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At one time or another, most of us have recommended an iPhone/iPod Touch app to friends or family members--usually by tweeting, e-mailing, or Facebooking about it.
Yappler Sync takes that concept to the next level, allowing you to build a custom list of the apps you like and then share that list via the social solution of your choice.
At the same time, Yappler Sync helps you discover more cool apps by perusing the lists built by others.
All you do is install the eponymous utility, which is available for Windows and Mac, then build your list and decide how to share it.
Unfortunately, I discovered a few irksome aspects of the service, starting with this: Yappler builds your list based on every app in your iTunes library, not just those currently in residence on your iPhone. Thus I ended up with some 270 apps to cull--and they weren't even listed alphabetically.
Meanwhile, it's not immediately clear how you're supposed to "discover" other users' lists (unless they're shared with you directly). The Yappler site catalogs all the apps in the App Store (84,000 and counting, in case you're wondering), with a handy advanced-search option that lets you specify criteria like price and rating.
But the only way to find other users and their lists is by perusing the reviews for any given app, then looking for clickable usernames. And once you do find another user's list, all you really get is a batch of icons. So JoeAppUser has Buzzingo on his iPhone--how does that really enlighten me?
Of course, Yappler Sync is more about the social aspect of app-sharing, hence the ties to Facebook, Twitter, and the like. And it's nice how it can automatically update your list when you install new apps. Plus, it's free, so I can complain only so much.
On the other hand, this isn't much different from posting, say, a list of books you've read. Without knowing more about each book and, more importantly, why you liked it, where's the value?
This week, MySpace released an update to MySpace for BlackBerry that pads the original downloadable app with more speed, convenience, and a bit of European flair.
Version 1.5 adds a new navigation icon for viewing friends' updates from within the app. In addition, when you click the thumbnail photo next to a friend's status message, the app moves you to a full-screen version for more leisurely reading. This has been a top-requested feature since version 1.0 was released, and all we can say is, it's about time.
Messaging has also gotten some fine-tuning in this version. You'll now be able to save drafts of your messages to finish compiling later, and manage the draft as you would an e-mail to delete, re-edit, and send the message. MySpace for BlackBerry also gets a boost of velocity in the notification and updates department, cutting down the lag time between when an update or message was sent and when it's received.
As a nod to MySpace's popularity with emerging artists, band profiles now let rockers and crooners post tour dates and details from the road, including the venue, address, and ticket price. (The profile is accessible from the Menu button.)
Finally, BlackBerry for MySpace gets continental in version 1.5 with support for German, French, Spanish, and Italian.
To download the free application, point your BlackBerry browser to http://blackberry.com/myspace. If you already have the app, the update will be pushed to your phone the next time you open MySpace for BlackBerry.
Social-bookmarking site Delicious announced Tuesday that it has launched a mobile site to allow users to view saved pages while on the go. Delicious Mobile allows users to browse saved bookmarks, view their in-box, and browse recent bookmarks and tags from the Delicious community. The company says it will integrate its social search engine into the mobile site next.
Analysts from market research firm Gartner said Wednesday that organizations need to understand how social networks are "altering the recruitment landscape and adapt recruiting strategies and systems accordingly." Gartner analysts went on to say that by 2011, organizations that fail to effectively manage their brands through social networks will not be able to attract top talent.
Truphone, a company that provides VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls over the Web through mobile phones, announced Wednesday that it has added two new features to its iPhone app. Dubbed Truphone Anywhere, the company's app will now allow iPhone users to make calls over GSM when a Wi-Fi connection isn't available. The updated app will also allow for inbound calling, providing free conversations between two iPhone Truphone users.
MySpace announced Wednesday that it has launched a new product called MySpace Toolbar to offer users activity notifications while away from the social network. Starting Wednesday, MySpace users will be able to install the toolbar into their browser and receive real-time alerts and notifications including new friend requests, messages, comments, and friend updates. The toolbar's MySpace Search feature will be powered by Google.
QuickPlay Media, a company that provides mobile TV and video solutions, unveiled its mobile video usage study Wednesday. According to its research, which is based on activity on 15 QuickPlay-powered services during the July through September quarter, total video downloads increased by more than 87 percent over the previous quarter. Average downloads per user increased by 42 percent to four downloads per user per month. Total video streams grew more than 27 percent over the previous quarter and the average user streamed 19.3 videos per month.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
There's a new OpenID extension for "social browser" Flock, and it was created with the help of password management service Vidoop and News Corp.-owned social network MySpace.
