Crenk » social

Apple’s Working on a New Social Location App Called iGroups

Steven Finch — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:53:17 +0000

Patently Apple has reported that Apple is currently working on their own location based service. Location is the buzz word at the moment and its great to see that Apple are looking to do something in house. The Apple social networking app is called iGroups.

The app is likely to tie in with your iPhone and MobileMe and will make it possible for groups of users to share information around events. Events could include concerts, tradeshows, conferences, business meetings, weddings etc..

This kind of service is likely to compete somewhat with Gowalla and Foursquare, but they seem to have the who geo-location gaming angle sorted out.

Interestingly, AppleInsider has also uncovered news that Apple is working on a Walkie Talkie like feature for use with the iPhone. The technology “could allow iPhone users to transmit data — such as simple text messages — to each other over voice channels, forgoing a reliance wireless carriers’ backend servers, in a manner similar to Nextel’s walkie-talkie feature.” This would fit neatly in with plans for a geolocation based group discussion service.

Pure CSS Social Media Icons

Steven Finch — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:20:01 +0000

This is an experiment that creates social media icons using CSS and semantic HTML. It uses progressive enhancement to turn an unordered list of text links into a set of icons without the use of images or JavaScript.

Take a look at the CSS social media icons here.

Digg Announces New Site and Mashable Partnership at SXSW

Steven Finch — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:43:15 +0000

The leading social news site Digg has announced a big overhauled site which will go public in the next few weeks. You can signup to the new site at new.digg.com.

The new site is currently collecting email addresses of people who wish to be notified when it’s ready for user testing.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson described the site’s changes to attendees at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas on Sunday. Adelson said the site has been under development for five years.

He said the new Digg would be able to handle millions of submissions per day, rather than the thousands for which the site had originally been architected. Besides normal Internet audience growth, Digg, which launched six years ago in 2004, must today deal with automated submissions made through Internet APIs. These computer-powered systems can easily submit a thousand URLs to Digg in the time it takes a human to enter just one.

Social media news site Mashable is collaborating with Digg to test the new site’s revamped Digg buttons for submitting or voting on Internet links.

Burnt Wood: Free Social Media Icon Set

Steven Finch — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:59:12 +0000

Burnt Wood is a collection of wood-tiled icons branded with various social media network logos that are perfect for your next grunge-styled web design.

The package contains 12 icons for many of the popular social sharing sites. Each icon is a 420×420px PNG file that can be scaled down to any size needed.

This set was designed by Chris Thurman of Visual Swirl exclusively for the readers of Six Revisions. It was inspired by a burnt wood text effect tutorial and created entirely in Photoshop.

Download the Icons here.

Big Fish Games Release New Facebook Game: My Tribe

Steven Finch — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:15:55 +0000

It has been announced by Big Fish Games that they are releasing their second Facebook game, My Tribe.

My Tribe is a game that’s similar to the popular iPhone/iPod Touch game virtual villagers, in that each of the people in the tribe have individual statistics and personalities, and grow in age over time. They may be rebellious and not listen to your orders when you’re not playing the game, and this adds a dimension that makes the game different from games like Restaurant City or Cafe World, where your workers are pretty much brainless as they follow your orders.

“With a player’s guidance, tribespeople develop areas of specialty – for example, construction – to help them accomplish larger tasks like building a ship or a storehouse. They grow from child to youth to adult, learn new skills, have children of their own, and eventually become respected elders. And because gameplay is continuous – your tribe is living, learning, fishing, eating and surviving even when your computer is turned off – it’s especially important for players to check in regularly on the tribe’s progress.”

The social elements come in the fact that players can travel to friends’ islands and help their friends with creating customized clothing and accessories, building shelter, providing food, and making scientific discoveries, all to gain levels and cash.

Social Media Cheat Sheet

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:00:17 +0000

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.

Will AT&T’s Buzz Search be a Success?

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:39:49 +0000

Back when the internet was gaining huge amounts of users at the turn of the millennium, everything was about the World Wide aspect. But now, it’s worn a little thin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still useful and connects people and companies all over the planet. But local search is where there are big bucks to be made. Think about it, aren’t you more likely to click on an advertisement when it’s a 20% discount for the Chinese restaurant around the corner, instead of an offer for the Chinese HiPhone?

