Make Music Videos (Starring You!) with the VidRhythm iPhone App

Have you heard of the VidRhythm iPhone app? I hadn't until last week when a friend showed me a funny and slightly crazy video that some of her other friends had created using the app. It was like a kaleidoscopic techno-music selfie. That's about the only way I know to say it. It wasn't necessarily a good video, and the music part was definitely not anything I'd put on iTunes, but I still felt the need to immediately download the app and create one myself. It took a few tries to get one worth sharing, but I assure you that now I have several.




The VidRhythm app was created by Harmonix, who also created the popular video game Rock Band. To use the VidRhythm app, you first choose a song and the style of video you want to create.

Then, you choose a style for your video.

Next, you record yourself making sounds and visuals for the video based on prompts from the app. I found this part to be a little quirky and confusing. Sometimes the clips would get cut off (each clip is only one second!), and for the singing clips, you have to follow a "Note Guide." I didn't realize at first, but when it says to follow the note guide, you have to tap the singing man icon, who they call "Chirpy the Guide Note" (next to the "Record" button in the picture on the left, below). Chirpy will play a tone to help you sing the right notes.

Though it's a little buried in the "How to Play" area of the app, the app creators do offer a video tutorial on their website.

Overall, I found this to be an entertaining app, but the excitement is short-lived, and the app definitely presents frustrations that may drive away new users. My main complaint is that many of the videos I created didn't seem to sound at all like the preview of the song. The song choices were a bit of a mixed bag. I tested several, and found that only 3 or 4 of the songs I tried actually ended up sounding like something other than rough awful noise in the final product (and seemingly nothing like the previews of the songs). I doubt I'll use the app again, but my friends and I had a lot of fun trying it out.

3 Apps For The Great Outdoors

It's that time of the year when the weather starts taking a warmer turn and it's almost impossible to resist the great outdoors. Here is a roundup of three "outdoorsy" iPhone apps available to help you do just that:

AllTrails (Free)

AllTrails is a perfect app for hikers and bikers. It has over 50,000 trail guides and you can browse trails or search based on your location. For each trail you can view detailed maps and photos and read reviews, and you can add your own reviews and photos from the trail using your phone's GPS tracker.

Yonder (Free)

Yonder makes the outdoor experience social. The creators of this app saw that people were using social apps and websites to find where their friends have been and use recommendations to find places to eat, shop, and so on. They wanted to bring the same kind of social connection to the massive community of outdoor-enthusiasts. Yonder is a social community of outdoorsy folks who love to share their outdoor adventures. 22 different activities represented within the app, and there is a library of more than 20,000 destinations that you can check out. You can browse through the map or by viewing the feed. You can also share the content and save it in a favorites folder.

Planets (Free)

While enjoying the great outdoors, you may find yourself gazing up at the sky. If you want more information about exactly what you're looking at, check out the Planets app. You can use the Sky 2D view to see a planetarium view of the sky with stars, planets, constellations, and more. The screen images reorient based on a compass as you move the phone. The Visibility feature allows you to find out more abut specific objects, like the moon or planets, by tapping them on the screen. The Globe feature allows you to see a 3D rendering of the planets and moon that you can spin by swiping the screen with your finger.

Sadly, Not Very Happy with Happify Happiness App

The mobile app world has seen as recent boom in well-being apps and apps that aim to make people happier. I decided to give one a try, to see if it really could make me feel happier. I chose Happify, one of the newer happiness apps that had a high rating and claimed to be based on science and research.

According to its description in the Apple App Store, Happify can help people be happier and feel better about their lives through different "tracks" of games and activities. It was developed with leading scientists and is based on decades of research into activities and games that help people develop habits for happier, more fulfilling lives. It has been featured in the New York Times and on CNN.com.

After reading the App Store description, I had high hopes for Happify, but unfortunately it fell short. Overall, I found that the app tried to do too much, making the process of building happiness almost stressful and confusing. It felt similar to the stress of having a person or app that checks up on your for fitness training.

