Jason Purdy's Virtual World

Photos = Social…and $1,000,000,000

I love where I work on days like today. AP is the place to be for breaking news, hands down. Upon seeing the breaking news tweet about Instagram being acquired for $1BB for cash and Facebook stock (right before IPO too…nice), I ran downstairs like a child on Christmas, with my air-rifle wrapped present being the background and insight that only these few people know. Everyone was already in a heated discussion around the price, strategy and reason behind the acquisition. One thing that came out of this: this is a smart move for both parties.

Facebook knows that photos have always been the biggest driver of social content and services, and combined with the mobile growth that we’ll continue see, it’s a great fit for Facebook.

Instagram was reportedly raising $20-30MM on a $500MM valuation. I thought that was a bit crazy, but hey, if you’re at that level with the top VC’s in the world, doubling that valuation and cashing out is a pretty smart move. Their very successful launch of Android, dealing with all of its fragmentation, must have boosted it considerably, and they knew they were in a great position to negotiate. Further though, their mission has been three things: 1) Upload quickly (their secret sauce is uploading in the background when writing your comment) 2) Make photos beautiful (filters) and 3) Share easily across various networks. Sure selling to Facebook advances the sharing to Facebook but the others will be a big question. At the end of the day, it’s their extreme focus on doing these three things so well that’s made them such a big community. There are other apps that have filters, there are other apps that have the ability to share and upload easily, but they do all these things together better than anyone. Plus their community is so vibrant, a testament to their stability and outreach. Side note: I highly recommend Kevin Rose’s Foundation interview of Kevin Systrom.

There will be challenges too of course. Instagram has to be very careful with their current user base concerned about big, bad Facebook taking over their beloved independent application, and not just the options to share to non-facebook networks. My latest Instagram photo regarding the acquisition is filled with thumbs down and negativity about the purchase. Facebook’s press release (which received 80,000 likes an hour) states: “We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.” That said, it will be on the Instagram team to push back on Facebook hooks, not to mentions ads. Is Instagram going to be the next Flickr, a site still used, but that stopped innovating when it was sold to Yahoo? Will be very interesting to see where they are in a few years, but a huge congratulations is definitely deserved!

H/t @JohnDeguzman for your thoughts and opinions as always. 

ATB - First Love #musicmonday #ringtone

One of my favorite ringtones. Also a great alarm too. Soothing and easy listening.

iOS and mp3

Population Density - World’s Population in One City

I love infographics and this one is great. What if all of the world’s 7BB people lived in one city? The physical size of that city would depend on the density in which people lived right? This graphic compares how big that city would if the density was equal to various cities existing today. I love Paris, but surprising NYC isn’t more dense. Must be because of the Bronx, Harlem, etc. Would like to see what just Manhattan would be. 

Full Link

All My Ringtones - Now on Gumroad

First off, let me say that I love Gumroad, I’m impressed by their founder Sahil Lavingia, and more than anything, I love their simplicity. I’ve always had a big problem with my ringtones, how to distribute them and more than anything, how to easily upload and host them in a way that’s easy for friends to download. I’ve had servers die, IP issues, and overall hosting content on your own is simple to do, it’s a nightmare to maintain. Gumroad does all these things, along with allowing me to make money. Their tag line is, “Sell anything you can share”. Genius. 

I agree that $0.99 is on the higher end for a ringtone, but I’m also offering all 52 of my tones for only $10. 20 cents for a tone is a pretty good deal! 

So, without further ado, here’s the full list of all the ringtones, available as m4r for your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, as well as simple access to the mp3 for Android, BlackBerry, or any other device. 

I’ll also be posting a new ringtone every monday at 10am. If you ever have an inkling for a ringtone, for instance a craving for Mad Men’s theme (mp3) (iOS) now that they’re back, let me know, I’ll make anything!

