Rev2.org » Craig Agranoff

Romney, Obama Adopt Square for Donations

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:58:29 +0000

In 2008, social media played a big part in the presidential elections as candidates like Obama, Ron Paul, and to some extent McCain utilized sites like Facebook and Twitter to expand their campaigns. This year, they will be even more important and candidates are already working hard to take advantage of every tool they can to get ahead.

Both President Obama’s re-election campaign and Republican contender Mitt Romney’s campaign have adopted the latest tool in political fundraising: Square. Square allows just about anyone, including campaigns, to accept donations from mobile phones ...

Interesting Uses of Facebook’s Open Graph

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:09:26 +0000

Earlier this month, Facebook launched its Open Graph tools to allow app developers to more easily share user activity data across timelines and on their own sites for integration. While controversial, as the usual privacy concerns were aired, the tools have been utilized in some interesting ways. Here’s a few of them.

Fab.com’s $10 monthly credit for opt-ins. This is really cool. Usually, your data is seen as a free-for-all by companies and Facebook itself. Fab.com, however, is rewarding users for opting in to shar etheir shopping data with them. For ...

Chevrolet Holding Play to Win With Interactive App During Super Bowl

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:37:03 +0000

Chevrolet has announced that during Super Bowl XLVI, they will be running a “Play to Win” game on their interactive Chevy App. The app itself ties in with a special Chevrolet Twitter account and allows participants to interact live with other SBXLVI fans as well as participate in trivia and game-based polls to try to win one of 20 cars being given away as prizes.

The Chevy Game Time App is available free in the Android and iTunes markets as of yesterday (Jan. 22).

Other prizes will include tires and accessories from ...

Rupert Murdoch, Google, Obama and Twitter on a Saturday Night

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:29:56 +0000

Saturday night, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who’s new to Twitter and may not fully understand how permanent tweets can be and how broadly they can be distributed (which may, ultimately, be part of his problem – more on that in a minute) posted a barrage of accusations in 140 or less against President Obama and Google.

The gist of those tweets? Murdoch is a huge supporter of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and accused the president of selling out to Silicon Valley money. He then accused Google of being the ...

Inside Social Apps 2012

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:10:24 +0000

On February 8-9 in San Francisco, California, a conference bringing together today’s leading developers of social and mobile apps will be held. Inside Social Apps is a two-day summit on the future of app and game growth on social and mobile platforms.

Presenters include Tim Chang of the Mayfield Fund, Daniel Terry of Pocket Gems, David Glazer of Google+, Barry Cottle of EA Interactive, as well as representatives from Facebook, Disney Interactive, and many more. A couple of dozen in total, in fact.

The event is two full days of critical discussion ...

Learn to Code in 2012

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:02:56 +0000

As the world moves into the future and we along with it, technology continues to become a bigger and bigger part of our lives. For many of us, technology is literally with us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We carry our iPhones, iPods, smart phones, tablets; we have DVD, DVR, desktops, laptops, our cars are connected, our houses are filled with WiFi, and we RSVP our children’s play dates using Facebook apps…

Yet most of us know little about how all this technology works. Let alone how to ...

Amazing Breaker for iPhone

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 12:39:42 +0000

It’s rare that you come across a game that is a uniquely original take on a relatively standard game type. We see knockoffs all the time, or games that are basically just the same old game idea with better graphics and maybe different icons. Unlike those types of remakes, Amazing Breaker is a truly original take on a relatively common game concept.

The premise is relatively simple: you draw back your sling cannon to launch projectiles at an object and break it down – sort of halfway between Angry ...

Facebook for Android Beating iPhone

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:33:01 +0000

For the first time, Facebook for Android is showing more mobile daily active users than is Facebook for iPhone. The Android Facebook app launched in 2009, a year after the iPhone’s app, though both were internally developed by Facebook.

The Android app, according to Facebook’s numbers, is now pulling 58.3 million DAU compared to iPhone’s 57.4 million. Facebook released the latest update to the iPhone app which added Timeline access, previously only available on Android, but with Android phones activating at a blistering 550,000 per day, it may not be enough ...

Will Pandora Fall With Startup Senzari?

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:30:51 +0000

Pandora has two major drawbacks: a small music catalog and it’s only available in the U.S. A catalog of 900,000 songs to choose from is nothing to balk at, but in today’s connected world of on-demand content, it’s a tiny drop in the bucket. Add to that the inter-connected world we live in now and you see limitations to Pandora that make it.. well, less desirable.

Other music services like Spotify have been gaining ground quickly, but there is a large market segment that it doesn’t appeal to: music listeners who ...

Facebook Buys Gowalla?

Craig Agranoff — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:33:08 +0000

CNN Money is reporting that, according to sources, Facebook has purchased location sharing service Gowalla. The deal is officially unconfirmed, but seems likely given the sources.

Further information says that Gowalla will uproot from its Texas offices and move into Facebook’s space in Palo Alto, California. Gowalla will become integrated with Facebook’s “Timeline” feature, which is gradually rolling out to FB users now.

Gowalla recently re-built iself as a “travel guide” after failing to attract enough users to really compete with Foursquare, current Mayor of Location-Based Apps. It’s unknown whether ...