If you haven’t been introduced to these sites yet, read on!

Chill : Initially a Turntable concept for video, has become a Pinterest for video, this allows users to post, view, comment on and re-post video from people that they follow. It is set up in the same grid format as Pinterest, making it easy to navigate. Chill also supports all video formats and you can join via and import your video from Facebook and Twitter, or by simply posting a link with the Post Video Button at the top of the grid.

I liked the fact that once I had joined, all my long forgotten videos (if set on my privacy settings as viewable to Friends) became available immediately on my homepage.  If I select to Pin a video, do this when you are logged in (as pinning offline lost my video along the route of logging in), it becomes available as part of my videos.  Re-posting is fun too, you can post the video onto Facebook and Twitter, comment and give it a “Feel” thought — smile, laugh, wow, frown or love.  The bottom of each video shows the user icons of members that have watched the video and to the left all the comments and thought icons are viewable.

Although Pinterest does have a video section, Chill in comparison is open to the public and is optimized specifically for only video postings.  Users can either choose to view videos of people they’ve followed on their homepage or view videos on the Chill popular page. Best of all, if you just want to view the videos for some fun, you don’t need to sign in. Missing is a Search button to find specific videos that I may be interested in, however it is refreshing to just page through videos that I would never have come across on YouTube or other social media sites.  Initially the site helped you look for friends that were also on Chill, but if you had no friends you were left feeling rather lonely.  This week the site introduced a Friends Search, where you can invite friends to join. Now this is the type of Social Media interaction we are used to.

Welcome to Chill from Chill on Vimeo.

Pinterest : Pinterest is a virtual pinboard, which allows you to organize and share interesting things you find on the web. There are thousands of pinboards created by other people that you can discover and get inspiration from, all by sharing common interests.  A pin is an image added to Pinterest, these images can be added from a website using the Pin It button, or you can upload directly from your computer. Each pin added using the Pin It button links back to the site it came from.  Each pin can be liked, tweeted, repinned and users can comment on the images.  People use pinboards for a variety of reasons, from planning their weddings, decorating their homes, to sharing their favorite recipes, quotes, fashion designs, art or photographs.

Namesake : Namesake is community built around real-time conversations. Members can post comments, photos or videos for conversations to follow on topics like news, best practices, questions, events, videos and ideas.   These conversations are by default available to everyone in the community and therefore it is easy to find the people and topics that make life interesting.  If you want to, you can also hold conversations that are private or by invitation only, which allows only selected community members to participate.  On joining Namesake, you add in ten areas of your own expertise and so does everyone else in the community, so it is easy to find people with whom to hold a good conversation with similar interests.  Experts are also listed on topic pages, this is where all conversations and endorsed community members for that topic are listed.

Having all the areas of content filtered into different websites felt a bit like having to sift through different search engines for information, instead of just using one.  Also missing from the mix were more definitive Security Settings on who could view your stream of comments and videos.  However, all these websites have a strong following and rather than being stuck on only Facebook or Twitter alone, they allow for immediate social interaction on topics or videos you are interested in. Giving new meaning to chilling!

Education 2.0 will be a digital affair

Many Internet savvy teachers in Qatar may already be familiar with the late Steve Jobs’ vision for education, which is to Applize it. iTunes U led the way with online seminars and free courses in subjects as diverse as art to heart surgery. These are undertaken much like an Open University course but come with better digital features as you might expect.
Now, last week in fact, Apple announced the launch of iBooks 2.0, which may well have the ability to completely revolutionise the school textbook market.  Apple fans will already be familiar with Apple iBooks, the online bookstore to rival Amazon, iBooks 2.0 will fit nicely into this existing facility and naturally be a completely interactive learning experience.
Textbooks in iBooks 2.0 will be fully optimized for iPads, giving students access to videos within chapters, interactive study notes and 3D graphics, enhancing the whole learning experience. No matter what continent you live in, this makes good sense – saving the trees, easy to update content, no lugging heavy books about – it wins on so many levels.