Average American Budget

More cool infographics today, this time from NPR. I especially like the comparison vs 1949. Amazing how much more we pay in health care, despite all the technology available for simple services. Also transportation is a lot less for me since I live in NYC, but food, drinks and entertainment are more…actually rent should probably just be the entire graph. 

Infographic on Religion

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New House, New ISP…Clear? Time Warner?

My wife and I recently moved to Brooklyn and setting up internet was, as always, #1 priority. I loved Verizon Fios and was saddened to hear that our pre-war building didn’t have fiber connections, surprise surprise. Instead my options were DSL or Time Warner cable. I’ve heard horrific things about Time Warner’s customer service, and DSL is just far too slow, so I did some research.

If those were my only two wired connections, what were my wireless options? I have tethering on my iPhone but that’s certainly not enough for my whole house. Although “4G LTE” is all the rage, they cap your bandwidth to 10GB a month…I go through that in two days. I’ve seen Clear Wireless around for a while at Best Buy but looked into it more. Being in the mobile space I remember reading reports 5+ years ago about how WiMax was going to change everything. After Clearwire had to file bankruptcy, investors including Sprint, Time Warner and Comcast stepped up to give the company the cash it needed to move into the 4G space.

Today Clear is marketed as “mobile 4G broadband”, offering between 3MB-5MB downlink. Not exactly the speeds I had before, but Time Warner’s wait time for installation was about 10 days so I took the plunge. I called their sales number to ask a few questions, and although I could sign up at a Best Buy in NYC, they sent the router overnight and waived activation. Sweet, internet setup from initial call to actually using it in less than 12 hours. My main usage of internet is downloading large files like the Apple SDK and streaming Netflix, since we were “cutting the cord” and not having any standard TV contract. So how fast was Clear in reality?

The first hour went remarkably well. I downloaded the latest 5.1 SDK very quickly, averaging over 1.5 MB/s. After that finished I tried some Netflix which had some initial buffering time, but then seemed to play ok. Unfortunately, half way through a Mad Men episode (had to re-watch the last season before Sunday premier!) it started buffering again. This became a common occurrence until I noticed what caused it…any concurrent traffic on the same network. So if I tried to refresh my email on my other computer or check twitter on my phone, the entire network was hosed. I ran a few speed tests and speeds went from 5.72 Mb/s to less than one. It says 0.12 Mb/s, but just loading Gmail took over a minute.

I tried emailing Clear to see if this was just me or if I could pay 5 or 10 a month more to have preferential access. Their response was “I’m sorry, you may not be a good fit for Clear”. Well, at least they were honest. At this point it was pretty Clear (sorry) that this wasn’t going to work out and I ordered Time Warner. For the few days I had to wait for Time Warner this was a great solution, and certainly better than nothing at all. When I cancelled Clear they were very nice about it, asked why and what they could do, and ultimately gave me a full refund. I assumed I’d get the $100 back from the router I returned, but I tried to tell them to keep the $54 monthly fee. I did use their service quite a bit and was happy to have internet at my new home, but they wouldn’t accept it. Thanks Clear! Can you imagine if this launched in 2005? Everyone would have switched and the mobile space would have completely changed.

To finish up…Time Warner…your very first interaction with me as a new customer was to say “installation between 2pm-5pm”. Why can’t you offer installation for the vast majority of us who work during the day? Maybe 7-9am/pm? I left work early and came out of the subway at 1:45pm with two voicemails saying the technician was there. Ugh, ok. I then get another call at 1:55 that he’s there. Why didn’t he buzz up you may ask? Well, I went downstairs and around the corner was a Time Warner technician SLEEPING IN HIS TRUCK. I kid you not. I tried to wake him and boy was he rude. How dare I wake him up from his nice nap right? Well, 3 or 4 more calls later from dispatch and they sent another technician out. Ridiculous. That said, check out my new speeds! Single connection: 28.7 MB/s and 4 concurrent connections 25.17 Mb/s.

