages list all the way up, you’ll see the text “I’ll find something to put here”. This is the same text Mark Zuckerberg left in the bottom of the Facebook.com footer in the early days of the site.

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor “Poke”, An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook has just announced its newest standalone app called “Poke” which lets people send photos, videos, pokes, or text Facebook messages to their friends that expire after a few seconds. The launch confirms AllThingsD’s report from earlier this month. Poke is a big move into the ephemeral messaging space for Facebook, and it could give it even more data on who your closest friends are.

Facebook was convinced it needed an expiring messages app. Snapchat’s iOS and Android apps were gaining serious traction with young users. Over 50 million photos are getting shared on Snapchat each day for a total of 1 billion traded on the service compared to Facebook’s 300 million photos shared a day. Clearly there was something magical about self-destructing media.

Seems that Facebook didn’t want to wait for Snapchat to get so big it’d have to make another costly acquisition like Instagram and instead decided to compete early. We heard rumors that it had made overtures about acquiring Snapchat, but when the founders decided to stay independent, Facebook built its own version in just 12 days. Why would Facebook’s Blake Ross share that fact? Beacause it’s that kind of tenacity and lack of red tape that attracts great talent to come work at Facebook. It’s also a signal to startups about just how fast Facebook can steamroll them.

How Do You Poke?

The Poke app brings the classic contentless message into the mobile media-sharing age, but it’s actually a completely separate feature. Facebook explains that the app is designed to let you contact friends from wherever you are and show them what you’re doing. Here’s how the announcement describes how the app works:

“With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you’ve set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app. “

Essentially you pick a type of message to send — either a poke, text, photo, or video — and choose a friend or multiple friends to send it to. You can then set the expiration timer, add a location, overlay text or draw on a photo, and then send it. Recipients get a push notification with a little voice saying “Poke!”, open the Poke app, see your name and what type of message you sent, and then hold down on the message thread to view the content until the timer runs out and the message disappears.

The app is all mobile and completely separate from Facebook’s other apps and desktop site. If you Poke someone on Facebook.com by going to their profile, they won’t get that Poke in the App, and nothing you do in the app can be seen outside of it. There’s currently no way to view Poke app messages on the web.

For now the Poke app is iOS only, but you can expect a release for Android soon as Snapchat is already there. Poke was built in under two weeks by a small team led Facebook’s veteran Director of Product Blake Ross, so there’s probably a lot of development still left to get it where Facebook wants it to be. There’s a chance that self-destructing media could make its way into Facebook’s main app, as the company has said that power users of its standalone apps like Camera and Messenger are guinea pigs for features it’s considering for the flagship apps.

As for privacy, Poke simply links back to the main Facebook terms of service, which would imply Facebook can save all the content from the app until you delete your account. However, a Facebook spokesperson tells me “All Poke messages are retained for two days after being read, to help facilitate abuse reporting.” After that their encryption keys are deleted making unreadable. The statement references the fact that users can flag messages as inappropriate if they’re getting nude or otherwise alarming Pokes. Facebook also gives paranoid Pokers have the option to clear their inbox so any unread messages are instantly destroyed.

A Poke To The Gut For Snapchat

Poke is pretty unabashed clone of Snapchat. Both apps let you draw and overlay text on photos before you send the little timebombs. They also notify the person you’re chatting with if you take a screenshot of what they sent you. For a quick reference, check out this chart comparing the features of the two apps.

Poke adds some useful extras. It offers simple text messages, in addition to video and photos. You can add a location to where you record a Poke message. Also, in Poke you can have group conversations, whereas on Snapchat you can message multiple people at once but not keep them all in a thread.

One thing Poke does lack is the ability to message people in your phone book, not just Facebook friends. In terms of design, Poke’s biggest flaw right now is a slight delay from when you hold on a message to when the content appears and the timer starts ticking. This caused me to lift my finger to try tapping again, canceling the previous view. Snapchat’s quickness is highly revered by its users, and Facebook will have make Poke more responsive, but otherwise the app feels well crafted.

