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Thanks to services like Twitter and Instagram, and the global ‘smartphone saturation’ phenomenon, live reporting from big events has never been easier.

No longer do we have to rely on professionals to deliver content and images from these events, we have our extended social networks doing this for us. And, because so many of these updates get fired into the ‘public’ timeline, virtually any update from anywhere can be found and shared in a matter of seconds.

But, with all of this content creation happening, who is making sense of it, giving it some order and structure? You, of course. But, while we’ve taken to ‘leisurely’ content curation on platforms like Pinterest, ‘real-time content curation’ hasn’t been embraced with the same passion.

With the London Olympics on our doorstep, expect to see ‘real-time photo curation’ explode into popularity and we’ve got some tools to help you be at the forefront of this revolution.

10 ‘real-time’ photo search engines

1. NachoPhoto.com - If you conduct your own search for ‘real-time photo search engines’ this is likely to appear pretty high, even though it doesn’t appear to be promoted as heavily as it was about 12 months ago. Take a look at the example ‘LeBron’ (LeBron James) search as an example of the results you get back. NachoPhoto combines ‘professional’ potography with ‘user-generated’ results better than anyone else out there.

2. Skylin.es – This service takes most of its results from the public Twitter timeline and allows you to pick and choose the best user-generated photos being published in real-time. It also gives you the ability to narrow these results down by location. Boom!

3. Twitcaps.com – If you are after the best of Twitter and Instagram, then Twitcaps is the service for you. While the interface is a little rough around the edges, it delivers a true real-time photo discovery experience.

4. PicFog.com - The unique element of PicFog is its minute-by-minute time-stamping functionality, letting you know exactly when each image was uploaded. This can give you and your curation efforts a big competitive advantage.

 

5. Twicsy.com - One of the best Twitter pics search engines, Twicsy offers a handy ‘in the last hour’ search filter which can help hugely in your real-time curation efforts. You can even get your hands on pre-set widgets which will serve up images from specific user accounts in real-time.

Best of the rest

Here are five other options we recommend checking out:

6. Topsy Image Search - The image-specific section of the popular Twitter search engine.

7. Hashalbum.com - Real-time discovery of ‘hashtagged’ images.

8. TwiPho.net - Aggregates images from the major real-time networks in an easy-to-navigate manner.

9. Flickr Latest Photos Search - A ‘hidden’ search option but one worth bookmarking for Flickr image searches.

10. Social Mention Photo Search - SocialMention.com is one of the world’s most popular general social media search tools but not many people are aware of its real-time image search function. Simply head to the homepage, search in ‘images’ only and then sort by ‘last hour’ uploads and voila!

gualtiero boffi via shutterstock

Via thenextweb: http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2012/05/19/10-realtime-and-reliable-photo-search-engines/

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Neil Patel, co-founder of KISSmetrics and blogger at QuickSprout.com.

You may have seen it by now…Google’s concept video about its new Project Glass. These glasses will do what your smart phone will do only without having to hold anything…you actually see your options at the side of your view.

You can get directions, send and receive texts, make calls, schedule tasks and even share your view with another person.

It’s a really exciting idea…especially if you love technology. But the actual product is easily years out from becoming a reality.

Was Google wise to release an idea so early? And should startups do the same?

Concept videos give you constructive criticism

At this stage Project Glass is nothing but a video…and may not be a reality for a long time. Augmented reality experts point out that there are huge hurdles the Google has to overcome.

So why did Google unveil so early?

It all boils down to the fact that they wanted feedback on the product. Google wanted to learn the good and bad things people had to say about the glasses.

The video currently has gotten over 15 million views which suggests that there is a lot of curiosity in the product…

but not necessarily interested buyers.

It’s just like when Drew Houston released his Dropbox video. There was no coding…just a screen cast of how Dropbox would work.

While Dropbox was certainly fishing for feedback on how to improve its product more importantly it was looking for how many people would adopt and use it.

The Digg community responded:

But more importantly, there were thousands of people who signed up to be notified for the release of the actual product on the first day of the video’s release. And then thousands more after that.

Clearly Drew learned that there was a huge need out there that DropBox could fulfill.

Concept videos gauge interest

You’ll more than likely get in-depth comments from the innovators and early adopters.
The early and late majority will typically just vote up or down on it.

While the input from the first group is critical for building a better product…hearing from the second group is critical to knowing if you are creating a product that will have mass adoption.

But don’t get discouraged if you only hear from the first group during the first round of your prototype video. While keeping costs low, make the suggested changes from the first group to the product and then release a second video.

However, if you don’t hear from the second group the second time around…then you may have a product that nobody wants.

Concept videos build your brand

Another reason for doing a concept video is to make your company look like it’s a company that is on the cutting edge and is doing cool things in secret.

The concept video is a powerful marketing strategy for companies that have long production time tables between products…like cars or iPads.

Apple will release concept videos like this one on the iPad 3 that keep people in anticipation of the real product. Otherwise they may fade into background and no longer seem like the cool technology company it is.

This is also why Google released their concept video.

