App Review: CamMe - But First, Let Me Take a Selfie

The word of the year for 2013 was 'selfie' and the global obsession with selfies doesn't seem to be slowing but I'm not particularly mad on selfies and I certainly don't feel the need for every other Instagram photo of mine to be one but I do enjoy an innovative app when I see one... enter CamMe!

Take a look at their fun video...

CamMe is essentially a photo app which allows you to take photos without touching your phone but instead holding your palm towards the positioned camera then making a fist once you're ready to take the picture. It's a really simple concept but one that really solves many 'selfie problems'; awkward positions, arms in the photo or fitting everyone in it.

Since discovering this award-winning app on Mashable in February I've been telling people about it, although I'm not sure my friends here quite understood the concept of taking your hand away first!

The app was rightfully awarded the 'Most Innovative Mobile App' at the Global Mobile Awards this year and aims to change the way we take pictures forever. It's well on its way to achieving that with over 1 million downloads to date and regular updates with new features such as Photobooth and Funshots.

I tend to just use the app to take pictures with friends (or occasionally checking an outfit on myself!) rather than using the additional features, but I'm sure many users love them. Photobooth adds a frame to pictures so you can create a collage of more than one photo and with Funshot you can turn yourself into a lion (!?) with scene cutouts.

I agree with CamMe when they say they've created 'the best app for taking great selfies'!

Score: 8/10

I love...

• The simplicity and innovation of the app
• That I can get everyone into a selfie now easily

I'd like...

• A nicer interface - the menu and user experience is a little boring for me

Jane x

Facebook: The Forgotten Features

For many brands Facebook is the social media platform which they have been active on the longest and most are comfortable with their Facebook strategy, tone of voice and content. However, there are still some Facebook features that are being overlooked which are so simple to use, but pack a mighty punch for your social media efforts if used correctly – so we thought we’d share a few of them with you...

#1 Pin to Top

This feature is found top right of your post and allows you to pin that post to the top of your page so important information doesn’t get lost down the page. It's great for competitions or timely news updates as the post will stay pinned to the top for 7 days, but if you’d like to unpin it earlier – just hit unpin.

#2 Highlight

This is a lovely feature and can also be found top right of your post. This especially works well if you have a great eye-catching image you want to show off. By clicking ‘Highlight’ it expands your post across the width of your page, increasing the post in size, and increasing reach. Posts with images achieve 120% more engagement than those without so a good rule to have is to include an image with every post and get highlighting!

#3 The Timeline

Could this be the most forgotten Facebook feature? The Timeline is an underused feature that allows you to input dates in your company’s history – we like to use ours for important milestones and fun facts. Brands can also utilise this feature by creating competitions around it, for example, asking fans to answer a question about an interesting piece of company history by scrolling through the Timeline to answer and enter the competition.

#4 Edit

Halleluiah! You can now edit your post even after it appears on your page. This is great for editing after you've seen how the post looks on the page. For companies with a number of admins, you’ll also be able to see which admin member has posted each post & who has edited it too.

#5 Insights

Use them! This is the best way to get an idea of who your current audience is and work out how alike or unlike they are to your target audience. The insights can be found in the admin panel and allow you to look at your posts and page content to evaluate how well each are received and compare what works and what doesn’t. We advise you to simply have a play within the Insights panel and see what you can discover about your fans. Remember always evaluate your efforts!

We will be covering insights and evaluating social media presences in more detail in a blog post coming soon, so stay tuned!

Katie x

Can Apps Help Us All to be Happier? Reblogged from She Owns It

“It’s the little moments that make life big”

This week Stylist magazine claimed there were 10 scientifically proved things that actually make us unhappy, the first one? Facebook. A study by University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross last year found a direct correlation between time spent on the social media site and feelings of dissatisfaction, loneliness and isolation. The average time spent on Facebook per user every day is around 30 minutes, with some spending up to eight hours a day at the call of the addictive Facebook newsfeed… that’s a lot of unhappiness right there.

