Peter Petrovski

A great fit. marissamayr: I’m delighted to announce that we’ve...

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:18:30 +1000

A great fit.

I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr!

We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.

Tumblr has built an amazing place to follow the world’s creators. From art to architecture, fashion to food, Tumblr hosts 105 million different blogs. With more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr is one of thefastest-growing media networks in the world. Tumblr sees 900 posts per second (!) and 24 billion minutes spent onsite each month. On mobile, more than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app, and those users do an average of 7 sessions per day. Tumblr’s tremendous popularity and engagement among creators, curators and audiences of all ages brings a significant new community of users to the Yahoo! network. The combination of Tumblr+Yahoo! could grow Yahoo!’s audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly visitors, and could grow traffic by approximately 20%.

In terms of working together, Tumblr can deploy Yahoo!’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love. In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo!’s media network and search experiences. The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience.

As I’ve said before, companies are all about people. Getting to know the Tumblr team has been really amazing. I’ve long held the view that in all things art and design, you can feel the spirit and demeanor of those who create them. That’s why it was no surprise to me that David Karp is one of the nicest, most empathetic people I’ve ever met. He’s also one of the most perceptive, capable entrepreneurs I’ve worked with. His respect for Tumblr’s community of creators is awesome, and I’m absolutely delighted to have him and his entire team join Yahoo!.

Both Tumblr and Yahoo! share a vision to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas by focusing on users, design — and building experiences that delight and inspire the world every day.

http://yahoo.tumblr.com/

HTC's Blink Feed and content services

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:48:28 +1100

HTC's Blink Feed and content services:

The HTC One looks like a great phone. Most interesting, however, is that it signals yet another move by a hardware player into the content services game.

Microsoft is providing content through their Bing apps in Windows 8. Samsung has many exclusive deals to provide apps and services across it’s devices*. Now HTC has partnered with publishers to provide content right to the home screen of their devices.

The message is that it’s not enough for hardware makers to provide good hardware. They need to differentiate and provide end-to-end hardware, services and content experiences.

Interestingly, while Apple is the most obvious example of an integrated experience, they don’t provide content in this way to the user.

*Disclosure: Yahoo!7 has exclusivity deals in place with Samsung.

So far behind that RIM is key competitor

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:58:00 +1100

So far behind that RIM is key competitor:

Ben Grubb:

Microsoft is so far behind Android and iOS in smartphones that it now sees BlackBerry maker RIM as the main initial rival to Windows Phone 8, which it launched in Sydney today.

Not sure which company this statement reads worse for, RIM or Microsoft.

Find photos from any location

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:42:34 +1000

Find photos from any location:

People snap Instagram pics everywhere - bars, restaurants, bathrooms and even secretive company headquarters. Worldcam is an impressive web app that lets you find all the photos taken with Instagram from any location you specify.

Steve Jobs loathed Google at the time of his death

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:20:00 +1000

Steve Jobs loathed Google at the time of his death:

Brad Stone:

At the time of his death, Jobs had come to loathe Google, which he felt was copying features of the iPhone while withholding a key feature of Google Maps that allows smartphones to dictate turn-by-turn directions aloud. Jobs also discussed pulling Google search from the iPhone, but figured that customers would reject that move, according to two former Apple executives.

We knew that Jobs wanted to go thermonuclear on Google, but Stone provides some insight on just how far he was prepared to go to nix their services completely from the iPhone.

Netbot

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:15:00 +1000

Netbot:

A new App.net third party client from Tapbots that will be very familiar to anyone who uses Tweetbot. This is a marquee app for the fledgling social network, and could help drive adoption among the early adopters.

If you’re not familiar with App.net, it’s a Twitter-like social network but the key feature is that there are no ads and never will be as it’s a paid service. As Twitter moves towards being a more media-centric company and starts restricting it’s API usage, early adopters of the service are revolting.

