Instagram alternative Tadaa introduces edge detection to blur photo backgrounds
It’s been some time since we first looked at photo-sharing app Tadaa, which we noted at the time builds on Instagram’s template with more Twitter-like features for social photographers.
Instagram may have gone on to dominate the filter/sharing/social photo-app realm, and it even has that billion-dollar Facebook acquisition to boast, but with around 3 million downloads to date, Tadaa has also carved a sizable niche for itself in what has become a pretty saturated space, with arguably a more sophisticated offering than some of its peers.
Tadaa boldly claims this “patent-pending” edge detection feature to be a “world first” for such a mobile app, so we thought we’d take a look to see how good it really is.
Oh, and edge detection, incidentally, is the technical term for identifying specific points and objects in a digital image. In the case of Tadaa, it promises to separate the main subject (e.g. a person) from the background surroundings to create distinct effects and a sense of depth
Tadaa & edge-detection
You can take a snap on the spot, or reel in images from your camera roll. Click the little edge-detection button on the top left next to the crop icon, and you’re good to go.
You trace an area around the main ‘focus’ region, and Tadaa snaps around the edges of the area it thinks you want to focus on.
Next, you can adjust the background blur to make the foreground standout, while you can also change elements such as brightness, contrast and saturation, and other finishing touches to the background.
Then, you can save it to your camera roll or share it across the social sphere.
Certainly, the outcome is quite impressive and it does create a genuine depth of field similar to what you’d get with a DSLR. But is this actually all that revolutionary? Other apps profess to offer such features, including AfterFocus for iOS and Android, not to mention Big Lens (iOS only).
I thought I’d put Tadaa up against Big Lens to see what the actual difference was, and here’s the result with Tadaa on the left:
If truth be told, I didn’t think there was too much in it, both produced roughly the same output, though maybe someone with a better eye for this kind of thing would disagree.
At any rate, it’s a nice addition for Tadaa and one that will likely prove popular with its 3 million or so users. Plus, for the time-being, Tadaa remains totally free, though there is a suggestion it may eventually cost to use the edge detection feature.
“We can’t wait to see how our users react to this new feature,” says Nikolas Schoppmeier, Tadaa’s Co-Founder & CEO. “There is no other app out there with a feature as sophisticated as this so we’re very excited. This feature is just one more reason to leave your expensive SLR at home the next time you want to take great photos. We’re equipping our users with a set of tools that only professional photographers have access to and we’re striving to make them as accessible as possible.”
Tadaa version 4.7 is available to download now.
Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service
Here is the original post: Instagram alternative Tadaa introduces edge detection to blur photo backgrounds
JobFiend lets recruiters create simple mobile-optimized forms for candidates to respond through
Given that mobile is fast-becoming the primary Web-browsing conduit for many people, it goes without saying that many potential job candidates will be viewing recruitment ads on their pocket rocket.
For this reason, the good folks at Zartis, the recruitment software company, have launched a pretty clever but simple Web app for would-be recruiters to create simple mobile optimized forms for applicants on the fly.
“Over 90% of company career sites don’t work on mobile,” says John Dennehy, CEO of Zartis. “Apart from the design issues, it’s almost impossible to upload a CV from an iOS device.”
And this is why they built JobFiend.
JobFiend: Mobile-optimized forms for recruiters
First up, you’ll be asked to create an account and enter your company Twitter account (no need to log in), through which it will glean your company logo.
Your job description must be no more than 140 characters, and actually the shorter the better.
Given that candidates can’t easily upload their CV from a mobile, this is all based on questions and links.
Now, there are three kinds of questions you can ask – Yes/No, Free Text (140-character limit for the question) and Sliders, ranking from 1-5.
You can add as many questions as you like, and if you want more than a simple text-based answer, you can always ask them to link through to their online CV, Twitter account, Tumblr and so on.
As a recruiter, you can add as many jobs as you like, which can be managed from the main dashboard.