The idea of consciously striving to make social media a positive, meaningful and mobile experience is something we find very exciting. We have excitedly watched the Happier Inc. app grow in 2013 to hundreds of thousands of users sharing happy moments every day with each other. The app encourages users to record happy moments or things they are grateful for each day with an emphasis on being happier in the moment.

  

Even the most tiny things can bring happiness, from the sun shining through your bedroom window, to having five minutes to yourself after a busy week and these can be recorded in the Happier app and added to collections for you to look back on. The science behind the app is solid and straightforward; expressing gratitude has been shown to do more than improve your mood. People who write down a few positive things about their day are healthier, more energetic, less stressed, less anxious and sleep better. We have actively used Happier for more than a year now and we can honestly say it really does makes us happier! We are absolutely rooting for the future of the platform and the team behind it, especially co-founder Nataly Cogan who we interviewed on our blog recently.

We aim to add to the happiness movement with the launch of our new lifestyle app; Countdown Keeper – Collect Moments, Not Things. Studies have shown that anticipating future events is an important source of happiness and so we wanted to create an app that highlights those happy moments every day in a meaningful and useful way. 

Having something to look forward to, enjoying the moment, sharing the pleasure with others to heighten the experience and then reflecting on moments make even the smallest of experiences even better. Countdown Keeper allows you to get excited about upcoming events in one place, record memories through images and notes and then share the experience again with friends.

Our app is a customisable and shareable iPhone app which has been thoughtfully designed to include a number of features. Users can add images to further personalise count downs from the built-in image library, Camera, Camera Roll or Facebook. Once events have been created users can share count downs through a number of services such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and add them to the iPhone calendar too. After the count down event arrives, the app automatically switches to counting the time since that event allowing users to collect, and look back on, memories.

Download the free app for iOS today from the App Store here http://bit.ly/1iCxa4c or search ‘Countdown Keeper’

Since its release there have been thousands of downloads and a raft of five star reviews, from users who particularly love the simple interface and design. UK singer Lily Allen enjoyed Countdown Keeper’s count down to her new album release ‘Sheezus’ retweeting it to her 4.6 million Twitter followers!

You can visit the App Store to download Countdown Keeper for free today, and if you like the app, we’d be so grateful if you could leave a review to help others find it too, and join us onTwitter, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest by using the hashtag #collectmoments

Instead of heading towards the Facebook app when you have some downtime today, why not try one of these popular apps and see if your mood improves… have a happy day!

See this original blog post on She Owns It where we are featured contributors - A popular blog in the US to celebrate, support and connect women entrepreneurs!

Katie x

The Best Things in Life in May

May has already been very, very busy for both of us at Katie & Jane... our iPhone app Countdown Keeper has been released, our vegetarian food truck Not Dogs is in crucial planning stages and we're training a new client on social media strategy throughout May and June! But, of course, we couldn't miss talking about our 'best things in life'!

Katie

The Best Things in Life...

Finally #JackIsBack in 24: Live Another Day – the wait is over! We enjoyed creating a count down to the simultaneous viewing in the UK and US in the early hours of this morning with Countdown Keeper!

My nearest high street is gradually getting a lovely makeover and one of the newest additions is The Juice House, a lovely little shop offering a delicious menu of Juices from ‘Clear Skin’ created with spinach and pineapple, to ‘Blood ‘e’ Gorgeous’ made with orange, beetroot and ginger!

I recently paid a visit to the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham – which is quite a guilty pleasure of mine. The new Penguin Ice Adventure part was amazing, but my highlight was the giant turtle swimming right over my head as I walked through the Ocean Tunnel!

The One Thing I Can't Throw Away Is...

Cards! Birthday cards, Christmas cards and especially Congratulation cards – I just love them! I have to be quite selective though as I couldn’t keep them all, but I keep the special ones I hope I can look back on in years to come with fond memories.