Poke is a big problem for Snapchat, which is unfortunate for the small, scrappy team out of Stanford. GigaOm reported Snapchat is in the middle of closing a big round of funding led by Benchmark Capital, and our sources indicate it’s raising over $10 million at a $70 million valuation. That value might fluctuate with Poke’s release. It certainly validates the space, but only by bringing an 800-pound blue gorilla into it. It seems Snapchat CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel see this as confirming his company is working on something important, as his response to the launch of Poke was “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Poke has some big advantages it will bring to the fight with Snapchat, most specifically in distribution. Facebook does some nifty things to onboard people. If someone else uses the Poke app to send you a message, but you haven’t installed Poke yet, you’ll get a push notification from you main Facebook app asking you to download Poke. Facebook also routinely cross-promotes its standalone apps with banners at the top of its primary apps. For example, a download button for Poke at the top of Facebook for iOS which has around 125 million users could drive tons of installs.

The question now is whether users will be comfortable sharing on Poke. Snapchat’s outsider status gave it some street cred, especially amongst teenagers who view Facebook as a tool of the generation before them. After Facebook’s privacy troubles over the years, some people don’t fully trust it.

If Snapchat actually was mainly a sexting app, it’d probably be fine despite Poke because people would be scared to intermingle racy photos with their widely accessible Facebook presence.. But it’s not all about sexting. Snapchat is mostly for sharing goofy photos that months or years later might seem inane but at the time are hilarious. Using Poke for a few minutes I already get the feeling it can handle this silly and addicting use case well. I’ve already gotten a few laughs out of it.

Poke could successfully slow the growth of Snapchat and deter others from entering the space, which would keep more sharing in the Facebook ecosystem. Inevitably the question is how Facebook will make money on Poke. Right now there’s no ads. One day there might be, but its launch seems more focused on creating something fun for users while boxing out a potential disruptor. Mark Zuckerberg pulled the rug out from under Myspace, and he doesn’t want anyone doing the same to him.

Even if it doesn’t earn money directly, Poke is very important to Facebook. The people you send ephemeral messages to are often your closest friends. Facebook needs to know this intimate social graph to be able to tune its news feed and other parts of the service to show you the most relevant content. Because really, if you send someone a photo of you with a purple mustaches drawn on top, you probably want to see what they’re sharing with everyone else.

Click to view slideshow.

You can download Poke from the App Store here.

And there’s a cute little Easter Egg in it. If you drag your messages list all the way up, you’ll see the text “I’ll find something to put here”. This is the same text Mark Zuckerberg left in the bottom of the Facebook.com footer in the early days of the site.

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Rent.com Is Beta Testing A Mobile-Friendly Redesign

Rent.com is taking a big step into the mobile world with the beta launch of its redesigned website, one that uses responsive web design to deliver an experience that’s usable on desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

Head of Product Amanda McConnell and Chief Technology Officer Alain Avakian gave me a preview of the redesign last week. It’s very clean, with big images and text, and if you’re looking at it on a smartphone, the page elements that won’t fit on the narrower screen just slide down, forming a more column-style layout.

The site previously released native iOS and Android apps, but the focus for the past few months has been on the redesign. With this approach, when Rent.com rolls out new features, it can immediately push those changes to its visitors on all devices. Plus, a lot of Rent.com’s traffic comes from search, and it’s better to give mobile visitors who arrive that way a mobile-optimized web experience, rather than forcing them to download an app.

Mobile traffic now accounts for 25 to 30 percent of Rent.com’s traffic, Avakian said, and he expects it to go as high as 40 percent in the next few years. At the same time, McConnell said that with 3 million unique monthly visitors, the site can’t be quite as experimental as a startup: “We have to be a little bit more startegic how we’re going to be making changes.” So the new design is only available to select users for now, with plans to make it fully available by the end of the first quarter of 2013.

Other changes in the redesign include the ability to search for listings nearby, a new grid view and map view for browsing search results, and the ability for renters to track their activity on the site, so they can save their favorite properties for viewing later.

And while this isn’t directly related to the redesign, Avakian also pointed out that Rent.com has a different business model than most apartment listing sites: it only gets paid when the property owner actually finds a renter, so “we optimize our site for driving renters to find that right apartment.”

Rent.com says it worked with Filament Group to create the new design. You can sign up for the beta here.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Rent.com Is Beta Testing A Mobile-Friendly Redesign

Rent.com is taking a big step into the mobile world with the beta launch of its redesigned website, one that uses responsive web design to deliver an experience that’s usable on desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

Head of Product Amanda McConnell and Chief Technology Officer Alain Avakian gave me a preview of the redesign last week. It’s very clean, with big images and text, and if you’re looking at it on a smartphone, the page elements that won’t fit on the narrower screen just slide down, forming a more column-style layout.