The app opens with a screen describing how it will help me be happier. It claims to:

• Increase happiness with fun activities and games
• Teach me life changing habits based on science
• Reduce my stress and help me build skills for a happy, healthy life

Tells me that I will need to pick a "track" that is right for me, and complete the activities in that track as I have time throughout the day. I'm also encouraged to get inspiring content by visiting the "Happify Daily" section of the app, which is basically just a news feed of self-help and fluff news articles.

Just when I think I am finished with the "setup" portion of the app, I am filtered to a "Getting Started" questionnaire where I am asked a series of questions including gender, age, employment status, relationship status, whether I have kids, frequency of interaction with people throughout the day, just to name a few. There are fifteen total questions -- too long. I did, however, appreciate the tracker dots at the bottom of the screen that told me how many questions i had to go.

I was then led to a page of tracks to choose from. Some were labeled as premium and not available to me. Each track had information on how it will benefit me and who created it, along with their credentials.

Most of the exercises involve listing things - there are many that involve listing things, such as things you are grateful for and daily victories. There are also exercises that are more game-like, for example, the Uplift activity where you are supposed to tap positive words and avoid negative words.

There is also a "Happfiy it Now" section, which I thought was different content than the track content, but is really just the same information repackaged. Activities and exercises are grouped by theme rather than track. 

The Happify app includes one last section called "Community," where other users can post results of completed activities and tracks, and share other feel-good content. 

While the intentions of the app are good, and the theories behind the activities are sound, the Happify app fails to add much more utility to the process. The number of choices in terms of tracks, activities, and content to view make it hard to feel like I can jump in and out of the activities on the go. I believe a better structure would be one simple daily activity that is the only thing available to you when you open the app. It may vary according to preference and personality, but for me this app was simply overwhelming. 

4 Ways Waze is the Best Navigation App

When it comes to driving with GPS navigation, there's just nothing better than Waze mobile app. In terms of features, it blows Google Maps out of the water. That's probably why Google paid over $1 billion for to acquire Waze in 2013. 

Here are four Waze features that set it apart from other geo-navigation apps like Google Maps:

1. Detailed Real-Time Updates

The community-based nature of Waze makes it unmatchable for real-time updates about what's actually happening on the road. The app uses a crowdsourcing method to keep maps up-to-date, allowing drivers to edit maps and report roadside sightings - even cops! Drivers can report exactly where they see police officers so that drivers that come after them will be warned. When other drivers approach that spot, a pop-up notification and sound warn them up what's ahead. In fact, the app has been working so well to warn drivers of cops that some police officers in Miami, Florida started submitting tons of false Waze reports of police sightings to throw them off the trail!

2. Location-Based Amber Alerts

Last week, a location-based Amber Alerts feature was added to the Waze app. Drivers will receive alerts about missing children when they enter certain geographic areas where the child was abducted or may be found.  For safety reasons, the alerts will only be available when drivers have been stopped for more than 10 seconds.

3. Phone Crash Route Recovery

One great feature of the Waze app is its ability to recover from a phone or app crash. If either occur, Waze can restart and automatically generate a new route for you. 

4. Ability To Share Your ETA

If you're sick of getting calls every hour to check in on your whereabouts or estimated time of arrival, Waze is for you. Using the social features included in the app's functionality, you an actually share your location with friends and let them keep track of your progress and view an estimate of your arrival time. You can also use their "Pick Up" feature to request GPS coordinates of a friend who needs a ride (if they also have Waze) and when they accept that request, you will see directions to their location and they will be able to track your arrival in real time. 

Waze has a fun, community-based, and game-like feel that allows it to stand apart from any GPS-nagigation apps that came before it, but more than anything it provides some powerful and useful features that make it easier to be a smarter, safer driver. 

6 Steps to Start A Facebook Ad Campaign from your Phone

In my last post, I talked about how the new Facebook Ad Manager app and how it compliments desktop browser tools as an added convenience for ad managers. Now, I'm going to show you how easy it is to create a new ad campaign within the app. 