All the major online services have caught on with Twitter being the latest having launched Local Trends. Now, Buzz.com looks to catch in on the local .com boom. At the minute it’s still in Beta testing. But more and more tech blogs are talking about it.

While Buzz.com will rely heavily on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, At&T have stressed that they have not built a social networking site, although you will be able to share many things with friends and family. By indexing what people are talking about as well as working with companies and advertisers, buzz.com will provide people will accurate search results for things like clubs, restaurants, shops, deals and much more. It’s like social media for local businesses.

I can’t wait until Buzz comes out of private Beta. It sounds like a great service to get the skinny on what’s going on in your locale. If you want to try your luck at getting a private invitation, click here.

Want to know the best places to go or businesses to call? Let buzz.com help you tap your social net for business recommendations from the people you trust most – your friends and family. – Buzz.com

Google Launches Social Search: Knows A Little Bit Too Much About Your Social Circle

Steven Finch — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:36:35 +0000

Garett over at Zdnet was search through Google’s tools to see if there was anything noteworthy — and there he found several references to what they are calling Social Search.

Google has announced that this new feature will begin showing up in your search results over the next couple days.

Basically Social Search provides search results based more on weight of your social circle (your friends and their friends).

If you want to check out your “social circle”, use this link. It can be a bit creepy seeing how much Google knows about your connections to people, but I guess that’s life in 2010.

Audio Blog with Audio Boo on iPhone

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:33:29 +0000

Apple devices come with a native recording device, and even social networkslike Utterli have functioned as a way to capture audio and share it, but none have been as easy as and intuitive as Audio Boo for the iPhone and the iTouch is. The application takes voice recording to a whole new level with a press of a button. Before you know it, you just might start audio recording a whole lot more than you think.

Audio Boo is both a desktop and mobile app. The desktop app allows you to configure your account, asking you where you’d like your “Boo’s” to post. You can choose from a variety of social networks but it’s also stored in the audio stream for others to interact with and comment on.

With a mic you can simply press record and share your message. When done, you stop the recording and then input a message you want attached to the recording, this message is what is seen when the Boo is posted to your accounts. You’re also able to tag it with keywords for easier finding not just for you but for your listening audience.

Audio Boo is free and easy to use for both the iPhone and the iTouch so get the mobile app, configure on the desktop app and get your recordings started.

Zemanta Levels Blogger Playing Field

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:08:09 +0000

For those of us writers who find ourselves seeking new content to relate to what we write, it was a huge breath of fresh air when Zemanta was released. Zemanta not only offered us links, but it offered up keywords we might want to highlight, along with images the engine though we should include in our post. Zemanta was unlike anything we’d ever seen in terms of its wide use and availability across browsers and blogging sites.

More recently Zemanta has made efforts to level the playing field, finally succeeding in opening up it’s engine to include not just articles of recommendation from relevant sites, but to also include recommendations from other bloggers who, perhaps have not hit their stardom online. This gives an great opportunity for a smaller blog site to be listed as related content and drive traffic to the site while at the same time providing a level of authority they would have otherwise not been able to have.

Naturally the fear of diluting the related content option has been expressed, but by not allowing the larger community of bloggers to be listed also kept users from seeing some of the quality content produced on smaller sites, so in my eyes the door swung both ways. TechCrunch did make a good point in stating that the service will at least ensure that users will keep returning, and in that perhaps lies the real gem of keeping the community together.

Get Your Word Fix with Word Free

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:31:22 +0000

For those of us that have a knack for words, Scrabble has long been a favorite. Many of us enjoy the challenge of sparring one another with our wits and knowledge. In today’s mobile world there was little chance of us playing Scrabble until now.

Recently I’ve found the pleasure of a mobile Scrabble app called Words with Friends. This app replicates everything I remembered from playing Scrabble with my family that I instantly became hooked. Words with Friends has an amazing number of additions that truly define this powerhouse of entertainment.

For starters you are able to connect two of the most popular social profiles, Facebook and Twitter. This will not only announce your scores but also invite your friends to join you in a game. Furthermore the app has the built in ability to run more than one game at a time. When I started playing, it was not unusual for me to be playing four to five games at once. Definitely something you could not do with a Scrabble board.