The world leaders in educational publishing are on board, such as Pearson Publishing and McGraw Hill and there are some handy complimentary apps to help ensure absorption into the school curriculum such as iBooks Author, which provides templates for producing textbooks compatible with the iPad.
Speaking at an education event in New York last Thursday, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller said, “We want to reinvent the textbook. Current textbooks cannot compete. They aren’t portable, searchable, current, or interactive.” He pointed out that there are over 20,000 educational apps already available for the iPad and that more than a million iPads are already used in education. International universities in Qatar’s Education City already embrace the iPad, utilizing its features for workshops and as a library resource.
Yes – but what about the cost, I hear you ask? A basic iPad2 costs in excess of QR 2000, potentially making it a pricey investment for a student. Well – the really good news is that the price of the textbooks will be capped at a meagre $14.99, quite a coup considering that a typical medical or legal textbook could set a student back $100, therefore potentially making the iPad a prudent, money-saving investment.

Now an apple a day for the teacher is not what it used to be – and for that, I’m sure Steve Jobs is eternally grateful.

Everyone I know has been approached by X who has a fortune that she will share with you if you just help her by giving out your banking details; I am also a millionaire many times over with the amount of money that I have won, and my bank is forever losing my personal details.

Stats show that up to 14.5 billion spam emails get sent out on a daily basis, the point is no matter what you do you are going to get spam. So how can you alleviate the pain that is spam?

We all know the basics to protect our email: don’t open or reply to spam messages, delete them immediately, don’t click on links that could be viruses, don’t send your personal details to anyone, don’t trust anyone you don’t know, and so on.

There are reliable methods we can use to minimize spam.

Firstly, find an effective filter to use, you may need to buy one or you can download a free version. Overall they are effective but do tend to miss craftily worded spam or alternatively can send some important messages to the trash box so be careful in how you set them up and what keywords you select as spam, but overall they can be up to 95% accurate in filtering those unwanted messages. Here are some spam filters to compare:

Spam Blocker Services:

Symantec

myTrashMail

mailexpire

Mailinator

Spamgourmet

SneakEmail

Free Spam Filter Software

http://www.spampal.org/

http://www.keir.net/k9.html

http://getpopfile.org/docs/doku.php

http://www.spamihilator.com/

These filters often do not work for domain email clients, so if you are trying to clean up Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail, these may not be the best options to use. However, most online email services such as the ones mentioned above, have built in spam filters which do a good job at filtering unwanted email into your Junk Mail Folder.  They also have built in features where the user can report spam that has filtered through into the Inbox, look for a “Report as Spam” button or a “Not Spam” button to correct false positives. You can also create your own spam filters to get the best results, by creating filters for incoming mail that flag or delete emails containing lewd content or common spam keywords. This strategy can backfire though if a friend sends a message  with your spam filter keywords in it. To help, Google has a “test” feature that lets you test-run a filter before you apply it so you can better fine tune your results.  This will further help to identify emails that might get past the spam filters.

You can also try setting up a nondescript email account used simply to accrue and therefore identify spam email. These are known as Spamtraps and will work if the address isn’t used or given to contacts. That way, any emails sent to the account can be reasonably called spam and filtered. This is one way — among others — that many professional services identify spam for their clients.

Use a dummy email for online deals, social networking, downloads or if stores ask for an email address at point of purchase. Having this type of email can divert a lot of unwanted spam away from your real account. Then keep a separate email address for your private emails, keeping your information confidential.

When you create your email addresses, make them difficult for bots (which spammers use to find email addresses) to find or recreate. Consider using more than one word, word segments or pieces, numbers and non-letter symbols and underscores_are_good, e.g.  great_scott_#2468@xxx.com.  But don’t make it too easy that bots can find it or too difficult so that no one can remember it.

Further more, when joining a network, gaming services, magazines, etc. DO NOT CHECK THE EMAIL BOX for future deals, updates, or news about the company, unless you really want to receive these types of emails. They tend to clutter your Inbox making it difficult to manage. If you have subscribed and they are becoming an issue, every email with marketing or news information on it will have an Unsubsribe button.

Finally, Ensure that the automatic update service on your PC is turned on and configured to automatically download the latest software updates.  It is not a spam fighter, but it does help to protect your PC from unwanted viruses and ensure you have the latest software on your machine.

Personally I use Gmail and the Spam Filters that they provide and try to report as many spammers as I can for my personal email, while for my fake email address I use www.myTrashMail.com.

