Will Facebook's App Paper Survive?

Facebook recently released it's much hyped app called 'Paper.' This app collects news feeds from your Facebook timeline and is laid out like a magazine. Sound familiar? Well it may for some of you who know of another app called 'Flipboard' that allows people to choose what news they want to read and collect. Facebook has already been accused of stealing the name of this new app and is now receiving criticism for copying Flipboards layout.


Paper and Flipboard share a very similar tiled design that displays news in a grid pattern. However what separates the two is that Paper accentuates interacting with your friends and timeline. These two apps are also very similar in their navigation with Paper's being slightly more complex. Where both of these apps really differ is in their method of finding and reading news. Flipboard makes personalization its first priority and and discovery second. Also, Flipboard focuses on what the users want by allowing them to pick and choose the topics they want to see. While Paper concentrates on alerting readers with trending topics, interaction with your friends, and using broader themes.


Another difference between the two apps is their emphasis on socializing. It's obvious that Facebook's Paper would put social media at the center of their app, while Flipboard's approach to social media is much more subtle. What I find bothersome is it seems that just about anything you can do on the Paper app you can also do on the original Facebook app so why even download it.

This leaves me with a few questions; was Facebook copying Flipboard? Will Paper survive as a news app? Will apps like these replace traditional news websites? Let me know what you think.



Paper vs Flipboard

No more Flappy Bird! A genius move, or a cry for help?

       Whether you have played it or not, in the last couple of weeks you have probably heard of the game "Flappy Bird". It has been the number one downloaded game on iOS and Android for a few weeks. But the real shocker came when the game's creator, Dong Nguyen announced via twitter that he "Cannot take it anymore" and would remove Flappy Bird from the stores 22 hours from Saturday.
       "Cannot take it anymore", like you are probably thinking, I thought, "Really, how much misery could this game have caused this guy to say something like that about a little app?" Especially since Nguyen claimed to be making more than $50,000 a day from in-app advertising from the game. After I thought that no one can really be miserable from making that much money, I began to think, in contrast to Greg Kumparak in his post, that this is a way to bring about a surge of app downloads.
       Humans tend to value things more when you can no longer get them, and even I, who wanted nothing to do with this game, downloaded it right before it was taken off the app store. Keep in mind, that anyone who has downloaded the app for now, can keep it even though its not available for download. And Nguyen will keep making money off the ads in the game. He has also become famous from his stunt, gaining thousands of more followers on Twitter. So after all this, Nguyen is still making boatloads of money, people keep playing Flappy Bird as best they can, and soon another Internet story will come about and make us angry all over again.

Original Article  posted by Greg Kumparak on February 9, 2014.

Facebook is Stealing Again!

We have all seen the movie The Social Network, the movie that immortalizes the creation of the social media site; Facebook. In that movie we were thrown into the world of Mark Zuckerberg, maker of Facebook, and we witnessed the events that led up to his extraordinary success. Some of those events consisted of blatantly stealing ideas from others and now, in 2014, we are witnessing this again, but in the news.

In an article by Jason Abbruzzese, I learned that Facebook released a new app on Monday called Paper which is the name of an already highly acclaimed app that does essentially the same thing.  The original Paper was created by a company called FiftyThree and has since been named the iPad app of the year in 2012. The app launch brought CEO Greg Petschnigg to publicly ask Facebook to change the name of their app, but Facebook refused and simply apologized for not notifying FiftyThree sooner.

Petschnigg  described Paper as a “computer application software for smart phones and tablets, namely, software for use in writing on smart phones and tablets with either a stylus or finger." While Facebook’s Paper doesn’t allow the user to draw within the app or use a stylus, Petschnigg urges that the similarities are too strong to be ignored.

This is not the first incident of a trademark complaint with Facebook and I doubt it will be the last.  Theft of ideological property is the base of the network, why would they change it now after we allowed it to become a multi-billion dollar company? They seem to have gotten away with every stolen good and the question I am facing is, “how does one even stop an ideological thief if they alter things slightly?”  

The article was posted on February 3, 2014 and can be found at Mashable.com. 

Google Glass App Could Help Firefighters

Patrick Jackson is in the process of creating an app for Google Glass. Even before this new technology is out on the market, people are saying that Google Glass has a lot of potential, and an app like this, is only one of the reasons. Patrick Jackson is a firefighter and programmer who saw the need to create something that would help firefighters do their job better, and more efficiently. The app would help with a multitude of issues, some of which include floor plans, and a way to know how to get people out safely. Jackson has made a few apps in the past relating to firefighting, which his engine uses. The app could possibly be ready to test in the next six months.

This app seems like it could have the potential, in later developments, to seek out trapped people, furthering the ability of firefighters to save lives. I think that Google Glass could be a very useful product as we move into the world of voice activation. Certainly, apps such as this will help its success. I am interested to see how people will adjust to seeing things, such as diagrams in their field of vision, though. Also, a downside that I could see with Google Glass, is the price tag. At each unit carrying a price tag of around $1500 dollars, it could limit who it is available to.

Article posted on mashable.com on January 21, 2014