Gadgetwise Blog: Jildy App Sorts Your Facebook Friends for You

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AppId is over the quota

You’re in line for coffee. You really want to check your family’s Facebook posts to see if there’s anything you need to know about, but they’re lost among status updates from friends. You never did spend the time to create a group of just your relatives, so there you are, thumbing through your iPhone’s entire news feed.

You don’t have to live this way. A new app called Jildy, released for the iPhone last week and under development for Android phones, sorts your Facebook friends into lists of those who interact with one another, so you can read or post to just those people quickly.

There was an app called Katango that did this. But after a high-profile debut last July, Katango was bought by Google in November, and the app is no longer available in Apple’s App Store. Jildy also does a few things Katango didn’t.

Using Jildy is easy. Download it from the App Store and fire it up. The first time you start it, flick the switch to turn Facebook access from Off to On. If you already have Facebook’s app on your phone, you won’t even need to log in. You will be presented with a familiar screen that prompts you to grant permission for Jildy to access some of your Facebook information, just like any other Facebook app. Click Allow, and Jildy will spend a few seconds loading your friend lists and sorting them.

To read or post to Jildy’s lists, tap the Lists icon in the app’s lower left corner. The automatic grouping is surprisingly accurate, since most Facebook users tend to post or comment to one another in isolated groups. To fine-tune a list, tap it. Jildy will switch to a screen with icons of the most frequent recent posters. In the upper right corner is an arrow key. Tap that, and choose the List Info option. There, you can edit the name and membership of the group. That same arrow icon also lets you post an update or share a photo with just the members of the group.

An Internet pundit, Clay Shirky, has said that the problem with services like Facebook is not information overload, it’s filter failure. Jildy Inc.’s chief executive, Mark Drummond, who previously created the unsuccessful but technically impressive Wowd social search engine, says Jildy’s developers aim to solve Mr. Shirky’s problem by whittling down your Facebook feeds into chunks you will find usable on a mobile phone, where your attention span and screen size are much smaller than they are on a laptop or at a desk.

When you look at a list, Jildy presents screens of who is posting the most in the last 12 hours, and what words or phrases are appearing most. Are the gang from San Francisco talking about Burning Man in January? Maybe something is up that you need to check. Tap the on-screen box labeled “burning man,” and Jildy will show you the group’s posts on the topic, which it has already searched. It digs back more than a few days, so you can catch up on conversation topics you may have missed during the holidays.

Jildy also has a feature called PSI (it stands for “personal social intelligence”) that creates cutesy charts of the statistical distribution of your Facebook friends by age, gender, relationship status, and astrological sign. I was surprised to learn that the majority of my friends are married, and 40 percent of them are women. There are other ways I could have figured this out, but Jildy did it for me in a few seconds while I was poking through lists on my phone. That’s the idea: to present the information you probably want, ready to go on your phone. Until Google figures out what it’s going to do with Katango, Jildy is well worth a test drive.

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Gadgetwise: Publishing Your Own E-Book

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AppId is over the quota

I want to publish my own e-book and sell it online on a major Web site. Where do I start?

Writing, editing and proofreading your book manuscript is the first step. Once you have finished your book, perhaps one of the easiest ways to get it out there for sale is to use publishing tools from the major online bookstores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Amazon has a Kindle Direct Publishing service that lets you self-publish your own e-books and sell them in its online Kindle store. The site has tutorials for properly formatting and uploading your book file to make it compatible with the Kindle, Amazon’s own e-reader hardware. You need an account to use the service, but you can use your existing Amazon.com account if you already buy things from the site. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Help page has the information you need to get started, including an explanation of the royalties you can earn and Amazon’s share of the profits.

Barnes and Noble has its own publishing platform called PubIt that can be used to upload and distribute e-books in its Nook online bookstore. The PubIt site accepts files in the ePub format, but it also has tools that convert Microsoft Word, RTF files, HTML documents and plain-text files into ePub. It doesn’t cost anything to use PubIt, but you do need an account, and Barnes and Noble takes a percentage of your book’s list price in exchange for selling your work. The PubIt Support page has information on prices, percentages and using the service.