The Key Element of a Successful Social Media Strategy Is...

Dedication – this underpins the social media strategy. The company and staff need to make a commitment and not lose confidence in the strategy simply because one Facebook post didn’t achieve enough ‘likes’. The team must always keep in mind the over-arching strategy and purpose for why the brand or company is using social media as a marketing tool and keep evaluating and moving forward – Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Jane

The Best Things in Life...

A stack of magazines to plough through! There's nothing better for me than to see my un-read magazines, piled in date order (!) ready for a free afternoon of reading. I then have to make time to organise all the cuttings I've kept from each of them... I simply love it!

Quorn veggie food. I'm currently attempting to tone up in preparation for my holiday to the gorgeous island of Crete and, along with the Tracy Anderson Method (of course!), I'm eating clean and lean foods only. I find, as a vegetarian, Quorn provides the best protein for me and it's delicious too!

Primark! After a long day at the Bullring in Birmingham hunting for an outfit for one of the hundreds of weddings I'm going to this summer I felt very deflated when I couldn't find anything but... I walked into Selfridges and had a browse through Primark and although I didn't find anything wedding related I got a pair of £6 jelly sandals for my holiday. It's the most excited I've been about a purchase in a long time!

The One Thing I Can't Throw Away Is...

My mum's duck-egg cashmere jumper. It's a lovely jumper, not my style but she's had it since she was a young girl and kept it in pristine condition. When I was younger if I was off school sick, I'd put it on and snuggle up in it!

The Key Element of a Successful Social Media Strategy Is...

Following the strategy! Yes, of course, there will be adhoc content to push through social channels but a well thought-out, structured strategy means you're more likely to succeed on social media and fans and followers will see the content you want them to see. It may not see results straightaway but by sticking to the strategy, you'll get there in the end!

Amsterdam - A Jam-Packed Long Weekend in One of the World's Most Lively Cities

As Amsterdam was on my 'I'd like to go' Pinterest board we decided to venture to the colourful city to celebrate two birthdays over the long Easter weekend.

Due to our short stay I spent a significant amount of time (too long!) researching into must-see places, the best restaurants and fun activities, and, although I think my friends took some time to get used to my organisation, the planning really paid off.

We wanted a central and funky hotel so chose Hotel V Frederiksplein which had fantastic staff, a great atmosphere and nice rooms. It's right outside taxi and tram stops so, although we often took on the fifteen minute walk into the centre in the mornings, there were a number of transport options which was perfect for us.

Day one saw a quick turnaround of unpacking at the hotel and freshening up before heading out for a five minute walk to the Heineken Museum, something the male members of the party were very excited about doing... I on the other hand, am not a fan of beer so wasn't so keen but it was interesting all the same. The Museum is not a working factory but you get to see the process of brewing, try the raw hops (yuk!) and then, of course, enjoy a few glasses of Heineken after being shown how to drink beer properly!

With food on our minds we walked to Rembrandtplein Square and enjoyed a quick bite to eat in a traditional cafe before heading to Xtra Cold Ice Bar. Going to the Ice Bar was not my choice but, as I'd experienced an ice bar before, I was happy to oblige... now I wish I hadn't! Unfortunately it wasn't quite the experience we'd hoped for - damp ponchos and gloves, salty drinks and rude staff. Thankfully, due to our group, we still had a good time together!

The night was made a million times better when I managed to get us into a 'secret' bar; Door 74. After sending a text and receiving a reply saying we were invited we knocked on a door with no sign and the lovely host peered through the spy-hole to greet us! As we entered there were about 40 people in a long atmospheric room and a bar stocked with every drink you can think of taking up the majority of the space. We were offered a menu full of unique cocktails of varying strengths - I managed one five star caramel cocktail complete with an apple slice and a piece of fudge and I was done. We absolutely loved it in there!

