If Only I Had a Smartphone...

A couple of months ago while I was vacationing in St. Louis, I found myself wanting to try something different for dinner and had two options; either drive around an unfamiliar city and hope I found something interesting, or ditch my plans to be spontaneous.

Since I didn't have a laptop with me in the car to search for a restaurant (and definitely did not trust my navigation skills), I had to settle for room service pizza and a pop from the vending machine.

But if I'd had one of the new augmented reality apps that are quickly gaining ground in the mobile smartphone industry, I may have had a few more options.

The general idea is that these augmented reality (AR) apps utilize your phone's camera, internal compass and GPS to change (or augment) what you see through the camera.

For example, you can aim your phone's camera at a street and apps like Layar or Yelp will show the names and reviews for the different buildings (or restaurants) on the screen.

And while the technology is obviously still being tweaked and perfected, more and more of these AR apps seem to be popping up for both iPhones and Android phones. These apps seem to be capable of everything from viewing Wikipedia entries for different tourist attractions to digitally shooting your friends and family with a machine gun.

Whether these AR apps are the future or just a fad has yet to be seen, but either way they are proving that smartphones are providing a ton of new opportunities for innovation.

Now if only I had a smartphone instead of my cracked, brick-of-a-phone from 6 years ago.

Socially Transmitted Diseases

When syphilis cases increased 400% in certain areas of Britain, naturally one of their public health directors
looked into it.

His conclusion? Facebook causes syphilis.

That's right. Because the syphilis-ridden areas of Britain also happened to be Facebook hot-spots, Professor Peter Kelly claimed he'd found a link between social networking sites like Facebook and the spread of the disease.

This bold (if not ridiculous) statement was met with criticism from both Mashable and TechCrunch.

Granted, social networks can make it easier for people to "meet up", which can increase the chance of negative consequences like syphilis. But by that same logic, I could have blamed my coffee mug for the stain on my shirt yesterday. The mug made it easier for me to drink coffee, which increased the chance of me spilling. Like I said, ridiculous.

The bottom line is Facebook doesn't cause syphilis...stupid decisions do.

So, is Britain's syphilis spike alarming? Sure, but that doesn't mean Facebook's +400 million users should race to the nearest clinic or start stockpiling penicillin.

Foursquare Upgrades from Grande to Venti

Despite heavy competition from sites like Gowalla and Yelp, Foursquare is quickly making a name for itself as the king of location-based social networking. And this new-found fame has led to a string of major partnerships with several big brands.

One of the earliest companies to try out Foursquare as a business option was Tasti D-Lite. The popular frozen dessert chain launched their TastiRewards program, which allows customers to couple their Tasti D-Lite reward cards with their Foursquare accounts to give them more reward points. If they check in from a Tasti D-Lite location, then they get points. These points can then be redeemed for free or discounted treats.

After the success of the Tasti D-Lite/Foursquare partnership, other companies took a serious look at location-based mobile service, especially those in the entertainment industry. In particular, the Bravo Network really took steps to increase fan interaction through Foursquare, allowing fans of the network to play along with their favorite shows. Foursquare users can earn badges by checking in from locations mentioned on the network and be eligible to win prizes.

Now it seems like another big-name brand has partnered up with the 1 year-old start-up. Starbucks plans to test out an experimental customer rewards program, and would eventually like to use Foursquare to give frequent customers with incentives ranging from coupons for free coffee to invitations to special events, although the specifics are still in the works. Starbucks also created a "Barista badge" that is given out after 5 checkins, complete with the iconic Starbucks coffee cup and logo.

What I'm looking forward to is seeing if Foursquare eventually expands the Barista badge to include all coffee shops (like they have for their Gym Rat badge, which is rewarded after 10 trips to any gym in a 30-day span), or if it will remain a Starbucks exclusive.

Even more importantly, partnering with huge companies like Starbucks and the Bravo Network may legitimize Foursquare as a viable business option, and will open the doors for further business developments with location-based mobile services.

Google’s Ultrahigh-speed Headache

A few weeks ago, I mentioned how Google was working to develop ultrahigh-speed Internet access in a few test communities, which they would then hopefully expand to the whole country. It was quite the pitch, and with the proposed 1-gigabit-per-second connection, it seemed attainable. But according to the Wall Street Journal, this huge undertaking has been hitting a few speedbumps.

While Google has had no trouble finding communities to be their 1-gigabit guinea pigs, the logistics involved to pull off the construction are a bit overwhelming. New fiber optic cables have to be put in place, which means roads will have to be torn up. It’s a massive infrastructure that is apparently proving to be more of an obstacle than Google originally had hoped.

And even if Google does get the infrastructure up and running, there is still the issue of what the super fast connection will actually be able to accomplish. There simply aren’t a lot of online services that require 1-Gb speed. And unfortuntely, it wouldn’t necessarily make all existing services faster, because online traffic can only travel as fast as the slowest link its path.

This means that until 1-Gb connection speed becomes more widespread, streaming a YouTube video on 1-Gb won’t be much faster than it would be on a 200-Mb connection.

But Google’s ultrahigh-speed ship hasn’t sunk quite yet. That’s because Cisco recently announced they are testing Cisco CRS-3, which is a routing system they say is so fast it will allow people to download every movie ever made in 5 minutes.

This is actually good news for Google, because it means more focus and attention will be placed on ultrahigh-speed Internet. This should increase the demand for connection speeds that fast, which in turn means more initiative will be taken to make ultra-high speed Internet a reality. However, until that happens, Google’s Internet innovation may continue to just be an ultrahigh-speed headache.

What to Think of ChatRoulette

By: Steve Retka

Imagine how many times you’ve changed the channel on your TV after 2 or 3 seconds, or how often you’ve hit the shuffle button on your iPod less than 5 notes into a song.

That’s the essence of ChatRoulette: the website pairs you with a random videochat partner. You can stay with who you’re paired with, or click “next” to be reconnected with another random person. There are no filters, no censors and no recording or documentation...which means the site offers more than its fair share of nudity, sexual acts and other obscenities.

Almost every major news network has christened ChatRoulette as the next big thing on the Internet. And most of these networks, including Fox News, have called it a “predator’s paradise,” and one of the worst websites out there.

Sam Anderson of New York Magazine wrote a great article last month that really dove into both the good and bad that ChatRoulette has to offer, concluding that it may indeed be the future of social networking.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at the stats. The website is just a couple of months old, and in November 2009 had less than 500 unique visitors. Granted, that number has spiked from the heavy media attention, jumping to roughly 63,000 in January and February.

To put that number in perspective, Twitter has 24 million visitors, while Facebook has 134 million. I could continue to give example after example of sites with more hits than ChatRoulette, seeing as how it’s ranked somewhere around 30,000 or so.

My point here is that CNN, Fox News and other media outlets will continue labeling ChatRoulette as a dangerous viral sensation, while the blogosphere and social media fans will continue to argue that it’s pioneering how we connect with people.

Is it shocking and intriguing? Sure. Does it have the potential to corrupt young people? Of course. Is it innovative and creative? Without a doubt. But instead of arguing back and forth about it’s impact, remember that’s just a website.

ChatRoulette has created a legal outlet for exhibitionism and free speech, and that of course means there will be those who take advantage of it. And whether you’re delighted or disgusted by ChatRoulette, keep in mind the one trump card of the online universe: you don’t have to use it.