Repost from IBM Social Business Insights Blog: Cool or creepy, part 2: Seven additional social networking apps to consider

As part of a team of IBM Redbook Thought Leaders, I blog for the IBM Social Business Insights blog, and repost those blog posts here on my personal blog. Cool or creepy, part 2: Seven additional social networking apps to consider, is the second part of a series that was originally published on December 23, 2013, and is owned by IBM. Part 1, Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy? is here.
I recommend checking out the IBM Social Business Insights blog for some compelling and though-provoking content.

Cool or creepy, part 2: Seven additional social networking apps to consider

Brandi Boatner, Digital Experience Manager, IBM @ThinkBluePR
Holly Nielsen, Social Media Leader, IBM @HollyNielsen

This holiday season it’s time to tech the halls with boughs of privacy…or maybe not?

During the holidays, many people share gift ideas, wish lists, New Year’s resolutions they have no intention of keeping and a good amount of laughter with family, friends and loved ones.

Last year we took a look at some popular social networking applications that were designed to connect people by sharing only the information the user wanted to share. With thousands of apps being created every day, and as we close out another tech-obsessed year, which apps will stick around in 2014? Let’s look at some recent apps and ask the same question: Are these cool or creepy?

 1. Gym Shamer

Gym Shamer is an app that lets you set your workout goals and then check in at the gym through Foursquare. If you miss a workout, the app tells your entire social graph that you blew it.

Cool/creepy factor: This one definitely falls on the creepy side. We’re good enough at the remorse game ourselves for missing a workout, especially if we list “Get in Shape” as one of our New Year’s resolutions. We don’t need all of our friends, family, colleagues and followers piling on the grief.

 2. Butt Analyzer

Butt Analyzer is, yes, you read it correctly, an app that uses your phone's camera to take a photo of a man’s or woman’s derriere and calculate the attractiveness of that booty on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s only available on Android, so we couldn’t test it out (which is probably just as well), and there’s a share button that enables sharing the results with your social network.

 Cool/creepy factor: This app is one of the highest ranking out there on the creepy scale.

3. Spout

Spout is a new way to look at your social content feeds—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr—in a swirling, moving, graphically interesting format where the words flow and stream across the screen. You can set the theme, mode, display time, animation style and word speed.

 Cool/creepy factor: Definitely cool. Spout is a word lover’s dream. It would make an amazing screensaver. Hint: if the word stream makes you dizzy, try different speeds and animation styles to find the one you like best.

4. CARROT

The webpage for CARROT for iPhone touts it as “the to-do list with a personality.” You create your to-do list, and CARROT berates you for failing to complete items and rewards you when you finish them. “She” has 400 rewards for good behavior at her disposal, but states, "You don't want to make me upset." Personalized gamification, anyone?



Cool/creepy factor: We’re leaning toward cool for this app, as this reviewer could use some help getting her to-do lists completed. But, getting scolded by her smartphone could also result in immediate app deletion. Not sure what an angry Siri sounds like, but do you want to find out?

 5. Tinder

Talk about a well-defined target audience: no smartphone, no Facebook profile, no Tinder dating. If you read the online reviews (which we did) it would appear that Tinder is taking the millennial dating world by storm. Its claim to fame? It finds out who is nearby and connects you with them if you're mutually interested. A photo of someone in your pre-defined geolocation pops up on your phone, and you swipe left if you’re interested, right if you’re not. Or maybe it was right if you’re interested, left if you’re not. Anyway, if the other person also swipes in the yes direction, a chat box pops up and you can chat. After that, it’s up to you.

Cool/creepy factor: This app is cool if you live in a large metropolis and have trouble getting out and meeting people. All millennials have active Facebook pages and smartphones, right?

 6. Slydial

This app sounds like just what it does. Slydial is a voice messaging service that connects you directly to someone’s mobile voicemail, bypassing the ringing. How many times have you dreaded dialing a number and praying the other party on the end of the line doesn’t answer and your call goes straight to voicemail? Now, there’s an app for that.

