Crenk » Social Networks

Publish Over the Weekend and You’ll Get More Facebook Shares

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:36:57 +0000

There’s no news to you if I say that having a lot of Facebook shares for your articles can bring you a lot of traffic; and also you should know that the time schedule for publishing articles it is an important factor to get a lot of hits. So, when is the best time to publish an article and get a lot of shares on Facebook? Weekends says this report.

Dan Zarrella always brings some interesting reports about social networks, the name of social media scientist fits perfectly on him; and this special report could make a huge difference among bloggers and writers. Here’s the graph:

Besides the massive Facebook sharing over the weekend, notice the following:

The weekend is the time where fewer articles are posted but most of the sharing is happening there.
The data is considering and remarking an average sharing line.
One of the considerations of this increase over the weekend could be, as Dan says, that the most of the companies in the US blocks Facebook.

And you? When do you share the most?

Hi5 Acquires Big Six the Game Developer to Improve their Network.

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:32:53 +0000

Hi5 have just acquired the gaming company ‘Big Six’ in order to flesh out the gaming sector of their website, a popular social network. Hi5 has been up an running for quite a few years now. Although it has never really taken off in Europe it is big in the US and is following the lead of others such as Facebook in terms of integrating gaming into their network.

As of now, 15% of their revenue comes from gaming by its users so I guess it makes sense to buy up a popular games developer in order to give the feature a shot of adrenaline. But they’ll have some stiff competition as the likes of FarmVille on Facebook have millions of active players.

An emphasis will also be put on developing the social network’s currency further to encourage people to spend their money there rather than on other networks.

“We are excited to be joining a company that shares our philosophy and vision for how social gaming will evolve,” said Kevin Gliner, co-founder and CEO, Big Six. “This deal is a perfect match because it enables us to accelerate our go-to-market plans by leveraging hi5’s huge global audience.”

Google Attacks Definitely From China

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:10:08 +0000

Two universities, funded by the Chinese military to train computer scientists for use in their forces, have had their computers used on the recent cyber attacks on major companies such as Google. This news comes as Google contemplates its withdrawal from China following disagreement with the Chinese government over censorship.

Interestingly enough, the universities are also part of a network which is operated by Baidu who stands to gain millions of users upon Google’s departure.

The Chinese government has denied any involvement of sanctioning of these cyber attacks upon US-based web companies and stressed it has been the victim of many cyber attacks itself.

“Computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School in China reportedly played a role in the attacks, according to unnamed sources cited in The New York Times.” reported Information Week.

Cyber attacks are on the increase and are frequently becoming a method for governments to send diplomatic messages to one another. When the US asked Twitter to keep the service up (as apposed to taking it down temporarily for maintenance) during the Iran elections, it became clear that social networks and internet giants are the key targets in all of this. But how long will it be until utility companies and government databases are targeted on a big scale?

Facebook Now Accept PayPal

Dean Sherwin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:26:25 +0000

Facebook, undoubtedly the biggest social network at the minute, has been promoting and ramping up its ‘credits’ system over the past year or so. These ‘credits’ afford users the opportunity to use real world money to purchase gifts, apps and songs which can either be used by themselves or given as presents to other Facebook users.

Now, they are allowing users to pay with PayPal, which has in excess of 80 million users. Previous to this one could only purchase Facebook credits via credit card or by using their mobile phone. By intergrading with PayPal, Facebook will undoubtedly allow more people to use the service, particularly young people who may not have access to a credit card themselves but do have a PayPal account.

Recent speculation as to whether Facebook would be opening their own payment service to compete with PayPal have pretty much been put to bed with this recent update. Many people said that you would soon be able to “pay with Facebook” on eCommerce sites. However, it seems unlikely that Facebook and PayPal would be cooperating on such a big revenue-making deal whilst one party was plotting the downfall of the other.

Facebook Gets On Board With ‘Safer Internet Day’

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:57:14 +0000

Facebook, being the biggest of social networking sites, has decided to get on board with Safer Internet Day, which was on the 9th of February. The day, which is promoted across the EU, is aimed at keeping Internet users safe online – in particular, children. They opened their official company blog to Will Gardner who is CEO of Safety Advisory Board at Facebook and also to Childnet International.

