David Lidsky's Blog, page 3416

Polyvore's Mix–And–Match Platform For Fashionistas Comes To The iPad

Polyvore is bringing its mix–and–match collage creation platform for fashionistas and home décor enthusiasts to the iPad with a new app out today.

Like Polyvore for iPhone or the desktop, the iPad app lets users create and share "sets" by mixing and matching different products to create a single, cohesive look. A "Feed" tab delivers a running newsfeed of looks from Polyvore users you follow, and a "Trends" tab displays which sets are popular in the greater community. Every product can be purchased through third–party retailers, and Polyvore takes a commission on each sale.

CEO Jess Lee says Polyvore's 20 million unique visitors a month currently spend three times as much time on mobile than they do on desktop and "expects the same from the iPad." Lee and Polyvore's senior product manager for mobile, Vishwa Ranjan, say the iPad version places heavy emphasis on what Lee refers to as "serendipitous discovery of products." The search bar, for example, refreshes itself every few hours with a preset list of trending items users are searching for, like "acetate sunglasses" or "wool fedoras." And a "Similar" feature lets you see how multiple users style the same item into different looks.

Ranjan says the goal is to easily show users all the products that go into a look at once. "You don't buy a shoe in isolation."

       

FAA Says You Can Use Your Electronics Throughout Your Entire Flight

Frequent flyers––you won! You can now continue playing Candy Crush on your iPhone (or read Fast Company on your iPad) even as your flight is taking off or landing. The Federal Aviation Administration has finally relaxed the restrictions on in–flight electronics usage. New regulations allow passengers to use e–book readers, play games, and watch videos on devices in airplane mode.

The changes are based on input from a group of experts including airline representatives, aviation manufacturers, passenger advocates, pilots, flight attendants, and the mobile technology industry. They come more than month after a formal recommendation from a federal advisory panel of government and aviation industry officials.

The only caveat here is that airlines will have to prove to the FAA that their planes allow passengers to safely use their devices gate–to–gate. While the FAA has eased restrictions, individual airlines still have to prove to the FDA that in–air electronics during takeoff and landing are safe for their fleet. Delta Air Lines, for instance, is already seeking FAA approval to allow customers to use portable electronic devices below 10,000 feet and could get it as soon as November 1.

       

The State Department Partners With Coursera To Support Free Education In Over 30 countries

You're a smart kid in a poor country with subpar universities. Option #1: Leave to attend college somewhere else, like the US. Option #2: Go online and try to teach yourself.

Now, there's a middle path.

Beginning this fall, U.S. embassies around the world are hosting weekly discussions for students enrolled in free online courses, called MOOCs, in partnership with Coursera, the Silicon Valley–based platform with over 5 million users. Embassy employees and Fulbright fellows (Fulbright being an academic exchange program sponsored by the State Department) will volunteer to host the discussions. There will be over 30 sites to begin with, in countries like India, China, and Bolivia. Topics include English, science, technology, engineering, business, and U.S. civics.

"The State Department and USAID promote a more peaceful, prosperous world, and we all know one of the best ways to get there is to ensure that all people have access to high–quality education," says Meghann Curtis, deputy assistant secretary for academic programs at the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which is running the "MOOC Camp" program. "We saw MOOCs as this great tool to achieve a number of goals," she says.

It gave me, like, a taste of what is first–world education.

"It gave me, like, a taste of what is first world education," said Alejandra B., a 21–year–old student studying business at a Catholic university in La Paz, Bolivia. She started the MOOC Camp in September, meeting weekly with other students who were taking Foundations of Business Strategy, a Coursera course taught by Michael Lenox at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Alejandra liked learning the real–world case studies and how to write a business plan.

The La Paz example was an exceptional one. In addition to going over the materials in the MOOC, facilitator Yuki Kondo–Shah, an assistant cultural affairs officer in her first post, arranged video chats with U.S. entrepreneurs, like the founder of Disqus and Fundly. And the embassy is following up with a business plan competition for local students, with an iPad Mini as the prize. Alejandra is working on a website that gathers data about rural areas in Bolivia. "I've been fascinated with MOOCs ever since they came out," says Kondo–Shah. "I thought this would be a great opportunity to work with Bolivian students and get them exposed to American–style education."

