A few months ago I tweeted this: “If I were a publisher I would either: a) pull my app from the App Store or b) invest all available cash in Apple stock.” The latter piece of advice was probably pretty solid, if not very practical — Apple’s stock has been performing like no other in recent history.

But my former piece of advice for publishers – to pull their apps from the App Store – doesn’t seem to have resonated much, as many publishers keep pushing out their respective iPhone and iPad apps. That said, I’m betting this trend is a short-term fad that will eventually reverse, and here’s why:

The fragmented app world is a drain on development resources
The beauty of the Web is that it standardized access to information across machines, operating systems, and browsers. No more rewriting code to be Mac-, PC- and Unix-compatible, etc. Publish once on the Web, and the information will be accessible by all of humanity regardless of any configuration they might use to access it. Recently, the various app stores have again started fragmenting a world that had largely become defragmented. A fragmented dev world imposes costs and headaches on those that choose to support the various apps. That might not be a huge tax on tech companies, per se, but for publishers, supporting multiple apps will become a headache and a totally unnecessary tax, which leads me to my next point.

For most websites, the ROI of an app is unclear
A native app is a great way for developers to create functionality that’s not possible with a web page (or that might otherwise require the use of Flash in a web page). Games are a perfect example of this. For a publisher whose product is words and pictures, it is unclear what additional functionality an app can provide that a well-designed Web page cannot. Sure, it’s always possible to slap some artificial stuff on an app (and The Daily is a great example of things that can be done on a publisher app), but the question is whether those things are done because it’s possible to do them, or because they are actually useful.

I’d argue that the most useful mobile reading experience is on Instapaper, which is a clean presentation of the text with proper typography — attributes that are all perfectly achievable in a well-designed mobile website. The only two exceptions here might be: a) video and b) offline reading. The gap on both is closing with HTML5, and soon even these “app excuses” won’t be a valid reason for justifying development of proprietary mobile apps.

You can’t link — or, at least, link easily — to apps
When deciding to publish content in an app rather than a mobile website, it’s important to understand that the value of links, as we know them on the Web, is greatly diminished. Because an app is a standalone program, not a part of the open Web, linking to other pages is clunky at best. You cannot link to content on other apps. And links to websites, while possible, require switching the user to another application (AKA a mobile browser) and disrupting the user experience between articles.

You’re being held hostage on someone else’s platform
Lastly, and possibly most importantly, is the ownership of the platform on which you publish. No one owns the Web, and therefore no company can impose new rules, pricing, censorship or other surprises along the way (FCC regulation aside, of course).

When developing a mobile app, a publisher technically becomes a node within someone else’s platform — namely Apple or Google — and is bound by their rules and whims. Apple’s decision to impose a 30 percent tax on all publisher subscriptions done within apps is just one example of this. The Financial Times created a lot of buzz with their decision to fully withdraw from the App Store and go all-in with their mobile Web app. Developing an app for someone else’s platform might give the illusion of a new marketing channel, but in reality it means becoming a node in someone else’s business model.

All that said, a mobile app can be a decent marketing channel, and there is value for publishers in having a presence inside the various app stores. But if you peel away all the other layers of what an app can be and focus on it exclusively as a marketing channel, then the conclusion is that an app for publishers is basically a bookmark on people’s phone screens. That’s it — a reminder to consume the publisher’s content, and a quick link to do so.

I urge (and predict!) that publishers stick to these principles after the “we need to have an iPhone/iPad/Android/WebOS/Win7/etc. app” hype passes:

Use limited dev resources to build a single, great mobile Web version of their website.
Submit a bookmark version to all the app stores of an app that launches the Web browser with their mobile Web site.
 Use services specific to mobile, which provide readers a superior browsing experience, tailored for the mobile Web.
 Alter monetization strategies for the mobile environment, opting for revenue generators that are perfected for mobile consumption.