In functionality, App.net is a Twitter experience from a few years ago, before the introduction of summary cards, the discover tab and promoted tweets. Whether it can move beyond the early adopter crowd is another question.

More mobile devices equals more news consumption

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:12:00 +1000

More mobile devices equals more news consumption:

The Pew Survey looked at news consumption on smartphones and tablets, and has confirmed some things I had suspected - people who own tablets as well as smartphones are consuming more news, more often.

Almost one-third of people who acquire tablets find themselves reading more news from more sources than before.

The study paints a bright picture for news consumption on mobile devices. These emerging devices are allowing people to stay more up-to-date and consume more news than ever before.

News is a large part of what people do with their mobile devices. Fully 64% of tablet owners get news on their devices at least weekly, including 37% who do so daily. The numbers are similar for smartphone owners – 62% consume news weekly or more and 36% do so daily. For both tablets and smartphones, news is among the top activities people engage in on the devices.

Users are expecting the news to be delivered no matter where they are or what device they are using.

It’s the emerging concept of the ‘multi-platform user’, someone that wakes up with their iPhone, catches the train to work with the iPad, browses the net on their work PC and comes home to their laptop.

While the iPad has driven this, the introduction of cheaper Android tablets such as the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 is going diversify the market.

Messaging war between Apple and Facebook

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:09:00 +1000

Messaging war between Apple and Facebook:

Ellis Hamburger:

Facebook has been rapidly updating its messenger platform, and shows no sign of stopping.

Apple needs to release an iMessages client for Windows and Android, and then it will have a fighting chance of becoming the ubiquitous messaging platform to rival SMS.

For a messaging system, cross-platform is key. SMS can be relied upon because it works on everyone’s mobile device, without this iMessages will never fully replace SMS. Facebook has a better chance of ubiquity as more devices will have a Facebook client installed than an iMessages client.

The clever thing Apple did was bake in iMessages to the SMS app in iOS. This means that if you’re on an iPhone you don’t need to think about sending someone an iMessage, it just happens automatically.

However if you’re on an iPad or Mac and want to message someone, then you need to think about which messenger platform to use. If you haven’t messaged them before, you’ll need to reach out to your iPhone to try SMS first. You could also try Facebook if they are a friend. This platform dependancy is where iMessages loses, it needs to be a process where you don’t even think about it.

Every time you seek an alternative to contact someone is another reason that iMessages is not the next SMS yet, not even the next BBM.

Animations in mobile interface design

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:50:23 +1000

Animations in mobile interface design:

There are some apps that are truly delightful when you use them, and animations can play a big part in that. Animations can help apps inform, engage or welcome the user. Raizlabs lists some great examples of their effective use.

How some news apps look on the iPhone 5, all letterboxed except...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:20:00 +1000

How some news apps look on the iPhone 5, all letterboxed except for one.

Cough ;)

Australians world’s biggest users of social media

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:04:00 +1000

Australians world’s biggest users of social media:

Nielsen:

Average time spend (h:m:s) on social media each month:

Australia – 6:52:28

United States -6:09:13

United Kingdom – 6:07:54

Italy – 6:00:07

Spain – 5:30:55

Australians are clearly big users of social media, which is in contrast to the unsophisticated strategies Aussie businesses are using to capitalise on this engagement. We hear more about social media disasters than innovative strategies or deep two-way communication that drives a strong return on investment.

Australians are curious, we love to socialise and connect. We have a culture of mateship and supporting the battlers, shying away from advertising messages. Businesses need to rethink using traditional marketing messages in social media outreach, as they can and often will backfire.

It’s not enough to run a social media ‘campaign’, spruiking a product or service through some half-baked Facebook competition. Marketers need to understand that to be effective in social media, there is a need to let go of reputational inhibitions and engage in a real dialogue. Speaking with the audience on the same level not through a PR spin machine that fails to take into account the rallying power of citizen journalism.

