During a recent trip to the UK via Dubai, I took over 1200 photos using the Camera+ app, way more images than any other app and even more than I took on my Fuji X100 digital camera. In this post I review the features of Camera+ and showcase some of the images I’ve taken with it.

View from my hotel window looking towards the Grand Mosque and Dubai Museum.

Separate focus and exposure controls

One of the great features of Camera+ is that it has separate focus and exposure controls, unlike the native camera app on the iPhone where focus and exposure points are bundled together.

Tap two fingers simultaneously on the screen and both a focus point (square) and an exposure point (circle) appear. When you move the exposure point around the scene it lightens or darkens the exposure of the image depending on where the exposure point is placed (see below). When composing an image I put the focus point exactly where I want it and then experiment by moving the exposure point around the screen.

Exposure of the scene changes depending on where the exposure point (circle) is placed

Taking photos

To take a photo you can either press the shutter button on the screen, use the volume buttons on the side of your iPhone, or for the ultimate in candid street photography, plug in some headphones with volume buttons and use it to trigger the shutter.

London icon - Battersea Power Station. I had to put my arm through a gap in the boarding that surrounds the power station and shoot one handed to get this shot, being very careful not to drop my iPhone! Sadly I didn't have any headphones with me to trigger the shutter with my free hand.

Tapping the cog symbol next to the shutter button brings up options for stablizer, timer and burst shooting modes – all of which come in handy. In the settings menu, you can turn on gridlines that are helpful when composing an image.

Also available on the shooting screen are the 6x digital zoom and the ability to use the front facing camera.

Lots Road Power Station, Fulham. I stood in front of these bright shutters for a few minutes, waiting for a interesting subject to walk into the frame.

Flash options

Camera+ also manages to better the native iPhone camera app when it comes to the flash options available. As well as the standard on / off / auto options, there is a torch mode – the iPhone LED acts like a torch on your subject and remains on until you click the shutter button, giving you an iPhone version of continuous lighting.

Shooting speed

After using Hipstamastic, taking photos with Camera+ is fast and furious with barely any delay between taking a photo and Camera+ being ready to take the next. (Though now I have over 1400 photos in my Lightbox, things have slowed down a little, time to clear out some photos I think!)

Photographing the Burj Khalifa on a smartphone. I wonder if he's using Camera+?

Lightbox

All images taken with Camera+ are stored in a scrollable filmstrip called Lightbox. Images are saved here by default, though you can change this and save them to your camera roll, or if you don’t mind slightly slower shooting you can save to both your camera roll and lightbox.

Captured images appear in Lightbox - a scrollable filmstrip which looks good and works well.

As you scroll through your images in lightbox, you can tap on an image to edit it, share it, save it to your camera roll or view info about the image. I really like the info screen (below) – it gives a great overview of all technical details associated with the image, and even a map of where you took it if you have enabled geotagging in the menu.

The rather nice info screen. (I had the wrong time on my iPhone when I was in London - this image wasn't taken at 9.48pm!)

Editing images with Camera+

Camera+ has some amazing editing features. As well as the usual rotate and crop, there are lots of different scene modes and borders you can apply to images.

Clarity

It’s worth having a play around with all of the different scene modes, but the best of the bunch is clarity. On certain photos – especially those that have areas of underexposure - the clarity setting brings a fantastic improvement to the brightness and contrast of an image. I wouldn’t advise using it on all images though, sometimes it’s too over the top for me.

Waterloo sunset - what a difference some clarity makes!

Filters

Camera+ features a good range of 27 built-in filters plus 9 more “I heart analog” filters which are an in-app purchase for 99 cents.

I quite like some of the filters, though after using Hipstamatic for so long, I’m rather enjoying seeing my images without a lofi or toy camera effect.

Camera+ filters

What I don’t like about Camera+

Slow retrieval of old photos

Okay, I admit it – this is an issue I have brought upon myself. I love Camera+ so much I’ve taken over 1400 photos with it. The downside of this is that scrolling through the lightbox to see older photos is now a nightmare. I scrolled to the bottom of lightbox and then waited for over 3 minutes until the photos loaded. It must be time to clear out and save photos off the app I think!

