How New Technology is changing and developing the way society uses information

tweet-a-hob

For this brief on ‘How technology is changing and developing the way society uses information’ I researched several different areas based on the sentence that was stated in the brief, the above. Twitter, Blogs, Forums, Google Earth/Streets, On Demand Video, Alternate Reality Games. I researched these and put all the information I found together in a blog http://nickbuckle.wordpress.com/

I found that they all were changing the way we all use information in different ways. The two that I found the most interesting and the ones I thought could be developed were Twitter and Forums. I found that Twitter has changed the way society works in the way that people find themselves keeping in touch with the whole world all day, 7days a week with the use of a smart phone or other portable devices. Twitter is simply an online program that has expanded rapidly over the last few years. Users sign up for an account then they have 140 characters to answer the question Twitter asks you ‘What are you doing?’ and to talk to other Twitter users. You then can search for certain words within ‘Tweets’, follow other twitter users, and interact with people all over the world. It is a very simple idea and I think that is why so many people are attracted to it. Getting interest and use like this on a product then gives the company big potential for making money through advertising and sales of add-ons and Apps for other devices.

I also found forums interesting. They have been around for a few years now. Early forums were made around 1996. I found that forums are still used a lot around the world and are mainly used by people with the same interests because of forums are made by someone for certain areas or hobbies. People still use them more than ever to talk, interact and meet people with the same interests. They aren’t changing the way society uses information as much as Twitter is but when they were first introduced they did. Forums are PHP programs that run inside websites and are a series of Threads set up by the Administrators, then users who have signed up for the forum can the make posts within the treads for other users to see and reply to. Forums tend to be based on a Hobby or certain area i.e Fishing, certain groups of cars, Books, Anything. This therefore gets people meet to other people with the same interests, so that’s why I think they are popular. When you get a lot of members in a forum, it is easier to get more members because the more users they have generally the more information they have within them. Again the more members you have the more money people will pay for advertising space.

I think both of these products are expanding all the time with Twitter gaining more users by the minute and forums getting easy to make and use. I think they both can have alternative uses with in the business world. Twitter can and is starting to be used by companies to contact their clients, and I think forums could be used a lot more in the business world by companies setting up Forums for the clients to talk to them and other clients or potential clients to see what the are asking and how they work.

My product idea is based on both of these products, Twitter and Forums. I have looked at the best parts of both and why I think they work and attract users. What I like about Twitter is the fact that it is very integrated with smart phones and it is very simple and the way you can only use 140 Characters. What I like about forums is the big factor that it gets people with the same interests together and that is what attracts people to forums. So my product idea is combining all the things I like about both. My idea that I thought of was to making a forum that has an application for smart phones so you can look and post on the forum. It would have been a cut down version of the actual forum like Twitter.com is cut down to make twitter applications for smart phones. I came away from this idea because of the fact forums being old technology and I wanted to push new technologies. So I progressed with the idea and got the product I have used, designed interfaces for and made a business plan.

My product is a twitter application for smart phones but with a different use for Twitter. The application uses Twitter but is based on Hobbies and it uses your Twitter account, and when you post within this application it is just on there and not on the main Twitter. The application has a series of menus so you can choose the hobby you would like to look at and tweet in. What users will do is search for a hobby or pick one from the most popular hobbies list i.e Gardening then within the gardening menu there will be sub menus that you can go into or make a new one i.e potting, shrubs, ect. Then users simply go into the hobby and a sub menu to talk to other users in there with only 140 characters or tweet links to sites or post photos just like on Twitter. The uses for this product will be like forums to get people with the same interests together and talking that at is why I think it would work and be very popular because people that use Forums and Twitter are all looking for people to talk to or to get information off.

I think this idea has be thought of because of the history of forums and websites where people meet, interact and talk and the popularity of them. Because of Twitter being so popular this format would suit a new product like this. I think that this product could drastically cut down the popularity of forums and people would use this option over a forum.

tweet-a-hob is the name I have come up for the product, it is called this because it is a cut down version of what it is. ‘Tweet a Hobby’. The logo design I chose from the few I had played around with but when I started making it on the computer I changed it to use the twitter font. Because I originally wanted it to look similar to the Twitter logo but as I developed the idea I thought it would be better to replicate to twitter logo.

This is a screen shot of the boot up page and will be shown while the application loads. The designs are very similar to Twitters because I wanted it to look as similar as possible using the same logo font and background colour and design.

This is the main menu it has the top 5 hobbies searched on tweet-a-hob in the last hour and the option to go to your own personal saved search section. The design of all the menus is simple, clean and clear. I made a texture image to go across to bottom to look similar to the grills that are on the famous G5 apple mac. The font is Helvetica and is the same colour used across the twitter site. I’ve made the setting buttons look similar to the buttons always used on the iPhone because the iPhone will be the main market that I would want to application used on due to the proven popularity of it and the Apps Store being a great way to sell it. The other buttons on the page are the refresh button, which is on every screen. The settings button will take you to the settings/ login page, and the search button in the bottom right corner.

The setting page uses the same design and is just simply for login in

The saved hobbies page is for the hobbies you have saved so you can easily get to them fast. And this page has the function of adding a new hobby. And also has the button to take you back to the previous menu in the bottom left hand corner.

This is for when you press the search button which is always in the bottom right hand corner of the page. It will bring up the search bar and keyboard on top of the page you are on and if you don’t want to search any more simply press the search button again for it to disappear.

This is simply the page you will get if you search something and clicking on the page you want, it will take you to the sub menu within that hobby or the page where you can tweet and see other peoples tweets.

This is the page that you can read other peoples tweets on and tweet on it yourself. It has the button to refresh so you can check if there are any new tweets.

This is just the keypad for writing your tweet to get this page you simply press to tweet button at the top of the page, and press it again to go back.

And this is what your post will look like.

Overall I think that this product would work very well and I think once it had got a few users then it would take off and be very popular. I also think that I have hit my targets of make the product simple and easy to use. Also for it to look clean and have a similar style of twitter and the iPhones designs combined. There are a few things I would change when I come to make the product like a few more options and settings, the function to delete hobbies once there are saved in your saved page section. Also more options when you have posted. I think the best way of me making any money out of this product and other products like it would be through the Apps Store and advertising within the product although I do think this puts users off a lot and wouldn’t be worth it. If this product did create an income then I would definitely think of making more products as a business/small career.

Keep your eyes on the Apps store because tweet-a-hob is coming soon.