Traditional marketing messages won’t work in social media. The best marketers will be the ones that use effective, long-term relationship building techniques, as opposed to short term PR stunts.

My product feedback

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:46:59 +1000

My product feedback:

Don’t build an app based on your website. Build the app that acts as if websites never existed in the first place.

If you’re building a product and it’s focused on the desktop, that’s a mistake. MG Siegler makes a good point that it’s a now a mobile-first world, if you’re building for the PC only you are betting on a shrinking platform.

We need to build mobile products without the constraints of the desktop era. We need to understand user behaviour on mobile devices, and not just cram a desktop experience into a smaller screen.

If your product is not mobile-first or mobile-only, then you’re missing the boat.

iOS 6 thoughts

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:15:00 +1000

Apple today released iOS 6 through an over-the-air update and Australian users everywhere are getting ready to upgrade their devices. Apple has updated iOS like clockwork each year, adding marquee new features like iCloud and multitasking. This year, iOS 6 is a relatively modest update. Apple has instead focused on refining the experience, there are a multitude of nips and tucks and the operating system feels faster than ever.

However there are still some key new features, and interestingly a few big ones that have been removed from prior versions. iOS 6 adds Facebook integration, smarter Siri commands and Passbook, a digital wallet to store your tickets and coupons. Apple has removed Google Maps from the operating system and replaced it with their own Apple-built maps application. They’ve also left out the previously built-in Youtube app. Let’s take a closer look at how the new features stack up.

Goodbye Google, hello Apple maps.

The most visible change in iOS 6 is unquestionably the banishing of Google maps to make way for Apple’s own revamped mapping service. Apple has now taken control of the location and map experience on their devices, removing their biggest competitor from the platform. But what does that mean for users?

The new maps application adds some great features that were previously missing, the biggest being turn-by-turn navigation coming in an October update for Australian users. It works very similarly to devices from TomTom and Garmin, enter your destination and the app will present different routes for both driving and walking. Navigation mode displays in a rich 3D view giving a bird’s eye perspective of the road you’re driving on, in typical Apple style the experience is smooth. You can even enter destinations through Siri, try it by telling Siri “take me home”.

‘Flyover’ is another key feature of the new maps application. As the name suggests, it literally allows you to fly over cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. It’s an astonishing presentation of satellite imagery, a 3D view of the city allowing you to pan in and around the skyline. It’s currently limited to bigger Australian cities and other cities around the world, expect Apple to keep adding and enhancing this with more satellite data over time.

It’s not all good news for maps, however. Public transport information is one of the casualties, as Apple hasn’t added this data to their application. Instead you’ll need to download third party apps to get this functionality, at least until Apple is ready with their own transit data. Google’s extensive business listings and points-of-interest are also missing, and while Apple has used Yelp and Yellow Pages to add some of this data it’s not as comprehensive as it was in the prior maps application.

Passbook

Apple has added a new built-in app to digitally store all those tickets, coupons and gift cards you have in your wallet or purse. Instead of fumbling in your email trying to find that movie ticket or digging through app folders to find a coupon code, Passbook aims to simplify the process by storing all these items in one location.

It also utilises the device’s GPS abilities in a convenient way. If you have a coffee card stored in Passbook, when you walk into the associated coffee shop it will send a push notification and pull up the card right on your phone.

It’s a futuristic feature however at launch it seems anemic, with few supporting services. Virgin Australia and Event Cinemas have stated they will be supporting it, but we’ll have to patiently wait for more businesses to offer Passbook integration to make it useful.

Siri knows more

Apple hailed Siri as the stand-out feature in the iPhone 4S, today Siri has been added to the iPad and has also received some major improvements. The virtual assistant with attitude can now look up sports scores, local business listings, give directions, post to social networks and open apps.

Australia hasn’t received all of Siri’s new features though, missing is the ability to book restaurant reservations and pull up movie listings. Still, it’s a solid update and the inclusion of the once missing business and location listings in Australia is a welcome improvement.