Damn those Angry Birds! Dubai Mall

Copying / duplicating photos

Copying / duplicating a photo is something I am used to doing from working with Adobe Lightroom. When I held a photo and the copy command appeared, I tapped on it expecting to see a duplicate appear alongside as it does in Lightroom. When nothing happened, I actually thought it was a bug and the copy command didn’t work, until I realised you had to tap somewhere else on the screen and tap ‘paste’ when it was displayed.

Although iPhone users are used to this functionality for text, I don’t think it is very intuitive when working with images. Especially as no matter where you paste your image in lightbox, the duplicate image automatically ends up as your most recent photo at the top and not next to the original image where I would’ve expected it.

Deleting photos

After editing a photo once I accidentally hit the delete button. The photo I had been working on disappeared off the screen instantly. I was panic stricken, thinking that my image was now gone forever! The next image in the lightbox appeared on screen and there was no undo button. I went back to the filmstrip view of the lightbox and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I saw the undo button.

Rule Britannia! Sloane Square window display.

Conclusion

Camera+ is a fantastic app, I love it so much it has won a place on the home screen of my iPhone. I took more photos with it on holiday than any other app and even more than my Fuji X100 digital camera. There are a few minor issues that could be improved, but otherwise this is an app I would recommend to all iPhoneographers.

You can see more of my Camera+ photos on EyeEm – search for user mattbrisvegas.

Wedding at the Old Chelsea Town Hall. My father-in-law was horrified when I ran into the middle of the King's Road to grab this shot!

After the news last week that Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion in cash and shares, I think I can well and truly take the question mark off the end of the title of this post.

So how has this addictive photo sharing app become so successful in such a short space of time?

Millions of passionate users

Instagram (often shortened to IG by users) has had a steady rise in users since its launch in October 2010. By January 2012, it had attracted 15 million users in 15 months. This figure rocketed up to 27 million in March 2012.

What’s remarkable about Instagram’s success is that until this time, it was only available for iPhone and other Apple iOS devices.

In April 2012, a much awaited Android release rolled out. Within the first 12 hours of Instagram being available on Google Play, it had been downloaded more than 1 million times, pushing user numbers past the 30 million mark.

Unlike other social networks that claim millions of users (Google+ anyone?) Instagram’s users, ‘IGers’, are for the most part, active, if not madly passionate.

I remember in March 2011 it only took around 30 likes for your photo to be featured on Instagram’s ‘Popular’ section. Now photos need to have hundreds, if not thousands of likes to qualify.

Popular on Instagram

Simplicity

The beauty of Instagram lies in its simplicity. Take a new photo or choose one from your smartphone, add an ‘old school’ filter if desired, add a caption, share it with the other users on IG or other social networks.

Anyone for filters?

The intuitive nature of the app is due to two reasons. Firstly, it has a simple, well thought out design. It has been tweaked with updates and new features several times over the last 14 months I have been using it.

Secondly, it has features and terminology in common with other social networks. Like Twitter, Instagram lets you follow other users and be followed, and the use of hashtags is wide spread. Like Facebook, IG allows you to like and comment on photos.

Liking is done with a quick double tap on photos as they scroll across your screen. This is photo sharing for the post-pc world.

Not just mobile photography

You can pretty much upload anything you like to Instagram. While there are debates raging about whether only mobile photography is in the true spirit of Instagram, there are plenty of users who also share photos from their DSLRs and other cameras.

Other images that people share include quotes, sayings, photo collages and photos of their favourite celebrities. Competitions are widespread and all sorts of mobile photography collectives have grown in popularity.

A true mobile experience

Instagram has been so successful because it was designed for the booming mobile app market. The way we use the Internet is changing and its creators took advantage of this. Other social networks have added a mobile version after their web offering, but IG is a native mobile app.

It is a fantastic example of how mobile apps are changing the way we access the Internet – Instagram doesn’t even have a fully functional website. It’s really only for editing account details and I bet most users aren’t even aware it exists at http://instagr.am.