You are capable of communicating with your competitor via an internal chat system within the game, and the push notifications make it useful for you to play your round and walk away. When your opponent makes their move, your are instantly notified and games continue when you have time. It’s not uncommon for players to carry on multiple games at the same time and all games are time stamped when the last play was made and by whom.

The app is FREE, but be warned, the game is highly addicting and may be responsible for a huge loss of time throughout the day.

Tweetdeck Evolves For Power Users

Luis Sandoval — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:38:05 +0000

There’s a lot of apps out there, both mobile and desktop, that use the Twitter API to make it more “functional” for power users. What’s a power user? Well if you’ve got more than one account on Twitter, have over 1000 friends, and like to have your posts link to other social networks where you have a community, then you are probably a power user.

In the race to be the most dominant desktop application for Twitter, TweetDeck is definitely one of the leading contenders. Having been around for about a year, TweetDeck has taken the Twitter experience to a whole new level. It’s integrating the use of multiple columns, and attaching itself to URL shorteners, photo posting apps like Twitpic, and the ability link to other network like Facebook, all under one app. But just recently TweetDeck has evolved again, and this time, making it even more useful for power users to extend their reach further into the social web.

Last week TweetDeck released an update that now allows you to link your messages to LinkedIn and MySpace, the option to Retweet the way you want, locating your friends, and the ability to integrate Twitter lists into your columns. If there ever was a center to the social universe, TweetDeck could very easily take that spot.

TweetDeck is an Adobe AIR desktop application compatible with several operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. An Phone version was released on the 19th June 2009.

3 Sites for Digital Holiday Cards

Luis Sandoval — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:01:33 +0000

For many of us, December is a special month, and whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, or any variation of holiday celebration, it’s a time for us to connect. More often than not we look to build stronger relationships with co-workers, family, or neighbors, and nothing says that better than a personal message from the heart.

Online communities may use social media tools to mass message large numbers of people, but social media is not the only thing for us to consider. What about digital holiday cards? Well Crenk did a little work and found three sites you should consider for your cards and perhaps there’s something for you in one of these three.

Shutterfly is the budget option for those of us looking to send our large numbers of cards in a very short time. They offer a variety of card and postcard cuts and folds to ensure that your message is shared the right way. Customize your cards with personal photos in packages starting as low as $9.99 for a pack of 20.
Pear Tree is for the green enthusiast in all of us. Send a card, save the planet. Feel good yet? Well you should, these cards are made from recycled envelopes and still have an elegant appearance that your recipients can appreciate.
Paper Style is for those of us with bigger wallets. If you’ve got the dime and time to design, then you’ll be rewarded with high quality cuts and prints. Find matching envelopes, purchase matching address labels, or include folded note cards to insert into your holiday cards.

Sure there’s a lot out there, perhaps you’ve got some of your own favorites. Drop them in the comments section and let us know what you like best about them.

Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang’s Mobile App

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:24:43 +0000

For those of us in the business of online marketing, brand building, or building web strategies for companies, Jeremiah Owyang is a familiar name. His innovative thought leadership has defined the world of online web strategies and how companies interact with audiences.

His blogs have been a ranked as one of the top sites in Technorati, and his career board has increased the number of visitors to his website simply because of his strong belief in connecting people. Jeremiah “strives to define and deliver user and community needs, business goals, and web technology to craft and deliver long term successful web programs for companies.”

Most recently the web strategy guru has released a mobile app that now allows fans and followers to keep up with what’s happening on the blog and career board via their iPhone or iTouch. MotherApp’s creative innovation has brought to life a clean and intuitive application to life. Via the interface you get access to his thoughts via the blog, his Twitter stream, and the ability to favorite tweets or blogs posts you find interesting.

If you’re into online marketing or strategizing web initiatives, check this app out. I’ve found that the information on here is useful and applicable immediately for just about any brand you develop for.

Publish Your Content On Your Mobile

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:48:24 +0000

With content accessible on our mobile, it’s become more common for us to be productive with our mobile devices to get more work done. Cell phones and other mobile devices have become the digital leashes that collar us to work, but at the same time it also keeps us connected to life’s information flow. As we become a more connected community via social media tools, it’s always useful to hear how others have made it work for them.