The State Department's sponsorship of this project isn't all altruistic. They have the official goal of having more foreigners learn English and experience the U.S. education system. Every participant in a "MOOC Camp" will meet with an advisor from State's EducationUSA program, which helps international students go to U.S. colleges.

For its part, Coursera is providing training resources for facilitators. It will be tracking students' success through the platform. The idea is that people will find it easier to persist and succeed in the online, video–based interactive courses when they have the chance to get in–person support from facilitators and from peers. Increasing student success through this so–called "blended learning" approach is pretty important for Coursera and the other MOOC platforms. Globally, 90% of those who enroll in the online courses created by professors at universities like Stanford, Pennsylvania State University, Wesleyan, and Yale don't finish.

There's some interesting political undertones to this experiment. Although MOOC platforms have partner institutions located around the world, the very idea of MOOCs has been labeled "cultural imperialism" for broadcasting courses created at elite institutions. This impression can only be enhanced when a MOOC program is literally sponsored by the U.S. government for U.S. diplomatic reasons.

Also, MOOC Camp is running in some countries not known for freedom of speech, like China and the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and it'll be interesting to see how the American liberal arts approach to classroom discussion flies in such settings––especially when the topic is U.S. power itself.

"We see this as an opportunity to draw an audience and create a forum for open and spirited discussion," says Curtis. "One of the classes is American foreign policy. I think that will make an extremely rich forum to debate the issues."

       

Target Pins Its Hopes On Pinterest This Holiday Season

Everyone from designer and event planner David Stark to that elusive Elf on a Shelf character will be featured in Target's "My Kind of Holiday" campaign, which is aimed at digitally connected, time–pressured moms.

David Stark

"It is the most digitally enabled campaign in our history," says Target executive vice president and chief marketing officer Jeff Jones. "What that means is we'll still do broad reach––mass things like TV and weekly ads. But we think that we have an opportunity this year to just be more personal, more targeted, and more timely than we ever have, and social channels enable us to do that."

While Facebook and Twitter will play key roles in the campaign, Pinterest is the hub of the "My Kind of Holiday" effort.

Starting in mid–November, Pinterest will host the party planning resource Best.Party.Ever., curated by Stark. While he will create boards for the general public, Stark will also generate personalized boards for select Target REDCard members, providing them with ideas, how–to demonstrations, and product recommendations depending on what kind of party, event, or celebration they are organizing. It's an ambitious effort––according to Jones, Stark is slated to produce individualized boards for "in the neighborhood of 500 people."

Target will also post shoppable holiday catalog–style Pinterest boards; top–pinned Target items from Pinterest will be showcased in stores and on Target.com; and, just for kicks, an Elf on the Shelf–themed board will provide parents tips on creative places to stash those elves who show up just after Thanksgiving and hang around the house, keeping an eye on the kids so they can tell Santa Claus who has been naughty and who has been nice.

Target's ties to Pinterest will be promoted in a TV spot titled "Inspiration."

So why the Pinterest push? "Last year at holiday time, we did a few things with Pinterest, but we didn't do all we could," Jones says.

Still, Target's boards were a popular Pinterest destination. In fact, a study by Curalate that was commissioned by Social@Ogilvy revealed Target was the most shared brand on Pinterest last December.

Inspired by that revelation to do more with the content sharing service, Target worked with Pinterest last spring to pilot Rich Pins, a technology enabling pins enhanced with product information like price and availability. These Rich Pins were a hit, resulting in a 70% increase in visits to Target.com from Pinterest, according to Jones, who says that huge bump in traffic from Pinterest––as well as the aforementioned study––gave Target the confidence to partner more heavily with Pinterest this holiday season.

Target has ramped up its overall efforts to integrate commerce into the social space in 2013. Earlier this year, the brand worked with Facebook to develop Cartwheel, a personalized savings app. "We're about six months in, but we now have over 2 million users," Jones reports, "and we expect by the end of this year that Cartwheel users will have created about $100 million in sales and saved over $7 million by using Cartwheel."