Mobile is putting pressure on publishers to quickly adapt and successfully deliver. In a “sink or swim” environment, the hype of apps is ultimately going to weigh publishers down. There is no real reason for publishers to spread their dev resources thin, supporting multiple proprietary apps that break links and really serve someone else’s strategy more than their own.

Yaron Galai is the CEO and co-founder of Outbrain, a web-based recommendation engine. 

We’ll discuss the app economy, its rise and possible fall, and the opportunities presented by HTML5 at our annual Mobilize event in San Francisco, September 26 and 27th.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Sean MacEntee.

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Instagram has today made a ton of improvements to its iPhone app. These include the ability to save high-resolution images suitable for printing, view your filters and tilt-shift effects live, the addition of four new filters and the ability to toggle borders on and off. The entire camera interface has been redesigned as well.

The new camera interface will be the biggest change for regular users of Instagram as you can now make many of your image choices on the fly. In the new interface you can toggle your filter borders on and off using the option in the upper left corner, this means that you can use a filter’s effect without forcing you to use the faux-film or ‘sloppy’ borders that used to come attached.

The normal flash and camera flip options are also available, but there is also now two live options for you. You can apply a tilt-shift effect in realtime by tapping the droplet button and choosing circular or linear. Then you can manipulate the effect on the screen as you would normally do after you shoot it. Once you’ve adjusted the mask, the main view will update to show you how the blur will affect your image.

In a huge move, you can now also apply filters in realtime. This means that you can see how your final image will look with the filter applied before you even shoot it. This is super cool. You can still, of course, just shoot the image, then scroll through your filters to select it. You can also choose to change the filter that you select after the fact if you wish.

You can also rotate your images after you shoot them, score for those times when the iPhone’s orientation sensor is off.

Instagram has also added four new filters to the range available to users: Amaro, Rise, Hudson and Valencia. These were developed in conjunction with popular Instagram user and photographer Cole Rise.

In addition to the flagship changes there are also a bunch of speed improvements, the whole application is much, much faster across the board. The way Instagram is using low resolution previews to allow you to manipulate your images in realtime is really magnificent, a must-see effect.

You can also now choose to save your images at 1936×1936 pixels on the iPhone 4 and 1536×1536 on the iPhone 3GS as opposed to the lower 612×612 that it used to offer. This bump in resolution means that you can now make nice large prints, most likely up to about 16×16 or even bigger, of your Instagram photos. The previous resolution was pretty anemic and I only ever managed to eke out 5″ prints from it reliably.

A nice new icon tops off the changes in the new version.

This update is a big one and a definite speed improvement for any user. I use Instagram as one of my primary photography apps on the iPhone so the higher resolution and increased speed are a welcome addition.

To be honest though, I’m not a huge fan of the new filter looks, they’re pretty lame looking compared to the older style, I think it’s the rounded corners on the icons and the uncharacteristically modern look of the mirrored and drop-shadowed dock that they sit on. For an app that is very much centered on appealing to those interested in Lomo photography, it’s a puzzling choice.

Aside from the aesthetics of the live filter dock though, this is a very satisfying update that should improve the speed and usability of Instagram across the board.

You can grab the new version of Instagram on the App Store here.

Initially launched as MyNameIsE before re-branding Cardcloud, the Amsterdam based online business card service makes it easy to share your digital business card with other users on the go. The app has continued to evolve, adding new features, such as event integration, which was launched at The Next Web Conference in 2011.

Previously available only on the iPhone, Cardcloud has just launched an Android version making it easy to share your card in seconds via a peer to peer transfer. If you own an Android phone, and want to share your card with an iPhone user, you now can with Cardcloud.

In comparison to other similar apps, Cardcloud is the most feature rich. Bump also caters to the Android community, but you can’t share your business card with anyone who doesn’t have the app on their phone. The latest app to enter the market Cardflick allows you to email your details, just like Cardcloud does, but is currently available only for iPhone users.

