Those of us who use Twitter always welcome changes that improves the interface, while also making it easier to connect with like-minded individuals. So a few hours ago, Twitter rolled out its latest major redesign of their website, as well as brand new Android and iPhone apps. All in all, a pretty well planned execution by the microblogging service.

So what is new? The navigation has been simplified with 4 major buttons – Home, Connect, Discover and Me. If you are already a Twitter user these buttons are not a major change from the previous version, but it does contain a few great enhancements. For example “connect” (which has the familiar @ reply symbol) now also houses things like people who retweet you and new followers, not just mentions of your name as in the past. If you only want to see your mentions, there is still a button for that under Connect.

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Traffic Map, a new user-generated online map of Joburg’s roads, has ambitions to change the way the city’s residents commute. Using information gathered from social networks to chart an unprecedented, real-time overview of traffic incidents throughout the city and surrounds.

Disclaimer: I am the founder of Tweekly.fm, a service that automatically sends an update of your top artists for the week to Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, Spotify (with Sean Parker’s help) got engaged to Facebook. In short, if your Facebook and Spotify accounts are connected, you will see your friends listening to music in the new ‘ticker’ as they are listening to it. A lot of people have wondered, ‘Is this useful?’, ‘Why would I want to see John listening to Backstreet Boys?’.

Before I answer that. A little background. I started Tweekly.fm in Januray of 2009. The goal was simple. I wanted to make a twitter app. I was (and still am) an avid last.fm user, so I thought it would be great to automatically share your music tastes from last.fm to twitter. At that time #musicmonday was still big. People were sharing their music tastes on Twitter every monday. It was great! Where is it now? And what happened?

The biggest culprit is Twitter’s trending algorithm. They changed it to display only novel topics. In other words, because #mm was trending every monday, it wasn’t exactly novel each time. But why didn’t people continue sharing their music tastes despite this? There was no real return. During 2009 there was also quite a rise in websites that offered the ability to tweet your songs to Twitter. I wrote a blog post on this quite a while ago in April of 2010. It was an exciting arena, one in which Tweekly.fm was competing in as well. Of those sites in that blogpost (besides Tweekly.fm), only tweetmysong are above 450 000 in alexa rankings, and blip.fm remaining at the top (because of its built-in network effects). In short, the small ‘sector’ kinda died. Nobody took the effort to tweet a song they are listening to, because not a lot of people took the effort to listen to it. In other words, little return for both people. If someone shares a song with me, it works better if there is context. For me to like the song, there are two big prerequisites: If it is a good friend, who knows my music tastes, I will absorb the effort to listen to the song. However if it is an artist (and genre) I’ve never heard of, I still have to make up my mind about, because my friend shared it with me, and expects some return. In other words, I have to make an effort to form an opinion on the song. “Hey Simon! What did you think of Portugal. The Man?”, “Uh. It is great. I kinda liked the jazzy sections in the song New Orleans”.

If it is from a ‘musical’ stranger, the only context I have is if the person elaborates on the song. “Listen to Nero – Innocence. Epic dubstep in every way”. Now I know it is dubstep and if I am a fan, I would be more willing to accept the opportunity cost of taking the time to listen to it. However, for the person who shared the song, they still need a return. If I liked the song, I must still do more effort to tell the person that I liked it, and once again the interaction rate drops off heavily.

Why is Tweekly.fm still growing? It is automatic and it has context. There is no effort on part of the listener. They just have to consume their music and it will be shared each week to Twitter. The second factor that Tweekly.fm does to a certain degree is context. 3 artists are shared in the update. This means that if people see one artist they like in the tweet, they will be more inclined to click on it. If there are 2 known artists and one unknown artist, they will be even more likely to click on it.

So why is Spotify and Facebook on the right track? Music sharing works best when it is automatic, because it takes no effort on behalf of person sharing the music. They thus expect little, if nothing in return. Any comments on the artists you  listened to is as they would say in marketing terms: a satisfying experience. Same goes for the consumer. They have no expectation to comment on the artists you share, but will be delighted if they find they share music tastes in common.