Nice comments from IGers

If you wish to see your Instagram photos on the web, you need to use a 3rd party site such as gramfeed.com or for even more bells and whistles, statigr.am is a great site (though recent API changes have stopped them displaying some statistics).

Instagram’s success in the mobile photo space has also been due to incumbent market leaders not being suited enough for mobile. Flickr just didn’t ‘get’ mobile photo sharing. Their clunky mobile app is appalling and strips out many of the good features of Flickr. On mobile offerings of Facebook, you can like and add comments to photos, though with so many other features to pack into their app, they haven’t done photos anywhere near as well as Instagram.

4 examples of how Instagram has improved its user interface over the last year

As I mentioned above, Instagram’s developers keep improving and tweaking the user experience for IGers. Here are 4 examples.

Liking photos

@ mentioning a user

It's nice getting notifications

Cropping photos

Better sharing

My (revised) prediction

In my first blog post 6 predictions for the web and social media in 2012 I predicted Instagram would grow from 15 million users to 45 million users by the end of 2012. Now that the Android version has been rolled out,  IG could easily soar past the 70 million mark by the year’s end. With Facebook buying Instagram, all the usual talk of people quitting the app has started. I doubt this will affect user numbers though, unless they do something silly and start messing with their terms and conditions.

Follow mattbrisvegas on Instagram

Visit my feed and say hi!

Under profile, choose Search Instagram – Names and usernames – mattbrisvegas

One year ago today my grandmother, Ma as we called her, passed away.

Here is the speech I attempted to read out at her funeral. I say attempted because I broke down in tears 3 times and my sister had to continue reading for me.

Is that you Matthew?

These were the first words I always heard Ma say when I rang her from 10,000 miles away in England. Although we spoke often when I lived overseas, the most vivid memories I have of Ma are firmly planted in the 1980s.

As young children, my sister Catherine and I spent a lot of time at her house during school holidays and at weekends. Ma’s house was full of mysterious objects waiting to be discovered.

In the lounge there was her record collection – Johnny O’Keefe’s greatest hits, Rolf Harris’s Jake the Peg, Hot Butter’s Popcorn and in later years, a record that really tickled her fancy, the Proclaimers “I would walk 500 miles”.

There were photo albums and as I flipped through them I would ask her who all the people were. Photos of my mother Shirley, Uncle Trevor and Aunty Adele growing up. Mysterious black and white photos of her nephews going to a fancy dress ball. Photos that although they were only about 30 years old at the time, looked as if they were from a different age altogether.

In her bedroom there was a Chinese looking jewellery box full of beads and old newspaper clippings.

In the bathroom cupboard there was a box full of old lego.

In the sewing room there were dress patterns and jars full of buttons.

In the laundry there was an old yellow, orange and brown flowery trolley she took on shopping trips.

In the shed there were souvenirs of her painting days – tubes of oil paints, an easel. Back in the house were her still life paintings – fruit, bottles and Catherine when she was a baby.

In the kitchen, there was always a freshly baked meat pie, pikelets or a tin full of patty cakes waiting to be savoured.

In the dining room there was a cabinet full of treasures where Ma kept her board games. At night times we would play Monopoly, though she would never let me be the banker as somehow, wrongly, I had a reputation for cheating.

Catherine, Matthew & Ma, 1978. I worked out the year from the calendar in the background of this photo.

Ma also loved playing cards, she taught us Rummy and we would play for hours. When arriving at her house, there was often a game of patience being played at the kitchen table – the cards dealt out in the shape of a clock.

As the hands of time moved forward around that clock and I got older, I realised that Ma had experienced personal tragedies and heartache in life, yet somehow she always managed to retain a positive, happy outlook. In life, as in a game of cards, she always made the best of the hand she was dealt.

She took us to Sydney twice. The first time I got locked in the toilet on the train trip down there and the guard had to free me. She told everyone that story for the next 20 years.

Back in Brisbane, she often took us into town and we would lunch upstairs at the old Coles cafeteria in Queen Street. And Catherine and I were very well known at the Grange Thistle Soccer Club where we regularly went with her to play Bingo.

Most of all, I will remember her infectious laugh. You couldn’t help but smile upon hearing it.