Cardcloud also has the added advantage of solid event integration, making it an ideal option for the worldwide tech start-up scene and its many conferences.

Information included in your digital business card can be anything from links to your social networks, a profile picture, your company logo, and contact information, all of which is also stored on a vCard.

The Android app has the same feature list as the iPhone version, allowing you to create and edit cards directly on your phone, add contact information, share cards via email or via a peer to peer transfer, as well as storing location information on received business cards.

I can’t say that it’s terribly surprising, given Twitter’s acquisition of TweetDeck a few months ago, but today we’ve gotten the news that TweetDeck has updated its applications across all platforms and the death of Deck.ly will come as a result.

For those unfamiliar, Deck.ly is a platform that allowed you to automatically tweet things longer than 140 characters. If you did, the tweet would be archived onto the Deck.ly site, and a link would be provided in the tweet for you to read the longer-form prose.

When it launched, we questioned the method behind the madness, but then-CEO Ian Dodsworth told us in no uncertain terms that it was simply providing the most-requested feature that TweetDeck had at the time. It’s been argued from both sides of the table, with some saying that Twitter should never expand beyond 140 characters, so the move from TweetDeck was a smart play at that moment.

As of today, though, Deck.ly will no longer be a feature of TweetDeck. According to a tweeted announcement from the TweetDeck team:

Twitter appears fully determined to continue providing TweetDeck for its users. This is in line with a statement that Twitter’s PR made shortly after the acquisition, which said that “We will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love”. Apparently, that is, unless you love Deck.ly

The fate of Deck.ly itself, it seems, is a bit up in the air. It would makes sense that Twitter would keep Deck.ly around for posterity’s sake, even if it isn’t included in TweetDeck itself. You’ll notice that the tweet states that “we’re removing deck.ly from our apps”, which leaves the door wide open for the site to remain in place.

Popular link digest service Read it Later just got a new web app that is rolling out in live preview to all users right now. The new web app looks absolutely fantastic, with a clean new theme and big, easy to browse thumbnails.

The new app features a revamped look and feel that is miles ahead of the bare app provided before. Clean, simple iconography and typesetting makes this a pleasure to use. Each tile gives you a source, thumbnail or excerpt and a title. If you prefer the traditional list view you get a title with the clever use of the source’s favicon to identify it on the left.

It isn’t just a skin deep overhaul though, as there are a bunch of new features to make your web reading experience more pleasurable. Read it Later has added bulk editing of articles, a brand new article view and a sidebar that shows topics based on tags that you can assign posts. You can also filter by types of content, which makes it easier to see all of the image links, video links or text links that you’ve saved in their own categories.

You can also choose to sort your library by date, title or site of origin, which is very cool if you’re looking for every story you’ve saved from one source.

The new web app looks to deliver a richer and easier to use Read it Later experience for those who don’t have access to the mobile apps for Android, iPhone or iPad. It’s a night and day improvement over the previous generation and a sign of some cool things to come from the team in the future. There is also a handy tool that RIL introduced back in January to help people import their Instapaper archives.

If you’d like to check out the new version of the Read It Later web app for yourself just visit the site, log in and click web app.

Who uses Evernote? Anyone with a less than perfect memory who uses a computer, smartphone or tablet can appreciate Evernote. And for the luddites with the lined notepad, you can even use Evernote using Livescribe.

A priest uses Evernote to compose his weekly sermon while one man uses it to keep track of his weekly sins. A veteran suffering from traumatic brain injury uses it daily to literally remember everything and is showing other veterans with similar disabilities how to do the same. A musician uses Evernote to compose songs, tracking snippets of melodies with audio recordings and jotting down lyrics and sketches as they tap him on the shoulder. A hairdresser uses Evernote to catalog before and after shots of her clients. During the hair cut, she lets them browse through the portfolio of looks on her iPad. A tempura chef in Japan uses Evernote to store all his recipes and images of his best dishes. A wife uses it to store up all the things she wants to tell her husband before he comes home from work. A piano teacher uses audio notes to record her students, and then shares these recordings in shared notebooks with the students’ parents.

