The theme for this first contest is “Tell A Story.” Whether it’s your child learning how to ride a bike, the seasons changing or something funny that happened last night, we want to see how you use Diptic to tell a story with your photos.

To enter, post your submissions to Twitter with the hashtag #DipticTellTheStory. Or, you can email your submission to us at contest@dipticapp.com.

We’ll post submissions on the contest website so everyone can see them. After the contest closes, the Diptic Team will review all entries and announce the winner on June 11, 2012.

Time frame:
Contest Begins: May 10, 2012 at 7 a.m. PST
Contest Ends: June 4, 2012 at 12 a.m. PST

Our judging will be based on:
Creativity, aesthetics, and best interpretation of the theme “Tell the Story.”

Prize:
The prize for this contest will be an OlloClip, the fisheye, wide-angle and macro lens for the iPhone that fits in your pocket!

Additional details:

• Diptics submitted should have at least 2 frames
• Maximum of 5 entries per person, per contest
• App stacking is okay, but it needs to be clear and obvious that Diptic was used in each entry
• By entering, you agree that you agree to the contest Terms & Conditions.

If you have any questions, ask @dipticapp on Twitter or email contest@dipticapp.com.

Have fun!

Seattle, Wash – May 3, 2012. Peak Systems announced the release of Carpet Ball, a mobile game designed for friends and family to play together in real life. It combines aspects of billiards and shuffleboard to create a simple yet addicting game.

Carpet Ball allows players to connect two to four iPhones, which they line up to create the game board. With the ultimate goal of being the first person to knock all of the other player’s balls off the table, players take turns using the cue ball to push the opponent’s balls off the table. Carpet Ball lets you customize your settings and has an interactive training tutorial.

“I thought of Carpet Ball when we were building Ultimate Shuffleboard,” said John Sloat, president and CEO of Peak Systems. “Shuffleboard reminded me of Carpet Ball, a game my kids played at summer camp. I was amused to see that out of all the fun activities the kids had to choose from, they all waited in line for Carpet Ball. It’s simple to learn but involves strategy and skill, so it’s fun for both kids and adults.”

Carpet Ball is available in the U.S. for $.99 and is priced accordingly in other regions. Carpet Ball is compatible with iPhone and iPad and is available worldwide from Apple’s App Store or at www.carpetballapp.com.

Established in 2000 and headquartered in Seattle, Peak Systems is a full service firm that builds custom web-based solutions with specialties in mobile applications, web design and enterprise application development. Peak Systems’ mobile applications have been featured by Apple’s App Store, Macworld, Tuaw and other thought leaders in the industry.

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iPhone users, who enjoyed exclusive access to the app for the last year and half, are not happy that “lowly” Android users can now muddle up their community. And they’ve taken to Twitter to express their disapproval. The CIO blog posted several cranky tweets that iOS users posted:

@logaq: Ew. I don’t want to see android phones in my instagram feed. I like it being an apple club. #elitist
@m0nster_one: oh, great. Instagram is now available for Android phones. now I’m going to be forced to see what poor people eat for dinner. #instagram
@a5g9: So you Android losers got Instagram now?? Smh..Now I know how male-supremacist felt when women were first allowed to vote…
@frankthetank91: I feel gross knowing people with an android phone can follow me on instagram…
@chick_in_kicks: Android has officially ruined #Instgram …
@sergiozolanski: #instagram went from a gated community to section 8 housing all in one day.
@djjonathanvaz: I feel like #instagram betrayed people with iPhones

Seriously, people? Can’t we all just get along?

Prior to the release, I saw one iPhone user tweet that he was excited for the Android version so more people could join in on the fun. This guy has the right idea: rather than being elitist jerks, iPhone users need to embrace these new users in their community.

Even though I’m not the target audience (read: I’m not a guy), I loved the video and am intrigued by the company and its brand story. And I’m not the only one. The video already has nearly 4 million YouTube views and Dollar Shave Club added 5,000 paying subscribers on launch day.

Who knows if Dollar Shave Club will be a huge success or a flop. But it’s off to a great start and I look forward to more videos. What do you think? Will Dollar Shave Club become the Netflix of razors? Or will it follow in the failed footsteps of pets.com?

The study is based on shopping habits of 5,000 U.S. volunteers who own smartphones. According to the study, Amazon is the most popular retail mobile website, and during the 2011 holiday season, 60 percent of smartphone users used the top five retail mobile apps and websites to purchase items. These top five retailers include Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Target and Walmart.

The study indicates that both genders prefer mobile websites over apps, but men were slightly more likely to use retail mobile apps than women. For retailers and e-commerce businesses, this shows how critical it is to optimize your mobile platforms so consumers can easily navigate and purchase items.

Why do you think mobile websites are more popular? Are people unwilling/too lazy to download the app? How do you prefer to shop?