Another clever bit is you can copy/paste some simple code into the
tag of your site’s jobs page. Then, when a candidate visits this page via their mobile, they will be redirected to the mobile-optimized page.Whenever someone applies for a job, you will receive an email and you can view a list of all the candidates through the main dashboard.
In terms of what the candidate will see, well, it will look a little something like this – bear in mind, this took me all of 1 minute to create a simple 3-question form.
JobFiend is still in beta, so you can expect some bugs. Indeed, the mobile form wasn’t always the most responsive, but it did work and I submitted the form without to much hassle.
You can sign up for a JobFiend account now.
➤ JobFiend
Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
See the original post here: JobFiend lets recruiters create simple mobile-optimized forms for candidates to respond through
Luvocracy Raises $11M From Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures And Others To Master Ecommerce And Social Recommendations
Luvocracy, a recently launched, Pinterest-like social marketplace where people can buy products recommended by friends and other tastemakers, has raised $11 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Marissa Mayer, Ali Pincus, Jim Lanzone, Tony Robbins, CrunchFund*, RPM Ventures and XG Ventures. Kleiner Perkins partner Bing Gordon is joining Luvocracy’s board.
Sharing products has become mainstream thanks to Pinterest and Facebook. But Pinterest lacks the ability to actually buy many of the products curated on the site by friends, and there is too much noise on Facebook to make it a dedicated e-commerce platform for recommendations. Enter Luvocracy, a startup co-founded by Nathan Stoll and Roger Barnett.
Stoll was an early Googler who ran and expanded Google News. The last company he co-founded, social search service Aardvark, was acquired in 2010 by Google. Barnett was the founder and CEO of Beauty.com and the CEO of Arcade Marketing, the largest perfume-sampling company in the world. He is also the chairman and CEO of Shaklee Corporation, the leading natural nutrition company in the U.S.
The premise around Luvocracy is to be the social marketplace where people can buy products recommended by those they trust. At a macro level, the startup is bringing the power of recommendations, which have driven purchase decisions for centuries, into the world of online shopping. Stoll recalls the story of his grandmother, who was a longtime Avon lady, as demonstrating the power of human recommendations. Even today, nearly 90 percent of all online and offline purchases (or 8 billion transactions) start with a word of mouth recommendation.
But there hasn’t been a streamlined way to easily share, discover and buy great products recommended by the friends you trust and tastemakers whose styles you admire.
Once you register for the site, you can check the products you are interested in (i.e. home goods, men’s style, women’s style), import your Facebook friends, and more. You can filter your shown product feeds by trending (by recommendations), the people you trust for recommendations, the latest product added, and featured products and tastemakers. When I first registered for the site, I immediately made my first Luvocracy purchase, a “Shopping Is My Cardio” sweatshirt.
Luvocracy lists a maximum you will pay for the product. To make buying a recommendation dead simple, Luvocracy created a “Buy It For Me” service. When there is something you “luv” from a trusted person, it’s as simple and easy as clicking the “Buy It For Me” button, and Luvocracy takes it from there, locating and purchasing the item and even dealing with any shipping or return issues on their behalf.
The startup will manage merchant returns for you, and offers a 30-day return policy.
Similar to Pinterest, Luvocracy also lets you easily create collections of products that you adore and want to recommend, so that others can discover and purchase from you. All recommenders receive a portion of the sales in Luvocracy (and Luvocracy makes a cut from each purchase) as well.
The challenge Luvocracy will face is to create an audience in a social commerce world that is already being dominated by Pinterest and the most recent up and comer Wanelo. But my immediate impression by Luvocracy is that it could accomplish this among the design-focused audience that e-commerce standout Fab has been able to tap into. The quality of the products posted on Luvocracy is high, and I had not seen most of the items I browsed through on other e-commerce sites (and as my purchase indicates, shopping is my cardio, especially online). Even the user experience itself of Luvocracy and the presentation of products is sleek.
