Foursquare Explore

One of my favorite Foursquare features is the "Explore" one. I can recall a few days ago I was craving Chinese, and didn't hesitate once to reach out to Foursquare's geolocation power. To top things off, I actually found nearby a really neat place which was well recommended, and which turned out great. So if you ask me "Why do I use Foursquare?", well, it's because of that. How ever, this is only part of it. I also love checking-in. Now, a lot of people are very hesitant about checking into places and making their location public. But the fact is that you can protect your privacy. Having said this, bare in mind that your check-ins and comments are the ones that give life to Foursquare. If that Chinese place hadn't been referred by a friend, it is possible that I would have never discovered it at all.

Google +... or is it Google - ?

Everyone knows who Neil Armstrong is. He was the first man on the moon. Can you recall the second? As it turns out, we usually forget runner ups in life. It happens the same in the Social Networks. Maybe Facebook was not the very first, but they were indeed the first to deliver it right. This puts Google + on the spot. Where the too late? If you ask me, the answer would be "Not necessarily". In general they are perceived as the "late-to-the-party" version of Facebook, despite their better designs and features, according to Paul Tassi, a Forbes contributor who doomed them in his first article about the SN, and who, a year later, does it again (Six Months Later, Google Plus Still Doesn't Add Up). But then, why would I answer "Not necessarily"? In my opinion, late or not, Google had to come up with something. Google has a big crowd of fans, so why not put them all together in one same place. Most surely, these fans would drop everything -in an instant- to stand by Google's side, and I would bet they wanted to prove this right. In any case, the future is uncertain, and the Digital world is evolving quicker and quicker, and it is but a matter of time before the next best thing comes up, and kicks Facebook and Google + into oblivion.

The Music Industry... What's next?

1877, the phonograph.
1888, the gramophone.
1962, the cassette tape and 1979, the Walkman.
1982, the Compact Disc and 1984, the Discman.
1995, the MP3 and 2001, the iPod.
2003, the iTunes Store.
2006, Spotify and the cloud.
2015.... what's next?

Music, as we know it, has evolved throughout the years not only in genre, beat and melody, but as well as how we treat and manipulate it, at a dangerously high speed.

 

It seems as if Moore's Law has it's own take on the evolution of music players as storage capacity increases, and smaller devices are produced. But here's the kick, since recently, carrying a device for storing your favorites is barely needed, since high speed mobile connection allows you to access your "cloud" instantaneously from your very own smartphone, with the help of platforms such as Spotify or Pandora Radio. This implies heavy consumer behavior changes. For instance, 15 years ago we would spend amounts of time in record stores and would create a huge space in our homes allocated to storing our precious CD collections, whereas now record stores are in the road to extinction, and our CD collections are but just another dust target. 15 years ago, we would have probably have listened to the new hits on the radio, whereas now we find them through social media word of mouth; friends Like them on their Facebooks, tweets. This all makes me wonder, what comes next? Predictable devices such as micro earphones with 3G connection could be launched as soon as today. But the truth is that anything can happen. In the "cloud", the sky is the limit, literally.

Prototype 3G Earphones