SOMEWHAT FRANK

iPhone Push Notifications Tested Via AOL's AIM

Apple will soon be launching of the iPhone 3.0 operating system and part of the new system is a push alert notification feature as highlighted at WWDC 2009 this week. Push Notification is the system developed by Apple to remedy the fact that the iPhone won’t allow third party applications to run in the background due to security, battery life and performance concerns. Push notifications are will enable certain tasks (like IMs) that come to your phone even when that application isn’t running.

TechCrunch recently tested Push Notifications using AIM the new 3.0 iPhone software. Watch the video above to see Push Notification in action with AIM but please note the video makes it seem like there may be a delay between an IM sent and received, but it’s basically instantaneous.

Thummit For Mobile Recommendations

Last week I got a chance to attend a dinner and demo night for the new startup called Thummit. Thummit is a new service that looks to offer simple, social and portable recommendations. It is currently focused on the restaurant scene and offers a way to send recommendations via text message or Twitter. You can simply text thumbs up, down or maybe to Thummit and the service does the rest. Thummit can also send restaurant recommendations back to you via text message. If you are trying to make a dining decision between a couple of different restaurants Thummit can help by enabling you to setup a poll among friends and then send it out via text message.

Brightkite Impressive Mobile Social Network

Mobile social networks have come a long way since Google acquired Dodgeball back in 2005 as both mobile devices and online product offerings have improved. Twitter and other mobile enabled lifestreaming and communication products have taken off as users have grown more accustom to text messaging. That said, I finally got around to give, the Colorado-based startup Brightkite a try and was impressed by it.

The 'my' Trend, How To Freeload at Web 2.0 Expo, Google Genetic Index Coming, AOL Top Ad Network By Reach & Is Content A Commodity?

Photo of the Week: This past weekend brought out some warmer spring weather which brought out the joggers like this photo captured on film in Chicago by my friend Araceli Arroyo.

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits: 4.20.2008

Livecontacts Free GPS Buddyfinder Launches

With the popularity of text messaging and the rise of Twitter via mobile there is a growing trend for find me/follow me mobile applications. FindWhere, a Sterling, Virginia based company, has just launched an application called Livecontacts to help you find and keep track of your buddies. Users can now share their location and track their friends’ locations for free. Livecontacts is taking the same approach that craigslist took to democratize the online classified advertising space by offering users what is traditionally a paid geographic data service for free.

TripIt Mobile Version Launches

As a member of the frequent flyer club, I have used TripIt and previously reviewed when it first launched. Now TripIt has made traveling easier by adding some additional mobile support for users on the go with the TripIt Mobile release. With TripIt Mobile users can access what they need to know from their mobile phones including flight changes, and in my case cancellations, hotel addresses and phone numbers, and auto rental info. By adding additional integration components for your TripIt account, even restaurant reservations can be accessed.

Making TripIts applications available on mobile devices makes a lot of sense since when you are traveling you are most likely cannot as easily get on your computer.  TripIt offers applications to enable staying in touch with others in your social network, allowing you to schedule appointments if in the same area or at the same event. In checking out the mobile experience I snapped the photo shown here can be visited on your mobile device at: m.tripit.com.

Video: Thoughts On Twitter (vs. Facebook)

The adoption of Twitter, which I covered previously a number of times, appears to be acceleratingly since March 6th as I have seen my followers double in that three week period. My friend Gary Vaynerchuk recently started to do a daily "thoughts on life" video podcast and gave his thoughts on Twitter vs. Facebook...kinda. So in response to his video I wanted to make a quick SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode 18 with my thoughts on Twitter (mainly) as well as a few comments about Facebook. I use them both and they are complementary products.

Poll: Will Technology Replace Business Cards?

