The Microsoft Office 2010 beta was released Wednesday, and though there aren't many major changes from the Technical Preview from July, there are some new features and enhancements worthy of note. This post will focus on the changes to the beta, but if you want a larger overview of new features across all the applications, check out our rundown of the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview.
Outlook is the cornerstone of many companies' communications and daily schedules, and as such received a lot of enhancements in Office 2010. In the beta version, Microsoft has added even more ways to connect with coworkers and contacts. The new Outlook Social Connector is an added information pane that gives you more info about everyday contacts. Once set up, you'll be able to view pictures of contacts (even in large cc lists), previous conversations, attachments shared, meetings attended, and much more. Though not complete in the beta, Microsoft says the Outlook Social Connector will soon be able to connect with social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, so you can follow status updates and more all in one location.
The Office 2010 Technical Preview introduced the Back Stage view, an enhanced File menu (accessed from the Office Icon tab) that lets you manage your documents, set permissions, and share your projects with colleagues. In the beta version Microsoft has decided to return to calling it the File menu, but with all the functionality and flexibility of Back Stage. They also have made it possible to access all the other tabs in the Ribbon, which were previously inaccessible in the Technical Preview, so you can get to the information you want quickly without the added step of exiting Back Stage.
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Stalqer locates even friends who don't use the service.
(Credit: Stalqer)The developers of the iPhone app GasBag, which helps iPhone users find the cheapest gas for their cars, are working on a new mobile friend locator service, Stalqer. This clever and aptly named service has two technologies that are unique, as far as I know, to help it get around two of the big problems found in other friend locators like Foursquare, Loopt, and Google's Latitude.
Problem 1: On the mobile platform that matters, the iPhone, there's no way to do real-time location reporting without running an app all the time, and the iPhone doesn't allow background processes. And even if it did, it would draw down the battery. The Stalqer solution is to create a dummy e-mail account that pings the Stalqer servers whenever the phone polls for mail, which is, by default, every 15 minutes.
When the phone hits the Stalqer e-mail servers, it sends along Internet gateway data, which can be used to locate the phone. It only works when the phone is connected via Wi-Fi, not GSM. It also doesn't get data from the phone's GPS sensor, but it's a clever hack on the way to the creation of more robust location reporting features.
Competing mobile social apps require the app (Foursquare, Loopt) or site (Latitude) to be open for the user's location to be reported. Or they require a phone that supports background processing, like an Android device.
CEO Mick Johnson told me there is another company that has this idea, but nobody has yet released a product based on it.
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Mozilla's Thunderbird team has been working on software called Raindrop that aims to unify communications channels such as e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter into a single interface with enough built-in smarts to separate the important messages from the routine.
"E-mail used to house the bulk of the conversations that took place on the internet, but that's no longer the case today. In today's world people use a combination of Twitter, IM, Skype, Facebook, Google Docs, e-mail, etc., to communicate. For many of us this means that we have to keep an eye on an ever-growing number of places we might get new messages," the Raindrop developers said in a blog post about the technology. "We hope to lead and spur the development of extensible applications that help users easily and enjoyably manage their conversations, notifications, and messages across a variety of online services."
A key part of the effort will be to spotlight messages that are important.
"Raindrop intelligently separates the personal messages from the bulk," said developer Bryan Clark. Among other things, it will automatically recognize messages from e-mail lists and from sources such as Facebook or Amazon that send numerous updates, filing them accordingly.
Given Mozilla's two main projects, Firefox and Thunderbird, there's one particular interesting aspect to Raindrop: It's a Web application, not downloadable software. "Our flagship applications will be built entirely for any modern web browser that supports Open Web technologies," the developers said. However, the group expects to support front-end software, including applications for mobile devices, that can use the Web-based service.
The vision has been knocking around Mozilla for some time. David Ascher said in a 2007 interview as he was taking over as chief executive of the Mozilla Messaging subsidiary, "People end up subscribing to more and more channels of communications. It makes it hard to keep track of what's going on if they have to check six different inboxes, search across a variety of systems." He said the group wanted to address the issue.
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?
Adobe AIR applications are typically well designed. They feature a sleek look and relatively fast response times. TweetDeck (Windows | Mac), a popular Adobe AIR app, has put the platform on the map. It has caused some developers to view AIR as a viable alternative platform to building a Web site.