Recently I was stuck on a prolonged trip where I could have done one of two things, sit and just let time pass, or find an effective way to keep what I do going. I opted for the latter and as a writer for various websites across the web, I found the magic combination that keeps what I do going even if I’m not on my laptop or desktop.

For starters I have a iPhone and I’ve set up my apps in such a way that I can now more easily stream line the writing process using apps that I’ve linked together because of how they work together. If there’s a Blackberry alternative out there, I’d love to hear how you keep your brand running even if you’re on the go.

Documents2: Is the app I use to write my article. I use this article specifically because when I write I can back up automatically to my Google Docs and send a copy via email if I choose, all without leaving the app. This makes backing up my work easy.

Safari: I use Safari to quickly grab a creative commons photo from Flickr or any other photo site. I save the photo to the device and make sure that I get all relevant information for attribution purposes.

PS Mobile: This free Photoshop tool is great for quick edits to photos like resizing or cropping on the go. I don’t look for this tool to do anything more than I know it’s capable of and save the photo and move on.

Wordpress: Using the Wordpress app I bring in my copy, insert photos, include attribution, and tag and label my post accordingly. With a press of the button my articles are posted and I move on to my next task.

The above process may seem like it take a lot of moving around from one app to another, and I admit at first it did take more time than I would have liked. But after making this part of your routine, you become faster at it, and grouping icons by purpose instead of type, like most people do, you can easily access your tools to ensure that your posts are published.

Photo Credit Christopher Chan

Regator Tracks Blogosphere Social Mentions

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:47:42 +0000

Tracking mentions online is a huge market that has yet to turn any profit. Still, there are a lot of sites out there that track mentions on Twitter, Facebook, various social sites, and a few blog sites as well. Knowing what trending topics are hot and when your name or brand is mentioned is important and becomes a focal point of tracking your web presence.

Regator is both a web app and a mobile app that allows you to keep up with what is happening in the blogosphere without missing a beat. The unique addition of the mobile app ensures that you never miss a mention. They pay app ($1.99) is a functional addition to any mobile media person’s toolbox.

Regator does little to stop you from jumping right in. Search for keywords, browse the web from within Regator, search real time trends, and even set up a blog monitor for specific names and keywords for daily reports when those words are mentioned.

I also found the ability to favorite posts, entire blogs, and/or topics to be useful for when I needed to come back and read up more in depth later.

Regator definitely explores millions of posts thousands of the best sites out there. I found it an interesting tool for media, business, writing, and news professionals. But just about anyone can find a great use to keep up on their specific keyword choices or trending topics.

Twitter – In it for the long haul

Dean — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:26:44 +0000

I love my twitter account. It’s fast, easy and the best service I’ve come accross in ages. Obviously, Twitter is not just another social networking site, which are mainly funded by advertising and partnerships. Twitter is an excellent micro-blogging platform. However, because it’s a micro blogging platform it doesn’t attract long visits to profile pages and as such it’s difficult to make money from advertising. For that reason, they have to think in the long term and a little outside the box.

“The key takeaway there is that we’re thinking big and we’re in it for the long haul,”

Speaking at a conference recently, the services co-founder Biz Stone said that they have big plans for twitter including pitching the service to companies to help gain new customers and keep existing ones and also as a way of making the company more interactive with their customers.

He also mentioned that Twitter will improve their security such as adding authentication codes to help prevent identity theft and may also use data from user records for their own needs.

Again he stressed that Twitter could not be treated as though it were a Social network like Facebook or Bebo.

“We started out by creating this very simple status updating system. And that’s not what Twitter is. It evolved into something else,” he said.

Crenk Launches Community News Which Helps Blogs Promote Their Own Content

Steven Finch — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:54:29 +0000

Today we have added a new feature on Crenk that we hope will help many other blogs promote their great content. This new feautre is called Community News. The Community News section can be found in our sidebar and it is basically a submission process that lets any user advise us of a great blog post.

The articles that will be shown in our Community News section will be related to startups and will either be great start lists or reviews. We hope that by adding links into our Community News section other sites will get some great promotion and traffic, while at the same time receive a linkback from our site.

Submissions to the Community News section is completely free and only takes a minute to submit. So please feel free to help us promote some of the best content on the web.

Stop Dreaming – Start Doing With VOIS

Craig Agranoff — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:10:54 +0000

Why Did I Start VOIS? Why Did We Launch The First Social Sourcing Site Now?