The brand will continue to experiment with various partners in the hopes of staying at the forefront of the modern–day shopping experience. "It's very important to Target. If you just look at our 50–year heritage of innovation as a company, it's in the DNA of Target," Jones says, "and as a marketer, I basically believe that we have to do the things that work as long as they do while at the same time figuring out what's next."

       

Infographic: A Map Of Hell On Earth

You don't have to be religious to believe in Satan, because the devil is all around us. Literally. He's in our canyons, mountains, harbors, waterfalls, orchards, and streets. He is the very landscape of America.

See for yourself on The United States Devil Map, a creation by Jonathan Hull that highlights the many U.S. landmarks named after the Devil and Hell. Hull was inspired to build the map while hiking across the Utah landscape, where he encountered places like Valley of the Gods and Devil's Garden. So he began collecting names to construct a map.

Originally, he was attracted to a broad swath of generally dark and demonic names, like Death Valley and Goblin Valley. "But that was making for a very long list," he tells Co.Design, "so I kept to 'Devil' and 'Hell' and a few close permutations." Evidently, there was plenty of fodder, because the resulting U.S. map's squeezed print is just barely legible on a computer screen.

Permutations include Devil's Cornfield, Devil's Rocking Chair, and, my personal favorite, Devil's Postpile. Interestingly, Hull found that geographical locations with evil–sounding anatomy abound. "There are an awful lot of Devil's Elbows around. Backbones made sense, but so many other features, such as Devil's Nose––I didn't expect so many," he writes. "One also has to wonder how you end up with residential street names such as Beelzebub Road in Connecticut or Evil Lane in Illinois."

Regionally, some curious themes emerge. Populated areas of the midwest are fairly devoid of demonic imagery, while sparsely populated western states are bursting with the nomenclature. No doubt, mountain ranges and rock outcroppings lend themselves to dark imagery more than endless plains. But what about the strong representation in the northeast? Hull theorizes that Puritan roots may account for all of that evil terminology.

"Religious or not, I think we have a perception of hell and the devil as at least a concept––one can have a hellish day with or without believing in an afterlife," Hull explains. "Thus, applying those to names, I think that the concept of something treacherous, extreme, or remote still conjures up the names 'Devil' and 'Hell' regardless of religious specifics."

Indeed, even if you don't believe in Hell, it's somewhere we'd all rather not visit.

See more here.

[Hat tip: Visualizing]

       

Facebook Mobile Ad Revenue Rockets 478% Year–Over–Year

Today, Facebook released its results for the third quarter. With $2.02 billion in revenue, the company beat expectations and its share price surged, rising at least 10% in after–hours trading.

The world's largest social network continued to post impressive figures––for one, monthly active users shot up 18%, to 1.19 billion. But perhaps the most impressive number is from Facebook's mobile growth. According to its earnings report, monthly mobile active users jumped to 874 million, a 45% uptick year–over–year. What's more, mobile revenue accounted for nearly half of Facebook's total advertising revenue for the quarter, a sign that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has impressively answered his harshest critics with gusto.

It's a remarkable feat for the company, which had long been chastised for not doing enough to spur growth in mobile, where most of its users were gravitating. During the same quarter last year, mobile ad revenue represented just 14% of Facebook's total advertising revenue, or $152.6 million. Now, mobile represents 49% of Facebook's ad revenue, or $882 million––a roughly 478% increase in mobile revenue, year–over–year.

For Facebook users, the growth perhaps comes as no surprise, with ads now peppered throughout the company's mobile apps. For shareholders, though, the growth is welcome news––and it serves as a sign of more to come, with Facebook expected to launch more video ads on its service, and the roll out of Instagram sponsored ads already underway.

       

Is Apple Maps Finally Getting Ready To Tackle Public Transit?

Some recent job postings over at Apple hint the company has big plans to finally, just maybe, bring public transit information to the infamous Apple Maps.

The lack of mass–transit directions has been one of the more vocalized complains about Apple's native Maps app, but in the job descriptions for a "Maps Public Transit Engineering Manager" and a "Maps C++ Software Engineer – Public Transit," spotted by Ars Technica, Apple teases: "You will work on one of the most anticipated features of Apple Maps."

