Peer2Politics

Airbnb’s smartphone apps just got a fairly major facelift. The redesign, rolling out for both iPhone and Android, will make the process of finding a place much prettier–search results now have full-width pictures instead of dinky thumbnails, and each listing gets its own travel mag-style page that stylishly mixes photos, reviews, and nuts-and-bolts info. The biggest component of the upgrade, though, is something many Airbnb users probably won’t ever see. It’s a totally new mobile command center for the company’s hosts. But even if travelers don’t use it themselves, it stands to make the Airbnb experience better for everyone involved.

 

Providing good user experience is not a network issue alone, but will always involve a balancing act between networks, devices and apps. (Interesting! App-Centric Cities Require A New Mindset.

A growing number of entrepreneurs and investors are determined that innovation is the way out of the countrys mess and they're creating apps to help...

For much of its short-lived existence, “ethical consumption”—the idea that we can do good and mitigate some of the worst excesses of globalization simply by shopping differently—has enjoyed its share of controversy. Some claim that it does nothing to address structural problems of the global economy, leaving the global supply chains as they are. Others argue that ethical consumption might give some citizens the license to behave even less virtuously when faced with other decisions: After all, they feel they've purchased their indulgences. Others fear that the extra profits generated via ethical consumption won't go to the people they intend to benefit but will instead be channeled into advertising budgets for ethical-consumption campaigns themselves.

Providing the information in the app requires accurate, up-to-date data from the various government entities on bike parking and strict enforcement zones. Luckily, when Romijn started developing Bike Like a Local, he already had a lot of experience with government open data. He’s developed several apps using open data, such as Openbaar Vervoer, which gives realtime status for Dutch public transport.

Providing good user experience is not a network issue alone, but will always involve a balancing act between networks, devices and apps.