Remember, however, that this strategy doesn’t always work with small businesses. It’s a lot more risky for a startup to engage in a concept video if the technology is years out from entering the market.

The startup without an established reputation or brand is better off just building a superior product behind closed doors. A concept video that gets a poor reception could easily sink their reputation.

When should a start up use a concept video?

A concept video is a great idea for a start up when two conditions are met:

• You can keep costs down – Google’s Project Glass video is a high-quality production that probably costs thousands to produce from the sheer man hours alone. Your video doesn’t have to be that slick. Drew Houston achieved his results with something a whole heck of a lot cheaper.
• You want feedback from focus group – If you are a startup building a killer product behind closed doors you will definitely at some point want to get feedback from real live users and learn from their suggestions. You can do this with a concept video that you only share in private. This will protect you from pre-mature scrutiny from the public. Make sure though you use testers who you trust and can be confident they won’t leak your product early.

So how do you create a successful concept video? Here are some tips.

Involve the viewers

In my opinion the genius of the Google Glasses concept video was in that it shows you exactly what the product could do for you by putting the viewer into the lead role of the video.

From the start of the video the camera moves around like it is you looking out from these glasses.

This is a great example of allowing someone to demo a product without actually having the product!

Highlight the benefits of the features

The basic purpose of a concept video is to show potential users how its features will make the life of the user better. This means you have to give examples of ways your product can make the user smarter, more efficient or happier.

The DropBox video gave tons of examples on stuff people could store.

But then it went on to give scenarios of how DropBox could be used to solve common storage problems people have.

Isolate the new features

If you have an existing product like the iPad…then how can a concept video help you?

In this case most people will be familiar with the general features of the product. What Apple’s concept video needed to do was show off the new features.

This could be done without any narration as the action communicated clearly what a person could do with new features like connecting two iPads together, a holograph display of movies and an augmented reality keyboard.

Tell a story

Another reason the Google video was a success is that it told a story. It was a simple story of a day in someone’s life.

It showed him eating breakfast, trying to catch the subway, meeting a friend for coffee and playing the ukulele for his girlfriend…and how Google Glasses was involved the whole time.

That narrative…and how seamless Google Glasses fit into that narrative…keeps you glued to the screen!

It’s critical to understand that your product must fit seamlessly into the story. If it feels crammed or out of place then this approach won’t work.

Create a mechanism to capture leads

Finally, if you are going to create a concept video then you need to create a way to capture the leads that you generate, which usually involves driving them to a unique landing page…

This is what I think was Google’s biggest failure. They missed…and are missing…an opportunity to capture something like 14 million possible leads of interest.

If anything by capturing leads with a basic field that allows someone to join a list of updates on Project Glass will help them to see how many potential customers there are, which would give you quantifiable data to determine if it will be a profitable market.

For the startup who doesn’t have the financial resources that a Google has this is an absolute must. Create a mechanism to capture an email address.

Final thoughts

The concept video is a wonderful marketing tool on some many levels. However, it may not be the best approach for every start up. You need to evaluate your needs, your resources and what you are trying to accomplishing before jumping in with both feet.

However, if and when you do decide, I truly believe that it’s a great way to help you save money and reputation…leading to a killer product in the end!

What other advantages are there to using a concept video?

Via TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/19/marketing-lessons-startups-need-to-learn-from-googles-project-glass-concept-video/

UK tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail, has decided to raise the issue of Google’s influence on the UK government, after uncovering the fact that Conservative party ministers have held meetings with Google an average of once a month since the General Election two years ago. There have been 23 meetings between Tory ministers and Google since June 2010, with Prime Minister David Cameron meeting Google three times and George Osborne – who as Chancellor of the Exchequer is supposed to meet with business leaders – four times in two years.

The story need to be a seen in a wider context. The Conservatives (as has the Labour party during its tenure) have recently come under fire for having too close a relationship to another powerful entity, News Corporation. A huge inquiry into Press standards has in large part focused on the ties between Rupert Murdoch’s media giant and the Conservatives.

But what the report buries way down in the article, is the number of times the newspaper itself has met with the Government. A Google spokesperson told us: “It’s absolutely right that governments speak with companies about issues that affect their citizens. The British Government makes the list of those meetings publicly available – including the Daily Mail’s 34 meetings over the same period.” In other words, the Daily Mail has met with the Government almost one and a half times a month (on average) since they entered office – that’s quite a bit more than Google has. It’s likely those were high-level meetings, not editorial ones.

That said, the issue does raise the question of Google’s closeness to the UK government and its ability to grab the ear of the Government on a number of topics. It’s the kind of access a lot of companies would be envious of.

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has met the firm seven times. Culture Secretary boss Jeremy Hunt has held four meetings. In David Cameron’s first months as party leader in 2006 and 2007 (though not yet Prime Minister), he spoke to the annual Google Zeitgeist conference.

Three senior figures have moved between the Tories and Google in the last few years. Rachel Whetstone is Global head of communications and public policy at Google and is married to David Cameron’s former chief of staff, Steve Hilton. Naomi Gummer was formerly adviser to Curlture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, but is now a public policy adviser to Google. Amy Fisher Was a press officer for Google, and is now a special adviser to the Evironment Sectretary Corline Spelman.

