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Hot Potato Tosses A New Site, API, And iPhone App With Foursquare Integration At You

Back in November of last year, the location-based social event service Hot Potato launched at our Realtime CrunchUp. Today, they’ve taken what was a solid service, and made it a lot better with a number of upgrades.

First and foremost, there is a new iPhone application that just went live in the App Store. With a completely revamped user interface, the app makes it easier than ever to find and participate in events. Perhaps more importantly, it makes it really easy to create new events — and notably, the service has the nicest third-party Foursquare integration I’ve ever seen. When you click on the button to create an event, you can still manually enter a location, but if you happen to be around the venue, you can simply pick it from Foursquare’s list of venues with the click of a button. This drastically simplifies the event creation process since the venue metadata is already there.

This new app will be crucial for the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, which starts tomorrow. If you’ve been reading TechCrunch over the past week, you’ve undoubtedly seen that just about every location-based service has an app they’re unveiling. And another service based around planning events, Plancast, just launched their app this evening. But Hot Potato offers the best of both worlds as it allows you to both plan future events, and interact with ones currently taking place. The new app makes it very easy to chat about the event, and upload photos and videos.

And they’ve cleaned up the stream of information around these events. There is now a filter to show everyone commenting, or just your friends. There are also now number indicators to show unread items. And the check-in process has been simplified thanks to big green buttons that make it obvious.

Also new for SXSW is Twitter integration. On a case-by-case basis, Hot Potato will be pulling in tweets about certain events at SXSW, using a filter to make sure only relevant ones show up. You’ll be able to do things such as filter those tweets to show only those by people you actually follow, which will make them potentially much more meaningful to you. You can also reply to tweets thanks to integration of Twitter’s API. And you can share tweets from within the app that will show up as retweets on Twitter.

Another new features is Calendars — something which each Hot Potato user now has. Obviously, you can add the events you wish to be a part of to your calendar, but people you are friends with on the service can also add you to other events as well. The app also now features Push Notifications now (on top of revamped email notifications).

On top of the new app, Hot Potato has rolled out a completely revamped website with just about all of the same functionality of the new app (as well as the new look and feel). And at the highest level, Hot Potato finally has its own social graph, which can pull in friends from the usual suspects: Facebook, Twitter, your address book, etc.

And here’s something that should really help Hot Potato this week: each time someone checks-in to a SXSW event with Foursquare, that service will recommend they also join the event on Hot Potato. Clicking on the accompanying link provided in the Foursquare app with open the Hot Potato app and let them join the event with a click (if they have an account). As you might expect, you can also check-in to a venue on Foursquare within Hot Potato. With Foursquare likely to be one of the key apps used by conference goers, this cross promotion is simply huge.

On top of all of this, the service now has its own full API, so others can use and interact with their data.

Simply put, all these updates are full of win, and make a good app even better. And remarkably, they’ve managed to cram in all these new features while at the same time simplifying the overall experience.

Fine the new iPhone app here in the App Store. It’s a free download.

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What Should Twitter Ads Look Like? And Will You Really Love Them?

Twitter is getting closer to launching its own advertising on the micro-messaging service. Speaking on an advertising industry panel yesterday, the company’s head of monetization, Anamitra Banerji, confirmed that Twitter would launch its own advertising platform within a month or so, at least in a beta test. Twitter has been planning to launch an advertising product for a long time. Last November, COO Dick Costolo told us at our Realtime Crunchup that ads were coming. He promised the new ads “will be fascinating. Non-traditional. And people will love it.” And a year ago, Twitter execs discussed different advertising revenue models in a strategy meeting, including realtime search ads, sponsored Tweets, and AdSense-like widgets that could appear on other sites.

Of course, other startups are already experimenting with their own Twitter ads ranging from in-stream sponsored Tweets (Ad.ly) to placing retweet buttons on display ads themselves (Tweetmeme). But what will an official Twitter ad look like? And will people really love it?

There are lots of options for different ad units on Twitter.  Seth Goldstein, the CEO of SocialMedia, was on the same panel and is the one who grilled Banerji about Twitter’s ad plans.  He presented the slide above, which gives some flavor the types of ads which could appear in a social stream like Twitter.  Ads could range from straight endorsements (“This is my favorite salsa”, “My favorite car is a Jetta”) to more subtle local business ads (“I am at Starbucks,” “I am the Mayor of Superdive”).

Other people think the Tweets themselves should be sacrosanct.  Robert Scoble, for instance, suggests the idea of a SuperTweet with all sorts of metadata that pops up when part of the message is rolled over with your mouse.  This data could include things such as the location of the Tweet and how many times it’s been retweeted, but it could also trigger a contextual ad triggered by certain keywords.