Cool/creepy factor: This app is actually pretty cool. Users click on the slydial icon and instantly connect with the recipient’s voicemail box. Slydial can be used for practical and efficient communications when you’re short on time, when you’d rather not leave a text and, more important, when you want to avoid life’s awkward moments. This app is currently only available in the US.

7. MedXCom

“Take control of your health and well-being—anytime, anywhere!” is the tag line for this app. The MedXCom Patient app is a patient portal that lets you store and manage all of your health profile with confidence and convenience and instantly share important data and updates with your doctors.

Cool/creepy factor: MedXCom is both cool and creepy. It is a great way for people to manage health information and include as many details as they need to monitor personal health like reminders for taking medication, storing images of health insurance cards (most people lose these cards every year) and the ability to instantly notify health professionals in case of an emergency. However, on the creepy side a feature of the app is called “safe bumping" that encourages dating singles to go to the doctor for regular STD checks. And yes - that information can be shared.  We'll stop there, but it's safe to say we think it's TMI and bit too creepy.

It would seem that the term privacy means different things to different people in the digital age with our evolving interconnectedness. However, two key constants remain with the emergence of social networking apps: user discretion and transparency. Perhaps we can make 2014 the year privacy found its way back from the abyss of mobile applications. That’s one resolution we can all stick to…maybe.

Repost from IBM Social Business Insights: Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy?

Earlier this year I started blogging for the IBM Social Business Insights blog as part of a team of IBM Redbook Thought Leaders. I'll be reposting those blog posts here on my personal blog.
Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy?  was co-written with my talented colleague, Brandi Boatner, and originally published on April 17, 2012, and is owned by IBM.
I recommend checking out the IBM Social Business Insights blog for some compelling and though-provoking content. 

Five new social networking applications: Cool or creepy?

By Brandi Boatner, IBM Global Business Services
and Holly Nielsen, Human Ability and Accessibility

The different ways social networking can connect people is constantly expanding, with new applications announced daily. There are so many new ideas and technologies, that privacy laws can’t begin to keep up with the various ways of seamlessly sharing your online data and preferences.

For instance, most people are familiar with the most popular geo-location applications such as Foursquare and Google Places, where users can check in when they’ve arrived at a new destination, and notify their networks of their latest location. Below is a list of five new applications that beg the question: Are these cool or creepy?

1. In late February, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced they were introducing a new program called “Meet and Seat,” enabling passengers, through either their Facebook or LinkedIn profile, to not only select their seat on the plane, but to select their flight seatmates. KLM is looking to improve the entire customer experience by including this mechanism for travelers going to the same conference or convention to self-connect. And taking it even further, KLM is encouraging seatmates to meet before the flight for coffee in the terminal or perhaps even sharing a taxi at their new destination.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: For a single person, this could feel like a speed date that continues hours past the normal five-minute limit, with little hope of escape. For someone looking to network with potential partners, employers, and so on, this could be a great opportunity.

2. After you sign up for an application called Tripl, a new social travel service, you can interact with recommended locals and travelers connected to your existing network. You and your friends can recommend “must meet” locals on your trips. When you add your trip plans, you can find out who – local and traveler – will be at your destination. And locals are notified when other Tripl members are visiting.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: It really depends on your network doesn’t it? If members are vetted, you might feel comfortable meeting a visiting member for coffee, or contacting a local when you reach their city, but if not, then what?

3. Fashism is a web and smartphone app that lets community members give and receive real-time feedback on photos of outfits with a love it or leave it voting and comment feature. Editor-selected accessories are available for purchase from within the app.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: Pretty cool, actually. It would be a lot of trouble for someone to join just to make snarky comments about random people’s outfits, so it seems like a decent way to put together great outfits for the fashionistas among us.

4. According to the website, Highlight gives you a sixth sense about the world around you, showing you hidden connections and making your day more fun. If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone.