However, where their system fails, is music discovery. The only context being employed is the user listening to the music. If you know him to listen to cool electronic music tracks, you will be inclined to find out more AS they are listening to it. If you follow what they are listening to, you might pick up a pattern and then be inclined to look up the tracks yourself (“ooh, I know that song! oooh, I know that one as well! Oooh, I better check this one out, I don’t know it”)… But this I feel, is perhaps way too much effort. It beats the purpose of automatic sharing.

Automatic sharing allows serendipitous behaviour to arise, because of the non-effort to share it. In Facebook’s case, it doesn’t clog up the stream, because it occurs in the ticker. That is great. However, if they really want to ramp up music discovery, they need to use music recommendations to explain the context of songs that people are sharing. If Robert Scoble is listening to bluegrass band that I’ve haven’t heard, the system should preferably show context while he is listening to it. Like when Last.fm recommends new artists, they recommend it based on your current library of artists. In other words, it should preferably match up the closest artist I have listened, while also providing other information (such as genre and current position in world charts for example). This way, I can immediately discern context when music is automatically shared.

Who should be doing this? Last.fm. They have the resources and data available to do this. I can already see what my ‘friends’ on there are listening to, but there is no context. They know what I’ve listened to, they should just bring it together. I wrote a script the other day to test this. Of my 87 friends on last.fm, it returned to me the following dataset:

Of my friends who listened to music the current week and based on last.fm’s current music recommendations to me, I should listen to:

[Beirut] => 4 [Skrillex] => 2 [Björk] => 2 [Gold Panda] => 1 [The Wombats] => 1 [Band of Skulls] => 1 [Cut Copy] => 1 [Röyksopp] => 1 [St. Vincent] => 1 [Cults] => 1

It is very slow, because I have to make several API calls, so it is not available for testing (I might upload it github later). So in other words, what the above code says: “Of the artists we recommend you listen to, your friends listened to Beirut, Skrillex, Bjork, Gold Panda, Wombats, Band of Skulls, Cut Copy, Royksopp, St Vincent and the Cults this week”.

So: What it boils down to. Facebook and Spotify are on the right track. Music sharing works best when it is done ‘frictionlessly’, but now it just needs more context. I hope Last.fm gets there before them, but maybe it is just because I am a bit biased.

Looks like Google+ might have some trouble ahead. Recent reports suggest that Google+’s novelty is wearing off as stats point to declining return users to Google+. Be honest – those of you who have signed up for Google+, how many of you still return to it regularly? We are betting not a lot. Compare that to Facebook users who generally tend to visit the site daily, if not multiple times a day.

Once they were enemies, but now Facebook and Twitter have teamed up with each other against Google. While the option to import your tweets into Facebook has been available for quite some time, Facebook will now natively allow users to tweet their Facebook status natively. No plugins needed.

There are some gotchas however. You need to obviously provide Facebook with your Twitter details, and your status updates have to be set to “public” in order to post to Twitter as well.

This is a interesting move by Facebook and Twitter, but I really hope they release some info on its uptake. Our opinion is that most people’s use of Facebook and Twitter vary greatly. Status updates sent on the network is not necessarily meant for the other network. For example, your techie/webby friends might be on Twitter, and your friends (and acquaintances) are on Facebook. This might be the reason for Google+’s recent decline in traffic. And no, the “Circles” feature does not help, it just increases complexity for the average user. (For some great insight into this read Simon‘s great post “Should I use Google+?“)

Right now we do not know when exactly the feature will go live, but expect it soon.

I can hear the collective scratching of heads across the world as people are pondering whether they should use Google+. Your tech/web friends have all loudly blabbered about it on Facebook or Twitter and now you are wondering what the fuss is all about? Bandwidthblog has a write-up here to educate yourself on what Google+ brings to the table.

Should you jump ship, abandon your farms and party photos to a new social network? Not yet. Google+ is experimenting with a new model of online interaction, called ‘Circles’ (which is similar to Diaspora’s ‘aspects’).