Yes, initially it is a lot of work to set this all up, but long term the time saved by not having to delete and check thousands of emails is immeasurable.

1. LEGO Digital Box

The Lego AR kiosk called “DIGITAL BOX” has been developed by LEGO Digital Systems and Metaio.  It allows the consumer to visibly see what the Lego product being sold can be built into. The kiosks are out in LEGO brand stores worldwide and are widely seen as one of the best examples of augmented reality in marketing.

2. Rihanna and Nivea Cream
As a sponsor of Rihanna’s US and European Loud Tour, Nivea created a few digital advertising experiences with Rihanna. One of these was an AR experience by buying a tin of Nivea Creme or printing one out from Nivea’s website, you could hold either up to your computer’s webcam. Then, voila, Rihanna appears.

3. Arm Tatoo
A fun AR app, where a simple barcode marker is tattooed onto someone’s arm which when viewed through a camera transforms into a three dimensional animation of a flying dragon, this App was created by ThinkAnApp.

4. Tesco’s Online Shopping

Online shopping made easy with British retailer Tesco launching an AR program for consumers to see 3D images of some of their products online. Users merely hold up images from the catalog to their computer’s webcam to see the 3D version of the product. Hide those credit cards quickly.

5. BMW and Ray Ban

I love the way advertisers are using AR to market products, and was torn between two marketing campaigns so I have added both of them.  The zooty little BMW Z4 racing around the desk and Ray Ban Sunglasses where you can see how they will look on your face, perhaps the only downfall is you cannot feel how the products will handle or feel.

Z4 Campaign

Ray Ban Campaign

6. Axe

On 5 March this year, Unilever owned brand, Axe deodorant took there “Angels falling to earth” campaign a bit further by adding a sign in the Victoria Railway Station telling travelers to look up to a giant video screen. When looking up, they saw an image of themselves plus one of the angels, who were featured in the US and English ad campaigns. This video shows the reactions.

7. AR Apps that we have found useful include some of the following:

• Car Finder, not that any of us need it but if you know of someone that may this nifty little app helps you find your lost car.

• Pocket Universe: Virtual Sky Astronomy, ever looked up at the sky and wondered what you were looking at? This app helps to decipher the stars, planets and constellations for you. Once the app is downloaded you don’t need connectivity, this clever app contains data on 10,000 stars, 88 constellations and lunar phases, while the “tonight’s sky” feature shows meteor showers and visible planets based on your location.

• TwittARound, this app uses the GPS, compass and camera to show where Tweets are coming from, cool when you want to see who is twittering what at an event or just generally around you.

• Nearest Tube, this app will help you to find the nearest subway station in the UK, no reason to ask for directions, get lost or be late.

• Wikitude AR Travel Guide, this app allows you to just hold up your phone and it will display Wikipedia information on the site you are looking at, allowing you to learn everything about anything. This is just one of many of the Wikitude apps, take a look here at the others.

8. Business Cards

Finally some innovative AR business cards, just for fun. These cards can provide a wealth of information when done correctly, including additional text, images and even video just by holding the card up to a webcam.

9. AR In Reality

Want your world to come to life? Autonomy, a leading enterprise infrastructure company, has a new technology that can change the way we look at and interact with physical objects.  Called Aurasmsa, it works with smart phone and tablets in real time, turning static images or even objects into videos, games and interactive experiences. You can aim your phone at a building and see a video about that building, aim it at a picture in a newspaper, magazine or bus stand and launch an interactive experience.

This video was supplied by Autonomy.

10. Augmented ID

Augmented ID is a TAT concept that visualizes the digital identities of people you meet in real life. With a mobile device and face recognition software from Polar Rose, Augmented ID enables you to discover selected information about people around you. All users control their own augmented appearance, by selecting the content and social network links they want to show to others. Modifying your augmented ID is easier than saying 1 2 3!

Watch Mickey Mouse celebrating turning 83 in Times Square in true Disney AR style. Enjoy!

What Augmented Reality apps have you come across lately? Share these with us here!

The Big Apple

2011 saw Apple continue its market dominance and passed Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable corporation, even with the death of its enigmatic leader. Everywhere you looked this year, Apple seemed to have the golden touch.