“Safer Internet Day is an important event in the Internet safety calendar and provides a great opportunity to showcase some of the key messages about staying safe online. Held for the past four years on the second Tuesday of the second month, Safer Internet Day has grown beyond its origins in the EU and is now celebrated in countries across the world. The theme this year is “Think Before You Post,” a vital message not only for children and young people but, let’s be honest, adults as well.” said Will in the blog post.

The entire initiative is aimed at educating children about what is and what isn’t sensitive information about themselves and why they shouldn’t give it out. They also instruct kids about who they should and shouldn’t ‘friend’ on social networking sites.

The main points made in the post are as follows

Using privacy setting provided by the network (a bit ironic given Facebook’s recent privacy ‘updates’)
Choosing friends carefully and knowing who sees your content
Thinking about the consequences of uploading photos and videos
Asking permission of friends to publish photographs of them.

Good to see that the industries leading site is promoting security for kids online.

Twitter Introduces Hovercards to Make Twitter More Social

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:23:16 +0000

Over the past few months Twitter has made several changes such as the introduction of Lists which means that we see tweets from people we don’t directly follow. This annoyed me for quite some time as I was never really bothered to see who the person was, but still had them congesting my Twitter page. Now, Twitter aims to solve that problem by introducing ‘Hovercards’.

This means, that when you hover your cursor over someone username or avatar, information will be displayed about them as well as other options such as Reply, DM or Retweet. All of which don’t load another page, it’s done there and then.

“On any timeline, as its namesake suggests, Hovercards are cards which appear when you hover over a username or avatar. The cards display additional information about the person and allow you to interact with them while staying within the context of your page.” say Twitter on their blog. ”

“One way we’ve found these cards to be useful is to find out more about retweeted people and follow them right there. You can also see more information with an expanded view of the card. Sending direct messages to people you follow will also be possible with Hovercards so you can interact with tweeters without having to move off the page.”

This feature is currently in the process of being rolled out so we won’t all have it right away. However, within the coming days and weeks it will be the standard for all Twitter users.

Google Launch Google Buzz: But Its a Bit of a Buzz Kill

Steven Finch — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:38:41 +0000

Google announced Google Buzz today — the search engine’s answer to Twitter and Facebook.

We weren’t impressed. Reasons:

The product idea itself isnt new. Lots of other sites already do this!
400 million people are already happily using Facebook. Why switch?
The people who are our Gmail contacts are not the same people we’re friends with on Facebook.
We hate the name, a ripoff from Yahoo.

Others talking about Buzz: The Next Web, Daily Tech, Mashable, Venturebeat, Seeking Alpha, Technologizer, Lifehacker and more.

How to Install the ActiveX Control on Facebook Photos

Steven Finch — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:00:10 +0000

ActiveX controls are small programs that work with Internet Explorer to display certain types of files. When you try to view certain photos or animations in Facebook, you may get a message, usually via a pop-up window, that you must install an ActiveX control to view them. Many people worry that this means that Facebook wants you to download a virus or spyware of some kind. On the contrary–these type of files are pretty much par for the course.

Launch Internet Explorer on your machine. Once the program loads, click on the “Tools” menu. It should be at the top of the window directly underneath the navigation bar. Click on “Internet Options” in the drop-down menu. It will be at the very bottom.
Look at the “Internet Options” window that comes up. There are seven tabs at the top. Click on the one that says “Security” on it. Click on the button near the bottom of the window that says “Custom Level” on it.
Look at the new menu that says “Security Settings — Internet Zone” at the top. Scroll down until you find an item called “ActiveX Controls.” Double click on it. You will see 10 items related to ActiveX, each with a series of radial buttons next to it.
Find the option that says “Run ActiveX Controls and Plug-ins.” Click on the radial button next to the word “Enable.” Continue through the list looking for the options that have the word “Recommended” in parentheses next to them. Click the radial button for each of these options. This will allow ActiveX to install, but only with your permission, not automatically. That way you can block it if you wish.
Click “Okay” at the bottom of the window. Close your Internet Explorer window and restart the program. Navigate to a page in FaceBook where an ActiveX window came up when you tried to view a photo. Look for a yellow bar at the top of your screen that is the same width as your standard toolbar. Click on it and select “Allow” to let ActiveX run for this page. You should be able to view the photo properly.