After a comfy sleep, we were up early skipping the hotel's continental breakfast (which was good when we had it) to go to The Pancake Bakery in the Jordaan District. There are a lot of pancake houses in Amsterdam but we opted for this one with a massive range of pancakes from English Pear to Greek Lamb and lots of rustic charm. Despite one member of our party not liking pancakes - these managed to turn him into a fan!

We spent the rest of the day walking around the Jordaan District, through the busy Leidseplein Square to Singel Flower Market which is the world's only floating flower market to admire the beautiful tulips. It's lovely to simply walk around Amsterdam and take in the attractive buildings and canals. I've visited Bruges before and will say I found it prettier than Amsterdam but I think Amsterdam is more fun!

Next up was the night I'd been most looking forward to - dinner at Asian fusion restaurant Momo followed by dancing at the nightclub Jimmy Woo (great name!). Momo did not disappoint, in fact, it surpassed expectations - not only was the food amazing as expected, the drinks, service and atmosphere made it one of my favourite ever dining experiences. We kicked off with cocktails and then decided to go for the tasting menu to share to give us a real taste for the whole menu. Every single course, and there were many of them, was simply perfect. I could have eaten there every night and cannot wait to go back.

Despite not getting back to our hotel until the early hours after a fantastic night at Jimmy Woo, we were up early for a two hour bike tour around the city with SANDEMANs NEW Europe Tours. I'd looked into a number of bike tours but found this one to be the best. Our tour guide Lars was fantastic and made even the most hung-over of us laugh out loud while showing us the city's most interesting sites. Beware... cycling around Amsterdam was a very scary experience! The city contains more bikes than people - they come from every direction! It was a highlight of the trip and I'd say go for it but be prepared.

Our last full day in Amsterdam was spent being proper tourists and visiting Anne Frank's House and the Van Gogh Museum which houses the biggest collection of Van Gogh in the world. Anne Frank's House was very interesting and moving. It was amazing to see the space the family lived in, hear about the history and discover even more about her story. Every time we walked past on previous days the queue was around three hours long so we went early and queued for about half an hour before it opened.

The Van Gogh Museum, although not my cup of tea, is set in Museum Square which is a sight in itself. It was a lovely sunny day and we spent some time eating hot dogs on the grass amongst the famous 'iamsterdam' sign people watching. Another place get your greenery fix is Vondelpark - the largest city park in Amsterdam.

Completing our tourist day we went on an evening canal cruise with the Blue Boat Company which I would recommend over the day cruise. We sat on the back of the boat with glasses of Heineken (of course!) and wine and watched the twinkling city go by. The earlier bike tour enabled us to see the city in the day and this during the night... perfect! 

After our cruise we enjoyed dinner at Restaurant Saray in the very hip De Pijp district. Saray serves the most delicious, traditional, homemade Turkish food - we had what seemed like a banquet and enjoyed every bite. I would have loved to spend longer in De Pijp and visited it by day too... next time!

Amsterdam was an interesting, energetic, unique city and I'd encourage everyone to visit it once in their lives. I'm certainly looking forward to going back soon.

Jane x

Highlights

• The bike tour with fantastic guide Lars
• Momo - for amazing food and a fantastic atmosphere

Must-Dos

• Anne Frank House - no visit would be complete without learning more about the history of Anne and her family
• An evening canal cruise to finish off your stay

It's Been 8 Hours, 29 Minutes and 15 Seconds since the Launch of our New Lifestyle App Countdown Keeper!

*Available to download for free for iPhone today here or search ‘Countdown Keeper’ in the App Store*

We are very excited to let you know that Countdown Keeper, our new lifestyle app is officially available to download from the App Store! At the time of writing this post, we've had more than 1,700 downloads, which we are absolutely overwhelmed with and some lovely reviews too!

Countdown Keeper allows you to collect all your past, present and future events all in one happy place. It is a colourful, stylish, customisable and sharable app that we've spent a year developing!

The app can be used to count down to or count since events and activities such as holidays, birthdays and weddings in a combination of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds, enabling you to look forward to, or relive happy moments, with useful and unique features. 