There are a lot of bad websites out there. A lot.

Websites with 8-bit graphics seemingly ripped from Atari games, with laughable copy errors that immediately diminish credibility, and with such awful usability that you need a Dr. Phil intervention to calm down after surfing through the third-rate portals.

This is one reason I co-founded VOIS.com (pronounced VOICE), or Virtual Outsourcing is Social. Not only can VOIS’ collaborative approach to completing projects produce superior results – from slickly branded and intuitive websites to fun, traffic-churning widgets – but it can also make it more affordable for businesses.

Don’t get me wrong; this is not the business owners’ faults. As a blogger for a major food website, I can say first hand that these are good people with the best of intentions. But just because someone knows how to make donuts, pizza or surfboards, it doesn’t mean they should know how to create a compelling online storefront. And hiring expensive firms on retainer often isn’t a workable business model for small and medium-sized businesses, or even larger firms that don’t have the bandwidth to handle their current business needs.

That’s why VOIS seeks to connect clients with expert Web professionals – from designers to developers and copywriters – to work on a project basis. What separates us from other business match-making platforms is that we allow and encourage the clients and talent to get to know each other first by exploring robust online profiles and messaging back and forth.

Click-and-mortar, web-driven start-ups have also had to change their game plan, and VOIS was developed for these businesses, too. With start-up capital tougher and tougher to attract, it’s no longer feasible for someone to hire developer and a CTO, build an infrastructure from scratch, then roll out and ramp up a product. I’ve met many people who have burned through $500,000 before looking at a more cost-efficient way of doing things.

And I really feel VOIS is that new way of doing things. We’re keeping VOIS wide open in terms of the scope of projects we accommodate – no niche focus or specialized tunnel vision. This will help us attract more users and offer truly turnkey solutions for our users.

So as the VOIS community grows, fueled by this added interpersonal dimension, I look forward at seeing some truly amazing work forged through the power of online collaboration. In other words, no more bad websites, or half-completed start-ups that could have been the next big thing.

In fact, I think VOIS is the next big thing.

MySocialButtons: Find Social Networking Buttons and Icons for Your Blog or Site

Steven Finch — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:00:55 +0000

Have you ever spent a lot of time searching around the Internet to find the perfect social media button that can be added to your site? Well stop searching and head over to MySocialButtons. MySocialButtons does what it says on the can and offers free social networking icons and buttons to download. Buttons include TTwitter, Reddit, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon and come in various different colours, styles and sizes.

iPhone App Reviews for Social Media News

Jordan Kasteler — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:16:14 +0000

There aren’t very many social media applications yet on the iPhones that are based around social news or social bookmarking. Digg has a an unofficial app which is much improved than the last unofficial app that was in the iTunes App Store which is no longer available. Delicious has quite a few apps that are decent but lack a few important features. Disappointingly, StumbleUpon doesn’t have any applications and neither does Mixx or Yahoo! Buzz.

Reddit is currently leading with three apps to make the mobile experience much more enjoyable. One of theirs is an official app from the Reddit creators themselves. Will Digg be releasing an official app soon?

I’ve taken the liberty to do a review of the three Reddit apps and Digg app that are in the iTune App Store. I am in no way associated with any of these apps, know any of the owners, or am promoting any of them in any fashion. This is merely a review from an avid Reddit and Digg user with a love for social news and social media.

Shovel – Digg App

Author: Scott Fitzhugh

Price: Free

Ratings: 147 Reviews – (at the time of writing)

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/d5yqhu

iTunes Description:

Shovel is an app that provides top stories from the social news website Digg.com in a native application. Browse the front page stories, or delve deeper into an array of topics and subtopics of interest.

Personal Review:

Shovel is a great application for viewing Digg.com content easily on the iPhone. Overall, the design and interface is pretty clean and simple. It gives you a variety of topics and listings to select to view so you can access all of the content on Digg.com. You can view:

Popular Stories
Top Stories
Movers & Shakers
Brand New Stories

All listings are applicable to any category or sub-category in Digg.com. If you select a Digg story you can then scroll down the commentary to see what people are saying, who’s replied, how many votes each comment has received, etc. After that, you can click further to view the story live on the Web. Which is nice about it is that it doesn’t load Safari as a separate app to view the content so there’s no back-and-forth between the apps.

