[SoftRatty] tag: social

LuckyCal Makes You One Lucky Traveler

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:32:39 +0000

LuckyCal is the business traveler’s guide to getting lucky. You know, for landing sales deals and stuff. At least that’s what it was designed to do. For those business travelers that need to make a trip to a far away city, what better use of time than to find others in the area that may be available for a meeting as well? More meetings, more sales, and more savings for which your manager can take the credit.

LuckyCal is the tool that lets you keep track of the proximity of your colleagues and friends. Similar to Dopplr and TripIt, you can share your travel plans with others so that you can schedule a time to meet up with those that are in the same town as you–at the same time. LuckyCal works by syncing with your Google calendar, iCal and Outlook, so that there’s little manual work you need to do within LuckyCal, outside of adding contacts.

With the LuckyCal Facebook application, the process of adding contacts is somewhat easier, though a portion of it is still manual, as the act of sharing travel plans in a semi-automated fashion is a very permision-based feature. A fbFund round 1 winner, LuckyCal reveals its public beta today. While the direct meeting-planning tools aren’t quite as extensive as some other dedicated calendar-sharing networks, LuckyCal is off to a great start.

What I particularly like about its Facebook application, aside from making it easier to find and add contacts, is its potential to leverage other native Facebook applications that can be layered into this social meeting tool, such as events, birthdays, or local activities based on your profile interests. This expansion would also minimize the need to connect with others in order toutilize LuckyCal as a recommendation tool instead of just a social calendar.

But this potential isn’t limited to native Face book apps. LuckyCal already allows you to sync your iTunes with its service, moving beyond the business use of LuckyCal to recreational. By knowing what artists you’re interested in, LuckyCal can tell you if there are any of your favorites bands playing in New York while you’re in town visiting. Such recommendations can be extended to a number of different desktop and web-based applications, all of which could fit into LuckyCal, even when you’re no traveling.

jwaBlogger 1.2.1 (Default branch)

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:55:42 +0000

jwaBlogger is an easy-to-configure, set up, customize, and use social links and blogging environment that provides you the ability to have your own Web site similar to sites like Digg, Yahoo Buzz, DZone, The Server Side, InfoQ, Slashdot, etc. It also makes a very nice personal blogging environment.

License: Affero General Public License

Changes:
The main Web framework class, Blogger.java, was refactored by factoring out all framework specific code. Several more options were added to the configuration. CAPTCHA support was added for comments and entries.

Ziibii floats updates to your iPhone

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Do you like keeping up with friends on social networks? Do you have an iPhone? If so, you might be interested in a new social networking application for the iPhone called Ziibii. Ziibii [iTunes link] brings an innovative approach to viewing your social networking sites and RSS feeds -- without ever leaving this one app. Ziibii allows you to see friend updates, videos, and photos from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

Ziibii's killer feature is its "River" feature, which depicts friend updates, photos, videos, and RSS feed headlines "floating" down a river on tiny rafts. You can interact with the river and rafts with gestures. Moving too fast? Move your finger left or right on the screen. You can even make the river flow in the opposite direction by swiping your finger against flow.

Rafts too close together? Pick it up and move it. If you tap on a raft, you will be presented with a full screen view of the update and get the option to share that update via email or Twitter. If you get sea sick with River view, you can also give list view a try, which stacks updates on top of each other; swiping right to left loads more updates.

Ziibii comes pre-loaded with some good blogs (TUAW is listed under the "iPhone Stuff" section), and you can also add your own RSS feeds via the "My Feeds" setting.

Ziibii has a very nice user interface, and allows you to quickly see all of your friend updates in a unique fashion. However, we would like to see an option to post updates and photos to Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. We would also like to see support for Pownce and Digg, among others. With the price of free, Ziibii is a must-have application for anyone that uses social networks. You can download Ziibii from the iTunes App Store.

Gallery: Ziibii for iPhone

TUAW Ziibii floats updates to your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xobni Becomes more Useful

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:02:53 +0000

Xobni, the useful little Outlook plugin that makes finding emails and information so much easier, is extending the services into other data sources and social networks. Now, when you look at the history for one person, you can now see any emails you’ve exchanged with that person on Yahoo Mail and also lets you connect with them on Skype.

Now, in addition to providing LinkedIn information, Xobni will now poke through Facebook and show you information about a user, like their recent status message and picture.

Add to that the fact that with a connection to Hoovers, where it will return information about the company that your contact is affiliated with, and Xobni is a powerful little add-on for Outlook.