If you do not want to use a publishing tool dedicated to a specific online store, an e-book distribution service like Smashwords can help you get your work out to a variety of online bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple’s iBookstore and the Sony Reader store.

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DealBook: Despite RIM Takeover Talk, Hurdles Would Be High

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AppId is over the quota
Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesA selection of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry phones.

OTTAWA — For beleaguered investors in Research in Motion, the drastic collapse of the company’s share price through 2011 eventually became a cause for optimism. In December, shares of the BlackBerry maker spiked on reports that several technology titans could be suitors.

But the optimism has been fleeting; the company has grappled with service failures, weak product introductions and dwindling market share. Shares of RIM have dropped by 75 percent since February.

As the troubles mount and the stock drops, RIM is looking like a strong takeover candidate without suitable prospects.

“Before you talk about a buyer, you have to ask: do you have a seller?” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners in New York. “That is the overarching question.”

Any potential suitors would most likely face stiff resistance from Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executives. Collectively they own more than 10 percent, which makes them among the largest shareholders.

Eric Risberg/Associated PressMike Lazaridis, a co-chief executive of Research in Motion, co-founded the company in 1984.

RIM is also a point of pride for the Canadian government, which has been increasingly reluctant to let foreign companies buy major domestic corporations. In a recent news conference, Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, offered a note of support for RIM, saying “we all know this is an important Canadian company.”

RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, said it does not comment on “rumors and speculation” as a matter of policy.

Despite the company’s well-publicized problems, RIM remains an attractive target. Even as its market share erodes in North America, the company continues to expand its customer base overseas and now reports almost 75 million users worldwide. And the BlackBerry brand is the first choice for security-conscious users like law enforcement agencies and financial services companies. In the first nine months of the year, RIM reported earnings of $1.29 billion.

At Wednesday’s close of $14.87, the price is also appealing. Alkesh Shah, an analyst at Evercore Partners, estimated that the company was worth closer to $22.50 a share, even assuming that the handset business is essentially worthless. Mr. Shah said that RIM’s network, which carries global traffic worldwide and generates monthly subscription fees, was worth about $12.50 a share, while he valued the company’s patents at roughly $7.50 a share. The company also has $2.50 a share in cash, he estimated.

Still, RIM is a large acquisition to swallow, limiting the pool of buyers.

“You have to remember that this would take $10 billion, $12 billion, $13 billion,” said Mr. Gillis of BGC. “That’s a lot of cash. There’s not a lot of people willing to spend that kind of money.”

The most obvious suitor for RIM would be a Chinese cellphone manufacturer. Such companies, which typically act as contract manufacturers for prominent brands, lack a significant presence outside of Asia. ZTE, for example, is small, low-end player in North America and Europe. But it is the fourth-largest handset maker in the world, according to IDC, a company that tracks technology markets.

With RIM, ZTE would add a recognized brand to its portfolio, reflecting its global ambitions. This year, the Chinese company announced plans to produce high-end phones under its own name, focusing in part on Western markets.

But the regulatory hurdles would be high for a Chinese company. In recent years, Canada has been quick to block acquisitions under its foreign ownership laws. In 2010, the Conservative government stopped BHP Billiton, the Australian mining company, from buying Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. At the time, some politicians cited a foreign takeover of RIM as a worst-case outcome.

The American government could also scuttle a RIM deal. The country’s military personnel, law enforcement officers and White House officials rely on BlackBerry devices, making Chinese ownership difficult under the technology control restrictions in the United States. This year, Huawei Technologies backed away from acquiring technology assets from 3Leaf Systems, a server company, after the federal government raised concerns about the relatively small transaction.

A ZTE spokeswoman declined to comment.

Other potential RIM suitors have been rebuffed. Microsoft, which had previously tried to persuade RIM to adopt its mobile operating system, initiated deal talks this summer, according to one person with knowledge of the matter. The American technology company viewed RIM’s corporate business as a good distribution platform for its software. But discussions withered, as RIM pursued an independent course. Microsoft declined to comment.

Amazon also reportedly explored a RIM acquisition. Peter Misek, an analyst in New York with Jefferies and Company, said such a deal would allow Amazon to add phones to its Kindle line of tablet computers. While no deal materialized, he said that it remained possible that RIM might license its BlackBerry software.