Nomee (Windows|Mac), a company that helps users see what celebrities, prominent figures, or their friends are up to online, is one such app.
The basics
Nomee is based on "cards." When you first sign up for the site (you can use OpenID if you don't want to create unique Nomee credentials), you'll be presented with celebrities and prominent figures who currently have cards on the site. But before you start thinking that there are scores of celebs on Nomee, think again: for the most part, those cards were created by Nomee users, not the celebrities themselves.
When you view a card, it displays an image of the person, followed by several sites or services that are related to them. When you click on one of those services, you'll be brought to its respective Web page. For example, if you click on the Twitter logo on my card, you can view my Twitter page.
That's me on Nomee, even though I didn't create the page.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)If you like what you see, you can "add" the card to your Nomee Dashboard. From there, Nomee will track all the card updates. It will alert you when there's something new for you to check out.
Nomee's Newstream lets you view all the updates from every card you follow. Thanks to such a nice design and some filtering options, you shouldn't have any trouble finding exactly what you're looking for. It's arguably Nomee's best feature.
The Nomee Newstream in action.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Card creation
Of course, Nomee isn't just a place where you can see what your favorite celebrities are up to. You can also create your own card to share with friends. Those same friends can create cards and share their social profiles and links with you.
The new Seesmic Desktop app lets Facebook fan page managers update them in sync with Twitter.
(Credit: Loic Le Meur / Seesmic)There are a handful of Twitter apps out there that can also update Facebook statuses, and no clear market leader, but the new build (version 0.6) of Seesmic Desktop may soon be the app of choice for marketers who use Twitter and Facebook for brand promotion. That's because it can now manage activity on Facebook's "fan pages" as well as personal profiles, meaning that the operators of these pages can update them in sync with Twitter accounts.
"With the Facebook Page feature, you have greater control on how you market your business, oversee your brand, listen to your fans and build your community," a release from Seesmic explained. Facebook, it should be noted, has launched its own feature to push fan page updates directly to Twitter.
If you're an ordinary Facebook user who doesn't manage any fan pages, Seesmic Desktop can also track status posts from those that you subscribe to.
Seesmic Desktop was built after parent company Seesmic, which had previously built a video-commenting company, acquired Twitter desktop app Twhirl.
Founder Loic Le Meur also announced that 2.5 million people have now downloaded Seesmic Desktop, and that Seesmic has partnered with Twitter image-sharing app Yfrog to be its default image provider. It's the second partnership deal for Yfrog in a month, having inked a deal with URL shortener Bitly a few weeks ago. That's probably disconcerting news for Yfrog rival Twitpic, once the unequivocal big player in Twitter image uploads.
Music service iLike, best known for third-party applications on platforms like Facebook, made its big iPhone app launch today. The company has rolled out an app for alerts about local concerts, and also launched its previously announced program for bands and artists to create custom fan applications.
Apple still has to approve the "Local Concerts" app, according to a release, but iLike is excited about its potential impact regardless.
"It's something that we really felt was a good idea on paper as we started developing it," iLike CEO Ali Partovi told CNET News, "but as it reached completion and we started using it ourselves it really started seeming like a killer app."
iLike already has had a concert app in the iTunes Store. The company didn't promote it much, Partovi said, because the iPhone 3.0 software was what really made the app worthwhile, and so iLike was waiting until that came out.
"We found that there really were a few key capabilities that the iPhone OS didn't support at the time," he explained, referring specifically to push notifications and some software tweaks that enable better personalization. So the revamped iLike concerts app, thanks to iPhone software upgrades, will scan the music selection on an iPhone or iPod Touch, and send pop-up alerts when a band or artist that the user listens to will be in town.
"It turns the iPod into much more of a live device to be connected to the world of live music," Partovi said of the free app.
The custom artist apps, meanwhile, haven't changed much from when iLike originally announced the program in May. Over 250 artists have signed on to the program, the company said, including Pete Yorn, Reba McIntire, and Enrique Iglesias. iLike takes half the revenues from sales of the apps, and charges a $99 fee with the right to serve ads if the artist in question decides to offer its custom app for free.