From the mobile market where Apple launched the new iPhone 4S with Siri, the voice controlled feature that everyone wanted, pulling in 40 percent of smartphone revenues, nearly 65 percent of the sector’s profits.

Through to the PC and iPad markets, with PC’s selling up to 13 percent of the market share and iPads a whopping 75 percent, nearly 50 million units by the end of the year. The pace didn’t slow down either with the launch of iCloud making device interconnectivity easier for the user, the iPhone and iPad’s increasingly downloaded Apps, with October seeing the 60 billionth song sold on iTunes, never mind opening more and more Apple stores worldwide.  Even in death Steve Jobs sells with his book being the number one best seller on Amazon for 2011. While the company is at the top of its game, one wonders whether this will carry through into 2012 with the loss of their charismatic, volatile, mercurial, creative genius? Jobs was driven to seek perfection in his company’s products through simplicity, and ease of use through elegant design both inside and out, will Apple manage to continue this trend?

The Android Phenomenon

August 2011 saw Google’s Android capturing 48 percent of the smartphone market, according to the Canalys Report.  Successful Android-based products include vendors such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei, as catalysts for the platform’s growth. The market gap between the Apple and Android tablets is slowly closing, in 2010 the market share was 83.9 to 14.2 percent respectively, while a small percentage sat with other vendors. However in 2011 this gap is now 68.7 to 19.9 percent, respectively. Will Android begin to dominate the market share in 2012? Projections from Gartner show that by 2015 the market share will be 47.1 to 38.6 percent, so watch this space.

The Social Networking Boom

Wikileaks began the year with revelations about the US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, then the information on what American Diplomats had been writing home about was revealed. The Arab Spring made the world aware of just how powerful, on the political front, social networking and mobile devices could actually be. With demonstrators holding up placards with Twitter hashtags in Tahrir Square starting the online media frenzy of information, then came the Tunisian conflict, with the government initially not realizing the significance of Facebook or Twitter and Mubarak’s complete internet shut down once they did. With some hackers setting up a “phone to tweet” system enabling Eygptian’s to dial an international number and record a message that was then broadcast as a tweet.  But every disconnected day meant a loss of millions of dollars in revenue for those running businesses there, with most just happening to be some of Mubarak’s Generals, so the country hastily rejoined the networked world.  Lybia saw similar media frenzies with ordinary people on the street sending through messages, videos and blogging about their ordeals, with Gadhaffi’s final moments being recorded and broadcast with a mobile phone. The Syrian conflict continues and moments in history are being broadcast live across the world via social media streaming. When we think back to wars lost and won and how initially media correspondents would put themselves in harms way bringing us broadcasts via satellite phones, then we would watch in horror at live broadcasts via satellite and now we are witnessing, not via the press, but the everyday people on the streets involved in these conflicts “then and there” via modern communication tools. Our perspective on war, on the people (not the soldiers or politicians), on the destruction, has changed and the truths behind these events can no longer be hidden as in the past.

The Facebook phenomenon continues, starting the year with 500 million users and finishing with over 800 million, it is the worlds largest social

network. Every day, Facebook users comment or press the “like” button more than 2 billion times and upload more than 250 million photos. Analysts estimate that the network’s users post 30 billion pieces of content every month. However, it has brought to the forefront the issue of privacy and just how much information users do not know is out there about themselves.  Facebook’s policies, more than any others, seem to be driving the discussion of privacy in this new age. And so it should be, with new features such as the Timeline, where all your information will be available from birth to date, to sharing exactly what you are doing at a specific moment in time with your friends, very little will be left to the imagination about your life. As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, which could come in the spring of 2012, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership.

The Paperless eBooks

eBooks have certainly also introduced us to a paperless more environmentally friendly format to reading books.  Many are not fans yet, but when you think of just how many trees can be saved along the way with the Amazon Kindle or downloadable books for the iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and other tablet devices, then not paging through a book makes a lot of sense. With smaller thinner versions of these in design, the idea of carrying a small light weight device is much more appealing than a big hefty book which will be discarded or gather shelf dust. Easy to download, read what you want when you want, add audio recordings, visuals and the movie of the book, the idea of eBooks becomes extremely appealing.

2011 can be defined as one of the most interesting technological years, will 2012 hold as many new advancements for us?  I don’t think the pace is going to slow down, if anything it will grow more frenzied, with more to watch, read and participate in.