Facebook Introduces New User Interface Navigation

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:24:33 +0000

Facebook have told us that over the past few months they have been looking for ways to improve the user interface, and mores specifically the navigation. Obviously, given that it’s a social network, Facebook have developed a new method of seeing what’s new in your circle of friends.

“In the top menu, you will find your newest notifications, requests and messages. For example, when you receive a Facebook notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you’ll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner near the search bar. When you click on the icon, you’ll see a drop-down menu with your most recent notifications.” Said Jing Chen

The menu to the left of your profile has also been changed around to make it “Easier for you to communicate with and discover content from your friends”. By clicking on News Feed, Messages, Events or Photos you can instantly view the most recent content from your friends as seen in the screenshot above. You can also use the new ‘Friends’ feature to look for new friends who are connected to you via others.

Also, they have made the Game and Application section much, much better. They’re making it easier for you to organise your apps and also find new ones via the “Games” and “Applications” buttons on the home screen.

“You will also start to see counters next to the applications you have bookmarked on your home page. Counters will notify you when you have a specific action to take, so that you never miss your turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application.” she said.

You can bookmark your favourite applications using the “Add Bookmark” button in an application, and then you’ll have one-click access to them from the left-hand menu beneath the Applications and Games dashboards. Click the “More” link to see all of your newest bookmarks.”

It’s good to see that Facebook are continually updating their UI and making it more user friendly.

Facebook: Social Media by Numbers

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:22:55 +0000

Pingdom is a great service and they have put together another great viral article.

Facebook has announced that it now has 400 million active users. Just one year ago Facebook had 150 million users, so 2009 was an incredible year for the social media giant.

There can be no doubt that Facebook is pretty much unstoppable at the moment, a real juggernaut.

Google Brings Face Recognition and Morphing App to Orkut

Steven Finch — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:06:47 +0000

Digital Inspiration has noted that Google has added an interesting face morphing app in Orkut. The app takes your profile image from Orkut and smoothly morphs it into your friend’s profile image while filling the path with public images of other Orkut users who have matching faces.

First, faces are automatically detected in public profile images and normalized for improved contrast and size. Then, for each image, we find other publicly available profile images that are similar to one another. Then, when you pick a friend you want to be your end match, we just hop along similar public images, step-by-step, until the connection is made!

Music Social Networks: Attack of the Music Communities Recap

Steven Finch — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:59:32 +0000

Since starting Crenk a couple of years ago I have written a lot about the music industry. The music industry has been a real fascination of mine and when I finally thought things were getting sorted out a lot has changed. In recent months Imeem was purchased by Myspace and then Myspace themselves really lost their way about what the site is actually about.

On Crenk we have written about the Top 5 social networking sites, World best music streaming service, but our key music article was the Attack of the Music Communities. Today I want to revisit that article and run through these leading music communities and recap their current situation (remember the previous article was written on the 8th April 2008).

