Babble On

Here's another application which allows you to heighten the visitor experience to your web site, blog or Facebook business page.

Photobabble is a free app.which can be used for product demonstrations, web site advertising and the like




The power and emotion of human voice makes an evocative addition to social media across multiple channels: web, mobile and social networks.

Dogster used Photobabble

Photos are the most shared social content and this audio/image product allows the user to capitalise upon the trend. Talking Photos, Fotobabble’s first mobile/web application, lets users add voice to images in seconds, and share their voice-powered Talking Photos through Facebook, Twitter, email and other social networks.

The company claims that it is "used everyday by users in small businesses, education, professional photography, real estate, nonprofits, storytelling, greeting cards, dating sites, and big brand marketing."

Thinking outside the square makes it possible to use this app in novel and entertaining ways. For example,  a social network for dogs, Dogster,  ran a campaign using Fotobabble's Facebook app to run a “bark translator” on its Page.

VPA's and the State of the Twitterverse

There is a buzz of excitement around the release of the next iPhone and it is not all to do with the hardware. In tandem with the release Apple will be launching their new artificial intelligence Assistant.

This software has evolved from Siri Personal Assistant and VPA's (Virtual Personal Assistants) will change for ever the way we use our smart devices.

Siri co-founder Norman Winarsky was recently interviewed by 9TO5Mac:

“Make no mistake: Apple’s ‘mainstreaming’ Artificial Intelligence in the form of a Virtual Personal Assistant is a groundbreaking event. I’d go so far as to say it is a world-changing event.”

“This is real AI with real market use. If the rumors are true, Apple will enable millions upon millions of people to interact with machines with natural language. The PAL (personal assistant software) will get things done, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. We’re talking another technology revolution. A new computing paradigm shift.”

The critical advantage of the iPhone Assistant is that it will learn;  what food you like, what restaurants you like to go to, the taxi numbers to get to those restaurants, which app to use, as well as performing web searches and transcribing your texts.

Meanwhile on the social media front, Twitter goes from strength to strength. Three recent infographics which give an updated overview of Twitter activity.

Related articles

• Co-Founder of Siri: Assistant launch is a "World-Changing Event" (Interview) (9to5mac.com)
• Let's Talk, iPhone (technologyreview.com)
• Ready for a Smarter Smartphone? iOS 5 "Assistant" Technology Revealed (readwriteweb.com)

This Week's Cartoon

Courtesy Agent-X  Comics

Taking Flight

The all-pervasive Google has ventured forth once again, this time providing a travel tool which no doubt has ambitions of future world domination.  When Google bought ITA Software, a Cambridge, Massachusetts flight information software company, for $700 million, it was a somewhat controversial acquisition.

Google Flights is the result of the ITA software integration in Boston.

Google Flights -  a simple and responsive interface

Currently it is solely US-centric and with only a select group of cities at that. Providing you are leaving or going to California you are in luck.  No doubt the roll-out will be rapid if consumers and agents respond well to the product. Google will be able to literally "click the ticket".




Not content with controlling how you travel Google is also interested in guiding your culinary preferences and has just announced the purchase of Zagat, a company know for its printed restaurant guides.

You are what you eat and where you fly, all of which can be guided in the future by Google.

Related articles

• Is Google's Zagat acquisition its most problematic ever? (econsultancy.com)
• Does Google want to own or organize information? (news.cnet.com)
• Google acquires Zagat: good news for foodies, bad news for Yelp? (engadget.com)