Most likely, the ads will start out simple.  If they are in-stream ads, they will be clearly labeled as such, perhaps by highlighting the Tweet with a different background color or otherwise clearly marking it as “Sponsored.” Right now, the only way you know something is a sponsored Tweet is if it is disclosed in the text of the Tweet itself, like in this Ad.ly example:

Twitter could make them stand out more and really distinguish them as ads.  But that in itself would find little love from most Twitter users.  For ads to work on Twitter, or anywhere else on the Web for that matter, they need to be authentic and useful. Contextual ads related to keywords in specific Tweets or shown only to people who are known to be interested in related topics is a better approach.  It is fairly simple to analyze people’s Tweet streams and cull the main topics they either talk about or the topics of the Tweets the people they follow talk about.  Semantically targeted ads should perform better than random ones.  But it’s still not clear what there would be to love there.

It also is not clear what the rules will be for Twitter ads. Will they just start appearing in everyone’s stream, or do you have to allow ads into your stream?  And if you allow the ads, do you get a cut of the ad revenues since they are being shown to your followers?  I’d be very surprised if there is a user opt-out for ads, and even if Twitter starts the ads on its own site it would make sense if it could syndicate them out to third-party Twitter clients.  Eventually, if a Twitter client takes the stream, it will have to take the ads as well.  Presumably, Twitter would offer them a cut of any ad revenues much like Google does with AdSense.

Finally, there is the question of how the ads will be paid for. It makes little sense to charge on a per follower or per impression basis because people tend to read their Twitter streams sporadically.  A cost-per-click model would work much better. Twitter could create a keyword auction to trigger the insertion of the ads and advertisers would only pay for actual clicks like they do with search ads.  That way the entire message of the ad would not have to be contained in the Tweet itself.

With 1.5 billion Tweets a month and growing, advertisers will certainly love any opportunity to insert themselves into the conversations occurring on Twitter. But users generally don’t love ads, they hate them. And it is hard to believe that Twitter is somehow going to magically change that basic fact of life. You tell me: What would Twitter have to do to make you love its ads?

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Bill Gates Busts a Move At Sundance
GuestofaGuest found some pix of Bill Gates rocking out at Robert Redford’s party at Sundance. Curious as to what he was dancing to, we ran “ENHANCE” in Windows 7 and were able to pull the audio by sensing the vibrations in each person’s hair as well as a reflection of someone’s Zune in the blond woman’s right eye.

Then, by using Windows Movie Maker we grabbed all of the images and interpolated them into one video and then pulled the audio from the metadata. The result? Bill Gates busting a move.

Click through for video.

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Using Your Mobile Phone as a Proximity Sensor

Earlier today we noted that the era of location-as-platform has arrived in 2010, care of mobile services such as Foursquare and Brightkite.

In the latest in our series exploring the integration of mobile phones with Internet of Things, we look at what kinds of things you can do using your phone as a proximity sensor. Right now most of the use cases are social – for example, your phone lets you see who else is in the same location as you. But what will emerge when we add data from sensors to the mix? It becomes much more than a social platform then, because it adds billions of ‘things’ to the equation.

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As Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote earlier, “where you are” has became a platform to build added value on top of – just as “who you know” has on Facebook and "what you’re doing" on Twitter. Marshall outlined some current use cases for location data – showing nearby restaurants and ratings, advertising, local news, events, Wikipedia data about local buildings.

All of that functionality can be achieved right now using geo-location data from your iPhone or Android device, data from local places (e.g. address data), metadata from businesses (e.g. pricing from local shops) and people data (e.g. user check-ins from Foursquare or Brightkite).

As impressive as that is, it’s really just the beginning. Imagine the possibilities when you add data from sensors.

DecaWave’s ScenSor uses wireless radio chips to enable "precision RTLS (Real Time Location Systems) applications."

In the concept video, distance measurements are used to determine proximity and do things such as enable/disable a laptop, find a lost teddy bear, enable access in a hospital room for a doctor, identify nearby patient info and then download the correct records to the doctor, and advise of approaching friends. Other concepts shown in the video include an in-store location application guide for shoppers, proximity of tagged clothing, and information transfer capability with patient data.

The functionality shown by DecWave is still emerging. Probably the most likely place we’ll see sensor data make an impact in the short-term is on our roads. Using your mobile phone, you could get a real-time update of traffic conditions via sensors embedded in the road. This possibility excites even those who don’t currently use the Mobile Internet. In a recent report on mobile internet usage, checking real time travel updates was listed by 33% of respondents as "the most interesting to those that don’t currently use mobile internet."

