Things You May Have Missed

2012 is now here, but check out some noteworthy happenings within the technology world in 2011 that you may have missed.

Twitter Revamped

In its attempt to become more user-friendly, Twitter has gotten a redesign. The most notable change is to the navigation. “Connect” and “Discover” sections have been added to the top of the page. The “Connect” section allows you to easily see what is being said about you on other tweets and adds more user- friendly searching for companies and people.

The “Discover” section allows for better hash tag searching and tailors information over time to be based on your personal interests.

“Who to follow” has been added to the sidebar and is a way to discover people who have similar interests and are close to your network.

For businesses, Twitter has rolled out branded pages to make Twitter more enticing to potential advertisers. Currently, there are only about 20 companies that are able to expand their profiles, but the feature will soon be available to all companies. Twitter also added the ability to have a customized banner beneath a company’s account information.

More information: http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/twitter-launches-major-redesign-video/

Pandora has Competition: Senzari

Senzari, a Miami-based start-up has recently launched a private beta version with 10 million songs. Pandora, falls short at 900,000. Senzari has $2 million worth of private funding and features:

• Rights for radio webcasting in the U.S, Brazil and Spain
• The stations are personalized to each individual, not just your playing behavior
• Heavily integrated with Facebook, including messaging with Facebook friends
• Incorporates Flickr and Last.fm photos to complement the music

More information: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/02/with-2-million-in-funding-senzari-prepares-to-take-on-pandora-with-a-larger-catalog-international-focus-invites/

New YouTube Design

YouTube has gotten a facelift and is growing in similarity to its owner – Google. The homepage has been redesigned to feature a left sidebar allowing you to create, personalize and easily add your YouTube channels. It is now geared to help you find the most relevant channels and videos for you. You can also browse recommended channels, personalize your home page feed, and link to Facebook and Google+.

Check out the redesign at: http://www.youtube.com

Spotify Emerges as Another Music Streaming Option

Spotify started in Europe and made its way to the States in July 2011. It is a free, ad-supported music streaming service. It’s different than Pandora in that it allows you to create your own playlists and it needs to be downloaded onto your computer. It allows users to sign in with their Facebook accounts and share playlists with friends. Spotify is free, but there are paid options as well. Recently, it announced it would open its technology to software developers and media companies so they could build apps to work within the Spotify system. When Spotify integrated more closely with Facebook in September, it increased by 7 million users, 500,000 of which were paying subscribers.

Check it out: http://www.spotify.com/us/

Flash Takes a Back Seat to HTML 5

Adobe announced in November that HTML 5 is now their preferred solution for developing and releasing content in the browser for mobile devices. Because of this change, Adobe will no longer continue to develop the Flash player to be compatible to work in browsers for new mobile device configurations. Adobe said HTML 5 is fast becoming the new standard and is universally supported on major mobile devices. The last release of Flash for Adobe will be version 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.

Read more: http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html