If Luvocracy can maintain this quality and design-focused brand even as it grows, the site could create a loyal (and high-purchasing) user base. Based on my intial purchase, the startup already has my attention.
*TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is a General Partner of CrunchFund.
View original post here: Luvocracy Raises $11M From Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures And Others To Master Ecommerce And Social Recommendations
With Email Insights, Silverpop Allows Marketers To Test And Customize Their Emails Based On Device
Silverpop, the marketing tech company that announced $25 million in new funding last month, is announcing a new feature to help customers adapt to all the different ways that people are opening their emails.
The feature, called Email Insights, accomplishes three main tasks, the company says. First, it allows them to preview how an email will look in up to 30 different apps across multiple devices. (It’s working with a company called Litmus to create those previews.) Adam Steinberg, Silverpop’s director of emerging apps, said that there was previously a lot of uncertainty and guesswork in the process — for many marketers, the testing process previously consisted of emailing people they knew with different devices then asking, “How does it look?”
Next, Silverop provides analytics about which devices and applications are being used to open those emails. Customers can then use that data to create emails that are customized based on a user’s “preferred device.”
“The marketer wants to know which type of device their customers are using so it can give them a device-centric marketing message,” Steinberg said.
For example, he told me that if an online retailer is launching a new iPhone app, instead of sending the same promotional message to everyone on their mailing list, they could create a special message for people who usually read those emails on an iPhone, with a direct link to download the app.
Email Insights is now available to all Silverpop customers with pricing that starts at $40 per month.
Continue reading here: With Email Insights, Silverpop Allows Marketers To Test And Customize Their Emails Based On Device
Tomorrow on TNW: Your chance to ask Pancake Labs’ founder Jim Belosic your entrepreneurship questions
Streaming live on The Next Web, Pancake Labs founder Jim Belosic will answer questions from readers at 3 p.m. ET (12 p.m. PT) Thursday, May 2. As part of the Young Entrepreneur Council’s #StartupLab initiative, a virtual mentorship program, Jim will appear live via video chat broadcast on this site.
Jim Belosic is the co-founder and CEO of Pancake Labs, a software company based in Reno, Nev. The company is best known for its flagship product, ShortStack, software that’s designed to help small business owners and designers create custom apps that harness the power of social media.
ShortStack recently celebrated its second birthday; Pancake Labs has several new software products slated for release in 2013.
Prior to starting Pancake Labs, Belosic ran a successful web design agency, which he also founded. ShortStack was created as an internal tool for Belosic’s team of designers who needed to create custom apps for brand and business Facebook pages. Belosic ultimately conceived a software platform that would allow thousands of users to create Facebook apps for their businesses without needing to hire a developer. Some of ShortStack’s most popular features include contests and sweepstakes, newsletter signup forms and integrations with Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and more. ShortStack apps are mobile capable and embeddable on websites.
Pancake Labs is bootstrapped; numbers indicating the success of its flagship product include acquiring more than 80,000 users during the company’s first year. In year number two, the number of people using ShortStack grew to 190,000. The company anticipates serving more than 300,000 users in 2013.
Jim Belosic is recognized as a social media expert and has contributed to Mashable, Social Media Examiner, CMS Wire, PR Daily and SmartBrief. In 2012, Jim was named Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, honored as a top 20 business leader under age 40 in Reno, Nev. and named one of the city’s 100 most influential business leaders.
#StartupLab is a free virtual mentorship program created by The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of hundreds of America’s most successful young entrepreneurs. #StartupLab takes YEC’s mission to help more people start successful businesses to the next level by offering millions of entrepreneurs direct access to YEC members through interactive video chats, email lessons and a library of how-to articles, videos and eBooks. Whether you’re just starting up, a current business owner, or you run an organization that supports entrepreneurs, sign up for #StartupLab today for real-world advice from some of the coolest entrepreneurs on the planet.
Check The Next Web tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. ET (12 p.m. PT), when Jim will answer questions from the audience live via video chat.
Photo courtesy of Jim Belosic.