Students keep track of their notes, teachers plan lessons, shoppers create shopping lists, travelers create trip plans and photo journals and journalists write stories. The possibilities are endless, and the best part is that they’re evolving as the Evernote platform continues to grow. What currently serves 13.5 million people as an external brain, could one day, in the not-so-distant future, be a portal backwards in time. But more about parallel realities later.

In a recent Lifehacker poll, Evernote took the top spot as today’s most popular note taking application, beating out pen/cil and paper, Microsoft OneNote, Springpad and Simplenote. Evernote is currently growing at a rate of 1.2 million users per month, averaging over 40,000 signups every day, which is enough people to fill Madison Square Garden, twice.

While you can use Evernote for free, forever, out of those 13.5 million, there are approximately 600,000 paying subscribers, representing a 4.5% conversion rate of free to paying subscribers. While there are a slew of premium features (advanced collaboration features, more versatility and monthly uploads of 1GB each month) worth dishing out $5 a month/$45 a year for, founder and CEO Phil Libin believes that the best predictor of a customer converting to the paid version is how long they’ve been using the system. While you can use the full featured version for free, forever, Libin thinks as you store more of your life and your memories it will become more valuable to you the longer you use it, thus prompting you to want to pay for it.

“The conversion percentage isn’t what I really care about,” says Libin. “We can break even at 1%. If my goal is to have a million paying users, then I hope to have 100 million people using it for free. I don’t want our conversion rate to go any higher than 5%, because that means we don’t have the best free product that we should.”

Evernote currently boasts a near 100% long-term user retention rate. In his speech this past March at SXSW, Libin said that in a post-scarcity economy, the new primary driver is love, and what determines the value of your company is how much people love it. As you store more and more of your personal notes, memories and work in Evernote, essentially giving it immense personal value, how can you not grow to love it? Now, that’s a perfect business model.

Libin (pictured above) grew up in the Bronx and was the nerd with the calculator watch. After attending Boston University, he started a company that made government security software. “But I wanted to make something that a billion people would wake up and get excited about,” he says. “Human memory is universal. No one is happy with their human brain. So I decided to make a product around that.” During the summer of 2007, Libin combined two teams of software engineers to create Evernote, which they opened up in beta in June 2008. In case you were wondering about the logo, it is a nod to the popular myth: “An Elephant Never Forgets.”

In the beginning, they were never more than a few weeks away from going out of business. It got particularly bad until one evening, a Swedish user sent Libin a note saying how much he loved the product and he’d be happy to help if the company needed money. A check for $500,000 got them back on their feet. This past July, 2011 Evernote raised $50 million in Series D funding, led by Sequoia Capital and other venture capital companies to bring its total funding to $87 million to date. Libin told Reuters this week that an IPO is inevitable, but the company is not in a rush to test the public markets. He said if market conditions remain as they are, the company will go public in 2013.

After salaries, operations are Evernote’s biggest costs, including its massive data center in California with a couple thousand servers and an in-house team. A note on data security, Evernote also has backup servers in a separate location and in addition to the cloud, all of your Evernote data is stored locally on your computer and your mobile phone.

Now the issue is how to grow the team. Just this week, Evernote hired its 101st employee. There are 70 employees at its Mountain View headquarters and there will be 12 people in its new Austin studio by the end of the year. The company is hiring in Tokyo and Moscow and plans to open up offices in Singapore, Switzerland and South America soon. Interestingly, Evernote is wildly popular in Japan, where there have been over 22 books published about the company. In the future, Libin says they will have offices in cities all over the world, not sales offices, more like ‘spreading the Evernote love offices’.

“Our goal and focus has always been to make something great, which is why I think we’ve been successful. And the world has aligned itself in such a way that that effort is enough for now. Before, you couldn’t have succeeded by just making a great product. You needed distribution and advertisement. Now, we have app stores, freemium models and social media,” says Libin.

