Tagged: Twitter

adJelly: Your social media image/ad guide

adJelly social media specs

You may recall that I’ve written about Advise in the past, but they’ve changed their name and domain to adJelly.

If you missed my previous write-up about them, adJelly offers a fantastic collection of specs for all the most popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. You simply select the social media site you’re creating ads, images or graphics for in the left column and you’re presented with all the specs you’ll need.

The site is particularly useful for designers because sites like Facebook offer numerous options for sizes. For instance, Facebook offers sizes for single image ads, carousel ads, video ads, video slideshow ads, cover and profile images, post images, event images and more. Plus, specs change frequently, and some sites don’t make it easy to find the specs (I’m looking at you, Facebook!).

You can also download PSD and Sketch Packs to use in building your graphics.

Every second on the Internet…

Every second on the Internet…

Every minute on the web

I came across this web page that shows what happens on the Internet every second, and though it was extremely cool. I don’t know where they get their data from, but it’s fun to see how quickly various sites grow.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the time it took me to scroll down to the Twitter section and take the screenshot, over 157,000 Tweets were registered on Twitter.

Why Google+ is losing the battle with Facebook: It’s simple

Facebook vs. Google+

If you’re using a Mac (and you probably are if you visit this website), one reason you do is probably because it’s simple to use and maintain. If you’re a designer in the advertising business you know that the simpler the ad, the better the results.

Simple is always better. Simple-to-use always beats feature-rich-but-complicated. If you believe that, then you know why Facebook is beating the digital pants off Google+ in the social media arena.

Facebook is a fairly simple service:

  1. You sign up
  2. You search for friends or companies you want to follow
  3. You click a “Like” button on their page
  4. You get a feed of everything they post (text and photos)

There’s very little thinking or learning-curve involved with using Facebook. Finding new friends is dead simple using Facebook, as is finding brands you wish to follow, and sharing photos and video. There is very little in the way of techy lingo used on the site, and outside of the privacy controls, the entire site is easy for even the most non-geek user to navigate and use. Now let’s look at Google+. (more…)

Apple announces Mac OS X Mountain Lion; to be released this summer

Mountain Lion

See how innovations from iPad inspire new features for the Mac. And find out what’s coming this summer with OS X Mountain Lion. Messages, Reminders, Notes, Notification Center, Twitter, Airplay Mirroring, Game Center, and more. You love them on iPad. Now you’ll love them on your Mac. And with iCloud, they all work better together.

[ilink url=”http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/”]Read more about OS X Mountain Lion here.[/ilink]

Rant: The annoying year that was 2011

Like any other year, 2011 brought a lot of highs and lows in my tech life. Unlike any other year though, 2011 was filled with situations and trends that just wouldn’t change to my liking.

Social

2011 was just too much sharing for my taste

There were lots of great things happening in tech this year, too many to talk about here. But I have put together a list of things that managed to annoy me to no end. (more…)

Raven: Site-specific browsing on the Mac

Raven is a site-specific web browser that allows you to be more productive by creating a dedicated browsing instance for each one of your web apps, such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, YouTube, and many more.

Raven

Raven offers site-specific browsing, putting the features of the
sites you interact with the most easy to access and use

Raven is not a standard web browser to replace Safari, Chrome or Firefox, though you easily could if you wished. Instead it focuses on improving the experience on the sites you interact with the most. For instance, clicking on the Twitter icon in the left sidebar slides open the controls for Tweets, DMs, @Replies and Search for easy access. The controls available depend on what each site offers.

Think of Raven as the Mac OS X Twitter app, only for a plethora of social and news sites. Raven offers bookmarking to Instapaper, a smart bar, history, and even a toolbar icon that loads the mobile version of the site right in the Raven browser window – so you can view the site just as you would on your iPhone.

Some of the sites that take advantage of Raven’s site-specific browsing are: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, MySpace, Quora, Linkedin, Digg, TechCrunch, Daring Fireball, CNN, New York Times, AllThingsD, The Next Web, Dribble, Instapaper, Dropbox, Hulu Plus, Flickr, Vimeo, and more.

Raven isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely a cool piece of technology worth checking out.

Why you won’t be quitting Facebook – despite the changes

FacebookThe last two weeks on the Internet have been filled with articles covering the changes that recently appeared on Facebook (the Ticker), and the more drastic changes to your Profile that will be arriving shortly. Like every other previous Facebook change, people are so frustrated that they’re threatening to leave Facebook. Uh-huh, sure. Here’s why you won’t be quitting Facebook any time soon.

First of all, the new Profile page (see image below) will take some getting used to. In order to take advantage of what it has to offer, you’ll most likely want to add some additional information. I say want to, because if you’re like most people, you probably like playing with new toys.

New Facebook Timeline Profile page

The new Facebook Timeline Profile page is actually pretty nice

The new Timeline Profile view offers viewers an easy way to scroll down through your life on Facebook much more easily – via the Timeline bar on the upper right of the page. Want to see what your friend was up to in 2002? Easy, just click the 2002 date in the Timeline bar and you’re zoomed right into place in their Timeline.

The uproar is that it supposedly “invades your privacy” because it puts all your posts in plain view for everyone to see. Well, I’m here to remind you that this has always been the case. It’s just a little easier to find now. (more…)

Add Twitter capability to Safari with Ostrich extension

By now it should be no secret that you can add extensions to Apple’s Safari web browser. One new extension allows you to read and send Tweets with the click of a button.

Ostrich is accessed through a button in your browser bar which drops down an overlay window containing Tweets from your Twitter stream. The icon also notifies you of the number of unread Tweets with a red badge.

Ostrich for Safari

Ostrich adds Tweeting to Safari with the click of a button

One of the few features of Ostrich is the ability to automatically add a link to the page you’re currently on to a new Tweet, which you access by clicking the plus button in the upper right corner. And that’s what brings me to the single problem I have with this extension. When you click that plus button, a new window is spawned with a tiny text entry box; a royal pain in the behind, if you ask me. To be fair, the Ostrich feedback page does indicate that the developer is working on adding text input without spawning a new window.

Ostrich isn’t for everyone. Twitter power-users will want to avoid it due to it’s simplistic interface and lack of extra features. But if you’re only the occasional Tweeter, or you own a Macbook with a smaller screen and are trying to save screen space, Ostrich might fit the bill.

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