Myspace – Myspace was once the leading social networking site online, but in recent times they have really lost their way. Myspace is now a place for crazy glitter webpages done by 16 year old kids claiming they are really 18, either that or people trying to spam you with stupid messages and comments. Myspace’s biggest disadvantage is that it just has no focus! Myspace doesnt know if they are a social network, if they are a music focused site, or even an entertainment hub. Every band seemed to be on Myspace, but it has quickly become an empty space for music.
Bebo – Bebo was once focused on being a music community, but after being sold to AOL it just seemed to lose direction all together. Bebo is now a social network that is largely in the distance behind Facebook. Music community Bebo is no longer!
Last.fm – Last.fm was purchased by CBS and has been growing pretty constantly as a music community. However, Last.fm is more focused on music streaming and discovering new music. Last.fm doesnt allow musicians to chat with each other in a transparent environment and nor find new gigs, selling their tickets and merchandise and even sell their music.
Purevolume – Purevolume has stayed pretty steady. Purevolume has really released anything new, they have just focused on giving bands a website and showcasing their music. I find Purevolume an interesting site with a great amount of potential, but has never really lived up to it!
Imeem – Imeem was the darling of web 2.0 music startups. However, quickly the site turned into a weird music social network that just couldn’t pay the bills. Imeem ending up having no choice and sold to Myspace recently, losing huge amount for all investors involved.
MOG – MOG has transformed several times and is now heavily focused on providing a music streaming service to USA only users. Previously MOG tried focusing on music news, but that seemed to only be filling the site while they got their music streaming licenses setup. MOG is no long a music social network, its just about listening to music online.
iLike – iLike is a great music service, but focused very much on providing music streaming and discovery. iLike can fit in nicely with a music larger music service, but as a standalone service it really doesn’t grab the worlds attention.
JamNow – Shut down.
Haystack – Shut down.
Sonific – Shut down.
Sellaband – Sellaband has been a great success for helping unsigned bands fund their new albums. However, this community has not been gaining that much attention from around the world. Sellaband has a very limited appeal that will soon most probably be sold and added to another service.
iJigg – iJigg is a music service in which users listen to music. Its that simple, nothing more, nothing less.
Flotones – Flotones has to be the ugliest site in the list, plus they just don’t have any traction or users. I pronounce Flotones dead!
ReverbNation – ReverbNation has grow into the leading digital marketing platform for musicians. ReverbNation tried to provide the best marketing solutions for bands while at the same time make revenues from their affiliate services. ReverbNation has a great platform, but it would be good to see them develop into something more than just providing digital music tools.
Jango – Jango has developed into a very interesting online radio service. I think Jango has a lot of potential but the site itself isnt very pretty, plus they are playing head on with services like Pandora (which are just so much better). Jango needs to lead in the markets Pandora isn’t in or soon they will be behind and struggling for survival.

Conclusion:

There doesn’t seem to be anyone taking music social networking seriously at the moment. There are a lot sites that focus on specific areas, but seem to be to scared to launch a much larger initiative. Someone needs to launch a open platform which promote bands to build their fan base, pushes new music to users, while also adding in the other features within the music industry. If someone can work out a service that has all these features, then they could be a force to be reckoned with.

Top Five Astronauts Using Twitter From Space

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:40:25 +0000

In May of last year, Twitter history was made when Astro_Mike (or Mike Massimino – an American astronaut) made the first ever tweet from space after the launch of the Atlantis space shuttle. It read “From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!”.

History has once again been made when the first ever tweet from the International Space Station made it onto Twitter a few days ago, made by TJ Creamer.

“Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! More soon, send your ?s”

This tweeting from space seems to be getting very popular. There are now quite a few astronauts tweeting from space. Some have hundreds of thousands of followers accumulated in just a few days So here are a few of the best ‘out-of-this-world- tweeters at the minute. I’ll add to this list as more space explorers come into the ‘Twitterverse’

@Astro_Tj – TJ Creamer, NASA

@Astro_Soichi – Soichi, CNSA

@Astro_Mike – Mike Massimino, NASA

@Astro_127 – Mark Polansky, NASA

@Astro_Naoko – Naoko Yamazaki, CNSA

Twitter: Local Trends Go Live!

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:52:57 +0000

More and more people around the world are signing up to Twitter. The service is constantly updating and releasing new features. ‘Lists’ which launched towards the end of 2009 hasn’t really taken off that much but I think Local Trends might just.

Basically, you have the option to take the current trending topics and make it more localised. So if there’s something happening in America which is of no relevance to your area, it won’t be displayed in your Trending Topics because people from your area won’t be tweeting about it. Obviously, big global events such as the Haiti disaster or G8 meetings will attract attention from all over the world, but localised Trending topics can get quite annoying. Twitter sums it up as follows:

“Twitter trends began as a way to shed light on popular conversations. It’s interesting to know that one topic can now spread across the world in real-time, and Trends help us discover which of those topics are paramount on a global scale.”