What defined 2011 for you in our ever changing ICT world?

This is one of those games that once you start playing it, you just cannot put it down. Angry Birds is a puzzle video game developed by Rovio Mobile, a Finnish computer game developer. The game was inspired by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, initially designed for Apples iOS. And with increasing purchases the company designed versions for other touchscreen-based smartphones.

The game has players use a slingshot to launch birds at pigs stationed on or within various structures, with the intent of destroying all them on the playfield. As players advance through the game, new birds appear, some with special abilities that can be activated by the player. Rovio Mobile have supported the game further with numerous free updates that add additional game content, with stand-alone holiday and promotional versions, such as Angry Birds Rio, of the game on offer.

December last year saw these little winged characters hitting a remarkable 42 million free and paid downloads after only launching in December 2009 and in November this year, they reached half a billion.

And the cult following grows by the day, with these birds becoming more than just downloadable games. Angry Birds is pretty much taking over the world with a TV series being planned, Games for the PC, Wii, XBox and PS3, and Mattel adapting it into a board game. Add promotional gifts, such as their plush toys, t-shirts, bags,  games, the cookbook and accessories, from their online shop or their new shop in Helsinki Finland, to the mix and you have a sure winner.

Follow Angry Birds on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or their Blog for the most up to date games and Birdy news.

If you are addicted to Angry Birds, then join the Doha Tweetup Games to play life size angry birds tomorrow night 14 December at the Qtel #Fanzone in Aspire Park. Go to the Tweetup Facebook page to register and for more information.

I can hear most parents smirking the inevitable “We told you so” statement.

Why did this new setup not work?  Two reasons. Firstly, children do not know how to manage their time and do not know their limits even if they do come across as responsible. If it is fun (which quite honestly we all love the games you can play online) it will overrun their lives and it did. Schoolwork was forgotten, piano practice pushed aside and even the call to dinner unheard. Secondly, which is the route of this post, came the security risk.  I am a fairly relaxed parent, but observant. I believe that children should learn through experience and make their own choices to solve challenges.  However, it is challenging, as they get older, to know what is happening in their personal lives, let alone in their online world.

Back to reason two for removing the laptops, my son was zealously playing a real-time game online while chatting to his friend via Skype on tactics within the game, and with the game in full swing the players were messaging each other.  This is what caught my attention. Being an open family my son did not mind me standing behind him watching the game. The language that was being used within the game by other random participants from who knows where was obscene and I immediately put a stop to the boys continuing with it.  With this in mind, I knew that I had to be more vigilant with watching what my kids were doing and who they were talking to online. This was a miniscule incident compared to what might have happened, and made me realize the personal security risk that I was allowing my child to be exposed to.

As our existence is transferred into the digital world, we become more vulnerable to the emerging cyber threats. The Internet is a fascinating world – it entices people to join in and overshadows reality for children and adults alike.  Then once it has its claws in you, it drags you further into its world of fantasy and online (un) reality. As we interact more closely within the cyber realm, dispensing our personal details, daily lives, and sharing information we would in the past have only shared with our closest friends or directly with banks or institutions that required it, users become higher-risk targets for malicious cybercriminals. As with all human interaction there are always fraudsters, scams and stalkers to be conscious of – even the most aware users can be scammed.  Most adults are conscious of the information they share, but are you aware of where it goes? Is the website secure? Is the information kept private or sold? Are your kids aware of the risks?

Cybercrime typically involves stolen credit card numbers, money laundering, attacks on computer networks, botnets and other activities which impact international, national and personal networks and accounts. 2011 has seen increased cybercrime in a wider scope of areas, from social networking and mobile apps, the shortening of URLS for messaging, the new mobile devices which are more vulnerable to malware, Trojans and password scams, “friendly fire” (messages from friends containing viruses), botnets, and cyberespionage. Read more about these here.

So what do these cybercriminals look for? Mainly for information on social networks and micro-blogging sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to access and steal personal information to scam money from you via authentic looking emails. Financial banking and credit card phishing attacks with accurate details look realistic and legitimate and are aimed at persuading people to divulge their personal information such as bank account details, identity or social security numbers, etc.