It’s not quite the virtual assistant as demonstrated in Apple’s ads, but it’s slowly getting there with each iteration. Apple still lists Siri as being in beta, in an apparent attempt to lower expectations.

I ‘like’ this

Facebook is now baked-in like Twitter was in iOS 5. This means you can sign in to Facebook directly through the settings app, giving users the ability to share photos and other items directly from the device without using another application.

They have also added a convenient Facebook post button directly in the notification panel, allowing to you post and also tweet from any screen. Apple has added the ability to ‘like’ apps directly in the App Store.

When you like an app, it will be shared with your friends and you can also see when your friends have liked an app right in the store.

Other new features

There are numerous other features and enhancements that make using iOS 6 an improved experience. ‘Do Not Disturb’ is one such feature, it’s essentially a switch that allows you to stop all incoming notifications such as messages, phone calls or alerts. This is really useful before bed or in a cinema.

You can even set exemptions, so if you still want all calls from your partner or boss to come through you can set that in the settings. ‘Photo streams’ are now shareable, so you can take a few photos and directly share with them a friend or group of friends.

This will be useful at parties or for times you don’t necessarily want every photo up on Facebook. Apple have also added the ability to comment and like photos, a surprising move adding more social networking style features to the Photos app.

Bottom Line

Overall it’s a solid update to an already strong mobile operating system. Apple have decided to take a more cautious approach with this release, looking to add refinements and improve the overall experience without rocking the boat too much.

It’s significant that Apple have removed key Google features like maps and Youtube, which is a signal that Apple doesn’t want to rely on competitors to provide core features for their platform. It will be a challenge for Apple to provide a comprehensive mapping service like Google does.

If you already enjoy the iOS experience, then updating to iOS 6 is a no-brainer. If you prefer Android or Windows Phone, this update will not do much to change your view. As a whole, it’s an update that doesn’t rely on one big feature to sell it like in past updates, but iOS 6 still provides an overall more pleasant and useful experience.

This article was first published on Yahoo!7 Technology.

Thanks Marissa

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:04:29 +1000

I was just mentioned by name by Marissa Mayer in her weekly FYI broadcast for our Yahoo!7 Hackday win. It’s nice to see our work in Australia getting recognised over in Sunnyvale.

A new Youtube app from Google →

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:36:08 +1000

A new Youtube app from Google →:

Just in time for iOS 6, which won’t include the now 5 year old Apple-made Youtube app.

News discovery startup Prismatic launches iPhone app →

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:50:00 +1000

News discovery startup Prismatic launches iPhone app →:

Prismatic is trying to build a personalised newspaper for the masses, and today they’re getting closer to reaching that vision by launching their iPhone app.

It’s very smart, and the presentation is gorgeous.

The website, and now the app, allows users to effortlessly discover stories based on interests. Once you connect your Twitter or Facebook account, the service starts learning about your interests and presents stories based on topics it thinks you will like.

Prismatic continues to learn about your interests the more you use it, suggesting different topics you might like to add to your feed. While you can actively hide stories you don’t like and add new interests, it also intelligent curates your feed through machine learning. Through different actions you perform like sharing a story or skipping it, Prismatic learns more about what articles to present to you.

Though the startup first launched as a website, the founders actually designed the service as mobile first. By stripping away unnecessary buttons and interactions, the app is pure news and discovery. It’s an engaging experience that encourages content exploration.

It’s fast. Very fast. Users have high expectations of app speed on connected devices, as Facebook has found and finally rebuilt their freakishly slow app.

CEO and Founder Bradford Cross:

It’s got to be fast, so we had to bite the bullet and do a few things that took a couple of months to build. You know, with the phone you’re sitting in line, you’ve got three minutes, that makes your fuse for bull**** almost zero — you see a ‘loading’ image and if it crosses some time threshold, you immediately close the app and go somewhere else. That kind of ADD world is the reality for the phone.

