TagCow

How to store tons of digital photos appropriately? Yes, that’s the major problem for everyone. Storing in a common folder is easier. However, difficulty occurs when one wants to store them in a specific folder. For example, picking all the flowers photos from a folder which consists of huge number of other photos. Definitely it can be done, but it is a tedious and time consuming job.

Recently a good service called TagCow launched to solve the problem. It has an ability to identify the photos with the descriptive keywords. The keywords could be anything, such as rain, mummy, home, etc. It identifies the pictures and tags them based on the descriptive. Isn’t it making our life so much earlier?

Source: http://www.tagcow.com/home

Users can easily sign in with TagCow, and upload the digital photos. At that point, those photos will be sent to TagCow “tag factory”, where all the descriptive tags will be added. Once done, it will be published in user’s TagCow site based on the descriptive attributes. However, the service is also integrates with another photo storing service called Flickr. User can easily setup a template for tagging people and connect their Flickr account into TagCow account. In this way, TagCow’s “tag factory” will be able to get all the photos from user’s Flickr album and add the descriptive tags. Then, everyone can easily search the photos based on the descriptive tags on Flickr site itself.

The major doubt that existed among the public was “How TagCow works? Is it automated or done by human?” I think that is not necessary, unless if we want to work on the similar service. In my point of view, it will be a great idea if TagCow extends the service by having “desktop application”. In this way users can easily download the application and sort their photos in the hard drive. So, it can be a useful application for online and offline storage.

iTunes in Rock Band and Guitar Hero

Have you ever heard about games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero? Yes, those are famous video games. How if the players get an option to choose and listen to their preferred songs while playing? Absolutely gamers will love it. iTunes have been brought up into those games which is an excellent choice for the gamers.

It allows the gamers to buy musical tracks in it. They can simply browse the available songs by artist, by album, or by song title. The detail of each track such as the name of the CD that taken from, and information about the song will be available as well. Gamers can download the track to listen while playing by paying one or two dollars. However, there is a preview function where they can hear the songs before downloading it. I think in this way, they will try all the new songs which they may not be familiar. It is also allow them to export the downloaded tracks onto their mp3 players.

The interface for selecting the track is very simple and easy. It looks like a page where one is doing online shopping for music.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080322-rock-band-opens-built-in-music-store-eyes-itunes.html

According to the survey, the sales figure for Guitar Hero 3 has been increased after updating the software with music.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071121-your-song-in-guitar-hero-equals-a-big-jump-in-digital-sales.html

Based on Ars Technica’s information, Guitar Hero is a billion-dollar franchise whereas Rock Band is selling in large amount as well. Personally, I think it is a very good and big business model. They can easily earn money through satisfying their consumers by providing songs for them to choose and listen while playing. The number of gamers can be increased easily as well as publicising new singers and songs by having online music store in the games.

What do you think? As a gamer, will you buy it?

Nike + Apple

For the first time in the history, two technology driven companies have combined together. They are Nike and Apple. People may ask, what is the relationship between the both companies to have partnership since they are completely from two different areas? However, after eighteen months in the making, Nike and Apple managed to come out with a great product called Nike + iPod Sport Kit.

Nike + iPod Sport Kit

It is a small mechanism which is required to insert under the line of the shoe via a sensor. It looks like a sim card, and a small receiver will be attached to the iPod Nano. As the user runs, the sensor records all the details such as distance, time, pace, and calories burned. Then all the recorded data will be displayed on the iPod Nano. It works something like the nav system in a car which communicates the details.

How to use Nike+iPod Sport Kit

User can set a workout such as how far and how long in the iPod Nano, and then choose a playlist to hear while working out. When the user is going to work out, the screen of the iPod will look as below:

The Nike + iPod Sport Kit is available for $29 in all the Apple Stores for certain days and in Nike footwear shops. It is also available in Amazon.com and ebay.com. However, personally I think Apple should sell this product virtually whereas Nike uses traditional market. In this way, it makes customers choice easier rather than buying through Amazon or ebay.

Google Checkout for Political Contributions in Asia?

During the election season, Google has come out with an excellent idea to make money from credit and debit card online. This idea is known as Google Checkout for Political Contributions.

Google Checkout for Political Contributions

It is integrating with YouTube. YouTube Choose 08 Channel is a platform which has uploaded election candidates’ videos as well as news from organizations and bloggers. Google Checkout helps to gain and attract supporters and increase online campaign. It is very easy for the supporters to make online contributions. Moreover, it helps to increase fundraising since it allows the supporters to place the embedded contribution button ofYouTube Choose 08 Channel on their preferred sites like blogs and websites. It charges 2 percentage + $0.20 per transaction to place an advertisement or announcement in Google Checkout. It has no monthly, setup, or gateway fees. Currently, this system is being used for U.S. Election 2008.

YouTube Choose 08 Channel

How if Google bring this to Asia? Will the election candidates and supporters use it? I think yes. Google should bring this system to Asia and encourage them to use it. I’m sure the rate that Google is charging is cheaper than the amount of money that candidates need for physical campaign. It is also make candidates life easier since they don’t need to travel a lot. At the same time supporters can easily support their preferred candidates from wherever they are.

However, some countries’ candidates and supporters may have several problems through this system. For instance, they may not know how to read and write English or they may not be a computer literacy especially older generation. At the same time, certain countries may lack on infrastructures such as computers and internet connections.

In my perception, Google can solve the language problem by allowing other languages (apart from English) in Google Checkout. In this case, they can allow the candidates and the supporters to choose their preferred language on the site. At the same time, this will be a good chance for non computer literacy to learn to use the computer. Most of the older generations in Asia do not know how to use computer and they are not willing to learn at this age since it is not necessary for them. I strongly believe that they will try to learn and use it when there is such system during the election. Infrastructure problems can be solved through government by providing more computers and enablinginternet connection.

In this way, I think Google can make good money from online and the users spend less money for the election. What do you think? Is it possible?