Instagram and the new renaissance of visual communication

There's a big shift happening in the world of consumer applications. The web is finally becoming a true visual medium. We are finally leaving the limitations of the early, text-based web and computers and embracing visual creative thinking.

Want some proof? Instagram. Photo sharing mobile app with artsy filters sold to Facebook for 1 billion USD. 50 million users, popular among teens. Pinterest. One of the fastest growing social web sites, centered around visual bookmarking, easily beats Google+ on engagement. Draw Something. Insanely popular mobile game, making millions of users finger paint with a childlike joy. Something is going on.

I'm in love with Pinterest (and why that matters)

I've got a confession to make. There is a new website that is capturing an increasing number of spare minutes in life. It provides an endless stream of visual inspiration, and every time you use it, you can't help but feel a bit more creative. Yep, I'm in love with Pinterest, the latest over-hyped tech media darling.

I did try to resist it, I swear. When I saw the first blog posts about it, I thought I didn't need a service like that. I tried to convince myself that Tumblr and Instagram were enough for me. And I didn't want to fall into the whole "women love Pinterest" stereotype. But then, as the hype kept growing, I gave in to my curiosity and a professional dedication to trying out all the new cool social services in town. And I haven't looked back ever since. Why is that, and why does it matter?

Facebook is becoming the next big platform with Timelines, smart social apps and better privacy

I know it's super trendy to be anti-Facebook and looking for more "open" or less "evil" alternatives like Google+ or Diaspora. But after the massive changes announced at Facebook's f8 developer conference on Thursday, I feel like it's time I say this out loud: I love Facebook.

Facebook, one of my favorite web destinations

Skating to where the puck is going to be

I love Facebook as a service, and I love Facebook as a company. I completely agree with MG Siegler from Techcrunch on this: Facebook is becoming the new Apple, skating to where the puck is going to be, and leaving the competition baffled in dust, miles behind.

Sure, change and innovation are often difficult to accept for the now almost 1 billion strong mainstream Facebook user base. Even a minor repositioning of a button is bound to make someone upset. For a week or so.

And that's why I have even more respect for Facebook: despite being very mainstream, they are not afraid to innovate. They could easily sit on their asses for a year or two and wait for Google+ or something else to catch up. Instead, they choose to run head first into the questions nobody is even asking yet, and often finding answers nobody else can think of. Like Apple, Facebook is still able to maintain the mentality of a startup and has the guts to challenge the status quo.

Do they get it right every time? No, of course not. But you're bound to make mistakes if you're trying hard to be the first and the best in what you do. The tricky part is knowing how to recover from your falls, move on, and find the next big thing that will change people's lives forever.

This might seem like a big statement; after all, Facebook is just a social network, right? Well, it seems like they have bigger plans than that. The folks at Facebook are really hard at work trying to find the best ways for people to connect online. And not by pilling up features, but by rethinking the way we connect to each other on a human level.

And human is the keyword to the two major changes announced on Thursday. Firstly, completely redesigned user profiles, now called Timelines. And secondly, the new generation of Facebook apps that enable social experiences, and finally make seem the semantic web a step closer to reality. Let me explain why I'm so excited about all these new features.

Subjot: bridging the gap between Twitter and Facebook with subjects and dicussions

Yesterday I came across a blog post on TNW on Subjot, a Twitter alternative. Yeah, I know. At first, I rolled my eyes. (Yet) another Twitter is probably not what we need. But I'm glad I read the post anyway and discovered that Subjot actually offers a solution to a Twitter dilemma I've been having lately and builds an interesting product centered around discussion on top of it.

I wouldn't really call Subjot a Twitter alternative. It actually works quite well with Twitter, and in a way provides a middle way between Twitter and Facebook, providing a public space for discussions based around topics user define themselves. Call me crazy, but I actually see Subjot as Google+ done right. Intrigued? I sure do hope so, because I think Subjot is a nice little gem with a lot of potential and a harbinger of a larger trend. Let me explain why.

Subjot: "Talk about your favorite subjects. Let your friends choose what to follow."

Making Tumblr my online home

The mission: find a new home for my online hub

Not long after Steve Jobs announced iCloud, a free service that would replace (and, quite honestly, dramatically enhance) the existing paid MobileMe service, it was clear that those of us that were using MobileMe to host our iWeb website would have to look for a new home.

Which, for me, meant looking for alternatives for hosting my online hub @ iAlja.com. Until recently, my online hub was a simple iWeb website that pointed to all my profiles around the web that I'm using actively, and had a few extra pages for an extended bio and featured work. Nothing complicated, and I liked it that way.

Goodbye, old iWeb website!

But apparently time had come to find a new home for my online hub; a journey, which ended up on Tumblr. So, read on if you want to know why I chose Tumblr and how I'm using this micro-blogging platform as my personal website.

5 key mobile trends you should know about [Lecture]

Recently I was invited to prepare a guest lecture for a small group of business and management students attending an E-learning course as part of their Summer School in Koper. I was told to choose a topic that would be fresh, something that students don't get to hear about that often in regular classes.

And that's why I decided to put together an overview of some of the key trends in the mobile industry that are already influencing the way we study, work and socialize, and will probably be an increasingly important part of our day to day life. You can find the slides and the video of my lecture, as well as a text recap, in this post.

iPad, AirPlay Mirroring and Apple TV: the new portable interactive white board that can do so much more

Yesterday's Apple Keynote at WWDC 2011 was full of big announcements. No shiny hardware upgrades this time, but a lot of great stuff coming up for our desktops with Mac OS X Lion, our mobile devices with iOS 5 and a solution to keep it all nicely synced together, iCloud.

I'm still digesting all the new announcements, but here's one particular feature of iOS 5 that I think could really be a huge hit in our classrooms: AirPlay Mirroring.

AirPlay Mirroring brings the ability to mirror your iPad screen through Apple TV. You can see a short demo in the video I've embedded below.

Now, imagine this setting: instead of hooking your classroom overhead projector to the painfully slow computer on the teacher's desk, connect it to the $99 Apple TV. And then use AirPlay Mirroring on your iPad to share presentations, your web browser or any of the 90,000 (!) beautiful apps for the iPad.

And the best thing? You're free to walk around the classroom and let your students interact with the apps.

There are of course already several iPad apps that can help you turn your tablet into an inexpensive, portable interactive white board, but with this set up you could do so much more. It's not limited to an app - you can do anything you can do on your iPad. Not to mention the setup is super portable, so you can take it along to any classroom you visit, not just at your own school.

Unfortunately, AirPlay Mirroring isn't out yet; it will be available in fall with the release of iOS 5. But I still think we'll be seeing some nice uses of iPads hooked up to the not very expensive Apple TVs through AirPlay Mirroring. Bringing the magic of the iPad to the classrooms or meeting rooms, enabling people to work together just by passing the tablet around the room.