“The big events that come up around the world will always become a global conversation, but what about the big events that only happen in your world that only matter to those around you? Or the slight differences in the way Californians perceive an event, like Obama’s election victory, versus those São Paulo, Brazil?” said @jennadawn on the Twitter blog. today.

They also say that the new feature will be monitored and improved through their API and via feedback. Nice to know Twitter cares about small European and Asian countries, as well as the North American market. Also, if you happen to live in a big country such as the US or France, you can localise the feature further by selecting cities instead of countries!

Foursquare Fans Check-in via Desktop with FoursquareX

Luis Sandoval — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:28:53 +0000

Foursquare and other geo-location based apps are becoming extremely popular. There are two sides, one for the user, and the benefits for the business, and when working hand in hand, create an extremely positive relationship. Foursquare allows users to check-in where they are at and race with other local users to become “Mayor” of their location. Based on mobile devices it makes it easy to move around town and check-in as you go.

Most recently users have been looking for a rich desktop experience, something that Foursquare does not offer on their site. They offer options to change settings and such, but not a way to claim your location. Now that has changed thanks to a small development company that’s created FoursquareX. The desktop application, for Mac only, is an OSX based application that allows you to check-in but also allows you to see where your friends are based on an interactive map. Reading deeper into the way this application works, users will be happy to know that it offers the following beneficial features:

app runs in the background, sending you notifications when updates and check-ins are made
appears to use a Google map app and overlays your friends icons to show their location
if you’re looking to meet new people, you’ll be notified when people check-in whether you know them or not, giving you the chance to say “hi”.

Take a look if you’re a Foursquare fan and let us know what you think. So far I’m happy with it, and hope to see some type of port to the actual Foursquare app on the mobile because I can see this becoming a fully functional aspect of the mobile app.

MySpace Breathes New Life into imeem Playlists

Luis Sandoval — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:10:30 +0000

…to what end?

I think that’s the real question. For those of you that have followed the MySpace Acquisition of imeem and the eventual realization that users could not access their playlists, Crenk is wonders if people still care. There was no doubt that users of the imeem music service were dedicated to the platform and infuriated at how MySpace handled the acquisition.

With no warning at all the entire platform was shut down leaving developers and users in the dark. A lot of users left for other music sites, sites that appeared to be more stable. Now acquisitions can happen at any time, but two things were for sure. First users wanted to know where their music was and were unhappy with the response by MySpace, and secondly that many users detested the MySpace music platform and did not want to be affiliated with it.

Still, it’s nice to see that MySpace as still followed through with its promise of bringing back the playlists and there will be no doubt that users will migrate and begin to engage one another again, just on a different platform. Now it’s only fair to note that MySpace was not officially responsible for the imeem platform going down. Users were unawares that money had run out and services were on their way to being shut down with or without MySpace’s involvement.

For full reports and a step by step process to access your music accounts, take a look at the article from TechCrunch.

Twitters Biggest Day Yet

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:00:04 +0000

Twitter has been flat lining over the past couple of months. The service has gathered a huge community, but sign-up rates have stalled as of late. However, Twitter founder Evan Williams just tweeted that the 11th of January was Twitters biggest EVER day. For some reason, the tweeting community all increased their tweeting habits at the same time.

This is encouraging as nothing particularly news worthy happened. Twitter has been known to receive big spikes when something huge is happening such as the death of Michael Jackson or major sporting tournaments. But nope, nothing out of the ordinary yesterday.

What’s even stranger is that Evans also mentioned in his tweet that today, would be even bigger. Wonder if the tweeters up top have something huge planned. Or maybe they just have an office betting pool up and running.

Godtube / Tangle: God Is On The Internet

dashiel — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:01:01 +0000

The Christian community obviously decided that the Vatican Myspace account wasn’t enough, and they needed more ways of engaging with the online community. Thus Godtube, now known as Tangle (presumably because God told them to change the name) was developed. Their tagline:

We help unite the Body of Christ by allowing you to connect with other Christians, Share the Gospel & grow in your relationships – All for the glory of Jesus Christ.