Apple has acquired a number of smaller, public–transit appmakers like HopStop and Embark––perhaps they're all about to come together.

Let's just hope these directions don't lead us to another airport runway.

       

Yahoo Says That Killing Working From Home Is Turning Out Perfectly

When Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer banned her 12,000 employees from working from home in February, her all–hands–on–deck ultimatum ignited a national debate on the merits of cloudworking that still rages. Silicon Valley's fair–haired wunderkind was alternately mocked and condemned by the likes of Maureen Dowd and Richard Branson, while pundits declared she'd made "a terrible mistake." Some even wondered whether Mayer was trying to make them quit.

Mayer was finally hounded into addressing the issue in April, acknowledging her critics' contention that "people are more productive when they're alone," and then stressing "but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together." Eight months later, Yahoo insists Mayer was right. (And earlier this month, HP's Meg Whitman followed suit.)

The workplace has become a catalyst for energy and buzz.

Despite predictions of "epic policy failure," in the words of Julie Ford–Tempesta, Yahoo's senior director of real estate and workplace, "employee engagement is up, product launches have increased significantly, and agile teams are thriving," adding, "The workplace has become a catalyst for energy and buzz." Ford–Tempesta's comments were included in a paper called The Power of Presence: Being Present In a Virtual World, published last week at the CoreNet Global Summit in Las Vegas, where several thousand real estate execs gathered to debate the future of the office. (Full disclosure: I was an unpaid speaker at the event.)

The author of the report, Steve Hargis has spent the last six months advising Yahoo on an overhaul of its Sunnyvale headquarters in his role as an executive vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle, which handles the company's outsourced real estate. "Most of the campus is still the old–style cubicles," he says, but several floors have been remade in the image of the 300 to 400 agile programming teams charged with overhauling Yahoo's aging Web services and dragging them into the mobile era. These are the spaces packed with stand–up desks and scrum boards––not to mention employees. "The difference between the two is so visible it's become a marketing tool," says Hargis. "People are saying, 'Wait a minute, I want to be over there."

Using totally different tactics, the office of headset manufacturer Plantronics is designed to actively encourage employees to work at home.

But does this anecdotal evidence constitute success? In the report, Yahoo's Ford–Tempesta points to the near–doubling of the stock price since the beginning of the year, an assertion which is dubious at best considering how much of that value is tied up in the company's 24% stake in the soon–to–IPO Alibaba, while its third quarter revenues and profits are both down compared to a year ago.

There is definitely merit to the idea, however, that bringing its agile programming teams together in the same place at the same time can have a small but crucial impact on performance. In his book People Analytics, MIT visiting scientist Ben Waber discusses the role of dependencies for programmers, that teams must coordinate closely to ensure their code meshes well. Citing others' research as well as his own, Waber argues remote programmers are 8% less likely than co–located groups to communicate about dependencies, which translates to 32% longer code completion times––or death when you're already as lumbering as Yahoo. "For Yahoo, then, this means their workforce becomes about 3% more effective with the stroke of a pen," Waber wrote, the value of which he pegs at $150 million.

That may not be quite as much as the $17 billion in market cap that the report lays at the feet of killing working from home, but Mayer certainly doesn't have to say she's sorry, either.

       

Microsoft's Kinect Is Now A Sign Language Translator

A new Microsoft Research project has achieved a major milestone: Real–time machine translation of sign language using Kinect. Researchers in China created the prototype Kinect Sign Language Translator, which understands multiple sign languages and translates them into Chinese in real time using Kinect's sensor set––and vice versa. Professor Xilin Chen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who worked on the project, said in a release that "We knew that information technology, especially computer technology, has grown up very fast. So from my point of view, I thought this is the right time to develop some technology to help [the deaf community]. That's the motivation."

The Chinese team, working with Microsoft Research Asia, combined Kinect's sensors with machine translation technology for the multi–year project. According to Microsoft Research, one long–term goal for the project is to ease communication for sign language speakers in commercial and employment settings.

       

Virgin America Made An Airplane Safety Video You'll Actually Want To Watch

Airline safety announcements just got a lot cooler, thanks to Virgin America's new music video,