The site previously released native iOS and Android apps, but the focus for the past few months has been on the redesign. With this approach, when Rent.com rolls out new features, it can immediately push those changes to its visitors on all devices. Plus, a lot of Rent.com’s traffic comes from search, and it’s better to give mobile visitors who arrive that way a mobile-optimized web experience, rather than forcing them to download an app.

Mobile traffic now accounts for 25 to 30 percent of Rent.com’s traffic, Avakian said, and he expects it to go as high as 40 percent in the next few years. At the same time, McConnell said that with 3 million unique monthly visitors, the site can’t be quite as experimental as a startup: “We have to be a little bit more startegic how we’re going to be making changes.” So the new design is only available to select users for now, with plans to make it fully available by the end of the first quarter of 2013.

Other changes in the redesign include the ability to search for listings nearby, a new grid view and map view for browsing search results, and the ability for renters to track their activity on the site, so they can save their favorite properties for viewing later.

And while this isn’t directly related to the redesign, Avakian also pointed out that Rent.com has a different business model than most apartment listing sites: it only gets paid when the property owner actually finds a renter, so “we optimize our site for driving renters to find that right apartment.”

Rent.com says it worked with Filament Group to create the new design. You can sign up for the beta here.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Rent.com Is Beta Testing A Mobile-Friendly Redesign

Rent.com is taking a big step into the mobile world with the beta launch of its redesigned website, one that uses responsive web design to deliver an experience that’s usable on desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

Head of Product Amanda McConnell and Chief Technology Officer Alain Avakian gave me a preview of the redesign last week. It’s very clean, with big images and text, and if you’re looking at it on a smartphone, the page elements that won’t fit on the narrower screen just slide down, forming a more column-style layout.

The site previously released native iOS and Android apps, but the focus for the past few months has been on the redesign. With this approach, when Rent.com rolls out new features, it can immediately push those changes to its visitors on all devices. Plus, a lot of Rent.com’s traffic comes from search, and it’s better to give mobile visitors who arrive that way a mobile-optimized web experience, rather than forcing them to download an app.

Mobile traffic now accounts for 25 to 30 percent of Rent.com’s traffic, Avakian said, and he expects it to go as high as 40 percent in the next few years. At the same time, McConnell said that with 3 million unique monthly visitors, the site can’t be quite as experimental as a startup: “We have to be a little bit more startegic how we’re going to be making changes.” So the new design is only available to select users for now, with plans to make it fully available by the end of the first quarter of 2013.

Other changes in the redesign include the ability to search for listings nearby, a new grid view and map view for browsing search results, and the ability for renters to track their activity on the site, so they can save their favorite properties for viewing later.

And while this isn’t directly related to the redesign, Avakian also pointed out that Rent.com has a different business model than most apartment listing sites: it only gets paid when the property owner actually finds a renter, so “we optimize our site for driving renters to find that right apartment.”

Rent.com says it worked with Filament Group to create the new design. You can sign up for the beta here.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What’s The Difference?

Today, Facebook launched a new mobile app called Poke. It’s strikingly similar to a new photo-sharing app that’s taken the blogosphere by storm, called Snapchat.

Both Snapchat and Poke let you send pictures or videos which are then destroyed within a matter of seconds.

But the social network has officially launched its competitor, and the differences are few but important.

The biggest difference between Snapchat and Poke may come down to Terms Of Service, which is fitting with the Instagram conversation still burning.

It’s unclear whether or not Poke keeps the images on Facebook’s servers or not. We’ve reached out to Facebook and are waiting to see what Facebook puts on the now-empty Poke support page.

If it’s in keeping with the Facebook Terms Of Service, Facebook likely gets to hold on to that content for a period of time before it’s deleted. This is what Facebook’s TOS says about your content when it’s destroyed:

When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).

The social network may have to develop some new language for this app, as opposed to having all of Facebook’s products fall under the same terms of service. In fact, Josh Constine has learned that Facebook may actually be completely deleting photos from its servers or is at least making them completely inaccessible to users and employees. We’ll wait for confirmation on that.

Update: Facebook has clarified it’s terms of service for Poke:

All Poke messages are stored in encrypted form and retained for two days after the last recipient views the poke — a process that helps facilitate abuse reporting. After that period, a Poke's encryption key is deleted. However, it may still be possible to recover that key from logs or backups. After a fixed time period, this key becomes inaccessible, rendering the content completely unreadable (unless it was copied for abuse reporting.) Today, that fixed period can be up to 90 days, but we are working to significantly reduce that period over the next several weeks as we verify the stability of the Poke deletion system.