The site is essentially a Christian themed media channel, with boards for Christian music, user submitted videos about Christianity and discussing religion in general (supposedly allowing comment from both Christians and Atheists, but you’ve got to ask yourself which right minded moderate atheist is going to be hanging out on a God-themed social networking website), profile pages for Christians, a Christian version of Flickr, where you can post your photos for Christians to look at… Basically, an ugly version of Facebook, with added Christ. Oh, and they’ve got a store, http://www.christiangiver.com/ where you can buy lots of nice Heaven Approved products.

They monitor and approve all content before it is allowed to go live, “tangle differentiates itself from other social networks by monitoring and approvingall content before it goes live on the site, which works to provide a safe and secure online experience.” [quote from their Wikipedia entry] – this may indeed help stop arguments getting out of hand, and 4chan style trolling, but it doesn’t seem to me that it would be conducive to free and open debate, and some of the things they approve seem like the usual old right wing conservative scaremongering, or lonely crackpots spouting religious diatribes. Still, we have to give marks for effort; at least they’re trying to stay engaged in discussion.

I find it a little disturbing when people try to put the seal of divine approval on essentially commercial things; this site doesn’t flaunt it’s Holiness in your face, and seems quite laid back and open, so perhaps I should be more open minded in turn, but who regulates these things? Seemingly anyone could purport to be speaking for a religious community or market you any old product with the name of a deity in their mouth, and have nothing to substantiate the support of that religion, or to differentiate their product from the next online service/coffee maker/radio alarm clock. Ultimately, religious bodies are so diverse that no one voice speaks for them all, but there are a lot of faces and voices on Tangle, and if you like your society with a whiff of pews and incense, then this might be the place for you – personally I don’t know why the God-fearing can’t just mingle with the rest of us sinners online – it seems a little insular.

MonkeyFly: Customise Your Twitter Easily and for Free

Dean Sherwin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:02:10 +0000

The Twitter homepage, while useful, is left in the dust when compared to the other alternative desktop applications out there and even some of the mobile apps. While it has the core functions it lacks in terms of productivity and extra features which could be so easily added.

A great ad-on for Chrome and Firefox called FlyMonkey pretty much fixes all of that. Below, you can see a screenshot of my Twitter with three columns, each serving it own purpose. This is done by adding features to your Twitter page (via a red ‘+’ sign above your screen). You can add extra columns for DMs, replies, mentions and an arsenal of different options.

They also integrated the Bit.ly URL shortener and Twitpic into Twitter. As you are typing a tweet, two options appear below called ‘Photo’ and ‘URL Shortener’. I found these very handy indeed.

So if you want to change your Twitter experience but don’t fancy moving to a third-party alternative, get FlyMonkey.

Phitter: A Twitter Like Fittness Community

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:37:09 +0000

With the new year having just rolled around it’s that time of year again when gym memberships are at an all-time high as people promise themselves they’ll loose weight and get in shape for the new year. No better time then to join a new fitness community called Phitter which claims to have “given phittness a phacelife”.

The service is similar to Twitter in that users are encouraged to post their daily exercise news, tips, advice and benchmarks. Also, you can post to your stream via the traditional web route or from mobile services such as SMS.

In a press release, the company said Phitter.com is a “phitness phocused community that encourages members to talk, or “Phit,” about fitness, weight loss, working out, dieting, exercising, and healthy living while making new “Phriends” and having “Phun!”

I think this is a great idea. Twitter has proven itself to be one of the most engaging of the social networks. Furthermore, lack of companionship and encouragement is the number one reason why people quit exercise programs. Phitter overcomes that problem by creating a real-time community for those getting fit, something forums and networks have failed to do in the past.

If you post “Feeling down, not in the mood for a run” you’ll be bombarded with inspiration and encouragement to get out there and get Phit!

TweetSwitch Brings IM and Twitter a Little Closer

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:43:32 +0000

Since Twitter got really popular thanks to all the celebs who made it famous, the only way to tweet has been either directly on the website or using an app such as Tweetie. Now however, Comufy, a London based tech company brings us TweetSwitch.

Basically, it enables you to set up your account to send certain tweets to your IM. You can then in turn respond to these tweets from the IM service. Selecting what kind of tweets you want to receive is threefold. You can receive all tweets, tweets where you’re mentioned or replied to (such as @Crenk) or the most important ones, direct messages.