Ma, I can’t imagine my childhood without you. I only wish you could’ve spent more time with my children when you were in good health.

Is that you Matthew? Yes Ma, it’s me, your loving grandson.

Some of the topics covered at GovCamp Queensland included social media, online communications, community engagement, open data and emergency management.

Here is my collection of thoughts, interesting people, tweets and links from GovCamp Queensland 2012.

5 thoughts

1. What a fantastic, world-class facility we have at the State Library of Queensland. ‘The Edge’ has free wi-fi, a great auditorium, meeting rooms and labs, a good café, beautiful river views and is close to the city and transportation.
2. People in local, state and federal government are very keen to speak with, share and learn from their colleagues. I wonder if any ongoing informal bar camps will arise from #govcampqld?
3. People across government are very keen to talk about cross-agency collaboration. What tools can facilitate that best? Yammer was suggested.
4. Some clever people are doing some clever things with Google Fusion Tables.
5. Dipping in and out of sessions can be fun but can also made me wish I’d been there from the start of that session!

Kurilpa Bridge, Brisbane

5 people I enjoyed listening to

In no particular order…

1. James Kliemt from Queensland Police Service talking about social media.
2. Nathan Scholz from Queensland Railways talking about social media.
3. Eileen Culleton from Ipswich City Council who is doing some fantastic work on the Emergency 2.0 Wiki.
4. David Wallace from the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, South Australia, talking about connectedness.
5. Everyone who spoke at the bar camp session talking about cross-agency collaboration.

My favourite 5 tweets

In no particular order…

The social network is a culture, not a tool, its about relationships, not what you can do with it – David Wallace #govcampqld

— Richard Corby (@WebbismCom) March 3, 2012

“don’t wait for the data to be perfect; it might never be perfect” #govcampqld #opendata

— Rep. del Hackuador (@hackuador) March 3, 2012

.@johnw3lls 1:9:90 theory. For 100 ppl on Internet 1 is generating ideas, 9 do a lot of retweeting/repeating, 90 lurkers. #govcampqld

— Pia Waugh (@piawaugh) March 3, 2012

#govcampqld Two things in this world that take no skill: 1. Spending other people’s money and 2. Dismissing an idea. j.mp/z5vVch

— Mike Pearson (@MikePearsonNZ) March 3, 2012

Gr8 quote from #twittamentary: ‘can twitter do anything? No, but people can’ #govcampqld

— Peter Callaghan (@callective) March 3, 2012

5 links

Storify

Okay, so I liked way more than 5 tweets. You can see more great tweets mixed in with photos from Instagram and Flickr on my Storify story GovCamp Queensland 2012.

Twitter list

Yvonne Thompson has put togther a great list of #govcampqld tweeps

Videos & podcasts

You can view videos and listen to podcasts of some of the speakers

Presentations

Reading Room have published presentations from spearkers at GovCamp Queensland

Flickr photos

38 photos I took at #GovCampQld

Bar camp session at GovCamp Queensland

Last year I watched a documentary about legendary French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. An audio track of his voice recorded in 1973 played while his iconic black and white images flashed across the screen.

One passage really struck a chord with me, both in terms of photography and life in general.

“But life is very fluid; sometimes the pictures disappeared, and there’s nothing you can do. You can’t tell the person, ‘Oh, please smile again. Do that gesture again.’ Life is once, forever.”

Sadly, my life is a little too busy to be standing around with a Leica Rangefinder watching the world go by. Yet I want to capture my daily life, photograph my children and the places I visit.

I used to feel guilty that I didn’t always have my Nikon DSLR with me. The only camera I had on me was the one on my iPhone, but that was just for convenience, for fun. Mobile photography is not a serious form of photography… or is it?

The best camera

Around the time I was struggling with this dilemma, I picked up a book by American photographer Chase Jarvis called “The Best Camera is the One That’s with You”.

This book is full of creative photographs Jarvis took with his iPhone 3 a few  years ago. Accompanying the book is an iPhone camera app and a community centered around mobile photography.

For me there were three messages from this book. Firstly, using an iPhone is a legitimate form of photography. Secondly, it’s not the camera but the photographer. Or as Ansel Adams put it “The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” Thirdly, it didn’t really matter what camera equipment I owned, if I didn’t have it with me it was useless.