It's now available for download for all Flock users who have upgraded to Flock 2.0. For MySpace, which initially announced its support for OpenID back in July, this is also a push for Data Availability, a universal-login project that the social network announced in May but has since only rolled out with a few partners.
Yahoo, one of MySpace's launch partners for Data Availability, has also thrown its weight behind OpenID.
"As three companies dedicated to empowering users to easily share content and experiences, this was a very rewarding--and relatively fast--collaboration," Max Engel, MySpace's Data Availability product manager, said in a release. "Our goal was to eliminate some of the work involved in jumping between social experiences on the Web so that people can focus on their connections and the incredible content that's out there. This Flock extension will give millions of people an easier way to expand their experiences and expression without boundaries."
The OpenID Flock extension allows for easier credential management within the browser and makes it more apparent when a site will accept an OpenID login. A handful of OpenID extensions already exist for the open-source Flock, but this one's got the seal of approval from some big names.
There are deeper reasons for MySpace being so vocal about OpenID support, though. The standard has seen its toughest rival yet in the form of Facebook Connect, a data-portability project which enjoyed a high-profile New York Times writeup this week and will reportedly be ready for a full debut very soon. (It's already been implemented on a number of sites.)
Flock, unfortunately, isn't an enormous player in the browser space. It has tons of bells and whistles, but is still well behind the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox in terms of downloads, and has newfound competition from Google's Chrome.
Regardless, MySpace has been paying a lot of lip service to open standards recently, and it's always good to see real developments.
Remember that little old BlackBerry app for MySpace that premiered last week? Apparently it struck a chord with users because RIM reported just after midnight on Friday (EST), that it hosted more downloads for the product's first week than it has for any other app.
While 400,000 downloads in one week for the BlackBerry-compatible MySpace software is a drop in the bucket compared to Firefox 3's 1 million downloads in 24 hours, it did beat out the initial release of RIM's Facebook app.
RIM did not reply with comparative numbers.
In a statement, RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie regards the download count as a proof of "an evolving consumer lifestyle where social connectivity and information access are more important than ever." Yet, the spike could as easily correspond to a more concerted marketing push, to a growing adoption of BlackBerry phones among consumers versus business users, or to first-time BlackBerry owners responding to the sexier looks of the Bold and Storm.
Either way, RIM has a lot of work to do if it wants to join Mozilla in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Article updated 11/13/08 at 11:15 am to include more details.
Two months ago, MySpace and Research In Motion announced a joint effort to create a rich native freeware app for MySpace on BlackBerry phones. On Thursday, RIM made MySpace for BlackBerry globally available. You can also download it from the BlackBerry browser when you point to www.blackberry.com/myspace.
Unsurprisingly, the functions and feel of this BlackBerry'd MySpace application have been modeled on RIM's Facebook app for BlackBerry, which has been going strong for about a year.
Navigating from icons at the top of the app, you'll be able to view your home screen, messages, friends, and photos. You can also change your status and mood, manage friend requests, and add comments.
Launching the BlackBerry's camera to take new pictures, caption them, and then update them to your MySpace page is the application's best feature by far and the mobile platform's only real additional contribution.
One thing you should be aware of--you'll only be able to get messages pushed to your phone if the address associated with your MySpace account is the same one you're using on your BlackBerry.
A peek at the new MySpace app for BlackBerry.
(Credit: RIM)Although it's a good app for the active MySpace contingent, it's also missing the personal flavor that makes MySpace so beloved to its fans.
The application, however, is only one part of the story. Along with the RIM-and-MySpace love affair comes a community page on MySpace that acts as a full-time ad for BlackBerry users to geek out and soak in the BlackBerry branding. It's an ingenious effort to peddle brand loyalty to the MySpace generation using exclusive wallpapers and product teasers, a discussion board and a list of MySpace 'friends' as bait.
The bubbly, urban new look may not wrest young users away from their iPhones, but it certainly will help blunt the BlackBerry's image as a stuffy business device, without actually driving away business users. Strategic campaigns for the upcoming touch screen Storm phone and the BlackBerry Pearl Flip have a chance at doing the rest if the games, skins, ringtones, and other giveaways prove urban-cool enough.
Shazam, the mobile music discovery provider made popular on the iPhone, announced Tuesday the launch of its mobile application for the Android platform.
Android users will be able to "discover" a song and connect to Amazon's MP3 store to buy it or network with the artist through MySpace.
Shazam is one of the most popular applications in Apple's App Store. After downloading Shazam onto the iPhone, people can hold their device toward an unknown song while the application is running. In just a few seconds, the Shazam technology will recognize the song and provide information about the track, artist, and album. On the iPhone, people can download the songs on iTunes. But considering that Android-based phones won't run Apple's platform, Shazam opted for Amazon's MP3 store instead.