Facebook’s interaction is simple. If we accept, we both see each other’s information: a simple handshake if you will. Twitter’s interaction is asynchronous: I follow you what you say, but it is not necessary to reciprocate and follow back.

Google+’s interaction is a bit more complicated. On the get-go you add individuals to certain circles of your life (‘work’,'friends’,'music buddies’, etc). When you share something, you share it with whatever circles you choose. Once that funny cat video is shared, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the people whom you intended it for will actually see it. If they don’t add you to a circle, it will appear in the ‘incoming’ stream (incoming stream? what?). Another important thing to note, is that ‘circles’ are known only to you. If you add “Rob Bikeperson” to “Biker Mice from Bars”, they will only know that they have been added to “a” circle, but not which specific one. In other words, you have your own context about the certain circles of your life and another person has their own context.

Are you lost?

Exactly. Here is a graph to make it easier to understand. Click to enlarge:

Still lost? Exactly.

Some web enthusiasts are claiming the downfall of Facebook (and Twitter). To me Google+ just works differently. It is a new and interesting experiment around the idea of putting different facets of your life front and center. Putting it online comes with its own territory.

Google+ as it stands now is for users who are information consumers. The majority of users on Facebook aren’t facing this problem to such an extent that they would take the effort to understand a new model such as Google+. It’s an important iteration, but not the killer social network that it wants to be.

Graph: By Lee S. translated and reposted by Axel Aigret, Cyril Galliné and Nathalie Gilson. You can view it here.

Mashable put together this great little infographic to show how much data is created as a result of social media. A recent study puts that figure at around 1.8 zettabytes (A zettabyte is equal to 1 billion terabytes) – so next time you look at how many Facebook photos you have to see, think about about how many storage all those photos take up. As we mentioned before, we are all obsessed with Facebook…

So the latest iPhone does have a pretty remarkable camera with great detail, and also brilliant low light performance. But sometimes all that image accuracy does not quite translate into pictures with the right “feel”. Yes, you have much more control over the images by just uploading them to your PC and editing them from there, but where is the fun in that? These apps allow you to be creative with your images, and instantly share the pictures right from your phone. After all, isnt that what a smartphone is all about?

So here is BB’s list of the best camera apps you can find on iPhone right now:

Instagram: (Free)

Instagram follows pretty much the same idea as Hipstamatic (see below), its only free. However, the service is reliant on you signing up for the Instagr.am service which is not as bad as it sounds. The Instagram app comes with numerous filters which also give the same “analog” feel as Hipstamatic, only you do not pay extra for additional filters. The instagr.am web integration is actually the better part – once you sign up it checks for friends (from facebook or twitter) to see who also has instagram installed on their phones. It then creates a very cool timeline of images taken by your friends. Still one of my favourite iPhone apps.

Colorsplash: ($1)

The concept behind this app is simple – you take a colour photo, it creates a grayscale image, then you simply touch the portions of the image you want to return to colour. The effect is actually pretty great – you can accentuate certain portions of a image, which you can send off, or if you have additional image editors on your phone, edit it further.

Path: (Free)

Path follows a similiar idea to Instagr.am in that you and your friends share moments from your life with each other. Whereas an app like Facebook just allows random photo uploads, Path encourages you to tag your photos with captions, emotions, locations and other people. The interface is stunning – in fact many apps can take a few pointers from Path. You are limited to sharing with only 50 friends, making it much more personal than using something like Facebook (hands up the people who have friends on Facebook they hardly know…). Like Wired Magazine put it: “…posting on Path is not an act of broadcasting or self-promotion, but sharing a moment with someone who really knows you.”  The only issue I have with Path is that at the moment it does not look as popular as Instagr.am, so not many of my friends were using the app already.  If you want a better idea, I recommend you look at the video below.