As you go about your day, Highlight runs quietly in the background, surfacing information about the people around you (up to a football-field length away). If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them.

You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.

Cool/creepy factor: Highlight does have the promise of making people-watching fun by allowing you to get information about those you watch, however, who is watching you? Do you want a stranger on the street to know so much about you; or are strangers just friends we haven’t met yet?

5. Pair is a social app for couples; it lets you communicate with one other person – ideally a spouse or romantic partner. Upon signing up, you provide an email address for the person you want to pair with, and that person gets an invitation to the service. You can unpair whenever you want, but you can’t pair with more than one person at a time.
   
   The main section of the app is a single stream of communication between you and your loved one, with pictures, video, and shared locations posted directly on the timeline. When both partners are online, the app becomes like a chat program, letting you know when the other person is typing, and lighting up a button at the top of the screen that lets you initiate a Facetime conversation.
   
   Cool/creepy factor: This too is actually cool especially for those who find themselves in a long-distance relationship, given the current economy and state of employment for many. Pair is unlike Facebook and Twitter; it’s inherently not a place for narcissism. Anything you were going to brag about –such as a promotion or well-crafted meal – is merely conversation when it’s between you and a close companion. There’s no social pressure with pandering for Likes or Retweets.

The proliferation of smart phones and the social networking explosion have created new and uncharted opportunities for expanding our social networks and meeting people in ways unheard of even five years ago, as our survey of new apps has shown us.

Arguably, each of these apps potentially has factors of coolness and creepiness, depending on who is using the application, and why. Seamless data sharing means that we no longer have to give applications permission to use our public data. It’s a reminder to us all that we’re responsible for regularly checking and managing our privacy settings on our social networking sites and applications.

Free images from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Recent Innovations for People with Disabilities

There are amazing technologies being developed daily by incredibly talented people. Some of them are created to enable people with disabilities to participate fully in social networking. The development of these technologies often aren't covered by the mainstream press because they're considered of interest only to a small audience — a definite misconception.  When you consider that more than 1 billion of the 7 billion people in the world today have a disability*, and the world population is aging at the fastest rate in history** — these are not niche technologies by any stretch of the imagination.

Here are two technology innovations I found today, surfaced by Smart Planet:

• Dyslexie font designed to help dyslexics read, write: Not your typical technology innovation, but for those with dyslexia, a cognitive disability that makes reading and comprehension difficult, this font could help them read for a longer time and with better comprehension, compared to other fonts. Dislexie was created by Dutch graphic designer, Christian Boer, who is dyslexic. The letters in Dyslexie are more widely spaced and distinct from each other, and "tied down"  — making dyslexics less likely to flip them, mentally.

• New smartphone app lets users text ‘eyes-free’: Designed by the researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, this new iPhone application enables visually impaired users who are proficient at typing in Braille to type up to 32 words per minute at a 92% accuracy rate. Based on the same model as the Braille keyboard, the software, called BrailleTouch, employs gesture-based texting and uses only six keys, which are displayed as dots.

The researchers at Georgia Tech have been busy. I also found this article in Disabled World today:

• Tongue Drive Wireless Device Operates Computers and Wheelchairs: This innovative device enables people with high-level spinal cord injuries to operate a computer and maneuver an electrically powered wheelchair by moving their tongue. The newest prototype of the system allows users to wear an inconspicuous dental retainer embedded with sensors to control the system. It was demonstrated at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco on February 20, 2012.

Many technologies created originally for people with disabilities have worked their way into the mainstream, making applications more usable for all. According to The Center for an Accessible Society, experts in the telecom access engineering field call it the "Electronic Curb-cut Effect", and have an extensive list on their website of IT (information technology) innovations, originally developed by, or in support of, people with disabilities that wound up benefiting everyone.

*10 Facts on Disability from the World Health Organization
**More than 600 million people are over the age of 60. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to 2 billion; more than 20 percent of the world’s population. World Health Organization

Image: Damian Brandon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net