You can add images to your events from your camera roll, Facebook album, by taking a photo or by using our specially designed image library. Once you've created your event, you can share it with friends across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to name but a few!

You'll love our app, if, like us, you love being organised! We wanted to create a simple way to keep track of every event, appointment and task in one accessible yet inviting place on-the-go.  We’ll be using the app to keep track of the everyday things too such as exercise classes, work projects and car maintenance. When the event day arrives, the app cleverly changes to count the time since the moment, keeping it forever to relive the happy memories – a colourful, personalised and portable scrapbook of valuable moments.

It was really important to us that we could easily manage these events, so we created the ability to add your own categories to organise your events by month, type of event or whatever makes sense for you. Countdown Keeper is also pre-loaded with categories we love to use to start you off. To help you keep on top of everything you can also add notes to individual events, set alarms for deadlines and easily edit or delete each event on- the-go.

App Features…

• Style your events with full-screen photos and colours
• Count down to your event or since your event in a customised combination of years, months, days, hours, minutes or seconds
• Create custom categories to organise your events
• Add notes or reminders to each event
• Easily edit or delete events
• Style your events with images from your Camera Roll, Facebook or our exclusive Countdown Keeper library
• Create an unlimited number of events
• Set alarms and reminders so you'll never miss a deadline
• Send to your friends through SMS, email
• Share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest & more

We hope you love it as much as we do and we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback, or any dream features you would like to be added in our next update – we have a very long list of our own! You can visit the App Store to download Countdown Keeper for free today, and if you like the app, we’d be so grateful if you could leave a review to help others find it too…

To celebrate the release of Countdown Keeper we have collaborated with our favourite British designer, Lorna Syson, to create a unique and exclusive digital background for all users, just head to www.countdownkeeper.com, pop in your email address at the top of the home page and we’ll send it your way!

Get social with us by sharing your countdown keeper events using the hashtag #collectmoments and join us for everyday inspiration on how Countdown Keeper can be used in fun, creative, exciting and helpful ways…

Join us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and search #collectmoments

For more information about Countdown Keeper including helpful tips and inspiration head to: www.countdownkeeper.com

Katie & Jane x

A Beautiful Mess Photo Challenge Twenty: Take the Black-and-White Photo Challenge

It's true that black and white photos often look better than standard photos (thanks to the filters on Instagram!) so this challenge was very fun.

The book explains how using black and white allows you to focus on both the negative and positive space in photos, in other words, the spaces between subjects and how they are placed in the frame.

I edited a photo I'd taken in Amsterdam of some fresh mint tea...

Editing the photo from standard to black and white changed the feeling of the photo from being very soft and shiny to being more dark and rustic. It's really interesting that a simple colour change edits the whole feel of the image. I'll certainly be using black and white more from now on!

Jane x

Previous Posts...

Introduction to the A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book 
Challenge One: Photograph Your Pet
Challenge Two: Capture Unique Personal Details
Challenge Three: Get the Best Cell Phone (or Point and Shoot Camera) Photos
Challenge Four: Know How to Use Overcast Light vs. Direct Sun
Challenge Five: Find Flattering Window Light
Challenge Six: Take a Shadow Portrait

Challenge Seven: Take Macro Photos
Challenge Eight: Understand Depth of Field

Challenge Nine: Make Homemade Filters

Challenge Ten: Photograph a Collection
Challenge Eleven: Take Amazing Photos of Your Home
Challenge Twelve: Capture Your Daily Routines
Challenge Thirteen: Photograph Your Daily Outfits
Challenge Fourteen: Photograph Food

Challenge Fifteen: Photograph Your Reflection

Challenge Sixteen: Take the Thirty-Day Self-Portrait Challenge
Challenge Seventeen: Create a Diptych

Challenge Eighteen: Create a Triptych 

Challenge Nineteen: Focus on Something Unexpected