Facebook recently revealed, on its official blog, that there has been an increase in scams where cybercriminals log onto user accounts, pose as that person and ask their “friends” for money.  Where kids are concerned, this can be used to update their online status to embarrass them and can ultimately lead to cyber bullying and stalking.

With this in mind there are some basic steps that users can take to safeguard their interests and personal information.

• Don’t open emails or attachments that look suspicious, delete them.
• Be aware of the latest scams and be cautious in dealing with them.
• Ensure that your system has the latest anti-virus software.
• Unsubscribe from legitimate mailing lists you no longer want to receive.
• Do not rely on links within emails or websites, rather type web addresses directly into your browser.
• Don’t let emails sit in your physical mailbox for too long.
• Clear Internet browsing data, including cookies and temporary files, after making an online purchase.
• Keep your online banking details, passwords and pins private and secure.
• Only shop online at trusted sites.
• Add content filtering software to all your pc’s to ensure that your kids are not exposed to unsavory content.
• Be aware of giving out information too freely. Use the privacy options that social networking sites offer and be careful of who you chat with and make virtual friends with.
• Ensure your kids are aware of the dangers and privacy requirements. Be their “friend” on social networking sites, but don’t embarrass them if they do something untoward, rather talk with them offline to ensure they learn the “correct” techniques and usages.

With new technology, social networking, websites, apps and device development emerging all the time, cybercrime is increasing and constantly changing its form.  Users need to be aware of what crimes are being committed and how to prevent them.  Don’t let this impede your use of the Internet, rather let it be a guide to better  your online housekeeping and overall cyber experience.

Mikko Hypponen: Fighting viruses, defending the net

Facebook has been my favourite savvy networking site since 2004, its mission to make the world more open and connected.  Its goal over the past few years was to become the biggest social network in the world.  With 800 million subscribers that goal seems to have been achieved, and now Facebook wants to become the social layer that supports, powers and connects every single piece of the web, no matter who or what it is or where it lives.

And this is just what they are slowly rolling out to all their subscribers, love it or hate it. A few months from now you won’t remember what the old Facebook looked like.

So what are some of the new features that Facebook is offering us? Over the next three days I’ll take a look at Lists, Subscribe, and the much talked about Timeline.

Let’s start with Friend Lists. Friend lists allow you to make the decision to see and subscribe to the information of friends you are most interested in.

Find Lists on the Left Hand Side of your screen

Friend Lists enables you to decide which updates you actually want to see and what information you want to post to which people.   There are three new innovative improvements to how you choose your friends; Smart Lists, Close Friends and Acquaintances Lists, and you can make your own Lists. Smart Lists automatically creates lists for you using your profile to select city, work, family and school lists, however other lists must be made manually (think Google +).

You can also add or remove friends manually to make the lists even more accurate.

Your friends can see the other people’s names on the list you’ve shared, giving them more context and allowing them to either be more open or restricted in their comments.

The Restricted list allows you to limit friends to only see your public posts. You will still be friends on Facebook so you can still connect if you want, and if you don’t, there is less need to awkwardly defriend them.

The Better Suggestions option, is where Facebook suggest friends for your smart lists, Close Friends, Acquaintances, and your own lists, making it easier to add the right friends to the right lists.

Select Lists on the Left hand side, to edit

To select the type of information you would like to view from your Friends, go to the “Choose Update Types” on the Manage Lists drop down box, top right corner and select the updates you would like to be shown e.g. Status updates, photos, games, etc.

Wouldn’t it be great to share with exactly who you want to? Well you can now. To use this great feature look for the Lists section on the left side of your homepage and click the list you want to see. It has its own News Feed, so you can see the photos, status updates and other posts of the people on the list you have selected.

When you want to share something with a smaller group of friends, you can select the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and simply pick one of your lists to share with.

Create your own Lists

Manage Lists on the Top Right Hand of screen. This is not a Smart List the Delete Option is available

Manage List, this is a Smart List. Delete option is not available

Finally choose who sees what on your profile by using the audience selector next to each detail on your profile.