At the moment, some main IM clients such as AOL, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are supported and it’s said to be coming to the ever growing Skype. This is a really cool new feature, effectively creating a switchboard for your Twitter account!

Linkedin iPhone Update Offers More Functionality

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:25:51 +0000

If you had a chance to update your apps today then perhaps you were surprised by an update for your Linkedin mobile app. The buzz across the media sites is Linkedin’s new shiny app that offers 100% more functionality than the prior version of the app did. For all purposes the prior version was useless. The limited functionality made it one of those apps you had because you hoped, but you just never used. Luckily, following Facebook’s recent app update, the new Linkedin app gives users more of what they want with a few interesting extras.

The layout you might recognize from the Facebook app. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was their inspiration. I wouldn’t necessarily go out and call them copiers, only because with a mobile app there is only so much you can do, and if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Still, the similarity might work in its favor because users will be comfortable with the layout. What separates the old and new is the increased functions of being able to view and answer inbox messages, invite and accept others invitations, browse profiles, search profiles, and most importantly a new additions.

The new addition is the ability to connect with users in your immediate area using your iPhone. The “In Person” selection makes your iPhone a homing device for others in your area how are Linkedin users and whom you might want to connect with. A great piece of functionality for conferences and other large gatherings where you can exchange business cards, but not all cards come with a Linkedin profile attached. I used this from my apartment, and it picked up on a few people nearby. I’m not quite sure on the range, but it seems a pretty worthwhile addition to the lineup.

Junaio: Augmented Reality Social Network for iPhone and Android

Steven Finch — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:19:55 +0000

Metaio is a very interesting company that has started to develop some great augmented reality iPhone applications.

Metaio has just announced a new social network called Junaio which is based around augmented reality.

The newest version of the mobile augmented reality platform includes new and improved features such as:

1) Enhanced live overlay and local search: powered using Google Local Search, now you can visually search for points of interest like restaurants, cafes, or anything in your location

2) New social features: Ability to rate, comment on others scenes, publish your own augmented reality to social networks like Facebook and Twitter

3) Improved user interface and enhancements: greater usability and fast download speed

To me this seems to be a very weird yet interesting mix between the real world and social networking online.

Nsyght Offers Real Time Social Searches

Luis Sandoval — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:29:04 +0000

There’s a lot of social search options out there, but Nsyght has launched t

Nsyght is a social search engine.

o not just offer up social search possibilities, but also offer up some great discovery methods for new content. When I first discovered Nsyght, it reminded me of an earlier company I reviewed called Worio which was a discovery search engine that had a lot of great social community aspects.

Nsyght offers social search via information based on the following networks: Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Flickr, Last.fm, Vimeo and Delicious. The unique aspect of gathering information from all of these sites is that users can create a social graph which is the true strength of this social search. The social graph is information pulled from all of your friends on the above listed networks, whether they are signed up with Nsyght or not, but because it’s information revolving around you, it’s graphed.

The graphs are definitely amazing, informational, at the very least interesting to view. Being able to distill information is a powerful resource as more and more data is being collected online and going through it can be extremely difficult. The recommendation engine is extremely powerful since it’s not just important to know who you know already, but who also might be in your line of interest to connect with.

Nsyght has some powerful legs to move on, and users that create their own profiles are going to get lots of information. I’m interested to see how this network plays out.

Best Man Plays Twitter Prank on Newlyweds

Dean Sherwin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:50:05 +0000

It’s a right of passage that the best man must organize one hell of prank to play on the groom. Whether it’s tying him naked to a streetlamp using industrial size cling-film or playing a video tape of the stag night at the wedding reception. But this guy, a tech God in his own right, knows ho to play a prank. As I write this article, in excess of over 12,000 people are seeing his prank unfold on Twitter.

While the newlyweds were on their honeymoon, he went into their house and hooked up a pressure sensitive pad to some techy equipment so that every time the new couple are “on the job” a tweet will be sent out notifying the world as to the force, time and judges rating.

Just reading down through the stream is enough to make you laugh. Here’s a screenshot as it was this morning:

You can check out the live Twitter stream here.