CNET News reported last month that iLike was also in talks with the major music labels to open a download store, after a deal to offer full-length songs through subscription service Rhapsody failed to materialize.
Hewlett-Packard, maker of printers and other stuff that sits in your office not being terribly interesting, is working on an intelligent social-network application for your mobile phone, called Friendlee.
Friendlee keeps track of who you interact with the most, and organizes your friends list in that order. Status updates show what those contacts are up to, as well as the local time and whether their phone is on, off, or set to silent. You'll even be able to see where your contacts are, similar to Google Latitude. You, like your contacts, will be able to control who can see your information. The idea puts us in mind of Xobni, an e-mail plug-in that shows all sorts of fascinating--i.e. useless--stats about your e-mail contacts.
A BlackBerry prototype of Friendlee was previewed at this year's Wireless Enterprise Symposium, and the app is currently being tested at HP's Palo Alto, Calif., social computing lab, according to the BBC. The research team, headed by Professor Bernardo Huberman, analyzed interaction via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and came to the conclusion that your phone is more interested in direct, reciprocal contact than building a giant circle of friends. We could have told you that--can we have a research grant to mess about on Twitter as well, please?
Huberman and friends will present the app at the Mobile HCI conference in Bonn, Germany, in mid-September. Friendlee currently runs on Windows Mobile and Google Android. One of the most interesting-looking features is a recommendation engine that lets your close contacts recommend and give advice on businesses and people. Yes, people, "both socially and professionally." Now that sounds like fun.
(Source: Crave UK)
Glue, the popular Firefox extension that lets users discuss content all over the web, is releasing a version of its add-on, built for Internet Explorer, today. This is a big step for Glue for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that being compatible with IE expands Glue's potential audience significantly. Net Applications reports that IE currently holds 65.5% of the browser market to Firefox's 22.51%. Being able to reach 88% of the internet browsing population should increase their registered user base of 130,000 significantly.
The other reason why this release is significant is the sheer accomplishment of developing a good, functional IE add-on like this. It took the people at AdaptiveBlue four months of work to bring Glue to Internet Explorer. Instead of taking the cheap way out, they reworked the code for Glue so that 90% of it is the common core that can work on any platform, with the additional 10% being platform specific code. This not only means that the add-on works consistently across both IE and Firefox, but that it will be much easier to develop for other browsers, such as Chrome and Safari, in the future.
If you haven't tried Glue yet, give CNET's initial write-up a read and check it out if you're interested. I'm looking forward to some cool things from these guys in the future.
Track and update all your social networks under Zensify's single roof
"All your networks are belong to us." That could be the tagline for Zensify, a new iPhone app that lets you view, update, and share content from multiple social networks.
In other words, Zensify aims to take the place of standalone apps for the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr--or at least to save you the time of bopping from one to another just to read and post updates.
In addition to those three popular networks, Zensify can connect you with 12seconds, Delicious, Digg, Photobucket, and YouTube. (Support for more services is in the works, according to the developer.)
After you sign into your various accounts (a slow but one-time procedure), Zensify lists all your friends' updates in a single, scrolling timeline. It also presents a scrolling tag bar (this one along the top) so you can quickly filter the timeline based on current trends.
Then there's also the Tag Cloud view, which displays the aforementioned "trendy tags" in a word cloud. I've never been a fan, but it's definitely a neat way to sift through updates.
Zensify's Track tool lets you search all your networks, complete with modifiers for things like tags, usernames, and types of content. It also provides a handy batch of saved searches so you can quickly look for updates that have, say, photos or links, or that come from Flickr or Facebook.
Want to keep an update for future reference? Tap the star icon to mark it as a favorite. Want to post an update or photo to one or more of your own networks? Tap the Post icon. (Finally, an easy way to update Facebook and Twitter simultaneously!)
Unfortunately, while Zensify lets you share or reply to others' Twitter posts, there's no easy way to do likewise with Facebook entries. You can "tap through" to the friend's Facebook page using Zensify's integrated browser, but that's a slow and awkward process. The app really needs to add a low-level reply option.
Of course, it's technically called Zensify Preview, so a few rough edges are to be expected. As it stands, Zensify looks very promising, and I suspect avid social-networkers will like it a lot.