Scroll over the Pen tool on the left of the Feed you would like to Edit

You can Edit all settings here

My only criticism about the Friend Lists is that you cannot delete certain Smart Lists. The school you attended would be a Smart List, however I now have 3 schools and even when I delete the school in my Personal Information the lists do not disappear and there is no delete option.  The merge function would not allow me to combine the 3 lists together either, so I am now stuck with these lists.  The use should be allowed to delete lists.  The saving grace here is that you can Hide a list.

Read more on Friend Lists here. Tomorrow I’ll look into the new “subscribe” features.

It's time for Arabic hashtags!

If you are an Arabic speaker and on Twitter, you’ve probably come across the increasing demands from the Arabic-speaking community in Qatar and the Arab world for Twitter to start supporting Arabic hashtags.

With the #letstweetinarabic movement going strong in Qatar and spreading in other Arab countries, Twitter is increasingly becoming a hub for quality Arabic e-content. But users in the Arab world are want more from Twitter than just their great platform – they want to be able to index their content in their own language through Arabic hashtags that match the Arabic e-content that they’re creating there.

We want more than just a hashtag though. We also want Twitter’s support of an Arabic interface that allows users to have Arabic usernames, index content via Arabic hashtags and have their profile settings and site-wide instructions in the Arabic language. This is a move that other social networking websites, most notably Facebook, have already taken in recognition of the great numbers of users from the Arab world.

But for now let’s focus on the hastags and why having Arabic hashtags is important– and  yes we did have to use the English #letstweetinarabic for our Arabic campaign!

Here are ten reasons why I think Twitter needs to support Arabic hashtags:

1. Arabic Content Indexing: It’s simple – the main function of Twitter hashtags is that they help organize Twitter streams and index content just like a funnel in which a variety of content goes through or a book with millions of pages that needs an index to help readers recognize the various topics rather than browsing millions of pages. With over 22 million tweets generated by users from the Arab word during the first quarter of 2011 (as per the Dubai School of Governance Twitter Report), it is evident that content indexing in Arabic is quite needed at the moment.
2. Increase Opportunities for Arabic Speakers’ Usage of Twitter: Recent figures say the estimated figure of the active Twitter users in the Arab world is around 1.15 million (out of an estimated Arabic Twitter population of over 6 million). Not all of these users are equally proficient in English & Arabic and the latter remains their native language. An Arabic Twitter interface, and subsequently, an Arabic Twitter hashtag means wider access for those who either can only read and write Arabic or actually prefer to express their thoughts and tweet in Arabic.
3. Increase Quantity of Arabic e-Content on Twitter: The current tweeting rate in the Arab world is around 252,000 tweets a day which means 175 tweets a minute or 3 tweets per second. Arabic hashtags will motivate users to post more tweets, knowing that they can easily index them in Arabic.
4. Widening the Reach of Arabic e-content posted on Twitter: Hashtags facilitate re-tweeting, improves content visibility and increases the probability of people seeing the indexed content and acting upon it. Having this for Arabic e-content will certainly increase the amount of Arabic tweets hence the percentage of Arabic e-content posted on Twitter as a platform.
5. Improving the Interactivity of Arabic e-Content Posted on Twitter: we all know that Twitter isn’t just about posting tweets – that’s just a small part of it. If you are familiar with Klout scores, you probably know that your Klout score will not go up unless your followers act upon your content. Since hashtags allow for more content visibility, this opens more conversation streams around the indexed topic and with Arabic hashtags, and more conversations can easily arise among Arabic speakers.
6. Better Usability, Easier Search: For Arabic speakers, searching for Arabic themes or topics using English hashtags can be a daunting process due to a major linguistic difference between Arabic and English. Due to the absence of Arabic language support in various social sites and apps, Arabic users have turned to an “English-Arabic” style whereby they write Arabic words using English language characters(Latin characters) to compensate for the lack of Arabic support. Arabic hashtags will guarantee better usability in that regard, as users will no longer have to express meanings using dispersed, multiple ways in English. For example, to hashtag a topic for العربية, there are over 5 or 6 ways an English hashtag can be written (#3arabeya, #3arabiya, #3arabeyah, arabeyah..etc). Like Internationalized Internet Domains, Arabic hashtags will unify this process and have users no longer guessing how to index using Latin characters.
7. More Trending Opportunities, Better Visibility: We all check daily for the top trending topics on Twitter and they are all (or mostly) top trending hashtags. With Arabic hashtags being activated and supported on Twitter, this increases chances that they could make it to the top trending topics as long as there are sufficient conversations around them. This allows not just for better visibility for Arabic e-content, but also grows global conversations around those topics for all Arabic speaking people around the world who, yes, are not just located in the Middle East.
8. Equal Importance Assigned to Arabic: Twitter now supports Latin languages (French, English, Italian..etc), Russian, Korean, Chinese and most recently Japanese. With all these languages supported, Arabic hashtags will be a move that gives equal importance to the Arabic language.
9. Matching Rising Twitter Usage Figures in the Arab World: Like any product, it’s all about supply & demand. Demand for Twitter in the Arab world is definitely growing, especially since the beginning of 2011. In a country like Qatar, Twitter usage is booming to an extent that Qatar is now the top Arab country in terms of Twitter penetration (an assessment of active Twitter users divided by total population figures – a percentage that has become close to 8% by Q1 2011). More demand means higher need for supply – whether in terms of technical support or wider support for other languages such as Arabic.
10. Encouraging the Usage of Arabic Characters: as mentioned in point 6, Arabic hashtags means less dependence of Arab users on Latin-characters equivalents to index Arabic words as topics. More usage of Arabic characters as عربي instead of 3arabi for instance does enhance Arabic e-content in a way and provides less confusion when it comes to content indexing in Arabic.