Facebook is a dark horse candidate. Given that Google uses Android to promote its online services, Mr. Misek said that it was likely Facebook would introduce a rival mobile operating system, and RIM would offer Facebook a quick way into the business.

But even that situation is a long shot. RIM is struggling with its latest operating system, BlackBerry 10. An RIM acquisition would also be a costly way for Facebook to gain entry into a new area.

“For $10 billion they could subsidize a lot of Android phones,” Mr. Gillis said of Facebook.

Few deals are likely to pass muster with RIM’s chiefs. Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis have remained steadfast in their strategy to reverse the company’s fortunes. The executives are focused on a new line of phone and operating system, which are not expected to be introduced until the end of 2012.

Adnaan Ahmad, an analyst with Berenberg Bank in London, said the pair seemed to have developed “founders’ syndrome,” a condition that makes them inflexible about taking their company in new directions and unwilling to yield control.

Both have reputations for being combative when challenged. In the middle of the last decade, the chiefs vigorously fought a patent case brought by NTP — actions that almost prompted a shutdown of BlackBerry service. RIM settled the matter for $612.5 million, a significantly larger sum than would have been necessary earlier.

While no major shareholder has spoken publicly about RIM’s management, some dissidents have privately expressed reservations. Big investors seem willing, for now, to see how the new operating system, BlackBerry 10, performs. Two top shareholders, the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada, rely heavily on domestic retail business and would be unlikely to push RIM to seek a foreign buyer — if only for public relations purposes.

In late December, Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis made it clear that they intended to remain in control of RIM, even after announcing another delay in the new operating system.

“It is important for you to know that Mike and I, as two of RIM’s largest shareholders, understand investor sentiment, and we are more committed than ever to addressing the issues at hand,” Mr. Balsillie said before announcing that, as a good will gesture, they had cut their salaries to $1 a year.

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Northeastern University Expands Its Geographic Reach

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AppId is over the quota

Northeastern, known for its co-op program in which undergraduates spend significant amounts of time in the workplace, opened its first satellite campus this fall in Charlotte, N.C., and is planning a second in Seattle next year; outposts in Austin, Tex., Minnesota and Silicon Valley are under discussion.

The goal is to offer master’s degrees in industries like cybersecurity, health informatics and project management, matching programs with each city’s industries and labor needs, through a mix of virtual learning and fly-ins from professors based in Boston (tuition will be the same as at the main campus).

While higher education has long been seen as a local enterprise, with universities deeply enmeshed in their communities, the explosion of online institutions, particularly for-profit career colleges like the University of Phoenix and the Education Management Corporation, has changed that dynamic. Northeastern, which is spending $60 million to support the expansion, is perhaps the most ambitious of a handful of brick-and-mortar institutions looking to broaden their footprint in new markets and with new methods of instruction.

“This is a time of huge transition in an industry that hasn’t changed much since the Middle Ages,” said Charles P. Bird, a former vice president of Ohio University who helped develop the institution’s online offerings and now works as a consultant. “Higher education is going from traditional face-to-face delivery, and the unexamined assumption that that is good, to thinking about delivering a high-quality online experience, whether fully online or hybrid.”

Northeastern has hired 261 tenured and tenure-track professors in the last five years, about twice as many as in the previous five, and plans to add 200 more in the next three years — all of whom will be based at the home campus in Boston.

“There’s been a real knowledge explosion that has created new industries with new needs for expertise,” said Joseph E. Aoun, the university’s president. “We don’t want to make the mistake the railways did. They didn’t think of themselves as being broadly in the transportation industry, so they missed the opportunity to build air travel. We’re in the business of higher education, and where there’s a new space, we want to step in.”

Until recently, most universities looking to expand have gone overseas, starting branches in regions where American-style higher education is a huge draw: first in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where oil revenues have paid for elaborate buildings and hefty bonuses for American faculty members, and more recently in China and Singapore.

But Cornell University just won an international competition to build a $2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island in partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Last month, Emerson College in Boston announced plans for an academic center in Los Angeles. And the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania offers its weekend executive M.B.A. program in San Francisco as well as in Philadelphia.