After downloading the Facebook Ad Manager app (only iOS for now - sorry, Android users!), open it on your phone and follow these steps: 

Step 1: Create Campaign

From the default "Campaigns" landing screen, press the plus sign icon at the bottom (second from the right) to begin creating a new campaign. 

Step 2: Select Associated Facebook Page and Advertising Objectives

Select the Facebook Business Page you want to associate with the ad. You must be an administrator of the page to do this. Facebook will select one of your pages by default, so just use the "Change Page" button toward the middle of the screen to change it.

Select your advertising objective from 3 options:

Boost a Post -  If you trying to generate exposure for your page, you might choose to boost a post generated by that page. If You may choose to boost a post that the page has generated. 

Reach People Near Your Business - This is a good option for locally-focused businesses that only want to target their geographic area. 

Send People to Website - Choose this option if you want to drive traffic to your website rather than engage with users on Facebook.

Step 3: Select Your Image

You can choose an image from the Facebook page albums or from your phone. As companies move away from the use of stock images and toward more natural shots (especially on social media channels), this provides the opportunity to take photos from wherever you are and instantly turn them into ads. 

Step 4: Create Ad Content

Write an ad headline, body text and web address. 

You can also easily preview your ad from this screen.

Step 4: Select Audience

Choose who you want to see your ad. You can choose from people who like your page, or expand to also target their friends. You may also choose a custom saved audience if you use those in the desktop Facebook Ad Manager. 

Step 5: Decide What To Spend

Set your budget by day or for the lifetime of the campaign. At the bottom of the screen, you will see an estimate of potential reach, or how many people will see your ad. 

Step 6: Review and Place 

Simply review your campaign details and if everything looks correct, press the "Place Order" button. 

That's it! To track the success of your new campaign, just return to the app home screen and click your campaign to see details on performance and spend. 

Facebook Gives Its 2 Million Advertisers A Useful New App

Facebook recently released the Facebook Ad Manager app to give Facebook advertisers a way to manage and monitor ads on the go. With the app, you can create new ads, edit and manage existing ads, and keep up with important performance data. It makes sense that Facebook is beginning to offer mobile versions of these tools, since mobile ads account for over half of their earnings in the fourth quarter of 2014. There also should be high demand for an on-the-go Facebook ad service since it seems like just about everyone is advertising on this social media giant these days. In fact, Facebook has about 2 million advertisers. According to Facebook, small businesses account for 1 million of them. The mobile app will probably come in handy for the small business employees who are charged with managing social efforts like Facebook ads in addition to their regular daily responsibilities (which often don't involve sitting in front of a desktop computer all day).

In addition to the basic functions of app creation, editing and tracking, the Facebook Ad Manager app can provide push notifications to give you important updates about your ad in real time.

When you enter the app, you land on a home screen that displays all of your ad campaigns by name. These may include ads or promoted page posts. Each campaign listing shows a thumbnail image, status of the campaign (active or inactive) and a top-line metric (usually clicks for ad campaigns and engagements - things like "Likes" and comments for promoted posts).

At the top of the screen, you can easily change the view to show ad sets or individual ads rather than the default campaigns listing. A simple drop down menu from the right-hand corner also allows you to filter each of these categories as shown below.

You can then select a campaign, ad set, or ad to take a closer look at performance metrics and budget/spend information. 

Facebook did a nice job with this app, all-in-all. However, I would recommend sticking to desktop for initial setup of campaigns and for any in-depth reporting. The app serves as a nice compliment to desktop tools for post-setup management and maintenance. First-time Facebook advertisers should also begin in a desktop browser until they are comfortable with the basic functionality and structure of Facebook ads and how campaigns, ad sets, and ads relate to each other. Otherwise, navigating through the app could be confusing.

As someone who has used the desktop Facebook advertising tools in the past, I find this to be a very usable and simple app with all of the necessary features I would expect. I highly recommend that any Facebook advertiser give it a try with your next campaign!