Snapchat’s method is to delete the image from its servers as soon as the recipient has seen it.

A second, and important, difference is the way Snapchat and Poke connect you to friends.

Snapchat uses Facebook to find friends, and obviously Poke does the same, so Poke has a leg up in terms of auto-integration. Still, Snapchat may help you actually find more friends with the app, as you can search by phone number or user name to add friends.

It’s also worth considering Snapchat’s username customization. The app has a loyal base of users with chosen screen names. That could be one of the bigger differences between Snapchat and Facebook Poke.

When you download Poke on a mobile device, you instantly log in with your Facebook Profile, relegating you to the name you use on Facebook and the friends you have there.

Though I don’t believe in the slightest that Snapchat is used primarily for sexting, I do think that there may be some users who enjoy snapping with randos (as evidenced by Twitter) that would like to keep their anonymous user name.

Poke also has two extra forms of interaction: text-only messages and “pokes.”

Both let you overlay text onto photos, and both let you draw over photos in a selection of colors (if we’re getting picky, Snapchat has more color options for drawing).

After you’ve taken your picture (or video) and added your text and artwork, both apps let you set a limit on how long the content will be viewable to the recipient. On Poke, the second limit is a choice between 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds, whereas Snapchat lets you choose anywhere between 1 and 10 seconds.

The actual feature differences are slight, but it’ll be interesting to watch this space take off now that Facebook has thrown its hat in the ring.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What’s The Difference?

Today, Facebook launched a new mobile app called Poke. It’s strikingly similar to a new photo-sharing app that’s taken the blogosphere by storm, called Snapchat.

Both Snapchat and Poke let you send pictures or videos which are then destroyed within a matter of seconds.

But the social network has officially launched its competitor, and the differences are few but important.

The biggest difference between Snapchat and Poke may come down to Terms Of Service, which is fitting with the Instagram conversation still burning.

It’s unclear whether or not Poke keeps the images on Facebook’s servers or not. We’ve reached out to Facebook and are waiting to see what Facebook puts on the now-empty Poke support page.

If it’s in keeping with the Facebook Terms Of Service, Facebook likely gets to hold on to that content for a period of time before it’s deleted. This is what Facebook’s TOS says about your content when it’s destroyed:

When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).

The social network may have to develop some new language for this app, as opposed to having all of Facebook’s products fall under the same terms of service. In fact, Josh Constine has learned that Facebook may actually be completely deleting photos from its servers or is at least making them completely inaccessible to users and employees. We’ll wait for confirmation on that.

Update: Facebook has clarified it’s terms of service for Poke:

All Poke messages are stored in encrypted form and retained for two days after the last recipient views the poke — a process that helps facilitate abuse reporting. After that period, a Poke's encryption key is deleted. However, it may still be possible to recover that key from logs or backups. After a fixed time period, this key becomes inaccessible, rendering the content completely unreadable (unless it was copied for abuse reporting.) Today, that fixed period can be up to 90 days, but we are working to significantly reduce that period over the next several weeks as we verify the stability of the Poke deletion system.

Snapchat’s method is to delete the image from its servers as soon as the recipient has seen it.

A second, and important, difference is the way Snapchat and Poke connect you to friends.

Snapchat uses Facebook to find friends, and obviously Poke does the same, so Poke has a leg up in terms of auto-integration. Still, Snapchat may help you actually find more friends with the app, as you can search by phone number or user name to add friends.

It’s also worth considering Snapchat’s username customization. The app has a loyal base of users with chosen screen names. That could be one of the bigger differences between Snapchat and Facebook Poke.

When you download Poke on a mobile device, you instantly log in with your Facebook Profile, relegating you to the name you use on Facebook and the friends you have there.

Though I don’t believe in the slightest that Snapchat is used primarily for sexting, I do think that there may be some users who enjoy snapping with randos (as evidenced by Twitter) that would like to keep their anonymous user name.

Poke also has two extra forms of interaction: text-only messages and “pokes.”

Both let you overlay text onto photos, and both let you draw over photos in a selection of colors (if we’re getting picky, Snapchat has more color options for drawing).

After you’ve taken your picture (or video) and added your text and artwork, both apps let you set a limit on how long the content will be viewable to the recipient. On Poke, the second limit is a choice between 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds, whereas Snapchat lets you choose anywhere between 1 and 10 seconds.