Unfortunately, what you cannot participate in digging, burying, or commenting through this application. The developer disclaims, “Now we’ve gotten the message loud and clear that the one thing that would turn this 3.5 star app (currently 3 stars) into a 5 star one is the interactivity of the original Digg site. You guys (and gals) want to be able to Digg, comment, and bury, and who can blame you? Right now, however, there is no way to do this using the legitimate Digg APIs, and quite frankly, it makes us sad. I’ve been trying to court the help of Digg in making this app all that it can be, and if you want to help that along, you should drop them a line yourselves requesting the same!”

Another drawback is that you cannot personalize this application because there is no way to login. Therefore you can’t weed out content you don’t want to see, view your account profile, see your friend’s submissions, etc.

In doing some research the Shovel app used to be named “Diggerific”. Apparently, they have changed the name of it and redid the UI just a bit as you can tell from the video review of Diggerific below:

Overview

Pros

Easy to use
Clean interface
Ability to access all Digg content

Cons

Free of charge
Can’t Digg, comment, or bury content
No Digg account profile/community features or functionality

iReddit

Author: CondeNet

Price: $1.99

Ratings: 41 Reviews (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: http://getsatisfaction.com/reddit/products/reddit_ireddit

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/ce6tt2

iTunes Description:

The official Reddit iPhone app. Never be bored again. With this app, you’ll only be a tap (or shake) away from the most interesting stuff on the web.

All of your favorite Reddit functionality is here: view the hottest, newest, top, and most controversial stories of the moment, explore, individual subreddits, vote, comment, share, and save links for later. The entire commenting system has been optimized for the iPhone app so you won’t have any trouble contributing to an epic pun thread.

Save time by never having to reload the Reddit homepage. You can even use handy next/previous navigation to move between websites without going back to the main list. And those sites work in portrait and widescreen modes too.

It’s never been easier to be entertained. Just shake your iPhone to enter “serendipity mode” where you’ll be served a random, interesting site. Pro-tip: Turn on “play sound on shake” for a special treat with every jostle — the iPhone is an elegant phone for a more sophisticated age.

And if you’re feeling the economic downturn (what are you doing with an iPhone?) there’s a tree, ad-supported version to come.

Personal Review:

The Official Reddit application is pretty cool. You can input your username and password so that you can vote and comment on stories. Initially, you come to the Reddit homepage. Along the top you can choose between “Hot”, “New”, “Top”, and “Controversial” stories. When selecting a story, there is an overlay on the footer that allows you to upvote/downvote the story, go to the comments section of the story, save the story, and email the link.

Three subreddits will fit on the bottom bar overlay that you can quickly navigate to. You can edit the subreddits with the ones you want to use the most, but you only have a small selection of subreddit’s to swap out with. Those subreddits are:

Programming
Funny
Science
Tech
World News
Entertainment
Business
Comics
Gaming
Best Of
Economics
Cappuccino

It is the most expensive application but I feel it’s the cleanest and easiest to use. Unfortunately, you can’t browse all subreddits and there’s no search function. Nor is there a function to view your account’s saves, karma points, submissions, comments, etc.

I would recommend this app to anyone looking to quickly and easily view Reddit news, vote, and participate in the more popular subreddits. The free Reddit app doesn’t allow for this.

Overview

Pros

Easily vote on stories from the actual story page
Save links to view/read later
Comment participation
Customization of footer subreddits

Cons

Most expensive Reddit app
Not a wide-range of subreddits to customize on your footer
Can’t browse all subreddits
No search functionality
No personal account status functionality

Open Source Reddit

Author: Joseph Pintozzi

Price: Free

Ratings: 10 Reviews (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: reddit@pintozzi.com

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/cpjzvj

iTunes Description:

The Reddit application allows users to view the stories from www.reddit.com without having to deal with loading massive webpages. It displays the stories in a nice table view, providing details about each submission, and allows the user to easily view the submitted content. The ability to vote on a submission is currently being added.

Personal Review:

This app is very bare bones with very limited functionality. If you’re looking to vote on stories or participate in the comments this app isn’t for you. If you’re just looking to read “Hot” news from a select few subreddits then this is a good app for the cost of nothing. The included subreddits to choose from are:

reddit.com
bacon
politics
pics
WTF
funny
technology
programming

The nice thing about it is that it’s open source and the developer leaves it open for people to add on what they want to it. Hopefully, in the future, this will be a great application for Reddit.