Splashing through puddles, Victoria Point.One of my favourite photos, ever. Shot on an iPhone 4.

Using my iPhone

In March 2011, I started using my iPhone at every available opportunity to photograph my children and daily life. Instead of using the inbuilt camera app, I was attracted to using apps such as Instagram and Hipstamatic that use square image formats and come with old school camera filters and effects.

The reason I was attracted to the square image format was nostalgia. Some great films throughout photographic history have used this 1:1 image ratio – Polaroids, 120 roll film (used by Rolleiflex TLRs and Holgas among others) and 126 film (used in millions of Kodak Instamatic cameras in the 60s and 70s).

Childhood nostalgia

All of the photos taken during the first 6 or 7 years of my childhood are square 4″ x 4″ prints with with rounded corners printed on Kodak paper. Mum and Dad must have had some kind of Kodak Instamatic camera which took 126 film cartridges.

One of my favourite photographs from this era is an image of me and my sister taken at a park somewhere in Brisbane. I am laughing in the foreground while my sister is smiling yet squinting in the bright sunshine behind me.

Matthew and Catherine, circa 1977

Does it matter that this photograph was not taken on the most up to date, technologically advanced equipment available at the time? Not in the least bit. The lo-fi style of our family photographs is all part of the charm. Around 1980-1, Mum and Dad upgraded to a 35mm compact and thus bigger 6 x 4 prints started to fill our photo albums. Although those photographs are treasured memories, they don’t feel as classic.

When I was looking through thousands of photographs to use in this blog post, I found a photo that I’d forgotten about. It was a photo of my daughter at Cleveland on Brisbane’s Bayside during a family outing. It illustrates the ‘best camera’ philosophy well.  My iPhone was the only camera with me that day yet I managed to capture a moment in time – my daughter playing in the sunshine, stopping briefly to give me a cheeky grin.

My daughter, 2011

Why is your smartphone the best camera?

Here are the reasons why I think your smartphone is the best camera.

1. It’s always with you. Sometimes the best photos are taken in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times.
2. It’s tiny. Relatively speaking. No need for a backpack to carry all of your kit when you’re using your smartphone.
3. It’s easy to share. 3g and wifi enabled, it’s easy to share your photos by MMS or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest and other social networks.
4. It’s easy to do arty stuff. There are so many camera apps available for both iPhone and Android that allow you to do all kinds of arty stuff – filters, adding text, and even post-processing on your phone.
5. People are more candid around smartphones. You’re not sticking a 300mm telephoto zoom lens in their face, so people aren’t so self-concious.
6. Smartphones replace compact digital cameras.  As smartphone cameras improved in recent years, sales of cheap point and shoot compact digitals nosedived.

Dusk over the gum trees, taken on my back deck

Mobile photography has come of age

Over the last 6 or 7 years we have seen the growing use of mobile images used in the press and displayed as art.

Camera phone images from the public started to be used by the media during events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the July 2005 London bombings. In 2010 a New York Times photographer used an iPhone to illustrate a front-page story about the war in Afghanistan. The photograph, taken with the Hipstamatic app, won 3rd place in the Pictures of the Year International photojournalism competition. In 2012, mobile photos are used extensively by the media.

Other indications that mobile photography has arrived include

• The rise of social networks such as Instagram around mobile photography.
• Dozens of camera and photography apps available for both Android and Apple (though apps available on iOS are superior at the moment).
• The iPhone Photography Awards is now in its 5th year.
• Last year there was a mobile photography conference.
• Many blogs have sprung up including the excellent Iphoneography.
• Other websites such as Eyephoneography (in English and Spanish) promote exhibitions and works of mobile photographers.
• Leading online software training company Lynda.com now have a iPhone Photography video course by leading iPhoneographer Richard Koci Hernandez (looks great from the preview I’ve seen).
• Online collectives such as Advanced Mobile Photography Team (AMPt) are active on Instagram, showcasing mobile photographers from around the World.