“It’s the time of the Geeks,” writes software engineer Vimal Tripathi about Evernote. “App Store + Cloud Computing + Open Source + Social Media + Freemium = Geek Meritocracy.”

As you can imagine, Google and all the usual suspects have tried to buy Evernote. But, “It’s a 100 year company, says Libin. “We don’t have an exit strategy and we’re not going to sell.” In August, Evernote started buying, starting with Skitch, an Aussie-based image editing and annotation tool.

“Skitch is huge. I’m completely in love with Skitch. We’ve all been using it for years and it’s the first company that I ever bought,” Libin says. “About a year ago, we were sitting in the Evernote offices and we’d just rejected someone’s offer to buy us. I then said, ‘I don’t want to talk about who’s going to buy us. That’s not going to happen. Let’s flip it around. Who should we buy?’ Everyone said Skitch.’”

According to Libin, Skitch’s current integration with Evernote is only the tip of the iceberg. He likens Skitch to the modern day version of cavemen communicating through sticks. “It’s the ultimate communication and iteration tool on a touch device as it can be used to annotate, collaborate and draw attention to all kinds of work,” he says. This year, the new and autonomous Austin studio will be primarily focused on developing the Skitch integration.

In many ways, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg for Evernote too. In the future, an app like Evernote could serve a multitude of unforeseen purposes e.g. Kindle readers might easily store quotes in Evernote with the tap of a green button or Alzheimer’s patients could be trained to use Evernote to record all their thoughts and feelings. “Evernote can be used in so many different ways, so we will naturally be taken into different areas. It’s not something that your typical Silicon Valley tech startup will think about,” comments Libin.

Now, you are likely wondering what Evernote has to do with time-travel and parallel realities? So, the basic idea of Evernote is that it’s a place to store all of your meaningful and important memories. Those memories tend to be most poignant while you’re listening to a movie, reading a book, and generally when you’re consuming some kind of medium. Beyond helping you store a particular memory or experience, Evernote wants to help you remember the context. Imagine you’ve been using Evernote for years and at one point you wrote a journal entry while listening to music in Evernote. Now imagine revisiting that note years later and all of a sudden a few chords from that same song starts to play, prompting a flood of contextual memories.

Right now, you are living what’s referred to as “an examined life” by using applications like Evernote, Runkeeper, Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Google which capture fragments of your digital self. But what if a program could follow your whole life, and you’d simply tap a green button on your phone, or your wrist implant to store what’s happening around you in an external memory- a phrase, a piece of music, the weather, your vital signs and your mood at that particular moment? If data aggregation and social technology continue iterating (which they undoubtedly will), those fragments will be put together in a holistic way, and they will become your digital avatar.

By allowing you to relive the past through your stored, contextual memories, you could effectively (albeit digitally) travel back through time and re-experience those memories through your digital avatar. I know it’s a lot to take in. But imagine explaining Facebook to your Grandmother in 1940. It’d be a lot for her t[…]

Streamzoo today released version 1.5 of its free photosharing tool, which is available on Android, iPhone, and as a Web app. Streamzoo has broad platform support, with easy sharing in Facebook, Twitter, and now Tumblr. Streamzoo also makes it easy for users to search for shared photos by hash tag, as well as to share and upload videos, and its interface makes it fun to surf through random photos–though there seems to be an inordinate number of dog and cat pics.

Mobile photos are the new status updates, says founder Ram Ramkumar. Rather than simply share the mood of the moment with a 140-character string of text, we can easily disseminate an image to our online community with a quick snap. With the iPhone 5 predicted to have an 8 megapixel camera, the ability to take and share photos on-the-go will almost certainly attain greater prominence in our lives.