Over the next few years, expect to see sensor-driven data add to the functionality and breadth of mobile phone location platforms. Let us know your thoughts.

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Photo Booth And Canons With Cheap Lenses Dominate Tumblr
The Tumblr staff has done an interesting little breakdown of the metadata on Tumblr blog photos. I’m sure you guys have seen Flickr’s equally-interesting Camera Finder page, which is used as a sort of talking point by Apple fans due to the iPhone dominance; this was a similar examination, though with seriously different results. Tumblr’s analysis also takes a look at the lenses being used by the Canon users, a metric more interesting to gearheads than tech buffs.

This kind of information is a dream come true for people who like to transmute raw data into conclusions. They call themselves analysts, but it’s more alchemical than analytical, isn’t it? At any rate, the data are interesting to anyone interested in photography or blogging, so take a look.

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Hulu Gets Ripped Out Of Rippol

We’ve seen in that past year that Hulu gets testy about their video content being used on other sites or platforms, with Boxee and TV.com both forced to remove Hulu content from their sites and applications. Now startup Rippol is facing the same fate.

Rippol just publicly launched their video discovery sites at yesterday’s Real-Time CrunchUp, which combines both complex algorithms with user suggestions to surface interesting video content.

Less than a few hours after Rippol launched, the startup’s co-founder Aaron Crayford received notice from Hulu that the video embeds on Rippol from Hulu were in violation of the terms of service which state that embeds are for personal, non-commercial use only. While Rippol says that they won’t place ads in the videos or around the videos, Hulu says that the single fact that Rippol plans to make money from the entire content service violates the TOS. Instead, Hulu offered Rippol the ability to us its site map, which is a feed that links back to Hulu for video playback. Don’t embed, says Hulu. Link instead. Here’s the email notice:

We saw that you launched today. We want to notify you that you are using our embeds in violation of our terms of service which state specifically that embeds are for personal, non-commercial use only. As such we will plan to block embedding from your site by 12/4. Typically we disable embedding immediately but given that you just launched, we want to give you some time to transition.

In the place of the embeds, we can offer you is a site map feed that links back to Hulu for video playback and includes several useful pieces of metadata in a feed. It includes video titles, descriptions, thumbnails, video type, duration info, season number, episode number, air date, expiration date, in addition to the video link on Hulu.com.

It is updated every few hours: http://www.hulu.com/video_sitemap.index.xml

When Rippol responded that they will never put ads in or around Hulu content, Hulu responded:

Ad placement would be more relevant to the “non-commercial” part of the TOS vs. the “personal” part. While you may not plan to place ads near our content, Rippol is a commercial business in the sense that you plan to make money from the content service you create. Thus our content on your site is being used for commercial purposes, even if it is indirect (i.e. you attract users with Hulu content but only monetize other content).

Note we are not singling out Rippol as we have transitioned other premium video aggregators to our site map feed.

Rippol looks at your video watching activity on the site, as well as that of your friends and people in your demographic. It also looks at meta data from video content ingested from sites like YouTube and Hulu, and uses machine learning to identify videos it thinks you’ll like. Naturally, some of the TV shows and movies that surface on Rippol are from Hulu.

Boxee encountered a similar issue in February. Boxee’s software package converts computers, Apple TVs and other popular products into media centers, and integrated Hulu content. But this ended abruptly in February when Hulu’s studio content partners demanded that Boxee take down all videos pulled from from Hulu. TV.com suffered a similar fate when Hulu pulled the plug on content earlier this year, although CBS Interactive, which owns TV.com, vehemently argued that they were within their rights to stream Hulu content.

The thing is that Rippol, and perhaps other video sites like Boxee, may be willing to enter into a distribution agreement with Hulu with regard to embedding content. In Hulu’s note to Rippol, the representative stated that “the only way for a company to legitimately embed our videos the way you do is to enter into a structured distribution relationship with us. However, we are currently entering into these very selectively.”

When Hulu axed the Boxee integration, CEO Jason Kilar wrote in a blog post:

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

Our mission to make media dramatically easier and more user-focused has not changed and will not change. We will not stop until we achieve it and we are sober in our assessment that we have such a long way to go.

The maddening part of writing this blog entry is that we realize that there is no immediate win here for users. Please know that we take very seriously our role of representing users such that we are able to provide more and more content in more and more ways over time. We embrace this activity in ways that respect content owners’ — and even the entire industry’s — challenges to create great content that users love. Yes, it’s a complex matter. A tough mission, and a never-ending one, but one we are passionately committed to.

Even before Hulu launched the site had announced partnerships to embed content with AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo. The site also has a partnership with Comcast’s Fancast . And the site also recently launched the ability to watch some video content its video content on its Facebook page.