MySpace will also be an integral component in the experience created by Shazam on the Android platform. According to the company, people can connect to their MySpace page in the application and "friend" the artist they just discovered, as long as they have a profile on the social network.
"Shazam aims to help users to create and share unique music moments and long-lasting experiences, and the Android application combined with our link to the Amazon MP3 store and MySpace enables us to deliver on this vision," said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam.
So far, Shazam has been quite successful doing just that. According to its internal figures, its iPhone app has been downloaded by 1.5 million users since its release.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
The first iteration of multiprotocol chat-client Digsby that circulated earlier this year made a splash, but fell short of its potential. Although it incorporated e-mail and social-networking notifications with its instant-messaging services, it was a massive resource pig. Even users with top-of-the-line computers found the drag it caused not to be worth the convenience of having all communications wrapped up in a pretty bow.
Digsby's easy-to-use and comprehensive chat-log window.
(Credit: Digsby)The latest version, released last week, is a huge step forward in the resources department. In the changelog for this release, Build 32 r17926, the publisher directly addresses the RAM hogging. ''We optimized from the ground up and fixed memory leaks to lower RAM usage by almost 75 percent. This has been the number one complaint since our launch and we are proud to introduce this massive improvement.''
I don't have performance numbers from the earlier beta that I looked at, but it's apparent that many, if not all, of the performance issues have been improved. The program no longer hangs randomly and it didn't crash on me all weekend.
As the change-log states, many of the changes are back-end issues that the average user will never see. Nor should you: when you do notice this stuff, it's a sign that something's gone wrong.
If you're not familiar with what else Digsby can do, it basically rolls your instant messaging, e-mail notifications, and social networking into one interface. The range of features is impressive, going beyond basic chat protocol and Web mail and incorporating IMAP and POP3 support for e-mail, a wide variety of skins and other interface configuration options, and support for RSS feeds from your social network sites.
The only other major change in this new version is the inclusion of the LinkedIn social network, but even without it this iteration of Digsby makes it a compelling download. The program is not perfect, of course. Users must still opt out of the ''Google Powered Digsby Search'' and two other search reconfigurations that the installation will make. I would prefer it if you could opt in, since forcing your browser to filter its Google, Amazon, and eBay searches through Digsby is a fairly significant change.
As long as you don't blindly hit OK for every option that Digsby offers, this version is a worthy upgrade and definitely worth considering as an A-level multiprotocol chat app for Windows. The Mac and Linux version are still apparently in development.
Our hardworking colleagues at CNET have been in the thick of the action at the CTIA wireless show this week and we figure Crave readers will want in on the fun, too.
(Credit:
RIM)
In case you haven't seen, today Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, made a whole slew of announcements about bringing popular consumer applications to the device. It already has Facebook for BlackBerry, but now RIM is expanding.
• As CNET News reported earlier this week, Microsoft Live Search will be integrated with the BlackBerry Browser.
• BlackBerry users will now be able to schedule their TiVo recordings from their phone, and in the future, view those recordings from a BlackBerry. (Possibly stealing SlingPlayer for BlackBerry's thunder? Sling, by the way, said today SlingPlayer for BlackBerry is on track for release later this year.)
• RIM is also apparently not playing favorites: it will be offering a MySpace app for the BlackBerry as well.
• There will be a customized TicketMaster app for RIM phones, which means users can buy tickets right from their phones.
• And last, RIM is partnering with Internet radio site Slacker to allow BlackBerry users to make customized music channels. Phone owners can also store up to 1,000 songs on the device.
For full details on each application, see Maggie Reardon's article at CNET News.
Digsby will easily be the instant messaging freeware of choice for the super social set. Web 2.0 fans, that's you. In addition to supporting the major IM networks--Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber--Digsby also pulls in Web mail feeds, as well as access to MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. Updating Twitter is a breeze from the application's main interface, though users wishing to do anything more than read Facebook and MySpace feeds will be redirected to their online accounts.
Windows users can initiate text, video, and audio chat from the conversation window, and transfer files, send SMS, and compose e-mail, with a Mac version in the offing. The notification pop-ups for every activity can get distracting, though a deep preference options control nearly every aspect of the display, including a wide variety of skins. Digsby is off to a strong start, but there's room for improvement because of ongoing stability concerns--not to mention the enormous memory-hogging that Digsby is notorious for. Still, Digsby looks to be a game-changer.