Andrew Delbanco, a Columbia University professor who writes about higher education, said such expansions were “symptomatic of the significant anxiety by institutions at all levels of higher education about their sustainability.”

Some experts are skeptical that an institution entering new territory can compete with the existing local colleges and universities.

“If I were looking to move into a new region,” said Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, “I would prefer to partner with someone who knows and understands that market and already has a name brand there.”

So far, Drexel University has come closest to Northeastern’s approach — and not without difficulties.

Drexel, a century-old research university of about 18,000 students in Philadelphia that also has an extensive co-op program, opened a graduate center in downtown Sacramento in 2009, offering degrees through the hybrid online and fly-in model. That juggling act turned out to be “a lot harder than anyone thought it would be,” said John A. Fry, who became Drexel’s president last year and has since called off a plan to build a full undergraduate campus in California.

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DealBook: Ahead of I.P.O., S.E.C. Pressed Groupon On Accounting, Disclosures

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AppId is over the quota

Ahead of Groupon‘s highly anticipated initial public offering in November, the Securities and Exchange Commission repeatedly pressed the daily deals giant to defend its business model and its accounting measures, according to comment letters recently disclosed.

The letters, sent by the S.E.C. from June 29 to Oct. 3, provide an interesting window into the back-and-forth discussions between the Internet company and its regulators in the months leading up to its I.P.O. In the letters, the S.E.C. seemed somewhat skeptical of Groupon’s business model and called on the company to balance its bullish statements with additional disclosures. Regulators also asked Groupon to address comments made by executives during the so-called quiet period, which seemed to defy S.E.C. rules.

Shares of Groupon slipped nearly 2 percent on Wednesday to close at $22.62 per share.

In the first letter, dated June 29, the S.E.C. outlines 73 comments, spanning 14 pages. Among the comments, regulators called on Groupon to list specific risk factors for its international operations, provide additional data on consumer attrition and repeat merchants and temper certain statements about the company’s growth prospects. In one section, for instance, the regulators advise the company to reframe a comment made by its chief executive, Andrew Mason, who had said in a filing that “Groupon is better positioned than any company in history to reshape local commerce,” to include the company’s “net losses and competitive landscape.”

In response to another statement made by Mr. Mason, that “our customers and merchants are all we care about,” the regulator reminded Groupon of its responsibility to its investors:

“Please balance the statements regarding the premise that your customers and merchants are all you care about with a discussion of your fiduciary duty to shareholders.”

As evident in the letters, the S.E.C. spent a lot of time parsing the statements of Groupon’s executives on and off the prospectus. In its first comment letter, regulators called on the company to address a Bloomberg News interview, during which Groupon’s co-founder, Eric P. Lefkofsky, said the not-yet-profitable Groupon was going to be “wildly profitable.” Several months later, the S.E.C. also asked the company to provide the full text of an internal e-mail sent by Mr. Mason, which was somehow leaked to the media.

Notably, the S.E.C. was particularly clear about its reservations on Acsoi, or adjusted consolidated segment operating income, an uncommon financial yardstick Groupon introduced in its first filing. In the June 29 letter, the S.E.C. said Acsoi — which is essentially operating profit stripped of marketing and acquisition costs — was somewhat misleading to prospective investors:

It appears that online marketing expense is a normal, recurring operating cash expenditure of the company. Your removal of this item from your results of operations creates a non-GAAP measure that is potentially misleading to readers. Please revise your non-GAAP measure accordingly.

The exchange between the S.E.C and Groupon, reveal the company’s initial resistance. In a July 14 letter to the S.E.C., the company tried to defend its math, arguing that Acsoi does include some expenses related to marketing for existing subscribers. The S.E.C. was not swayed, and in a subsequent letter, simply asked for its removal. On Oct. 10, Groupon complied in a revised filing.

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Workstation: For Multitaskers, 2012 May Be a Year of Revenge

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AppId is over the quota

DEVICE BACKLASH As workers add more electronic devices, Web sites, software programs and apps to their arsenals, there is a point at which efficiency and satisfaction suffer. More devices can lead to more multitasking, which, though viewed by many as a virtue, has been shown to interfere with concentration.

