I just spotted a great new messaging app (courtesy of PSFK) called Duet that encourages you to “do things with people you love.”

Heard it all before? Perhaps. But what I like about this new service is that you have the ability to pair yourself with another individual (spouse, colleague, sibling, friend…) and then share activities with them. You get the option to store messages and share photos with your significant other

Duet goes beyond Facebook and Google+ by focusing purely on circles of two which makes sense for people who don’t want to share their thoughts, photos, videos… with their wider social network. Sometimes it’s just nice to share things with someone special.

This intimate one-to-one messaging service is quite sweet and whilst it goes against the current paradigm of the one-to-many broadcast model, I think that it certainly fills a gap that email, MMS and SMS has collectively failed to satiate.

This is how Duet works:

• A duet begins by proposing something you want to do with someone near and dear.
• You can propose duet ideas privately to your favourite people, and create an evolving collaborative life list of all the things you want to do.
• Once each duet is paired, it becomes a private conversation that you can enrich with notes, photos and video messages.
• Your conversations are saved forever and Duet becomes a digital lockbox for the people and memories you cherish most.

As usual, the app is iPhone only (something which is starting to really frustrate me) and can be downloaded directly from the links on Duet’s website: http://duet.me/

Check out the following video for more insight into the world of Duet:

Introducing Duet from Crush + Lovely on Vimeo.

Facebook: what’s not to LIKE? Quite a lot if you consider this list of Zucker-balls-ups created by WordStream.com:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0150p90/

Click image to play Between The Tweets

First in a series of specially commissioned short stories from Radio4 inspired by the social networking phenomenon, Twitter.

A daytime TV star’s reputation hangs in the balance when an anonymous woman accuses him on Twitter of having an affair with her. Who is the mysterious tweeter and why is she so determined to destroy the celebrity’s career? ‘Reputation manager’ Bella is called in to handle the situation and, using her I.T. contacts, makes a surprising discovery.

Jojo Moyes is an award-winning author, former newspaper journalist and a regular Tweeter (@jojomoyes). Her story title was suggested by one of her Twitter followers.

Click the image above to listen to the story (only 15 mins)*.

*only available to BBC listeners in the UK

I received an email reminder today from Issy Hart from CoSkill about an event that is taking place this Thursday in London.

For those of you who are unaware of CoSkill, it is a really smart business consultancy which has technology at its heart of operations. CoSkill is a big advocate of what it calls ‘future prep’ – preparing their clients for the future and protecting against the ‘surprise factor’ of new and emerging technology – especially within consumer marketing.

Fast Forward to 2012 is a light but insight-packed session, to be held at City Hall (the home of Mayor Boris) on 29th September.

Designed as a trend prediction and inspiration session, attendees will be examining the key advances that CoSkill expects to affect you, your brand and your company in the next year. Speakers will be discussing business, consumer and technology expectations for 2012 and will be joined by a great guest panel.

From consumer marketing to business intelligence, this event promises to set the tone for 2012 and is one not to miss. I’ll be going along with the lovely and talented Shannon Boudjema – if you’re attending, come over and say hi.

Tickets are free, subject to availability. Email issy@coskill.com to apply.

Who knew that Facebook’s newest feature was originally conceived by the Mad Men of the 1960s?

In all seriousness the most compelling elements of Facebook’s Timeline are the ones that made Kodak’s Carousel popular. Reminiscing is a social activity. It always has been and now Facebook is bringing that activity online.

Don Draper Presents Facebook’s Timeline

Currently in private beta, Visual.ly is a new tool that allows you to create and share infographics.

Going on the video below, Visual.ly sure seems like a compelling offering – particularly when you consider the lack of tools currently out there available to non-designers to create their own infographic data visualizations.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I have am often impressed with some of the more creative Infographics that appear on my radar. I’m very much of the school of thought that says – produce a report and nobody will read it, design a visual graphical representation and thousands will share, comment on and digest it.

Visual.ly sets out with the ambitious goal of make it easier to create more robust infographics that are less scientific and more user friendly. To get on the invite list to give Visual.ly a try, visit their website.

PowperPoint? Boooooo! Prezi? Yaaaaaaay!

Here’s a cool presentation about Twitter by Maria Andersen that I stumbled upon whilst browsing through the public Prezi archive…

[Enjoy]

Check out this infographic from social media agency Ignite Social Media…

Nice to see one of the ‘old boys’ LinkedIn still growing at a healthy rate. Have we reached saturation point with social networks?

Comments below please

Originally sourced via Mashable