Caboolture train at Albion Station (Albion Flour Mill in the background). This image was used with my permission by Queensland Rail on their Facebook page and 365 Project.

Where to next for mobile photography?

Mobile photography will keep getting bigger, better and more sophisticated. Just today (28-2-2012) I read that Nokia has announced the Nokia 808 PureView smartphone with a 41 megapixel cameara featuring a Carl Zeiss lens. Yes, that’s right, a 41 megapixel camera in a smartphone. Of course megapixels are not the only factor determining image quality, but that is incredible.

Give it a try!

New to mobile photography? Jump in, give it a try, you never know what images you will capture. After all, life is once, forever.

My Hipstamatic iPhoneography

• Most of my mobile photos are on Instagram – search for user mattbrisvegas
• If you don’t have Instagram, you can still see my photos on the web thanks to Gramfeed. 
• I have a handful of mobile photos on Matt’s Hipstamatic photo board on Pinterest.
• To keep me roaming the streets at night I’m also doing the 365 Project this year, purely with iPhone photos.

A few weeks ago I was moaning to a fellow cricket fan about the fact that Brisbane always has the first test match of the summer, usually in late November. This year it meant the Gabba hosted a test against New Zealand rather than a test later in the summer against the more fancied India. ”Well, we have to host the first test of the summer because we never get 5 days of dry weather in a row past December” he replied. He was spot on.

Just over a year after 2011′s devastating floods, the #bigwet was back on 24-25 January with torrential rain and flash flooding affecting South East Queensland. Most areas received 300mm of rain in 24 hours, with some areas receiving more than 400mm in that period. To put that into perspective, London’s annual rainfall is around 650mm. Dozens of roads and schools were closed and the emergency services were kept busy with many incidents occurring across the region.

Here are 8 thoughts I had while monitoring social media from local and state government departments during the #bigwet in January 2012.

1) Use social media for resilience

During times of crisis, disaster or emergency, government websites can receive a much higher level of demand than usual in a very short space of time. Servers can crash or not respond which is very frustrating for both staff and the public.

On Wednesday 25 January, both Sunshine Coast Council and Moreton Bay Council were experiencing issues with their websites for several hours. They directed people to follow their updates on Facebook during this time where they posted vital information about road closures and sandbagging depots.

Facebook can provide some much needed resilience in these situations. It’s been reported that Facebook has upwards of 60,000 servers so it’s unlikely to suffer from any issues during a regional emergency situation.

Another advantage in terms of resilience is the fact that key staff can update social media sites at home or on mobile devices if they are unable to make it into the office due to events of if they have no remote access to systems.

Is the rain ever going to end?
Adelaide St, Brisbane

2) Hashtags

Disasters and emergencies don’t respect boundaries on a map. Monitor the hashtags used by other agencies during an emergency or disaster and if appropriate, use the same hashtags for your updates. Even better, collaborate with colleagues from other government social media teams and agree on a common approach to hashtags for these events.

3) Benchmark your response against others

If neighbouring councils or other government departments are tweeting or posting Facebook updates about an event that affects your region, chances are you should be too. One council posted details of their road closures several hours after neighbouring councils, by which time this information was already available from other news sources.

4) Know the medium you are using

A Facebook update from the same council mentioned above read…  “The recent rain has affected some roads in [name of town]. For any enquiries, please contact us on [phone number] for a list of currently affected roads.”

If people are looking for updates via social media, they probably don’t want to ring up. Naturally, responses from the public weren’t very positive. They included ”Is it too hard to post the list here?” and ”I don’t have time to sit on the phone…. please post them on the website and link it to fb…. thank you!!”.

(I’m glad to say the council in question did recover well from a slow response on the social media front and went on to post a lot more information, links and photos throughout the afternoon and evening.)

Road closures are common during the #bigwet.
If it's flooded, forget it!

5) The public expects social media use

If you have an official Facebook page or Twitter stream, the public expect you to use it. If you don’t have any social media channels, the public will be wondering why.

Some organisations with a social media presence aren’t using it to anywhere near its full potential. For example, there are cases where Twitter is still being used as a glorified RSS feed - one way communication with no interaction with followers. I have asked my council a couple of questions on Twitter over the last few months. I’ve never received a reply.