More devices also harbor more vortexes of distraction, like Facebook, shopping sites and cute animal videos. Maintaining focus may well be one of the biggest daily challenges that workers will face this year, now that smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous.

More workers will probably revolt against the idea that they must be “on” all the time, recognizing that both their work and personal lives will improve if they create stricter boundaries. Sometimes this expectation is self-imposed; at other times, it’s part of the corporate culture. Look for more companies to address the issue directly. Last month, for example, Volkswagen agreed with labor representatives in Germany to limit work-related e-mails on BlackBerrys during off-hours.

THE TRAINING ADVANTAGE More technology necessitates more training. During the recession, too many workers learned new technology imperfectly, on the fly, or not at all. Fortunately, corporate spending on training rose in 2011 over the previous year, according to a report in Training magazine.

The pace at which new technology emerges and becomes paramount is quickening as never before. Last year, HTML 5 for the Web was the hottest skill that a job seeker could have; now it’s a knowledge of apps, said Alison Doyle, a job search specialist for About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

Both the employed and the unemployed cannot be complacent about their skills, and must be assertive about keeping up with the latest computer languages and applications, she said.

THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENT WORKER Both by necessity and choice, more workers are deciding to go it alone as consultants, contractors, freelancers and other independent operators. Look for that trend to intensify this year.

Thanks to technology, it’s easier than ever for “people to find projects and projects to find people,” and they aren’t restricted by geography, said Gene Zaino, president and chief executive of MBO Partners, which deals with issues surrounding independent consultants.

That’s great for people who seek flexibility and autonomy. But working alone can be lonely, and a lack of structure can slow productivity. That’s why the phenomenon of co-working — where independent workers in a range of fields gather in one room to conduct business and drink lots of coffee or tea — is likely to spread.

Of course, not everyone chooses to be independent. Many people have been forced into becoming contractors as more companies with limited budgets hire on a project basis, Mr. Zaino said. Often, these workers’ pay is lower than it would be if they were full-time employees, and benefits are nonexistent.

Now enter the federal government, which doesn’t like how these fuzzy arrangements affect tax collection. Expect a big government push to classify contract workers as employees, Mr. Zaino said.

THE UNEMPLOYMENT DIVIDE The overall unemployment rate is 8.6 percent, but break down the number by educational attainment and the picture looks different. Those with college degrees are the lucky ones: the jobless rate for them is 4.4 percent. That compares with 8.8 percent for those with only a high school diploma and 13.2 percent for those with no diploma at all.

Consider, too, that less than 30 percent of the United States population age 25 or older has a bachelor’s degree or higher. Large groups of Americans will continue to be unemployed or underemployed unless more training and educational opportunities become available.

Another disadvantaged group is the long-term unemployed, who are having trouble rejoining the work force as employers show a preference for hiring people who currently hold jobs or have been laid off only recently.

More than 30 percent of jobless Americans have been unemployed for a year or more, according to federal data. Congress will continue to wrestle with their plight, and their benefits, this year. Without help, this group risks falling so far behind that it can’t catch up.

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App Smart: The Top 10 Apps for Android Phones in 2011

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AppId is over the quota

But this year, with devices using the Android operating system reaching a dominant position in the world’s smartphone market, deeper-pocketed developers turned their full attention to them. The result was a slate of new apps that can more seriously challenge Apple’s best.

Note that this list does not include seasonal standouts like MLB.com’s At Bat 11; nor does it include games, which I’ll cover in a post on the Gadgetwise blog.

GOOGLE MUSIC (free) Google’s music service lets a user upload 20,000 songs from a PC or Mac to the cloud; the Android app instantly syncs those tunes and playlists, so there’s no longer any worry about plugging a mobile device into the desktop computer to pick up the latest purchases for the next workout or commuting trip. Wireless syncing is also available through Apple or Amazon, but with less free storage. Google Music is nicely integrated with the Android Market, which in recent weeks has featured popular songs free, as well as millions of other titles for 49 cents each.