The actual feature differences are slight, but it’ll be interesting to watch this space take off now that Facebook has thrown its hat in the ring.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Jawbone UP Users: How Is Your End Cap Holding Up?

The Jawbone UP has been back for a little while now, after engineers took it back to the drawing board to correct mass failures in the original version. It came back better than ever, Jawbone said, and for the most part that seems to be true. Flaky syncing used to mar my original, even though I never experienced the same cataclysmic failure as others. This time around, I noticed a problem initially that others in the office have also seen, and a few other users are already reporting: a matte finish on the end cap that’s prone to peeling. It looks cheap.

Two of our staff units are exhibiting this already, both after just a few days’ use. And we’ve also found a report on Twitter, and someone else complaining of the same thing on Jawbone’s official forums. Two suggested fixes from that thread: don’t ever remove your Jawbone UP (lol), and buy the three-pack replacement caps that Jawbone offers in its official store. Both are obviously less than ideal. An ideal solution would be this not happening to begin with.

The cap complaints are echoed by a number of people in the Jawbone forums on other threads, and also include users complaining of caps that come loose during vigorous activity. This was an issue with the original version, and one reportedly made better with version two. Jawbone says your first replacement cap is free, but after that, you have to go through the store and purchase new ones. Presumably, that won’t make them any more resistant to this flaking issue, too.

These Jawbone UP’s may not be dying permanently at random, and sure, the issue is mostly cosmetic, but the Up is $130: at that price, you’re not expecting it to start showing wear from normal use 48 hours after you crack the packaging. We’ve reached out to Jawbone looking for an explanation, but in the meantime let us know if you’re seeing this issue, or any other problems with your UP wristband.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Jawbone UP Users: How Is Your End Cap Holding Up?

The Jawbone UP has been back for a little while now, after engineers took it back to the drawing board to correct mass failures in the original version. It came back better than ever, Jawbone said, and for the most part that seems to be true. Flaky syncing used to mar my original, even though I never experienced the same cataclysmic failure as others. This time around, I noticed a problem initially that others in the office have also seen, and a few other users are already reporting: a matte finish on the end cap that’s prone to peeling. It looks cheap.

Two of our staff units are exhibiting this already, both after just a few days’ use. And we’ve also found a report on Twitter, and someone else complaining of the same thing on Jawbone’s official forums. Two suggested fixes from that thread: don’t ever remove your Jawbone UP (lol), and buy the three-pack replacement caps that Jawbone offers in its official store. Both are obviously less than ideal. An ideal solution would be this not happening to begin with.

The cap complaints are echoed by a number of people in the Jawbone forums on other threads, and also include users complaining of caps that come loose during vigorous activity. This was an issue with the original version, and one reportedly made better with version two. Jawbone says your first replacement cap is free, but after that, you have to go through the store and purchase new ones. Presumably, that won’t make them any more resistant to this flaking issue, too.

These Jawbone UP’s may not be dying permanently at random, and sure, the issue is mostly cosmetic, but the Up is $130: at that price, you’re not expecting it to start showing wear from normal use 48 hours after you crack the packaging. We’ve reached out to Jawbone looking for an explanation, but in the meantime let us know if you’re seeing this issue, or any other problems with your UP wristband.

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel responded to Facebook’s new Poke app today with the brief statement, “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.” He declined to comment further.

Facebook’s Poke is a standalone app for impermanent messaging; the interface and features are very similar to Snapchat, a young startup that sees 50 million photos shared per day and is in the process of raising a substantial funding round from Benchmark Capital.

This is Facebook’s sixth app, joining the regular mobile app, Instagram, Facebook Camera, Facebook Pages Manager, and Facebook Messenger. Instagram was acquired after Facebook began developing the Camera app, and it’s widely believed that Facebook dropped the Facebook login requirement for Messenger to compete with popular messaging service WhatsApp. This summer, Dalton Caldwell wrote a widely discussed letter, “Dear Mark Zuckerberg,” chronicling his experience with Facebook’s aggressive Merger & Acquisitions tactics.

Given that Snapchat is in the process of raising a major funding round, the timing of Poke is very interesting. On the one hand, having the world’s largest social network copy your app and onboard users across its mobile apps with much larger user bases could limit Snapchat’s growth significantly.

On the other, Poke certainly validates this space as more than a place for sexters and high school and college kids.