Overview

Pros

Open Source
Free

Cons

No commenting
No voting
Can’t browse all subreddits
No search functionality
No personal account status functionality

Satellite Reddit

Author: 3Cube Technologies

Price: $0.99

Ratings: 8 Reviews – (at the time of writing)

Feedback Contact: satellite@3cubetechnologies.com or http://twitter.com/3cube

iTunes Download Link: http://tinyurl.com/cx8eec

iTunes Description:

Satellite 2.0 is now available and brings a host of improvement to the mobile Reddit experience.

Change in this version includes:

Greatly improved performance
New, Controversial, and Top views are available for all subreddits
An overlay displaying the full article title and comments count shows while loading an article
The subreddit list is reorderable
A beautiful new icon and splash screen have been added
New lower pricing.

Satellite is a full-featured client for Reddit.com, a social link aggregation site. With Satellite, you can browse links appearing on the front page or drill down into the Subreddits you are subscribed to. When viewing an article you can vote the link up or down, save it to your Reddit account, or share the link with others. With the click of a button, you can shift into commenting mode to browse comments or post your own back to the Reddit page about the link. The interface provides a substantially more streamlined experience over the mobile Reddit site and incorprates the unique capabilities of the iPhone to make your day to day Reddit’ing much more fun.

Additional Satellite features include:

Shake the app at any time to explore random content from Reddit
Next/previous buttons are available at the screen edges to move through content without returning to list view
Full portrait/landscape modes, including upside down. Great for handing the phone across the dinner table to share your discoveries!
Returns to the content you were browsing at start-up. Pick up right where you left off when that call came in.
Highly addictive content discovery available anywhere, at any time!

Personal Review:

This app is definitely worth the 99 cents. After entering in your login information you can view ALL of your subscribed subreddits. It also gives you an option to edit your subreddits for your account. After selecting a subreddit you can choose between “Hot”, “New”, “Controversial”, and “Top” categories in the footer bar. Once selecting a story, it takes you to the story and overlays the story title, submitter, and point count. At the bottom footer you can choose to vote, go to comments, save the link, or email the link. Again though, there’s no search feature with this app either.

This app is a lot like the official iReddit app except it’s more personalized. You can also view your saved Reddits on your account to follow up on how your saves and submissions are doing.

Overview

Pros

Personalized
Nice User-Interface
Good functionality for voting and commenting
All Reddit content accessible through this app

Cons

Isn’t free
Can’t see your karma points
No search functionality

HAPPY BROWSING WITH THESE SOCIAL MEDIA APPS!

Cmune: Great 3D Browser-based Multiplayer 3D Shooter Game

Steven Finch — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:57:22 +0000

The other day I came across a great new multiplayer 3D shooter game. The site is Cmune and they claim to have the first browser-based multiplayer 3D shooter built to be social.

Cmune allows users to play a 3D paintball shooter game within any web browser. Additionally you can play the game in either Windows, Mac or even within Facebook. The game itself is very simple, a user needs to just download a small plugin and then they can create or join in on a game. Paradise paintball has very simple controls and is easy to use and graphics are ok but nothing out of this world.

When the site first opens you are able to choose which game you want to join or even able to create a game and play against your friends. Cmune is a great time waster!!

Crenk Interviews… Zentact

matt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:00:13 +0000

Following our recent review of Zentact, we spoke to the team behind the service. Read on for insights from Jared Brandt, John Sampson and Eric Marcoullier about their previous work with MyBlogLog, a hint of what’s to come with new service Gnip, and what makes them and their fab social networking tool tick.

What is the Zentact philosophy?
(Jared) We are creating a product that integrates into already existing work flows, helping our users build better relationships. We do this without any BS. (Eric would say the our product will make the baby jesus cry…)

Sharing information with your contacts is something that Mr. Marcoullier seems to be a fan of! What makes Zentact different to other content sharing websites?

(Jared) Social networks are a lot of work for traditionally very little payoff. CRM tools are worse.

(Eric) Zentact aims to flip that on its ear and provide loads of tangible results for little ongoing effort.