By adding cross-platform support, and a web app to boot, Streamzoo hopes to leverage this trend and go after photo sharing incumbents such as Picplz and Instagram, which had 5 million users and more than 150 million photo uploads by the beginning of August, and which only works on the iPhone. Ramkumar says that the big daddy of them all is Facebook, which he hopes to both take on and leverage on the road to mass adoption. It could work, though when Facebook unsuccessfully bid to acquire Instagram, the social media giant just had designers create their own photo filters instead. But it’s not all about code.

From a purely technological standpoint, Streamzoo has got it nailed. With its update, the app now offers a wider range of image filters such as Toy Hipster and Vienna, as well as other photo modification manipulation features that are available on paid photo sharing apps such as Hipstamatic and Camera Plus. But when we want a drink, we don’t go to the best bar, we go to the one where we know our friends are. This is how it works with technology, and why Facebook doesn’t always win, even when it directly copies what is popular.

What I’d like to see from Streamzoo is some form of sharing photos that blows away the competition, and leverages what Ramkumar calls the “elastic social graph.” This means that when people’s interests coincide, communities form naturally. Why app Color flopped after launch was not because it was under-capitalized (with $41 million in startup funding), but because it assumed that people who had been in the same location during a given period of time shared some kind of affinity. It would seem this is not the case. But people who enjoy taking pictures of yarnbombing have something in common right off the bat.

With 50,000 users across platforms, Streamzoo has an uphill fight ahead if it wants to unseat any of the incumbents. It’s not an un-winable battle by any stretch, but one that’s going to take a lot of heart and tenacity. Streamzoo is a spinoff from ringtone site Phonezoo, which Ramkumar says is profitable, but not necessarily in a growth area, so hopefully he and his team have what it takes to get the job done once and for all.

As Gowalla, check-in location app that’s been twisting to grow from underneath Foursquare’s shadow is just passing its two year mark in the geolocation world. Today, Gowalla CEO Josh Williams detailed the company’s next moves in a Tumblr post titled “Going Forward.”

As Gowalla has grown we’ve added many new features to the product. Some have had great success. Others haven’t worked out as well as we’d hoped. After the two-plus years of consistent feedback and amazing experiences, we believe this is an opportune time to prune the branches that were twisted in order to focus on the experience we desire to cultivate.

Gowalla is making a number of big changes to its app. First, it’s removing Items, a feature that many clung onto and cite as a reason for not joining Foursquare. Lists are a simple idea that adds opportunities for interaction and branding. For example, check-in at a location and you’ll see the Items that are available with the choice of swapping for an item or leaving one for someone else to discover. But according to Gowalla fewer than half a percent of its active community actually makes use of them. Within the next few weeks, Gowalla will turn off awarding of new Items and the feature will be completely removed in the next app release.

Gowalla says its exploring a way for users to download the data associated with their Items as well as the other deprecated features. More than a few users complained that hunting for rare items was one of the things that made Gowalla special. Williams promised one of his Twitter followers that the company will be replacing lists with “something even more special.”

Gowalla will also be removing Notes, although they are likely to return at some point in the future — simplified and united with our vision, writes Williams. Lastly, Gowalla Pins will remain, but will be significantly trimmed down.

Tumblr commenter Ben Dodson wrote: “It’s something I predicted would happen at SXSW – very glad to hear that items are now finally going as it did completely divide the Gowalla experience. On one hand you had users checking in at the places they were visiting (the “correct way” in my opinion) and on the other you had people checking in at every spot they could find just for the items. Something had to give at some point!…I’m sad to see the loss of notes as I think this is one big advantage over Foursquare but hopefully they won’t be gone for too long.”

The concept of intangible virtual goods inhabiting some form of physical space is a remarkable one. Perhaps someone will pick up this torch and explore the idea further. You’ve taught us a lot about how this can work.

We know this will be sad for a core group of our longtime community members. You’ve made this feature a very special part of your routine. They remain an important part of Gowalla’s history as they helped kindle our fire to discover the world. To that end, our mission has not changed. It has only intensified. We hope you will continue to join us for this exciting next chapter of Gowalla.