As someone who has worked in local and state government in both the UK and Australia, I know there are probably all sorts of reasons for this lack of engagement. Management reluctance, time poor communications staff and social media not being part of anyone’s job description are all possibilities. I understand this, however, in the future the public may not be quite so forgiving.

6) Reinforce existing messages

There were regular references to the Queensland Government’s high profile “If it’s flooded, forget it!” campaign, which warns the public about the dangers of driving or walking through flood water.

Many different government agencies reinforced this message – some even using it as a hashtag #ifitsfloodedforgetit.  The message was further spread by members of the public in their tweets.

My daughter splashing in the rainwater, under strict supervision and after the worst of the deluge had passed!

7) Go to where your audience is

Facebook is now a major news source for the public. According to a study by Lightspeed Research in November 2011, 15% of the public uses Facebook as a regular news source during the week, increasing to 30% in the 18-24 age bracket.

By using social media channels, you are going to where a large percentage of your audience already is – invaluable in an emergency or disaster situation.

8) Facebook – to allow posts on your wall or not?

Do you allow the public to create posts on your wall?  Most of the government agencies I monitored don’t, they only allow likers to comment on their official posts.

Two Facebook pages that do allow you to post on their wall are Queensland’s Department of Education and Training (DET) which announced state school closures during the #bigwet and Brisbane City Council which allows likers to create posts, and upload photos and videos.

Reaction seemed to be mixed on allowing the public to post. On the DET Facebook site, there were many credible updates about school closures from members of the public which others had thanked them for, however I also saw 3 people complain that they couldn’t easily see official updates by DET as the page had been swamped by other posts. Of course, there is a filter to just show official posts at the top of the Facebook wall, but not everyone seemed to know that.

This raised a further question in my mind, what is the best way to crowd source information during a disaster or emergency event?

We can’t all be right with our predictions. Nevertheless, here are mine for 2012 – I’ll start with 3 social networks to watch in 2012 and finish off with 3 general predictions.

1) Pinterest

Online pinboard Pinterest will go mainstream around the World. It’s already one of the most popular social networks in that US, yet it’s still in ‘invitation only’ open beta.

Brands such as Gap, The Travel Channel, Etsy and Mashable have already joined the fray, how long before government gives it a try?

I’ve managed to score an invite but haven’t had much time to play round with it yet. Let me know if you’d like an invite, my contact details are on the About page.

2) Instagram

Popular photo sharing social network app Instagram will triple its user base from 15 million to 45 million by the end of 2012. An Android version is in development and there are rumours of a Windows phone version too.

Stay tuned for a further blog post on Instagram soon.

3) Path

Mobile app Path will double in popularity this year, from 300,000 to 600,000 users. It describes itself as a “smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love”.

In practical terms, this means sharing photos, videos, where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re thinking and even what music you’re listening to with a small private network of  your closest family and friends.

This kind of private social network is a niche market that I think will steadily rise over the next couple of years.

Predictions for 2012

4) Passive sharing will increase but there will be a backlash

Passive sharing of what we’re reading or listening to is becoming  part of the Facebook experience. One minute you’re having a look at an article on a social reading app such as those offered by newspapers The Guardian, The Independent and Washington Post. The next minute, every single one of your 600 close and personal Facebook friends knows what you’ve been doing.

Billy read an article on Washington Post Social Reader “Mother raped own daughter for ‘sex education’”. 

Do we really want our friends to know every newspaper article we ever read, especially if they’re of that kind of nature?

Another issue is that there is no context around this kind of sharing. For example, if I read an article criticising Israeli foreign policy, will my friends jump to the conclusion that I am anti-Israeli just because Facebook shared with them the title of the article I read?

5) Google Chrome

Google Chrome will become the most used browser on the planet.

6) It’s all about apps

With the huge numbers of smartphones being sold around the World, the amount of apps we download and use will continue to rise.

A recent article on ZDNet reported that as of December 2011, use of mobile apps already outstrips web use in the US by 22 minutes per day.

Various government agencies in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US have already rolled out mobile apps – I’m expecting to see a lot more this year.