xtra wired jan 27

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FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2012 file photo, a new Apple iPhone 5 is on display following the introduction of new products in San Francisco. With unemployment painfully high, it�s not surprising that fears over outsourcing, which first surfaced in the mid-2000s, have returned. Unemployment topped 8 percent for 43 months from February 2009 through August 2012, the longest stretch since the Great Depression. It dipped to 7.8 percent in September. Also fueling fears is the decision by Apple and other high-tech companies to manufacture many of their goods in China. That suggests it isn�t just low-skilled jobs in industries such as textiles that are being lost. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File) (CP)

Vine

A new app/social network has been going viral this past week.

Vine is a service that allows you to create and share beautiful looping videos with your friends and family. The application is pretty heavily integrated with Twitter. Vine is a little more elaborate than Instagram, where you just apply filters to photos. Vine allows you to capture images for a maximum of six seconds and publish them as a video to all of your friends and family. The service may be easily explained as looping animated GIFs.

Vine started making headlines Thursday when Jimmy Fallon sent out a Vine video saying "Hello" using Scrabble tiles. After Fallon, a whole celebrity rush of users began tweeting their Vine videos. This app right now is limited to the iOS platform -- it's made available for iPhone and iPod touch. The question now is if Vine will stick. I think it will, even though it has heavy competition.

Other video-sharing apps, such as Keek and Cinegram, are out there, but they do not have the current PR buzz Vine has. The winning video-sharing app will not necessarily be the best; it will be the one with the most users. On a side note, the video-sharing app Keek is seeing great success because the owners are paying the Kardashian family to endorse it. The whole family is constantly making Keek videos and tweeting the links. Smart marketing.

iPhone 5S

HERE I am, once again, delivering more Apple rumours. Apple Inc. has been struggling to stem the bleeding after the severe fall of its stock price. With the momentum Android is gaining all over the world, there tends to be a lot of iPhone/Apple hate going on. I am also guilty, because for about three weeks in a row I was being an "Apple hater."

Anyhow... Apple is going to be releasing an iPhone 5S this year to show people it still is really cool. What we can expect to happen happen is when the iPhone 5S is released (in June, most likely), iPhone 5 prices will drop significantly and it will be known as a "budget device."

The iPhone 5S will be faster, but the rumours are Apple is going to be making the screen a bit bigger. Big screens on smartphones have become quite the norm. The Samsung Galaxy S3, which is my daily phone, has a big screen and I love it! Viewing emails and reading Twitter and Instagram is simply awesome. The rumour mill has been spinning quite rapidly, but I have not heard any incredibly innovative new features.

Seems like the Apple cycle is repeating. The phones just get bigger and faster. 4, 4S, 5, 5S -- the pattern will continue to repeat. The last rumour, which I find interesting, is the 5S is supposed to be released in many different colours.

RHA-Audio earphone review (MA450i)

BRITISH company RHA offered to send me out a pair of its top-of-the-line earphones to check out. They are standard earphones but with a few features that make them better than anything I've used. I am not a fan of in-ear headphones; I seem to have oddly shaped ears and none of them ever seem to fit right. However, the RHA headphones include in the package a gazillion different-shaped and sized buds. Us Winnipeggers live in extremely cold temperatures. I find when using traditional iPod headphones, they tend to freeze up and audio quality disintegrates. The RHA headphones have a special material that wraps around the cord. It keeps them from getting tangled, and when walking in -30 C temperatures, my sound quality does not change. That is one of the big reasons I love these headphones. I'd like to add the sound quality is pretty freaking sweet. There is not too much bass or too little, the headphones amplify sound effectively. For more information and a video review head over the YouTube.com/iBellix.

UnMarketing

FOR Christmas, I received a book called UnMarketing, by Scott Stratten. Scott is a social media, branding and marketing expert. The first half of the book tells you how to market properly, then the second half tells you exactly what not to do. The chapters are very short, which makes it an easy and enjoyable read. If you are interested in reading more about social media and how it can improve your personal brand or business, I definitely recommend this book.

David Bell (@thedavidbell) is a young entrepreneur in Winnipeg. He specializes in emerging technology and online aspects of business, including web and social media consulting. Access his company online at iBXMediaGroup.ca. He is an active member of the YouTube community (http://www.TheDavidBell.com), with more than two million views and 5,000 subscribers. He was also a Dragons' Den contestant. Email: db@thedavidbell.com.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 27, 2013 ??65521