By Phil Glockner of Scribkin (FriendFeed/Twitter)


NEXX Studio recently released a new game for the iPhone called Photo Spot. The goal is to find a number of differences between two seemingly-identical images. The concept behind this game isn't new -- newspapers and travel-entertainment books have included this sort of puzzle for years. However, it can become quite difficult at times!


The core gameplay is pretty straight-forward. There are four alterations for each image. The differences can appear on either of the two image copies. You are trying to beat a timer that ends the game if it runs out. You also get three 'hints' per game, revealing one alteration per hint. If you find all four changes in a particular set quickly, you get bonus points. To identify a difference, you just tap where you think it is, and if you are correct a green circle appears surrounding it.


What really impressed me about this game were some smaller touches that are often overlooked in other games that are rushed to the iPhone platform. First, the graphics are great. Bright, colorful, and consistent across all the game screens. I would equate it to a Nintendo game for the Wii, which is definitely worthy. Second, the effects and soundtrack are light, pleasant and cheerful, and the perfect accompaniment to the graphics. Plus, the game asks if you want sound or not when you launch, which is perfect if you are in a crowded area like the cabin of an airplane.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the playability of Photo Spot. Some photos are definitely more challenging than others, and sometimes you get a picture you've had in the past, but otherwise made with a lot of polish and attention toward keeping the action fun and light. Currently, Photo Spot is available for 99 cents in the iTunes Store.

Read more by Phil Glockner at Scribkin.com.

Following on to yesterday's visit at Lijit, I knew my two-day trip to Boulder would not be complete without making time to visit Gnip, the interesting company started by former MyBlogLog and IGN founder Eric Marcoullier. So Micah Baldwin, my trusty sidekick and part-time chauffeur for the trip, and I caught breakfast with Eric and the team this morning, and visited their cozy headquarters. While we didn't get hours to sit with the executive team, as we did with Lijit, we learned that Gnip is growing and hiring talented developers, and has made an important discovery in its business model - target companies that have money and are willing to pay for your product.

In July of 2008, when Gnip first launched (See: Gnip CEO's Goal: Make Twitter's Data Flow Suck Less), the company made headlines for finding ways to move data around more quickly and without as much overhead, acting as an arbiter between different Web services. But as I was told today, making Web 2.0 services the primary client was pretty much a guarantee for low revenue. After all, if your customers aren't making money, how could you expect them to pay you?

As a result, Gnip, which has grown to 11 full-time employees, all of whom Eric says are required to be smarter than him in order to get hired, has gotten more activity with more traditional companies, including one market research firm that is analyzing as many as 100,000 different Twitter accounts and checks for user sentiment.

Gnip's office in Boulder has the industrious start-up feel to it. Desks are pushed together in a small space that reminds me of my freshman year dorm room I had to share with two other guys. But while the company is growing, it has a small quandary, as Boulder commercial real estate works great for small spaces and large spaces, I was told, but there just aren't enough options for medium-sized companies looking for an "in between" solution.

In fact, there is so little open space at Gnip's office that Eric, Shane Pearson and I talked on the front porch. Unfortunately, the front porch bench that adorned the office had been stolen overnight. The main suspect? "Stinking hippies", Eric tweeted.

Such growing pains are good, of course, because that means the company is growing, period, and it sounds like they are focused on continuing to improve the product, hire smart developers, and they even finally managed to grab the ever-elusive gnip.com domain, after using the gnipcentral.com site since launch.

To learn more about Gnip's unique view on the data world, check out their blog. Product news will no doubt be coming soon. Of the 11 employees, 8 are full-time engineers.

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Bebo has announced their top 18 applications for their B.E.S.T. (Bebo: Engage to Succeed Today) Developer contest . The competition, which seeks to allow developers to showcase their skills on the Bebo platform, was kicked off back in November . The competition gave developers just 2 months to build or port an application from scratch that was unique and engaging amongst the Bebo userbase. Frank Gruber (aka SomewhatFrank) , Dave McClure (aka Master of 500 Hats) , and myself (aka The "Social" Geek) were selected to judge the event. Bebo received near 2,000 applications, and has announced the top 18 of those for us to judge. Judging is currently in progress, and the results will be announced at a special awards ceremony on Feb. 18 in San Francisco . With permission from Bebo, the top 18 applications are (in the order they gave them to me, aka no particular order):
Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

Guest Post By Adam Singer of The Future Buzz (FriendFeed/Twitter)

I try my best every so often to bring a dose of logic to the world of blogs on social media. What I thought would be fun would be a post about topics written by social media and meta bloggers that I personally don't think serve a purpose.

