Ipad/FB App Seminar

Pocket

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading.”
^{- Elizabeth Hardwick}

This is just some random quote I found on the Internet. It usually sounds cool to start with a quote.

The presentation by Inian, Junwei (Tuan and Qiao Liang) was really rich in the content. Among all, the three main ideas that I picked out from their presentation are:

1. Understand the users' needs at a deeper level: (and do something about it well)
What we understand: Users want to read.
What Pocket understands: Users want to read anytime, anywhere.
Just small refinements but they are really what made Pocket stick.

The "anytime" part is addressed by the main functionality of Pocket: multiplatform bookmarking. By so doing, Pocket makes sure that the stuffs you read on Ipad, Iphone, Android Phones, your lappie can all be viewed by Pocket. Furthermore, the integration with other applications makes sure that Pocket can capture as many "readable stuffs" in your device into its bookmarking system as possible.
The "anywhere" part is addressed by the extra functions offered by Pocket: the day/night modes in which the brightness is adjusted to fit the surrounding's light. Pocket can also store news and video to read and watch offline where there is no internet connection.

2. Commercial potential (or the lack of it)
I did not understand the rationale why Pocket went from a paid app to a free app. My best guess (and I think the group's best guess) is that in the long run, as Pocket gradually builds up a large customers' base (5 million up to now as presented by the group), it can (and is suspiciously doing) mine users' data and sell to interested companies. However, in the long spell when there are new rules and regulations imposed to protect the privacy right of people online, the revenue for companies that mine users' data, Pocket in particular, will be affected.

3. The interface:
In general, Pocket portraits a clean and sleek UI. There can be improvements, however, especially in the organization of the bookmarks, possibly to have some form of categorization of the news by the user's interests or habits.

My impression while using Pocket is that: can it be combined with StumbleUpon? Since Pocket is great for bookmarking interesting pages, what would be better if we can bookmark the random pages that we chance upon but  not having time to read? Especially considering people's habit: if they read a particular news source as a habitual thing, they may allocate their time for that. But for pages that they randomly visit but find interesting, they may want to leave that for a read later. So Pocket may consider allowing people to access random pages as one of its own functions.
Moreover, in order to commercialize its service, Pocket may consider a pay-per-view model by incorporating with some news agencies.
So maybe Pocket can function as a standalone browser? That will be easier for Pocket to implement the "stumble upon" function. My impression is that once they get used to Pocket, it may start to feel odd for people to browse the websites on one browser and read the bookmarked pages on Pocket separately. Also, that may make the collaboration with news agencies easier as Pocket can serve as the client for their web services.
Moreover, Pocket may add advertisements as the waiting screen when the pages are loaded? I'm not sure how they are going to do that since advertisement will also involve some waiting time. Possibly to upload the advertisement in the background and keep them offline so that those ads can accessed without any lag? And only aesthetically appealing advertisements should be put up to ensure that the display of advertisement will not disturb the users.

And now is the random part. I think it would be nice to have everyone present during the seminar. I understand that many of us are not that good in public speaking and presentation, but we should try. That's the whole spirit of this course and education in general I believe. I understand it takes great effort to step out under the bright light and speak up. I'm bad in presentation. But I WAS TERRIBLE in presentation. If anyone noticed, I had to put my left hand in my pocket and my right hand constantly made random movements during the presentation. I know they are the signs of nervousness that I must overcome. Or at least to hide them. But I have improved a lot from what I used to be. Sometimes we just need to run into the fire, and if we don't get burnt, the world seems quite cool after that.