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Building Mobile Applications / OpenCourseWare

Building Mobile Applications / OpenCourseWare

Social Network Wars: How The Five Major Platforms Stack Up [INFOGRAPHIC] Most people don't have the social steam to power a presence on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. Sure, there are handy apps like Twitterfeed and Hootsuite that can help spread one post to all of your networks, but that ignores the individual strengths and weaknesses of each platform. When it comes time to pick and choose where you post, this chart can help you decide what's appropriate for you. Infographic design by Emily Caufield. Ignore the naysayers: Twitter is what you make it However, Twitter is still relatively small and its users need to remember that the vast majority of people aren't on it. What follows, then, is for those people who are sceptical of Twitter or who just don't understand the point of it. I asked my Twitter followers to suggest the most common areas of misunderstanding for new users on the site. Below are some pointers based on the feedback I received. What is it for? Twitter sceptics often complain that they have no interest in knowing what other people have had for breakfast. That’s a mistake. 140 characters is ideal for sharing a link to a good article or video. How does it work? This asynchronous aspect of Twitter is at the heart of the confusion about the service. ‘I don’t have anything to say’ Still, for many people, the focus of Twitter is the box on the page that asks “What’s happening?”. However, Twitter isn’t reliant on you saying anything at all.

The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic UPDATE: We have published a new version of this popular Infographic here -> which covers data up through November 2013. Say what you will about the tidal wave that is social media: it’s over-hyped, a fad halfway through its 15 minutes, that <insert social network, platform, app> surely won’t be around in a few years’ time. But take a look below at the steep curve of the user growth rate in all age ranges and demographics, and the continuing pervasiveness of social networking into every facet of work, play and life in general. It’s hard to argue that social media hasn’t changed forever how we interact and connect online. This is part of a special infographic series by Search Engine Journal. Also available in PDF format here. Jenise is CEO of Alpha Brand Media, publisher of Search Engine Journal.

convert SWF files to HTML5 By Marcel Gordon, Product Manager, Swiffy Some Google projects really do start from one person hacking around. Last summer, an engineering intern named Pieter Senster joined the mobile advertising team to explore how we could display Flash animations on devices that don’t support Adobe Flash player. Pieter made such great progress that Google hired him full time and formed a team to work on the project. Swiffy was born! Today we’re making the first version of Swiffy available on Google Labs. Swiffy uses a compact JSON representation of the animation, which is rendered using SVG and a bit of HTML5 and CSS3. Swiffy is a great example of how far the web platform has come.

The 5 Models Of Content Curation Curation has always been an underrated form of creation. The Getty Center in Los Angeles is one of the most frequently visited museums in America – and started as a private art collection from one man (J. Paul Getty) who had a passion for art. One of the hottest trends in social media right now is content curation – thanks in no small part to the leading efforts of several thought leaders actively promoting the idea. What Is Content Curation? Back in 2009 I published a blog post called the “Manifesto For The Content Curator” which predicted that this role would be one of the fastest growing and most important jobs of the future. Content Curation is a term that describes the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue. The 5 Models Of Content Curation Content curation is certainly an emerging space and one where more and more thought leaders will continue to share their voices. Interested in learning more about content curation?

It’s A Facebook World … Other Social Networks Just Live In It Twice a year (in June and in December), Vincenzo Cosenza creates a “world map of social networks”, showing the dominant social networks by country, based on traffic data gathered from Alexa and Google Trends for Websites. In June 2009, Facebook was already quite big, and at the end of that year its accelerating growth became even more apparent. By December 2010, the map colored bluer than ever. The trend shows no signs of stopping this year. You can see an animated version of the different maps here. How Online Education Is Changing the Way We Learn [INFOGRAPHIC] Over the past decade or so, the Internet has become a huge source of information and education, especially for those who might be short on time, money or other resources. And it's not just crowdsourced data collections like Wikipedia or single-topic blogs that encourage individual learning; huge corporations and nonprofits are making online education and virtual classrooms a very formal affair these days. From the first online classes (which were conducted by the University of Phoenix in 1989) to the present day, when online education is a $34 billion industry, more and more students are finding new life and career education opportunities online. Check out this infographic from OnlineEducation.net about how the world of online learning has changed and grown over the years. Click image to see larger version. [source: Online Education] Top image based on a photograph from iStockphoto user flyingdouglas.

GrabMyBooks: A Firefox Add-On For HTML To ePub Conversions & Making Your Own eBooks Now, is it a happy chance that our lack of time has coincided with the mushrooming of productivity tools and apps; more likely its necessity that has been the mother of invention. This catchphrase is summed by the very useful Firefox experimental add-on called GrabMyBooks. GrabMyBooks is your browser based tool that can grab content from any webpage (or the entire webpage itself) and compile it in a very readable ePub format for your digital handhelds or eBook readers. The best thing about GrabMyBooks is that it works right from your browser. Just after you download the Firefox plugin you can put it into action the following three ways to ‘grab’ content. Grab a Selection Selecting text of course, copies only that part into your ePub file. Grab a Link Selecting a link grabs the content that the link points to and helps you to quickly add content when building your ePub file. Grab a Webpage This command lets you grab the entire visible webpage in one go.

How Twitter Works as a Q&A App [INFOGRAPHIC] If you think about it, Twitter actually serves as one of the most widely used and engaging Q&A apps. Around 3 million questions are asked on Twitter each month, and the questions range from tech support and product recommendation requests to job and relationship advice, as well as pleas for new music. And the more followers you have, the more likely you are to ask them questions publicly. People with fewer followers tend to send questions via direct messages. But around 20-30% of asked questions never get answered. The below infographic from Q&A service InboxQ contains tons of fun — and valuable — facts about how Twitter is being used by average folks and businesses to ask and answer questions. Twitter, like many modern social media tools, can be just about anything you want to make it. Click image to see larger version. [Source: InboxQ]

App, App and Away: Workshop Handout #open4ed #GAS « MASHe Friday (20th May) was our Open for Education event. There was a real buzz as over 100 delegates squeezed into the NeSC to absorb a packed programme of open and free stuff. Once we get the videos from the event up I should do a separate post to highlight some of the best bits. In the meantime below is video and workshop handout from my App, App and Away workshop. I'm already working on version 2 for e-Assessment Scotland Conference on the 26th August. Handout This guide was written to support the App, App and Away workshop might be delivered on the 20th May 2011 as part of Open for Education event (unless otherwise stated available under CC-BY-SA). 1. Some more background on Google Docs has been collected by EdTechTeam (CC-BY-SA 3.0) 1.1 What is Google Docs? 1.2 Interactive Overview (with Links to Help Pages): 2. 2.1 Key resources 2.2 What you can interact with 3. 4. Activity 5. - Enable Service Example

Infographic: A Look At The Size And Shape Of The Geosocial Universe In 2011 Thanks to Jesse Thomas of interactive design agency JESS3, we now have an updated look at the structure of the geosocial universe as it exists in anno domini 2011. It wasn’t so long ago that the International Astronomical Union booted Pluto out of the solar system or that MySpace was overtaking Yahoo! and Google as the most-visited site in the U.S. As you’ll see, Thomas’ infographic shows the current size of major social networks as well as the other well-known online services we use on a daily basis relative to their peers. Some other notable trends in the geosocial universe, courtesy of JESS3: Mobile: 5.3 billion mobile devices are used worldwide — that’s 77 percent of the world’s populationSmartphones: 21.8 percent of all mobile devices are smartphones.

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