If you read enough SM blogs, you know why this is necessary. If not, congratulations, you can skip this post and live on blissfully unaware of what I'm talking about. Let's jump into it:

Posts complaining about the echo chamber

Common complaint: The echo chamber is boring, topics being discussed have already been discussed to death, topics are obvious, or there are simply too many blogs/people discussing a certain subject.

Why these posts are unnecessary: last time I checked, we were in control of how high the volume is set and what sites we subscribe to. There are plenty of great blogs out there and if you're smart enough to write up a post detailing why the echo chamber sucks, you're smart enough to filter out the noise from the signal. Not sure what complaining about it does. Instead of complaining about the noise in the echo chamber, figure out how you can maximize signal and minimize noise. If you don't like it, just don't read it.

A previous post bringing logic to this situation: there's no reason to feel overwhelmed.

Complaining about list posts

Common complaint: lists are selling out, gimmicky, overdone, boring, not deep content, etc.

Why these posts are wrong: harping on a specific way of formatting content doesn't seem very logical. People like lists - and there is definitely high engagement on those pages (I've checked the stats). I see no reason why the way content is formatted should matter if the content itself is useful or interesting. Yes, there can be bad lists - just like there can be bad blog posts not in lists format - the format itself is irrelevant. Lists are great, I'll prove it to you:

Lists:

1. Are scannable
2. Provide easy to read and consume content
3. Have the novelty factor
4. Are many times "must-share" content
5. Engage people
6. Are at times humorous, entertaining or incredible
7. Are a strong social Web meme
8. Get strong traffic

A previous post bringing logic to this situation: A Guilty Pleasure of the Blogosphere and Social Media: Lists

Social media "experts"

Common complaint: Everyone is a social media/new media consultant/specialist (insert other fancy, self imposed title here).

Why these posts don't matter: Making general complaints is kind of worthless. Complaining at the macro level accomplishes nothing - if you are going to write a complaint, call them out. Seriously. I've done it here, and even had a good reason/sample of what they had done wrong and laid out my case logically for the world to see. I thought it was fair, because they were wrong in writing what they did and didn't bother to listen when I brought the matter up privately. I saw no reason it wasn't the right move to show what they were doing wrong publicly when I was being ignored and they weren't even playing by their own rules.

A previous post bringing logic to this situation: Titles Are As Meaningless As Ever

Lack of good content

Common complaint: Lack of quality content in tech/social media/marketing/basket weaving/insert niche here.

Why these posts are wrong: Just because your favorite blogger stopped posting as frequently and instead is spending all their time on Twitter/FriendFeed doesn't mean there aren't hordes of other bloggers still writing smart content on your subject of choice. I know some of the early adopter crowd has a hard time believing people are still using tools that are a few years old - but the reality is there is plenty of great content being created in all platforms, not just the new ones.

A previous post bringing logic to this situation: FriendFeed And Twitter Have *Not* Killed Blogging

Conclusion

Sorry for getting all meta on you. I personally am not complaining, I am pretty happy with my current system for filtering content - but venture into these types of posts every so often thanks to random Tweets / FriendFeed links and thought I could do some good to help the situation. Feel free to point out the irony of this post in the comments, I'm well aware. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

Of course, usefulness is relative - what I find irrelevant, you might find interesting. And, there's nothing wrong with that either.

Also if you're going to complain, at least offer some guidance/next steps to fix the situation. Rants are fine with a purpose. Steven Hodson is great at them - read his blog if you're looking for how to be snarky and do it with class.

What posts by social media bloggers do you think have jumped the shark?

Read more by Adam Singer at The Future Buzz