facebook application development

At 1 p.m. ET Monday, June 7, American fashion designer Oscar de la Renta will unveil his Resort 2011 collection before a select coterie of fashion critics, buyers, celebrities and other industry professionals on a runway in New York — as well as thousands of fans watching the show live on Livestream and Facebook.

A number of fashion blogs will also be hosting the Livestream, and users can use the platform’s chat features to discuss the collection with other viewers on Facebook and Twitter during the show. A few minutes before the show starts, the designer will address the online audience about the collection and the company’s social media efforts.

The event is part of a broader shift in the attitude of the fashion industry, which has been frequently criticized for its hyper-exclusivity and the slow rate at which it has embraced certain technologies, like sustainable manufacturing and online platforms.

It wasn’t until this February that a small number of fashion houses, including Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabanna, began streaming their runway shows for the first time on their websites and mobile applications, and even then only a few of those shared their videos on Facebook and Livestream as well. Now, fashion enthusiasts can see entire collections at the same time as the buyers and press, and begin sharing their opinions about each look as it comes down the runway.

“The audience of [our] shows has evolved over the last 50 years,” explained Alex Bolen, the CEO of Oscar de la Renta. “Previously it was the buyers who were sitting in the first and foremost seats and while they are an extremely important constituency for our show, there’s a broader constituency we want to know about our brand.”

Oscar de la Renta has ramped up its social media efforts as of late, leveraging Facebook to share behind-the-scenes footage with its more than 30,000 fans and to drive sales at its online store. The brand is also very engaged with followers on Twitter via the whimsical and personable @OscarPRGirl.

“We’re a family-owned, relatively small business competing against big players,” Bolen said. “We have to constantly be looking for ways to get an edge, to punch above our weight. It’s my belief that some people are moving slowly in the e-commerce space. We embrace the fact that things are rapidly changing, understand the fact that we’ll have some missteps, but we want to be in the game and figure out which direction things are moving.”

Although Oscar de la Renta has been relatively quick to appropriate social media resources, there are several reasons why the industry as a whole has been hesitant to do so. For one thing, the fashion industry has always thrived on the aura of exclusivity it creates around the unveiling of its collections; invitations for major fashion shows are generally reserved for celebrities and the industry elite.

Now, thanks to the livestream, anyone with an Internet connection can watch the runway show live. As Natalie Massenet, founder and chairman of Net-a-porter.com explained, “Buyers and the press have been privileged and blessed to be in this little club, but now the consumer is in the room with us, and everything has changed.”

Timing is a larger issue. Collections are generally unveiled six months before they are purchased and worn by consumers; fall clothes are shown in February, just before spring weather arrives, and spring previews occur in September, just as consumers are stocking up on chunky knits and leggings for the cooler months. The clothes that Oscar de la Renta shows today will not appear in stores until the holiday season.

“What’s the point of showing these clothes so early on… when you’re promoting a product that’s not even available to buy?” Lazaro Hernandez, the co-founder of fashion label Proenza Schouler, asked in an interview with Portfolio.

Bolen acknowledged the general fear that the event will be “overexposed and the clothes will be tired in six months.” The only solution, he said, was to get the clothes into stores more quickly, although production, especially work by hand, takes a certain amount of time. “But there’s no stopping it,” he said. “The information is going to be out there. It’s not as if we’re going to be able to prevent people from looking at our clothes…We [just need] to get quicker.”

What do you think of Oscar de la Renta’s decision to stream the show live online? Should the fashion industry continue to embrace social media, or is there a risk that certain brands may lose their luster? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Tags: facebook, fashion, livestream, oscar de la renta, social media

At the D8 Conference outside of Los Angeles, another well-known tech CEO was grilled on stage: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs took the stage and was hit hard with questions on Adobe Flash, the lost next-generation iPhone and Facebook’s increasing competition with Google.

AllThingsD producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher definitely didn’t let up on the 26-year-old founder. They questioned him on the recent privacy fiasco, instant personalization, his past at Harvard and his future as CEO of one of the web’s most important companies.

The Privacy Backlash

Swisher and Mossberg wasted no time digging into the big issue: Facebook and privacy. Zuckerberg started by making it clear that “privacy is very important to us.” He says that Facebook isn’t out to make all of its users information public — that’s a misconception. In fact, he drilled deeper, saying that Facebook never changed people’s privacy settings, it just suggested settings where some information is left public.

It didn’t take long for Mossberg and Swisher to turn up the heat, though. Mossberg asked Facebook’s CEO why he’s making people take extra steps to protect their information. Zuckerberg eventually responded that people still have control over their Facebook information, and more than half of the userbase has changed privacy settings at one point, demonstrating that most users understand the privacy tools.

That wasn’t the end of the privacy discussion, though. Much of the conversation became Mossberg and Swisher trying to get answers to one question, but Zuckerberg finding ways to dodge. There was no straight answer from Zuckerberg about why Facebook Instant Personalization was opt-out instead of opt-in. Most likely, we’ll never get one.

Zuckerberg the Kid, Zuckerberg the CEO

There was a lot of focus on Zuckerberg himself during his time on stage. Swisher asked Facebook’s CEO how he felt about the backlash against him and whether he has been accurately portrayed to the rest of the world. His response began with his telling Swisher that he “did a lot of stupid things” when he was in college, and that he doesn’t intend to make excuses for it. He was likely referring to IMs that recently surfaced that took a less-than-serious attitude towards privacy.