There doesn’t seem to be a clear business model, however. Introducing ads into the feed will damage the clean user experience that is a big differentiator for Prismatic. It remains to be seen how they will make money.

Product managers getting some credit →

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:33:00 +1000

Product managers getting some credit → :

Well this is new.

CBS News lists 10 job functions that are the most valuable to a typical corporation. It’s not too often that product managers are in the limelight.

Steve Tobak describing why a product manager is the fourth most valuable corporate role:

I know a lot of you think engineers are responsible for inventing great products that beat the competition. They’re not. As venture capitalist and former Intel exec Bill Davidow wrote in his seminal book “Marketing High Technology,” “Marketing must invent complete products and drive them to commanding positions in defensible market segments.” Product marketers rarely get the credit they deserve.

Aw shucks.

Orchestra To-Do App Review

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:35:00 +1000

I’ve tried many, many task management apps for iPhone. For some reason or another I don’t stick with them, usually because they’re either too complicated, too simple or too ugly.

I recently found Orchestra and so far I think it’s the best I’ve used. It just seems to work how my brain works when I think about tasks.

For one thing, it looks quite beautiful. That’s important to me.

You can create lists and order tasks by priority or due date. Sounds pretty standard but the method of switching how tasks are sorted is the most innovative and intuitive I’ve used.

There is a bar at the top of the app where you can toggle between starred (important) items, all items and all completed items. There is also a toggle next to it for lists - all lists or a selected list.

This simple but powerful method of sorting is exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for.

It even has robust task sharing functionality which I don’t even use.

My biggest gripe with the app is that there’s no iPad version (yet). I’m a completionist and it’s annoying me that I don’t have an iPad equivalent. Though there is a good web app it syncs with, another thing that’s important to me.

I suggest you check it out if you’re looking for something more sophisticated than Clear but not as involved as Omnifocus or Things.

Check it out in the App Store.

Hired a social media team? You're doing it wrong →

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 22:38:00 +1000

Hired a social media team? You're doing it wrong →:

Fast Company:

To be a good social media person at a brand, you have to have a background not just in digital or marketing but also in your product.

Too often I’ve seen companies decide they need a social media strategy and go out and hire a crack team of ‘gurus’. What’s missing here is that in order to effectively achieve true two-way communication and bring value to customers, the people running social media need to have an innate understanding of the product itself.

Knowing why Pinterest is an effective social network is good but not enough. It’s important to understand why people are using the product in the first place. A background in public relations is great, but a background in the product’s development is better.

Zappos is an online shoe retailer, but it’s real product is great customer service. The company puts every single employee through four weeks of customer service training before they even begin their role. After the intense training, every employee knows the company product. They just happen to sell shoes, but what Zappos really sells is excellence in the customer experience - and this understanding is baked into the social media plan.

Social media is often lumped in as a marketing function, customer service or digital function. Only sometimes it’s part of the product person’s role.

However, it’s not just one of these team’s responsibilities. The social media person needs to be across all of it.

Doesn’t sound easy, does it? It’s not. Nor should companies pretend it’s easy by creating a Facebook page, hiring an intern to run it and calling it a day for their social media strategy.

Effective social media engagement begins with understanding the product first, and what it’s job to be done is.

Schematics of the iPad mini →

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:46:00 +1000

Schematics of the iPad mini →:

It’s looking increasingly likely that a smaller iPad is coming. 9to5Mac has released detailed schematics of the purported iPad mini.

It’s sporting a design that sits in between an iPod touch and the current iPad. The smaller vertical bezel give the device a sleeker, narrower profile than the current iPad. It looks very similar to the Nexus 7, the Android device it will be competing directly against.

There’s a question mark around what the use case for this device is for an existing iPad owner. My take is that it’s not intended for existing tablet owners, it will be a low price option for people currently on the fence.