The Apps You Should Really Be Concerned About with Your Privacy

Sam Harrelson on December 10, 2018

After examining maps showing the locations extracted by their apps, Ms. Lee, the nurse, and Ms. Magrin, the teacher, immediately limited what data those apps could get. Ms. Lee said she told the other operating-room nurses to do the same.“I went through all their phones and just told them: ‘You have to turn this off. You have to delete this,’” Ms. Lee said. “Nobody knew.”

Source: Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret – The New York Times

Everyone is afraid of what Google and Facebook “know” about them and how much information they’re sharing with these services because of poor media coverage.

While those two services need to be investigated and questioned, it’s the “bottom half” of the advertising industry connected to seemingly innocent apps that you install on your mobile device to give you the weather or locations of gas or local sports scores that are really the most alarming in how they treat your personal location data.

Good report here by the NY Times (we need more of this type of journalism in the tech-sphere).

Why doesn’t turning off Bluetooth on iOS actually turn off Bluetooth?

Sam Harrelson on September 26, 2017

Another reason I tend to prefer Android is the ability to control things on a granular level. Does every user of a mobile device need that? Certainly not. Is Apple “wrong” for this “feature” design? That’s debatable.

But it’s interesting to see how Android and iOS continue to develop along their own trajectories when it comes to designing software for the Lowest Common Denominator of users…

Users can still completely turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi by digging into the devices menu settings, but essentially the button does not do what a user can reasonably assume Apple says it does, and that’s because Apple doesn’t trust you. This decision is the next logical step for what has always been Apple’s design ethos: It thinks it knows what you want more than you do.

via Apple Doesn’t Trust You – Motherboard

FoxSports.com lost 88% of its pageviews after switching to all video

Sam Harrelson on September 18, 2017

And true to expectation, that has shown up in the first substantially reported numbers about the traffic to FoxSports.com. SI’s Richard Deitsch reports that traffic dropped an astounding 88% since the “pivot to video.” Their traffic has gone from over 143 million in a monthly period to just under 17 million.

via FoxSports.com has reportedly lost 88% of its audience after pivoting to video

Wow.

Video is great for engagement (and ad dollars). However, it’s part of an overall approach that still includes text. People are more sensitive than ever to page load speeds and the actual “size” of a web page in terms of mobile data.

Use video, but don’t put all your eggs in that basket.

Using Video to Promote a Nonprofit

Sam Harrelson on September 8, 2017

You should be using short form and live video (Periscope, Facebook Live, Snapchat) to promote your nonprofit’s efforts. It’s simple, easy, free, and can always be embedded back into your social media pages or website.

Plus, it drives engagement much better than text or pictures in 2017.

Interesting stats here…

“A whopping 80% of users recall a video ad they viewed in the past 30 days”

via 17 Stats and Facts Every Marketer Should Know About Video Marketing

 

Spotify and Apple at odds

Sam Harrelson on June 30, 2016

Spotify declined to comment; Apple hasn’t responded to request for comment.

For the past year, Spotify has argued publicly, and to various regulators in the U.S. and Europe, that Apple’s subscription policies effectively punish third-party music services that use Apple’s platform, while boosting Apple Music, the home-grown service it launched in June 2015.

Source: Spotify says Apple won’t approve a new version of its app because it doesn’t want competition for Apple Music – Recode

Well, this is not going to end well.