share some Ideas with you about Social media and something i Like

Regular readers of the blog will know just how down I was on the iPad when it launched a couple of years ago. I sold my original device because I simply couldn’t find a use for it, and as I said at the time, it was only really useful for toilet reading. I know plenty of people loved it, but for me, it was something that didn’t fit my needs and I found it gathering dust for months at a time.

For a reason that only the Appple marketing team know, I decided to buy the new iPad and give it another go last week. After giving it a week to see how it fitted into my daily life, I was surprised by the results and how it won me back so quickly. Here are the main reasons I’ve changed my mind so much:

The Apps

Back when it launched, there weren’t even apps for popular services like Facebook or Twitter. You had to either use the web versions of the sites, or poor third party apps that had been hacked together. All of the big apps now have iPad only versions and they are a pleasure to use.

The Facebook experience on the iPad is as beautiful and easy to use as it is anywhere else. There are thousands and thousands of brilliant apps now with developers spending more time on a platform that is acquiring a huge number of users. I’m starting to find that most apps on the iPad are much better than their web counterparts, and that is only going to improve further.

The 3G Connection

Where I live In Ireland, the connection has never really been up to standard, but huge improvements have been made over the last couple of years. This iPad is, of course, being touted as the 4G iPad, but that is a distant dream for most of us. However, the connection is now so good that I have the freedom to work or browse the internet anywhere I choose without having to search for Wi-Fi.

Content Streaming Services

This device is more or less making traditional TV obsolete for many people. Streaming services like Netflix, Youtube, all the catch up players, and the content that Apple themselves offer make this the ultimate content consuming device.

When it all started a couple of years ago, not all the content providers were awake to the potential of the device, but they are all getting to the races now, and if anything to complain about, there is too much to watch on the iPad. Hooking the iPad up to a traditional TV via Apple TV makes this the ultimate content consuming device.

My Work Has Changed

When the first iPad came out, we were only starting Simply Zesty and the company was in its early days. I spent most of my time carrying out very practical work in spreadsheets, documents and presentations as well as writing multiple blog posts per day. The iPad was useless for completing those tasks and I found it gathering dust.

As the company has changed, so too has my job. I now spend a lot of time in creative brainstorms, presenting to clients and out at meetings. It turns out that the iPad is the perfect device for those tasks and now it’s the MacBook Air that is gathering dust. There are plenty of things the iPad still doesn’t do well (blog posts, long typing etc.), and there will always be a need for a physical keyboard in my opinion.

iCloud

Like many of the services that Apple offers, this doesn’t seem like a huge game changer, but it really is  just because it works. One of the problems I had with the iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air combo in the past was the amount of cables, charging, syncing I had to do between the three devices, as well as the fact that they all had different apps, content, photos and music on them at different times.

iCloud takes away all the pain of syncing, and I’m never going to lose any of that content ever again. Rather than starting with a blank slate, my new iPad already is fairly personalized to me at the push of a button.

iPad Still Has Faults

Although the turnaround in my opinion has been fairly large, the iPad does still annoy me in some ways. The battery life on this one seems very poor indeed, and charging it takes a long time. I tried writing this blog post on it as a test, but gave up after a couple of lines as the simplest tasks like hyperlinking are so slow and clunky.

I also feel stupid in some ways with a phone, laptop and a device out with me, but I can’t seem to do without them (phone for calls, computer for typing etc.). If I absolutely had to lose one, it would still be the iPad especially at its luxury price. If you can afford to buy one and you don’t need to do work on your computer all the time, I am happy to say that I would now suggest you buy an iPad. The improvement has been huge.

We’ve seen websites made out of chocolate here on the blog before, but things have just gone to the next level with a website being made entirely out of bacon. The marketing stunt has been carried out by Kraft and it taps in to one of the most common memes on the internet from the last twelve months: bacon!

They assembled a team of chefs, web developers and a production team to help promote new KRAFT HOMESTYLE Sharp Cheddar & Bacon. The stunt turns one of the web’s most popular sites, The Bleacher Report, into an actual bacon version of the site. For the next two days, users will be able to turn the site into a bacon flavoured version in a brilliant promotion.

When you take into account the costs for producing the video and promoting the sponsorship, this won’t be a cheap stunt, but it will get them serious attention across multiple platforms. I’d expect this Youtube video to get a couple of million views on its own once it hits the big meme sites like Reddit. A site so good you could eat it all for breakfast!

Since it’s April 1st, today has become less about pulling pranks and more about coming up with silly ideas that would never see the light of day. Not that we’re complaining though, so long as they’re funny, we’re more than happy to indulge the silliness, and one company that seems to embrace this year after year is Google.

Not happy with just unveiling the one joke, they’ve come up with numerous different products or updates for most of their products such as Youtube , Chrome and Google Analytics. One such example is Gmail Tap. Since keyboards require so many fingers to operate, Tap resurrects Morse code and replaces the 26 button keyboard with just two, a dash button and a dot button.

Another one involves Street View in Australia and their coverage of the outback through a unique method (pictured below), which Google believe will capture 98 per cent of the outback in three years.It’s perhaps best to let Google Australia explain the initiative itself:

Today, we’re happy to announce that Google has found an innovative way to capture a special collection of images from the back of beyond to include in Google Street View. Over the next four weeks, more than a thousand Big Red kangaroos will be equipped with a 360-degree head camera that will automatically capture images when the marsupial is on the move during daylight hours.

The cameras on our Street Roo collection team will be powered by solar panels stitched into the back pocket of custom-made roo jackets. Images will be wired to Google in real-time. A GPS tracker embedded into the jacket will match the location of the kangaroo to ensure the image is accurately uploaded onto the new Street View layer.

To ensure a seamless experience – and to avoid motion sickness – we have also developed software that will smooth over the bouncing effect experienced with the raw data. Users will be able to move backwards or forwards in Google Street Roo as they would use Street View”

The last one featured here is actually real and can be accessed by all, but its still silly nonetheless. Since you can access Google Maps from both computers, smartphones and tablets, there was one area that Google felt had been neglected all these years, the NES. So with help from Nintendo and Square Enix, they’ve created an 8-bit version of Google Maps in the style of the classic NES game ‘Dragon Quest’.

You can also go into street view and see what the world looks like from the perspective of an 8-bit character, although unfortunately you won’t encounter any slimes or monsters to fight (Probably just as well to be honest). For those who don’t have immediate access to their NES, you access the feature by clicking the ‘Quest’ option at the top right hand corner of maps.

Of course, Google has a track record when it comes to making these type of videos. Last year, they unveiled that they created a new feature for Gmail called Motion. Although considering how much attention Kinect and motion controls, this April Fool’s joke mightn’t be as farfetched as you would think, but the gestures used probably won’t be as silly as the ones featured below.