I attend lots of industry events and I don't know how many times I either run out of business cards or find myself cardless but thanks to technology it is a lot easier to connect. LinkedIn recently joined Facebook and a number of other sites that have created iPhone experiences which makes it easy to contact people you meet immediately thus online identity has replaced one of the features of offline identity - the business card.

iPhone Social Network Pondering, Facebook Fatigue, Oscar Updates, IE8 Beta Coming, Mixx Updates, imagine it! & Olympic Bloggers

Photo of the Week: I visited the skinnyCorp office with TECH cocktail co-founder Eric Olson this past week and snapped this photo of the their workspace. Those threadless folks are pretty rad! The space kind of reminded me of a cross between Pee Wee's Playhouse, without the talking chair of course, and MAKE Magazine.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 02.24.2008

Twitter Feature Request: @ Replies To Mobile

Twitter is a great communication tool. I use it all the time. I initially enabled mobile notifications but found I was getting a constant stream of Twitter text messages which can be somewhat distracting. So I turned off mobile notifications except for direct messages. But I still find that I miss "@ replies" since they cannot currently be sent to my mobile device.

I just put in a feature request directly with Twitter via their online form. I would love to be able to get "@ replies" sent directly to my mobile device just the same as direct messages are. Brian Caldwell and David Robinson agree with me.  Does anyone else want to see this feature added?

UPDATE: Kevin Lawver just sent me a work around via direct Twitter message which gets your @ replies sent to your mobile device. By simply sending Twitter track @username you can get any @ replies of your usersname sent directly to you mobile device. Thank you Kevin - you are awesome!

Movial Social Communicator: Share Anywhere

Have you ever taken a photo or seen a video and wanted to immediately share it with your friends while on the go? Obviously you could upload it to Flickr or Facebook or a number of other sites but more than likely times you probably would fire off an email to your friends to share it with them. Your friends would then get your message at various times depending upon when they actually go to check their email which means you are not instantly communicating with your friends.

Movial is looking to help make sharing easier with the recent launch of Movial Social Communicator. Social Communicator offers a desktop client and mobile application that syncs all your mobile phone contacts and empowers users to send videos, photos and news directly to their friends at their current location.

Playyoo Mobile Gaming Network Launches

Playyoo, a social networking platform for creating and sharing mobile casual games, officially opens its beta doors to the public today. Described by TechCrunch as the "YouTube For Mobile Games," Playyoo (www.playyoo.com or m.playyoo.com on mobile phones) allows anyone to create and submit mobile games to its network. Users can create, share and discover new mobile experiences all via Playyoo.

Playyoo, a privately held company based in London, England, offers game developers a place to create and distribute Adobe Flash Lite mobile games. But you don't have to be a seasoned game developer to create a Playyoo game as it offers integrated game creator tools to enable anyone to develop and publish a mobile game creation.

OUTSHOUTS Makes The Music Go Round

OUTSHOUTS, a Palo Alto, California based three employee startup, takes 'making music going round' seriously. OUTSHOUTS enables anyone to act as a DJ to create and send their own mixes of your recorded voice and pre-recorded music or other content over email and text message directly to your mobile phone.

Qik Streams Live Video From Your Phone To Web

Video lifestreaming has made great strides in the past year as Justin Kan strapped a camera on his head. Robert Scoble, Sarah Meyers, Justine  Ezarik and a number of others including myself have participated in one way or another in the lifestreaming video movement leveraging tools like UStream.TV, Mogulus, Justin.TV and Blog.TV.

With CES taking place in Las Vegas this week and the unfortunate fact that I am unable to attend I am going to take full advantage of my friends lifestreaming videos to get a feel of the conference. Qik is an alpha product that has sprung onto the scene to enable users to stream live video directly from their mobile phone making the barriers of entry into lifestreaming a step closer to the everyday mobile phone user.

MizPee Improves Services For Nature's Call

Ever been in public when nature calls and you have no idea where to go? We all have been there at some point and have scrambled to find a restroom. MizPee, a creation of Yojo Mobile, launched this past summer to try to alleviate the issue by empowering people to contribute and find toilets nearby. MizPee has been busy the past six months and will soon be launching some upgrades with MizPee 2.0.