And just because Facebook built its own app doesn’t mean it still wouldn’t be interested in an acquisition. See Camera: Instagram.

Apple/IBM pic via dullhunk.

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor "Poke", An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel responded to Facebook’s new Poke app today with the brief statement, “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.” He declined to comment further.

Facebook’s Poke is a standalone app for impermanent messaging; the interface and features are very similar to Snapchat, a young startup that sees 50 million photos shared per day and is in the process of raising a substantial funding round from Benchmark Capital.

This is Facebook’s sixth app, joining the regular mobile app, Instagram, Facebook Camera, Facebook Pages Manager, and Facebook Messenger. Instagram was acquired after Facebook began developing the Camera app, and it’s widely believed that Facebook dropped the Facebook login requirement for Messenger to compete with popular messaging service WhatsApp. This summer, Dalton Caldwell wrote a widely discussed letter, “Dear Mark Zuckerberg,” chronicling his experience with Facebook’s aggressive Merger & Acquisitions tactics.

Given that Snapchat is in the process of raising a major funding round, the timing of Poke is very interesting. On the one hand, having the world’s largest social network copy your app and onboard users across its mobile apps with much larger user bases could limit Snapchat’s growth significantly.

On the other, Poke certainly validates this space as more than a place for sexters and high school and college kids.

And just because Facebook built its own app doesn’t mean it still wouldn’t be interested in an acquisition. See Camera: Instagram.

Apple/IBM pic via dullhunk.

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor "Poke", An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Mark Zuckerberg Is The Voice Behind The “Poke” Notification Sound And Wrote Code For The App

Mark Zuckerberg invented Poking, one of Facebook’s earliest features, so it’s fitting he was part of the small team that built the new Poke app over the last 12 days. Sources say Zuckerberg actually wrote code for Poke despite saying he rarely programs for Facebook anymore. And that voice that blurts out “Poke” when you get a push notification? That’s Zuck, too.

My sources say that Facebook’s CEO recorded the sound snippet on his phone as a joke. But he was convinced to run the sample through some audio filters and let it become the soundtrack to the modern Poke. You can hear the goofy little noise here:

The app’s whole development process is an example of Facebook’s “Hacker Culture.” But it’s also a signal to both would-be competitors of the social network, as well as those who might want to work for it.

Facebook saw ephemeral messaging app Snapchat exploding with popularity. Users loved sharing silly photos and videos that deleted themselves a few seconds after being received.

We heard Facebook made attempts to buy the small startup, but the team wanted to stay independent. That’s when Facebook and Zuckerberg went into hacker mode. With just a few weeks until Apple stopped accepting submissions of new apps before Christmas, it would take a sprint to get Poke built in time.

So a small squad including Facebook Director Of Product Blake Ross kicked development into high gear, Zuckerberg lent a hand with the programming, designers Mike Matas and Sharon Hwang created the icon, and Facebook just made the deadline and launched the Poke app this morning.

But why would Ross publicly post to Facebook that the team built the app in just 12 days? Maybe to show that it could. The message to Facebook’s competitors, as MG Siegler writes, is that if you don’t join Facebook, it can clone your app and compete with you at a moment’s notice.

And to top engineers, designers, and product visionaries, the moral of the Poke is that Facebook isn’t a traditional company restricted by red tape. Things get done fast at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park. You could work for a tech company where it might take years for your product to ship. Or you could work at Facebook where two weeks later up to a billion people could be using what you built.

Download Poke for iOS here

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor "Poke", An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

[Image Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP]

[Correction: Blake Ross was on the Poke team and is a high-ranking Facebook team member but didn't lead the project.]

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Mark Zuckerberg Is The Voice Behind The “Poke” Notification Sound And Wrote Code For The App

Mark Zuckerberg invented Poking, one of Facebook’s earliest features, so it’s fitting he was part of the small team that built the new Poke app over the last 12 days. Sources say Zuckerberg actually wrote code for Poke despite saying he rarely programs for Facebook anymore. And that voice that blurts out “Poke” when you get a push notification? That’s Zuck, too.

My sources say that Facebook’s CEO recorded the sound snippet on his phone as a joke. But he was convinced to run the sample through some audio filters and let it become the soundtrack to the modern Poke. You can hear the goofy little noise here:

The app’s whole development process is an example of Facebook’s “Hacker Culture.” But it’s also a signal to both would-be competitors of the social network, as well as those who might want to work for it.