(Jared) Typical content sharing websites and apps have focused on the user always remembering whom to share with. We are trying, in effect, to whisper in the user’s ear and suggest whom they can share this with in a meaningful way – we make sure you share what matters. We will be adding more social aspects in the near future as well.

How has the web 2.0 landscape changed since the coneption and subsequent selling of MyBlogLog to now and the work you’re doing with Zentact?

(John) MyBlogLog allowed users to create profiles that traveled with them where they surfed, adding value to both the mybloglog member and website owner. More Web 2.0 apps today are leveraging this concept, be it scripts, widgets, and even in browsers. The value that is created by individual apps and even apps created mashing APIs together is significant.

Some commentators have said that they’d like Facebook integration, in particular to help when tagging – is this something you and the team are looking into?

(Jared) We will be integrating in with Facebook to help with both tagging, tracking last connection and posting to the wall.

Will you be looking to include integration with other social networking services – if so what is the liklihood of this happening before Zentact comes out of Beta?

(Jared) We are in a private beta now and working on launching our public beta. We will likely integrate with other social networking services and other communication platforms before leaving beta. We are also listening to our users – feedback will help lead the way.

What is really exciting you on the web (Zentact aside)?
(Jared) Gnip
(John) Apple app store

I would argue that 2008 has been the year of Twitter and that it will become more mainstream in 2009 – what do you think will be the big social media development in the next 12 months?

(Jared) We think that there will be a big movement towards information – instead of just data. More products will become contextual.

What has been the main challenge for Zentact since you founded the company?

(Jared) Our number one challenge has been to prioritize features since, as a team, we have many features we want to do quickly.

And what has been the achievement that has made you most happy?

(Jared) We have gotten feedback from users ranging for “wow” to “Zentact helped me close a deal”. This feedback is what makes us tick!

What are the next key milestones you’ll be looking to meet?

( Jared) Public beta and our IE version.

What can we expect from Zentact in 2009?

(Jared) A killer product that will seamlessly improve your life.

To try Zentact for yourself, we have a few private invites to test the private beta, which you lucky boys and girls can get here.

Build Better Relationships with Zentact

matt — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:54:49 +0000

Social networking is turning into a bit of a bramble patch. Whilst making loads of new contacts and keeping in touch with old ones, we’ve somehow lost the part of the networking that is the social – the sharing of information. Be it photos, music or words of wisdom, it’s not quite as easy to let those who’d like to, know.

A solution, however, is afoot. Zentact, brought to us by among others, Eric Marcoullier of MyBlogLog fame, aims to collate your contacts into one place and allow you to share bits and pieces as you browse.

After signing up and adding in a few personal details, you can simply import your contacts from Hotmail, LinkedIn, Gmail and Outlook via a CSV address book and after a few seconds, they are on your system.

Next, and I highly recommend this, download the Firefox extension, all will be revealed shortly.

Now, the genius part. Each contact is taggable with their likes and dislikes and when a web page which has tags that match your contacts, if you installed the extension, a smart little box will flash up in the top right hand corner of your screen with the list of contacts who’s interests are relevant to the site. You can then send them a link and be merrily on your way. Remember, social.

Now the one down side to this is that if you have hundreds of contacts, it takes ages to go through them all tagging away. I’d recommend doing it bit by bit, adding tags as you go – this will take longer but does two things:

It lets you see who you will really be sharing with – there’s no point in having 300 contacts if you only ever talk to six of them regularly anyway, which means you can quickly identify those defunct e-mail addresses you’ve not used in years or people who don’t share common interests.

Secondly, it makes the whole process a lot smoother – you may like a tag binge, but frankly I’d rather be spending my time actually looking at what I came to see rather than typing in long lists of keywords, especially ones that are tricky to spell.

Now, it will take a while for you and Zentact to get to know each other, but the more contacts you tag and the more sites sites you send, the better Zentact becomes at recommending what is suitable for whom. This is a great service and especially suitable for anyone who is on a lot of social networks but can’t quite keep up with what is going on with who. Now you can build your relationships easily and stay in touch better.

We are lucky enough to have a handful of guest invites so you can try the private beta version of this site and tell all your friends about, which you can get by clicking here. Incidentally, you can tell your friends about it via Zentact and you can then invite them to join in this most social of networks.