It is still just a tool for Outlook users, which is unfortunate, but rumours are floating around that support for Gmail and Yahoo is on the horizon.

(image credit, Xobni)

Tags: , Outlook plugins, Xobni

MySpace app for BlackBerry a RIM record-breaker

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:01:00 +0000

Remember that little old BlackBerry app for MySpace that premiered last week? Apparently it struck a chord with users because RIM reported just after midnight on Friday (EST), that it hosted more downloads for the product's first week than it has for any other app.

While 400,000 downloads in one week for the BlackBerry-compatible MySpace software is a drop in the bucket compared to Firefox 3's 1 million downloads in 24 hours, it did beat out the initial release of RIM's Facebook app.

RIM did not reply with comparative numbers.

In a statement, RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie regards the download count as a proof of "an evolving consumer lifestyle where social connectivity and information access are more important than ever." Yet, the spike could as easily correspond to a more concerted marketing push, to a growing adoption of BlackBerry phones among consumers versus business users, or to first-time BlackBerry owners responding to the sexier looks of the Bold and Storm.

Either way, RIM has a lot of work to do if it wants to join Mozilla in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Soccer Laduma - A Rich Mobile Experience

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:32:18 +0000

Soccer Laduma (soccerladuma.mobi) is yet another new African based mobile website. It's the mobile web edition of a weekly newspaper that's the country's largest soccer publication. South Africa has twice as many people using the mobile web as the fixed web so it's no surprise that Soccer Laduma's four month old mobile site gets more traffic than its fixed web counterpart.

The site is very rich in features yet is easy to navigate. The front page is simple and fast loading with just a photo and three breaking news headlines. Everything else is accessed from a bottom navigation menu. When you drill down into that menu you find virtually the entire content of the PC web site; live scores, domestic South African and international soccer news, fixtures and results from around the world, blogs, columns, a schedule of upcoming matches on South African TV, league standings and a photo gallery.

Soccer Laduma is also building a soccer fan community with social networking features; readers can vote and leave comments on every news item, and there's a comment "wall", polls, a forum and a user driven "predictions" page. The site also incorporates a full fledged social network called Ayoba! were each member has a profile page, friends list, photo gallery and their own "wall" where their friends can leave public messages and comments. There's also mobile web based private messaging between members.

Page size is generally well managed with under 10 KB of text and 15 KB of images per page except for the "Make Your Point" page were readers leave comments on a seemingly ever growing page. "Make Your Point" weighs in at 180KB, far to large to load on most feature phones.

This site is an example of the sort of deep, content rich, but highly usable mobile web design that I like. Mobile users want the whole web not a subset. The mobile context also demands simple intuitive navigation which Soccer Laduma delivers. Each page is self contained, a logical destination in itself, and the bottom menu, which is on every page, makes it easy to quickly jump to another section.

Why "Laduma"? According to Wikipedia, it's a Zulu word meaning "he thunders" and a popular cheer at South African soccer matches. Source: Mobility.mobi

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Sports/Soccer

Ratings: Content: Usability:

Mobile Link: soccerladuma.mobi

wapreview.com

KickApps partners with New Orleans Hornets on social network for fans

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:14:09 +0000

New York based leading social media and widget platform, KickApps has announced its partnership with the NBA team, New Orleans Hornets. According to the deal NBA team has launched a KickApps powered social network for their fans. The social network will include fan videos, photos, blogs, chat, message board and groups. If you are a Hornets fan, you can register here.

According to New Orleans Hornets’ Web Services Manager, Matt Rose:

The New Orleans Hornets have some of the most dedicated and faithful fans in the world, so creating an online destination that is social, interactive and participatory is high on our priorities.

Our new fan social network will enable us to bring people together before and after games to let their love for the Hornets and the game of basketball flourish regardless of where in the world they are. Throughout this season and in the off-season we’ll be able to keep our fans engaged with each other and with their favorite players.

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Ireland declared the top mobile phone using nation

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:04:57 +0000

Ofcom, the British regulator has released The International Communications Market report. According to the report Irish residents were declared the heaviest mobile phone users. They have spent an average of around 179 minutes and 154 text messages per month on mobiles. There has been a tremendous amount of increase in mobile phones. last year, nearly 216 million new mobile subscriptions were registered in countries which includes Brazil, China, India and Russia. People in the U.S. spent the most time on internet with 15 hours/week followed by Britain with 14 hours/week.

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Yahoo open pages continue to dribble out

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:57:00 +0000

Yahoo is continuing to dribble out its open platform.