Facebook saw ephemeral messaging app Snapchat exploding with popularity. Users loved sharing silly photos and videos that deleted themselves a few seconds after being received.

We heard Facebook made attempts to buy the small startup, but the team wanted to stay independent. That’s when Facebook and Zuckerberg went into hacker mode. With just a few weeks until Apple stopped accepting submissions of new apps before Christmas, it would take a sprint to get Poke built in time.

So a small squad including Facebook Director Of Product Blake Ross kicked development into high gear, Zuckerberg lent a hand with the programming, designers Mike Matas and Sharon Hwang created the icon, and Facebook just made the deadline and launched the Poke app this morning.

But why would Ross publicly post to Facebook that the team built the app in just 12 days? Maybe to show that it could. The message to Facebook’s competitors, as MG Siegler writes, is that if you don’t join Facebook, it can clone your app and compete with you at a moment’s notice.

And to top engineers, designers, and product visionaries, the moral of the Poke is that Facebook isn’t a traditional company restricted by red tape. Things get done fast at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park. You could work for a tech company where it might take years for your product to ship. Or you could work at Facebook where two weeks later up to a billion people could be using what you built.

Download Poke for iOS here

Read more of our Snapchat-Poke coverage:

Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor "Poke", An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat: What's The Difference?

Snapchat Co-Founder Evan Spiegel Responds To Poke: “Welcome, Facebook. Seriously.”

Your Facebook Pokes Are Stored For Two Days, Then Their Encryption Keys Are Deleted

Facebook And Snapchat Go Toe To Toe: Why It's Good For Both Companies

[Image Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP]

[Correction: Blake Ross was on the Poke team and is a high-ranking Facebook team member but didn't lead the project.]

Reference: MobileGames.vn

Airbnb Gets More International And Interactive: Adds 18 Languages, Reviews And Calendar Access In New App Update

Taking advantage of the fact that a lot of people will be travelling during the next week and a half — and assuming that at least some of them are not organized enough to have booked their accommodation yet — Airbnb today released a new version of its iOS mobile app with some significant updates. To better target weary travellers and innkeepers this holiday season and beyond, Airbnb is adding support for 18 more languages; the ability to add reviews; and calendar access.

All the updates bring the iOS app further in line with the company’s website, and pave the way for Airbnb adding in more interactive features in the future — possibly making use of its recent acquisition of Localmind, which allows users to post questions about specific locations that then get answered by local experts.

The enhanced features also point to how popular the iOS app is already, and to how Airbnb wants to capitalize on that. The company tells me that the iOS app has already had 1.8 million downloads to date, with an 80% increase over the past three months.

Some 26% of Airbnb’s overall traffic at the moment comes from mobile devices (compared to only 12% at this time last year), and it’s clearly a central part of how the company hopes to entice more people to list properties and book them: it says that at the moment the response time for messages sent between hosts and guest is three times faster when the Airbnb mobile apps are used — that’s across iOS, mobile web and Android combined.

But if you’re an Android user looking for similar upgrades, you’re out of luck for now. Airbnb will not give a date for when it will be extending these updates to the Android platform: “We are always working on ways to improve our overall mobile experience, but we don’t have an Android update to share at this time,” a spokesperson noted in an email.

The 18 new languages — including Malay, Turkish and Chinese — now bring the total number supported by the app up to 27. They are a sign of how the company continues to ramp up its international profile, not an insignificant effort because of the various clones — two European competitors for example are 9Flats and the Rocket Internet-backed Wimdu — that are emerging to meet demand. There is still some way to go in getting a fully-international operation up and running. Airbnb says that the 200,000 properties on its books now range across 30,000 cities in 192 countries.

Adding in the ability to read and write reviews, meanwhile, seems like table stakes and to be honest, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long to incorporate them, especially since they’ve proved fairly central to the company’s business model: “Reviews are foundational to creating trust on Airbnb and we’ve seen these become increasingly important to driving repeat traffic to hosts,” the company says.

The Calendar addition, lastly, is really a move to improve Airbnb’s dialog with hosts. The idea here is that hosts will now be able to check and update availability for a property directly from their mobile devices, which will make it easier for them to post and list days on the service.

We’ve contacted Airbnb for some details on how well they’ve fared to date with mobile app usage, and whether they can give us any indication of when they plan to update on other platforms — like Android. [Update: answers incorporated into text above!]

Reference: MobileGames.vn