Launched on Monday, the documentary has quickly gone viral with over 55 million YouTube views.

The campaign leveraged celebrities, such as Oprah and Ryan Seacrest, to distribute the video through their social networks. It also took advantage of users’ willingness to share compelling content with their networks.

The video popped up on my social network on Tuesday. I didn’t immediately pay attention to it, but I saw more posts on Wednesday, so I decided to watch the video. I knew little about the subject matter and had never heard of Joseph Kony, so I was affected by the video and supported it. On Thursday, I noticed some people in my network had posted articles pointing out flaws in Invisible Children’s campaign.

This motivated me to dig deeper. I read articles suggesting that Joseph Kony is a terrible man and needs to be stopped, but the problem is a lot more complicated than the 30-minute documentary suggests. For example, if we were to arrest Joseph Kony, what would happen to the child soldiers? Would they be incorporated back into their villages? The video doesn’t say anything about its plans after Kony is arrested.

Politics and foreign policy aside, I think it’s interesting to note how our social networks can affect our opinions. According to the Kony 2012 film, there are more people on Facebook today than there were on the planet 200 years ago. That’s a lot of Facebook users who have built social networks with people whom they trust and are influenced by.

If I had received the same content in an email from Invisible Children, I likely would have deleted the email without watching the video. Since I saw so many people in my network talking about it, I became intrigued and willing to spend 30 minutes to watch the film. I trusted the campaign and bought into it more easily because my social network seemed to trust it. My opinion was impacted again and I was motivated to do additional research when I saw people posting articles urging us to think critically before jumping on the Kony 2012 bandwagon.

What do you think? Are you more willing to read articles when they are posted by your network? Are you influenced by their opinions?

Well, that’s not a big shock. However, what I find interesting is that over half of the respondents age 18-24 making less than $15,ooo/year own a smartphone. That age and income bracket is more likely to own a smartphone than the older people in the $100,000+ bracket.

That’s a significant figure. It could be attributed to parents paying their children’s phone bills while they are in college. Even so, in the next age bracket, 25-34, 43 percent of people making less than $15,000/year own a smartphone.

This evidence shows that younger people, despite living on a tight budget, value owning a smartphone and are willing to pay more for data plans and expensive phones. Also, it shows that this a critical demographic to consider when building your mobile strategy.

What do you think? Are you at all surprised by the study’s findings?

Kariuki has 300 followers, but he estimates that his tweets directly and indirectly reach thousands of residents. Many of the residents cannot afford smartphones, but they access tweets through a third-party mobile phone application.

Using Twitter saves a lot of time and money. “I no longer have to write letters or print posters which take time to distribute and are expensive,” Kariuki said to the Associated Press.

Kariuki also sends messages of hope, and he plans to use Twitter to promote peace during the upcoming presidential election. According to the Associated Press, it’s the first election since the 2007-08 post-election violence in which 1,000 people in Kenya died.

I’m constantly amazed by how people creatively use Twitter to better their lives and communities. What’s the most innovative way you’ve seen Twitter used?

Twitter has a clear policy to not mediate content and confirmed to Mashable that this policy was upheld in this instance.

This isn’t Twitter’ first rodeo (and likely won’t be its last) when it comes to upsetting government officials. This leads to the big question: Should Twitter monitor its content?

My personal answer is no. The beauty of Twitter is that it provides a channel for people to freely share information and content. If Twitter starts monitoring what people post, it will detract from what makes it great.

What do you think? Should Twitter mediate rumors and controversial content?

As an unrelenting advocate for usable, functional and (of course) good looking websites, I’m especially proud of this recognition. The Nielson Norman Group is a leading user-experience research firm with worldwide name recognition among the web and user experience design community.  As a long time reader of Jakob Nielson’s Alert Box, it’s humbling to know that our hard work and dedication is going to be used as an example for other designers to learn from.

Peak has worked on the Business Markets Intranet since 2007, when we helped turn a meandering, hard-to-use and outdated collection of HTML files and broken links into a streamlined, user-friendly intranet site powered by a custom content management system powered by Ruby on Rails.

In 2010, the CenturyLink (then Qwest) team engaged us, in partnership with Denver-based EffectiveUI, to redesign the site, revamp the content, and create an even more engaging, task-oriented website for it’s Business Markets team. We delivered a new site that not only added powerful tools that educate users, but also recognizes and empowers them as valuable parts of the organization.

We’re extremely proud of the result.  It’s not easy to get recognition outside of the client organization for intranet sites since they’re obscured from the public by firewalls and passwords!

Business Markets Intranet Team: Bruce Black (CL), Brad Umbaugh (EUI), Jeff Hansen (CL), Brenda Van Der Steen (CL), Emily Puffett (CL), Timberlyn Wilson (CL), Rhia Bucklin (Peak), Rick Wangen (Peak), Shelley Washburn (EUI), and Michael Salamon (EUI).