The company on Thursday added an eBay Anywhere application to the dashboard area of the new home page in testing. The eBay application allows users to monitor their buying and selling activities from the Yahoo home page. Other applications blessed by Yahoo include checking various e-mail in-boxes from the Yahoo home page, and down the road activity updates from social networks. The functionality isn't much different from what users can do with external applications built for Facebook or OpenSocial containers.

Yahoo supplied a video to show off the new home page since it is still in "bucket" testing, meaning that only random users will see the page, which was first unveiled in September. I am still waiting to be found by the randomizer.

40 Great Resources for Making Lists

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:54:24 +0000

We like to keep all kinds of lists; wish lists, checklists, lists of lists… you get the picture. In this roundup we will focus on services specializing in wish lists (things we want) and checklists (things we want to get done).

Using these 40 mobile and web-based tools you can keep track of daily tasks, build your reading list, organize your holiday gift giving, and more.

How do you manage wish lists and checklists?

Wish lists

Amazon - The grandaddy wish list keeper of them all now supports all other sites thanks to their universal wish list button.

WishPot - Has the most modern web 2.0 look and feel, as well as social networking features that let you share lists. Another strong feature is the ability to send ideas for gifts from your cell phone right to your wishpot account.

Wists - Another strong web 2.0 site with nice options to embed your wish lists on your blog or website.

MyFavz - One of the newest wish list sites. We recently covered it here on Mashable.

BoxedUP - Real time listing of new items added to wish lists is unique, but is it useful? The ability to show what you already bought and own is nice for youngsters who want to show off their stuff.

Wisheo - Specializes in group gifts, which sets the site apart from many of the others.

GiftBox Home - Similar to boxed up and the easiest to use, but its interface is not as slick as the other newcomers.

MyThings - Its unique feature is the ability to get ratings and feedback from others for any gift ideas you have.

My IT Things - Not to be confused with MyThings.com. It offers some nice widgets to show off your lists.

Wishlistr - Slick list maker that you can share with others. Includes rss feed of lists.

ReQall - Create shopping lists, wish lists and more. View them on your iPhone with free app too.

Checklists

These list makers can be used to track things you’d like to buy, but more often they’re used to keep track of places to visit, people to meet, things to do before kicking the bucket, etc.

Voo2Do - Does things differently than the rest in this group. Allow you to link tasks to projects and tracks tasks by due date, priority and time estimates. It has a good collaboration feature and a nice interface.

Remember The Milk -The popular task manager that can snap into Gmail or work on its site. See below for the iPhone app.

TaDa List - Very simple but powerful to do lists from 37Signals.

ListaGator - Offers unique ability to turn lists into RSS feeds. You can share any list as well.

Worst3 - Mostly just for laughs, you can share lists of the best 3 and worst 3 things you can think of.

Doominow - Adobe Air desktop app that tracks your tasks.

onZiList - List your top 11 (not 10?) items.

Seekler - Mostly just displays lists of people’s favorite things.

Wridea - Also offers RSS feeds and shareable lists.

43Things - Lets you lists your goals in life and connects you to others who have either already achieved those goals or who are also currently pursuing the same goals.

43People - A sibling site to 43things, only geared towards people you want to meet instead of things to do.

43Places - The natural sibling site to 43things, only for places you want to go instead of things to do.

FlexLists - Looks and feels more like an online database than just a list maker.

Stuffable - Mostly a place to show off your, well, stuff. Gives people a good idea of what you’re into.

ListPhile - Lists with database capabilities. Lots of possibilities with groups.

List After List - Includes unique wiki list creator that lets anyone edit/contribute to your list.

22Books - Tracks books you’ve read or want to read or own.

Vitalist - Collaborate with others on tasks and projects.

Lino - Unique to do lists on sticky notes that you share online on a big corkboard.

Nozbe - Not just a task manager but a project management system as well (up to 5 projects for free).

List Making Apps for the iPhone

ToDo List - Free app to track all your to do items.

Remember The Milk - The popular online service now has an app for your iPhone. Read our previous coverage here.

To Do’s - Yet another free to do list tracker.

Holiday Gift List - Gift list manager for any holiday.

Christmas List - Create your own Santa list and manage Christmas gifts.

List Apps for Other Mobile Devices

ToDo List Matrix - BlackBerry app to track tasks.

QuickList - Free list maker for Google’s Android OS such as the T-Mobile G1 phone.

TooDo - Another free to do list app for Android.

ShopSavvy - Barcode app for the Android G1. See the video below to learn more:

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, BookMama

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