Let’s start asking Twitter to support hashtags at this link!

Guy Kawasaki at QITCOM

In her address at the opening of QITCOM 2011 ictQATAR’s inaugural Conference and Exhibition, Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber described Guy Kawasaki as “one of the true visionaries of our industry” and said that he is “a clear thinker and an innovator, and I am sure we can all learn from him.” Kawasaki, keynote speaker at QITCOM, went on to enthrall the audience in the  conference hall with insights from his many years of experience in the ICT industry.

His keynote was  a crash course for wannabe entrepreneurs and innovators. If I was asked to sum it all up in one sentence his message was – no matter what, just don’t be discouraged and keep on moving forward. That is also the essence of innovation, the theme for the first day of QITCOM.  Kawasaki shared ten (eleven in fact if you count the “bonus” tip he shared at the end of his keynote) insights that could make or break any innovation. I will talk about a few that I thought really struck a chord.

“Make meaning” – Kawasaki’s first tip – is really a most practical and basic thing when you start something new. If your innovation or idea doesn’t provide a meaningful outcome you can try your best to sell it but no one would notice. The other thing that impressed me was about “jumping to the next curve”.  It is not always about what the idea is about now, but it’s definitely about what it can potentially provide. How can your now be the next big thing? “Don’t be content with doing things 10 or 15 % better,” Kawasaki said, “Think about doing thing 10 times better.”  And when you do the thing 10 times better, do it with a panache, “roll the dice” and have depth in your innovation which equates to having many functionalities; and products “that are smart, complete and elegant”.

He also advised that if you are new to this game of making things, do not wait for the moment when your product is absolutely perfection. Of course that doesn’t mean you start dumping junk products in the market but once you have on hand a product that has some great elements, just ship it out. Once you ship your product out you might face another dilemma – all the marketing research and strategy that you based your target market on might fail.  The people the product is designed for may not buy. They may not use it for what you thought they would. In such a situation, let the market decide what the innovative product can do or what it will be used for. Kawasaki’s advice: take your best shot at making an innovative product, market it the best you can and then just wait and see how people and markets embrace it.

Create a niche for yourself by creating an innovation that provides the highest value to the consumer and has the highest uniqueness. I was wondering what he meant by the “highest uniqueness” when Kawasaki elaborated. Your product is unique if it addresses something missing in the market…something that only you can do and something that the market and the end users find remarkable.

Kawasaki concluded his keynote with this simple tip that he says is really effective is presenting your ideas or products in a really effective manner. This was the 10-20-30 rule for PowerPoint presentations –

• 10: the maximum and most effective number of slides you should have in your presentation
• 20: the maximum and optimum amount of time you should spend in explaining these 10 slides
• 30: the optimum font size for emphasis

And it was his concluding tip that I like very much, especially the “20 minutes” part despite the fact that Kawasaki’s last slide was numbered 61! You can access Kawasaki’s presentation here or watch it below.