More of the focus was on Zuckerberg as the 26-year-old CEO of Facebook. He discussed how it is his job not to make the same mistakes of his competitors, although he once again dodged the actual question (“Who are your competitors in this space?”). He reiterated that he intends to be CEO of Facebook when it goes public, although he wouldn’t reveal when that would happen. Given his tight control over the Facebook Board of Directors, it’s tough to find a scenario where he would be forced out.

As with many of his interviews, Zuckerberg focused less on himself and more on generalities, such as his focus on building a great team and having a clear direction for the company. He didn’t seem to think of himself as the CEO of one of the world’s most important companies, but just the leader of a team that shares his values.

Overall, Zuckerberg likes to talk about the topics that interest him — the social graph, building great products, etc. — and he avoids answering the uncomfortable questions about privacy, controversies and IPOs. Still, we give him credit for going on the stage of D8 at all.

Tags: ceo, D8, facebook, mark zuckerberg

Earlier this week, we reported on a new Facebook clickjacking scheme that takes advantage of the service’s “Like” buttons; today a variation of that attack is starting to appear, this time using Justin Bieber as bait.

While the baited links in the last attack were focused on sensational, if generic, titles like, “LOL This girl gets OWNED after a POLICE OFFICER reads her STATUS MESSAGE,” the new vector takes advantage of the popularity of YouTube star Bieber, as well as Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams.

The targeted links display text that says either, “Paramore n-a-k-ed photo leaked” or “Justin Biebers Phone Number Leaked!” In the case of the Paramore clickjack, users are then taken to a page that says “Click here to continue if you are 18 years of age of above.” Clicking anywhere on the site then launches an invisible iframe which contains a Facebook Like button, thus spreading the link to more and more users.

The Justin Bieber vector is actually even more clever. First, it takes you to a page that says “Click here to continue” — this is the invisible Facebook Like button — however, after clicking on the page, users are then given what is purported to be Bieber’s phone number and address.

Unlike the previous attack, it doesn’t appear that this clickjacking — or “likejacking” as some are calling it — attack has any malware or worms embedded on the serving websites. Still, if you or someone you know falls victim to these fake links, you should remove the links from your “Likes and Interests” section on your Facebook profile page.

As far as clickjacking techniques are concerned, the use of the Facebook Like button iframe is one of the more clever methods we’ve seen. We hope Facebook can address this issue and better control how the controls work, lest we all become inundated with spammy “Likes” across our news feeds.

[img credit: Sophos]

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Antagain

Tags: clickjacking, facebook, justin bieber, likejacking, security

Nielsen has released a new mobile application report and its findings showcase not only the increase in smartphone usage, but also what applications are most popular. For its report, Nielsen surveyed more than 4,200 people who had downloaded a mobile application in the last 30 days.

The survey really highlights just how much smartphone ownership trails traditional feature phone ownership, at least in the U.S. Nielsen’s study shows that 21% of American wireless subscribers have smartphones.

Still, even non-smartphone users have heavily embraced mobile apps. Nielsen’s survey indicates that the average number of apps that a feature phone user has on his or her device is 10, while the average number of apps a smartphone user has is 22.

Broken down even further, the average number of installed apps based on smartphone OS looks like this:

• BlackBerry: 10
• iPhone: 37
• Android: 22
• Palm: 14
• Windows Mobile: 13

Most Popular Smartphone Apps

While the specific applications vary from platform to platform, the most popular apps across smartphones were pretty consistent in this report: Maps, weather, Facebook and music all had strong showings.

Check out this chart, which breaks down the five most popular apps by smartphone OS:

It’s interesting to see just how much Facebook dominates the mobile app space; it’s one of the top five apps on each of the platforms highlighted. Still, Nielsen notes that broken down by demographic, MySpace is still very popular among teens and that LinkedIn is strong in the 25-44 demographic.

Do any of these findings surprise you or does this align with your own mobile app usage? Let us know.

Tags: facebook, Google Maps, mobile apps, Nielsen, smartphones, trending

Yesterday was Quit Facebook Day, and for all intents and purposes, it was a bust. According to the group’s homepage, only 34,000 users vowed to “quit Facebook” and remember, committing to quit and actually quitting aren’t the same thing.

While the debate over Facebook and privacy is far from over, those concerns are trumped by the utility of the actual service. At least for now.

Yesterday, we asked readers if they were going to quit Facebook. After more than 10,000 votes, nearly 63.73% of readers (6,593 combined votes) said that they would not be quitting Facebook. 25.57% (2,645 votes) said that they were going to quit Facebook and 10.7% (1,107 votes) said that they didn’t even have a Facebook account.

Now, our poll was far from scientific, but it does offer some anecdotal food for thought. What we’ve been hearing from readers over the last few months isn’t that privacy concerns or fears are unwarranted — Facebook users do seem to be uneasy with some of the changes to the service and its growing reach — but that the service itself is ultimately too important as a way of communication to give up.

The long-term impact of the latest privacy control updates remain to be seen but it looks Facebook has emerged from this round of privacy warfare relatively unscathed — at least for now.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, malerapaso

Tags: facebook, privacy, quit facebook day