360 Panorama: ($2)

Click the next image to enlarge:

This is one of my favourites as well. While I do not use it all the time, sometimes a certain scene simply cannot be captured with a standard photo. Using the iPhone 4′s gyro meter, Pano 360 senses your phone’s position is 3 dimensions, enabling you to stitch together images which creates large panoramic scenes. The images can then be sent in an email, or can be reopened by the app, and you can still move the phone around to get a sense of direction. While great for landscapes, it is particularly handy for anything you need to get a sense of 3D space as well – for example, property surveying. Well worth the cost.

Adobe Photoshop Express: (Free)

First off – do not let the name fool you. This is not the Photoshop you have on your PC, with its almost limitless array of intimidating functions. The app is actually super simple to use – simply snap a few images, or select an image from your Library. The interface is very intuitive – you simply select icons from the screen which give you Crop, Straighten, Rotate, Flip, Exposure, Saturation, Tint, B&W, Contrast, Sketch, Soft Focus, Sharpen, Effects (of which there are many) and different borders. Most of those options have gradial control – you simply shift your finger left and right on the screen to select how much effect on the photo you need. While this Top 5 list is primarily for the iPhone Adobe Photoshop Express is a universal app that is even better on the iPad. All that screen real estate does make for some great image editing. I highly recommend this app – in fact, its free, so its a must have…

Honourable Mention:

Hipstamatic: ($2)

Hipstamatic tries to mimic old toy cameras, and the “analog” feel of the photos do really make them look great. You can easily switch between lenses, films and flashes -which all modify the images. The app comes with quite a few of these, but the user can purchase additional “hipstapacks” – which typically includes a themed pack of a lens, film and flash. I like using this app, but the need to purchase additional effects does bother me a bit. I see the use of in-app purchases with free apps, but dont make me spend additional money on an app I already purchased…

So you might be a seasoned twitter user, or you are eager to get a feel for this “tweet” thing everyone is talking about. Now you obviously just head over to twitter.com, but you know all the cool kids are doing it directly from their phones. Luckily its pretty easy to dive into the world of twitter with the following Twitter clients on iPhone:

5) Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the great web-based clients for your PC, so its only natural for them to focus on the iPhone as well. The interface is clean and uncluttered, and very smooth. Integration with Foursquare works well – so if you want to save switching between Twitter and Foursquare, Hootsuite might just be perfect for you. One disadvantage is that you have to use the built in Ow.ly URL shortener.

4) Tweetdeck

Now I know there are some Tweetdeck fanatics – but I do not find it the best Twitter client for iPhone. I find it too busy, even though I do like the white text on black theme. There is also Facebook integration should you want that – but its really limited. One of the advantages is that if you use Tweetdeck on your PC, you can easily import all your collumns to your phone, and its syncs your unread messages. One small thing that bothers me is that Tweetdeck is still optimised for the Retina display. How long has iPhone 4 and the latest iPod Touch been out?

3) Twitteriffic

While its not my favourite Twitter app, Twitteriffic is always a pleasure to use because they do not stick with the boring, dull, text heavy interfaces some of the other apps use. Tweets are marked in colours – with a different colour for mentions and messages. Unfortuantely it is not free, but the ads do not really bother too much. Small details like geotagging and image previews seems to be missing on the free version.

2) Seesmic

One thing I always like about Seesmic is that they have unique interfaces – while this version is not as pretty as the Seesmic for Windows Phone 7 version, it does have a unique “Spaces” environment which reminds me of Expose on Mac OS X. If you use a variety of social networks, Seesmic currently also supports Myspace, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Flickr, Blogger, Delicio.us and you can even save your tweets on Evernote.

1) Twitter for iPhone

This app used to be called Tweetie, which has always been the Twitter app that other apps tried to mimic. Small details in the interface make it an absolute pleasure to use. For example – you know that small “pull down to refresh” interface feature some apps use? Tweetie was the app that did it first. In fact Tweetie was so good that Twitter decided to buy it from Atebits, and then rebranded it as the official Twitter app on iPhone. Its very quick and integrates well with all the necessary Twitter features. My app of choice. The iPad version looks even better.