I’ll switch back to Fios if they offer it in my area, but for the time being I’m pretty much suck with Time Warner’s monopolistic hold on the broadband New York market. Hope this was helpful, let me know what you think in the comments!

Predictions for the iPad – iPad 2S/HD?

Everyone knows that today’s event is going to be about the iPad but what can we expect? I’ve guessed about past events before, and largely been correct, and I really wish I could be there for this one. Here are a few things off the top of my head:

For Sure’s:

-          Updated display: When the iPhone 4 came out it was one of the best displays I’ve ever seen. Now it’s time to take that to the iPad and it’s going to be amazing. Curious how this will affect the App Store’s 20MB limit to WiFi as this will certainly bloat games’ artwork past that.

-          LTE: As much as carriers hate being “dumb pipes”, I’m sure they don’t mind it when you’re paying an extra $30 for other devices.

-          Memory/Processor: Although my good friend @johndeguzman doesn’t see a big upgrade in RAM, I’m sure there will be some kind of upgrade to the innards. They really nailed the case itself with the iPad 2, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar iPhone 4S type upgrade (iPad 2S/HD) to the processor/RAM/etc.  

-          Camera: Probably an update the camera(s), mostly the front facing for facetime. I chuckle a bit when I see someone taking a photo with their iPad.

-          iTunesU: More information from their great announcement a few weeks back regarding the iTunes U market.

I Hope So’s:

-          APPLE TV APPLE TV! Whether it’s some kind of integration with the iPad or a new hardware I’m anxious with excitement. Steve Jobs was rumored to have “cracked” the TV space and I’ve read reports of possibly a pay-per-channel type subscription. I’m actually moving this week and going to try the cut the cord again, after failing an attempt in 2008. How much would you pay for the 4 or 5 channels that you actually watch? $4.99? 100%. $14.99? I’d still think about it…

-          Announcement of iOS 6.0: Won’t be live until WWDC, but Apple doesn’t sit on their hands. You know they’re working on all sorts of new software upgrades and some initial ones will likely be announced. For instance Game Center: I’m in love with Ticket To Ride, please make this easier to find friends. 

How To Make an Amazing Sandwich

Step One: Whole wheat bread.

Step Two: Cheese

Step Three: More Cheese

Step Four: Cured meats. I love salami, sopresseta, and coppa.

Step Five: Toast it. 350 degrees minimum of 10 minutes.

Step Six: Add mayo and mustard. 

Step Seven: Greens. I like a bit of arugula mixed with spinach.

Step Eight: Fried Egg…yes, right in the middle of the sando.

Cut it in half and dominate!

I dedicate this post to Kevin who taught me everything there is to know about sandwiches. 

My iPhone Home Screen Today. I’ll admit it, I Sort Apps by Color

I love my home screen of my iPhone and if your app makes it there, let alone the bottom app bar, you deserve huge kudos. I take these 20 locations very seriously and strive to minimize the number of swipes/taps to launch my most common apps. That said though, once I get my set of apps on the home screen, I’m constantly sorting by color…it just looks cool! 

There’s the obvious ones, Weather Channel, Instagram, Economist, but probably a few you’ve never seen before.

New AP Mobile! We’ve completely redesigned out app, should be in the store in ~2 weeks. 

Looking for a new ToDo list? Check out Clear. Some of the best interaction design I’ve ever used.

Like Instagram? Try out Cinemagram, it has the same feel that Instagram did when they were first starting. Plus, their technology is super cool.

Looking for an apartment? Nestio is the best hands down.

Honorable Mentions:

  - Games: Ticket To Ride (TTR Pocket), Tank Hero, Temple Run and Super Stickman Golf.

  - Utilities: PadMapper (great to find new apts on a map), WikiOffline, PBRmeASAP (Find a PBR near you!), UDID and TestFlight.

  - Photography: Postagram (send high quality postcards), ColorStream (easy tool to create color pallets)

  - Sports: WatchESPN, PrePlay

What’s on your home screen?