WEBROOT SECURITY AND ANTIVIRUS (free) One unsettling thing about Android phones is that their apps often reach the market without any testing for malicious software. That is not the case for Apple apps, or Android apps offered by Amazon. Attacks have been infrequent, but with Android’s huge rise in popularity, security analysts say consumers should take precautions. Webroot is a good place to start. The app’s free version automatically scans a phone for viruses and blocks malicious Web sites and SMS messages. It includes a device locator feature, which is activated from the company’s Web site.

SWIFTKEY X ($3) If your thumbs don’t fly on a touch-screen keypad, and newfangled typing options like Swype do not work for you, SwiftKey X is a great option. The app offers corrections and predictions as you type, and it can scan your Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and SMS accounts to refine its predictions. In some cases, if not many, it will even stay one step ahead by suggesting the correct next word.

ANY.DO (free) There is no Web component to this reminder service yet, but Any.Do is still a tremendously useful and smart way to manage one’s to-do list. Those needing Web synchronization might try Wunderlist, which is also free. Any.Do includes an auto-fill feature to save keystrokes, and tasks can be rescheduled by dragging entries from one day to the next. Reminders come reliably on schedule, and when a task is complete, the entry can be crossed out with a swipe of the finger. Everything about Any.Do feels elegant and efficient, as a personal assistant should be.

8TRACKS (free) This is my new favorite app for listening to other people’s music. Spotify is great online, but it is greatly limited on a mobile phone unless you pay $10 a month. With 8tracks, strangers are your D.J.’s. Type the name of an artist or genre, and it delivers related playlists from other listeners. You can fast-forward only through two songs per hour, but it is nice to hear playlists built by real people, not algorithms, and to keep those people on a list of favorites. It is like having a virtual army of college D.J.’s arrayed before you, ready to indulge your musical tastes.

PAPER CAMERA ($2) Too often, camera filter apps are not nearly as fun as they initially appear, since loading the special effects takes time, and the results frequently fail to impress. Paper Camera suffers from neither shortcoming. When you point the camera, it applies the chosen filter to the viewfinder, so you know exactly what shot you will get. Don’t like what you see? Just press a button and the screen quickly displays the next effect; there are 12 in all. Paper Camera includes multiple sharing options as well, but does not yet provide for a front-facing camera.

TEXTONLY — BROWSER (free) People who are watching their data limits can cut corners with TextOnly — Browser, which works as advertised for most of the well-known news sites. It is far from flawless, since users must type in the precise Web address rather than searching with keywords, and some important sites seem immune to the technology. The Huffington Post and ESPN.com, for instance, repeatedly failed to load pages last week. Still, it works smoothly on most sites. Think of it as the anti-Flipboard, where aesthetics count for nothing. But when you tally your cellphone bill at month’s end, it may count for a lot.

BEWEATHER (free). A lovely, nimble little weather assistant, BeWeather delivers quick, essential information with a flick of the thumb. The data is wrapped in an animated skin that adds elegance, or drama, to the experience.

One of its better competitors, MyWeather (also free), has more raw information and more precise forecasts, but it is slower and less refined- looking than BeWeather. BeWeather’s forecast data is from Weather Underground, a service that has built a loyal following and a good reputation for reliability.

GOOGLE CURRENTS (free) Google isn’t about to let Flipboard run away with the mobile market for newsreaders. The company this year released Google Currents, an attractive and efficient way to view all news sources in a single magazine format. Google Currents makes it easy to customize your news feed, although it may sometimes cause frustration by offering articles and sources that sit behind pay walls. A bigger flaw is that the app does not yet include Twitter or Facebook feeds, but it still scores big points by identifying “trending” articles in various genres, which is great if you care deeply about particular topics.

SPEAKTOIT ASSISTANT (free) The closest thing on Android to Siri, the personal assistant for iPhone 4S owners, Speaktoit isn’t quite as sharp as Siri, but is useful in many situations. You cannot get an answer for a query like “I feel like sushi,” as you would with Siri, but if you ask Speaktoit to find a nearby sushi restaurant, it obliges. As with Siri, if the app cannot find an answer, it opens a Google search with a few key words from your request, which is often faster than typing. Speaktoit’s humanesque voice is also roughly similar to thatof its Apple counterpart, and you can choose different voices if a perky woman isn’t exactly your type.

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