It’s clear the Hulu is at the mercy of of studio content owners who are calling the shots on partnerships and who should be allowed to embed Hulu content. Kilar is correct in saying that Hulu’s strategy of limited partnerships is not a win for users. But the other party left out here are the developers and startups, like Rippol and Boxee, which are crating innovative and useful products that provide a creative way to watch their videos and even drive traffic to Hulu.

When Hulu was announced in 2007, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said that Hulu would aim to have “ubiquitous distribution.” The press release issued at the time said that Hulu “will actively seek agreements with a variety of additional distribution partners.” The release also stated that each “distribution partner will feature the site’s content in an embedded player customized with a look and feel consistent with each site, making the offering organic to each destination.”

Clearly, when Hulu was announced, the ambitions were to have many more partnerships to distribute the site’s content. But all signs have pointed to the fact that Hulu and its content partners are simply not open to startups and smaller sites who have new innovations to video consumption. Frankly, it’s disappointing for the developer community as well as consumers.

In the meantime, Rippol’s Crayford says that most of Hulu’s content is available on the content owners sites, which means Rippol will point crawlers to a lot of different domains instead of Hulu, which is tedious (TV.com does this).

When we asked Hulu about the Rippol situation, they responded:

Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been told our folks are in communication with Rippol on how to possibly work together.

The basic policy on our embeds is that we do not allow sites to host the entire Hulu content library without a formal distribution agreement. These agreements are evaluated on a case by case basis with the involvement of content owners. Alternatively, we provide a video site map to allow publishers to link to our videos.

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Google Adds Semantic Web, Facebook Support for Video Search

Google announced today support for enhanced markup for video search. This will allow webmasters to include important information, such as titles and descriptions, in machine-readable HTML along with the JavaScript or Flash videos themselves.

In a blog post, video search project manager Michael Cohen wrote, “We wanted to offer webmasters an additional tool, so today we’re taking a page from the rich snippets playbook and announcing support for Facebook Share and Yahoo! SearchMonkey RDFa.”

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Google’s “rich snippets,” as we previously reported, use structured data open standards such as microformats and RDFa to give users more detailed previews of the information contained on a web page.

Both the Facebook Share and RFDa markup formats will enable webmasters to give Google – and video-searching users – vital details, including video titles and descriptions. Like other semantic web technologies, these details allow our search engines to become smarter, our results richer and more relevant. And by allowing webmasters to specify the content type as video content, users’ searches for video will yield more results with greater relevancy.

“While we’ve become smarter at discovering this information on our own,” Cohen writes, “we’d certainly appreciate some hints directly from webmasters.”

Yahoo! SearchMonkey, a semantic search technology which we’ve covered extensively in the past, gives webmasters the opportunity to create descriptions about content – in this case, online video. With these machine-readable descriptions, the search engine extracts structured data about videos and renders that data as enhanced search results.

The Facebook Share markup format also allows for the inclusion of metadata with video content.

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Public Radio app updated and renamed

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

The much beloved Public Radio Tuner has been updated, and now sports a new name. Public Radio Player [App Store] is your easy way to get to most of the NPR stations in the country.

This new version, which remains free, also allows you to find archived shows, like Car Talk, Speaking of Pets, Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, Fresh Air, and many others. This allows on-demand service of your favorite Public Radio programs.

You also can get a station’s current schedule when you start to stream. Some stations don’t support it, but if the metadata is there you’ll see it in the app.

A couple of things to note at this point: Since the app has been renamed it may not appear when you check for updates at the App Store. However, when you run the older Public Radio Tuner, it will advise you of the new app and download it, leaving your older app in place. The new app won’t have your favorites, so those will have to be added in manually.

There is a search function so you can find what you want by station name, call letters, frequency, city, region or category.

I find the new version a bit sluggish, and this is reflected by many other users comments. It’s a bit slow to respond on either Wi-Fi or the 3G network.

Some of the stations appear in the list without their location, so it looks like the database should be cleaned up a bit. The app also has to my eye a rather sickly green color. Not a favorite of mine, and I think many people won’t be wild about it. Note: The App Store page shows different, better colors (my view) but you can’t get them on the release version.

Finally, I had some problems installing this app. On first run it said ‘loading’ and spun a gear for more than 10 minutes. I bailed out, re-booted my iPhone and it came up fine. If you see something similar, try re-starting your device and see if it solves it.

I love the new features in this app, but it has some rough edges. Luckily it doesn’t write over the original version, so you can retain your favorites. I’d like to see a quick update and bug fix for this app, but as it is, it improves on the original feature set and should make Public Radio fans happy.

Here are some screen shots:

TUAWPublic Radio app updated and renamed originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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