On Hilton, the right wing Daily Mail newspaper has rarely missed an opportunity to attack his more radical attempts to shake up government thinking about technology and its affect on society. But it’s more likely that the Conservative – in part driven by Hilton’s thinking – have realised that the world has moved away from the green-screen, big-IT projects which used to fill the coffers of the likes of EDS and others, towards embracing a more open standards approach. On the ground this has fed into attempts to open up government data, and led also the innovative project known as Gov.uk, which is taking a startup approach to government online, employing many of the UK’s best engineers and tech stars.

It’s also quite something to see this sentence describing Hilton as the “shaven-headed son of Hungarian immigrants” – a phrase which betray’s the Mail’s antipathy to alternative thinking.

In March it was announced that Mr Hilton was going to take academic post at Stanford University in California to be near his wife who works at Google. He plans to return next year, though it’s not yet clear whether he will re-join the government.

Of course, back in the real world, these West-Wing-like moves of advisers between big business and governments go on literally all the time. We don’t have the equivalent figures for meetings with Microsoft or Cisco, or Facebook, IBM or other companies, but I’d be amazed there were not similar factoids waiting to scurry forth if someone someone decided to lift a few rocks. Indeed, Microsoft has appeared several times at government’s ‘Tech City’ meetings.

So quite why the Daily Mail has decided to home in on this issue is a little bit of a mystery. It may be that the story was placed as a faux attack by the Labour party. Their health IT scheme to store patients’ records failed spectacularly just before they left office, so they would have smarted at the suggestion by Cameron that a company like Google could probably do a better job.

The newspaper quotes Helen Goodman, Labour’s media spokesman, who says “Of course it is important for ministers to listen to business, but a meeting with Google every month does look like the sort of privileged access that small businesses can only dream of.” Unfortunately, she neglects to mention the numerous tiny tech startups that have been invited to Number 10 Downing Street over the last couple of years as part of the government’s Tech City Initiative, and its purchase of an entire building – Campus London – in East London which is housing small tech startups that have have nothing to do with Google.

Then again, Google doesn’t help it’s own cause. In Europe it does not have a great record on tax. As Goodman points out: “Ministers must disclose what they discussed. Did they challenge Google over their repellent tax avoidance, which was uncovered by the Daily Mail?”

It’s here that criticism could land a big punch. Google has been oft criticised for paying tax on less than a quarter of its UK income. In 2010 it generated £2.1 billion in the UK but with its international operations based Ireland, where corporation tax is much lower than the UK, it escapes a great deal of tax.

And Google hasn’t always helped its own cause.

Last month Google executive Naomi Gummer, until recently a Conservative minister’s political adviser, caused a furore in the press when she implied (not unreasonably?) that it was the job of parents to stop children seeing adult content online, not Internet companies. Currently a debate rages in the UK about creating an ‘off switch’ at ISP level to block porn, allowing parents baffled by content settings or Net Nanny software to just order a ‘clean’ version of the Internet direct from their ISP.

A Conservative Party spokesman told the Mail: “All these meetings have been properly declared and it is normal for relevant ministers to meet with a company of this size.”

The Mail’s story does raise questions of perceptions over-all but as a major UK tech player, it would be extremely odd for it not to meet with whoever was in power fairly regularly. Neither Facebook not Twitter, for instance, have anything like the huge engineering bases and offices Google has in the UK. Do we want our politicians remain in a world view of tech dominated by the desktop and ‘licenses’ or one where developers, startups and apps can thrive? I’d hazard not.

Via TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/19/newspaper-attacks-uk-government-for-its-closeness-to-google/

“Entering terminal count autosequence. 60 seconds to engine fire. #DragonLaunch,” Tweeted Elon Musk as his space company was less than a minute away from it’s historic flight. But the launch didn’t happen. Nothing happened as Long-time NASA commentator George Diller counted down the seconds, “3..2..1……We’ve had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur.” Musk tweeted 11 minutes later at 5:06am EDT, “Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.”

The SpaceX Flacon 9 rocket was literally a half a second away from launching. NASA is still inspecting the engine but early reports, tweeted by both Musk and NASA, state that the chamber pressure on engine 5 was abnormally high, causing the rocket’s onboard computer to abort the launch.

SpaceX was on the cusp of making history and becoming the first privately owned institution to dock a capsule with the International Space Station. Only governments, the US, Russia and Japan, have so far accomplished this task. Space X is hoping to take over the transport duties from NASA starting first with cargo but eventually shuttling personally between terra firma and the ISS.

This isn’t SpaceX’s first space rodeo. The company has been launching its Falcon rockets since 2006 although the first flight of a Falcon 1 failed a few seconds in. The rocket on the launchpad today, a Falcon 9, saw a successful first flight in 2010.

Today’s launch, while cut short, will likely (hopefully) just be a footnote in SpaceX history. The company is set to try again in the coming days. The next launch attempt will come on May 22 but it could be pushed to May 23 according to some reports.

Via TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/19/spacexs-historic-launch-aborted-less-than-a-second-prior-to-launch/