-Josh Williams

With SCVNGR’s sharp pivot last year, the recent death of Facebook Places and now Gowalla’s pulled features, it seems that for the moment, Foursquare is the clear reinging king of geolocation check-ins. But with all the sadness and feature loss, Gowalla still seems hopeful that a slight pivot might help it stay on the map.

According to Nick Bilton of The New York Times, Facebook plans to add a series of photo filters to the next version of its mobile app, going head to head with Instagram, the darling of iPhone filter-photo-sharing applications.

Bilton states that “Facebook will introduce almost a dozen photo filters, including some that are similar to Instagram like old-style camera lenses and grainy film. Facebook will also try to introduce new styles of filters with the hopes of drawing users away from other photo apps.”

What’s perhaps most interesting is that the Facebook engineers said that “Facebook attempted to acquire Instagram over the summer, but to no avail.”

We’ve charted Instagram’s story from its 100,000 download days to its recent announcement of over 150 million photos uploaded. According to Instagram, its 8 million users worldwide are uploading 1.3 million photos every single day – that’s 15 photos per second. And out of those 150 million, 80% are filtered. In February, Instagram raised a $7 million round in funding led by Benchmark Capital.

Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, declined to comment about acquisitions or Facebook’s plans, while Facebook did not respond to The NY Times’ request for comment.

Gmail users now have the option of previewing messages in their inbox using a Gmail Labs feature called Preview Pane. It may be familiar to those who have accessed Gmail via a mobile app, but now it’s coming to standard Web browsers too.

vertical split view

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Go into your Gmail settings and enable the ‘Preview Pane’ from the Labs tab, and then you’ll see a toggle button in the top right. This will give you the option of switching between previews and ‘list’ views.

You can also shift the preview pane to underneath the message list by selecting “horizontal split” from the drop down menu. Once you’ve previewed a message, there is a default 3-second delay in a conversation being marked as read.

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horizontal split

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Our initial impressions are good but it doesn’t currently seem to play well with gmail plugin Rapportive nor Boomerang. There also does appear to be a few issues in the message pane in “vertical split” with odd width and scrolling – hopefully these are merely early day hiccups that will be resolved soon – it is a labs product after all.

Of course Microsoft’s Outlook has shipped with this feature for a number of years so devoted PC users will claim Google is playing catchup, which it is. That said, it’s a welcome feature for a web based email app and any “copycat” claims will soon be forgotten.

So what are you going for? Standard gmail view? 3 pane vertical? Or perhaps 3 pane horizontal you dare devil you…

With our online lives increasingly moving to the cloud, keeping track of all the different communication channels, social outlets and document stores we use can become difficult. MultiMi, a new Windows app from anti-virus firm AVG, could be one of the best solutions to this problem yet. We were given a pre-release demo of the product – so how does it fare?

The app lets you hook up your accounts on a wide range of services, from Gmail to DropBox and Google Docs, Twitter and Facebook to YouTube and Flickr. You can then browse your incoming messages, your photos, videos, documents and more all from one place. Not only that, but the app applies a ‘mix and match’ approach to how you can use all this information.

Want to forward one for your emails to a LinkedIn account, attaching a relevance tweet from Twitter and YouTube video? Just throw them into the compose window together using a drag and drop interface and the MultiMi takes care of the rest, even re-uploading content to other services as required automatically.

If you want to track your interactions with someone across a range of services, MultiMi lets you easily view them in one place, even narrowing down to interactions which included a number of different people.

Developed by Israeli startup Zbang, MultiMi really does seem to be one of the best approaches to organising your online life from one place that we’ve seen yet. The company has received financial backing from AVG, and the app is being released today under the AVG brand for free following 15 months in development. Additionally, AVG’s anti-virus scanning technology has been built in to the app.

Initially, MultiMi is available for Windows only. The team explains that it “Had to start somewhere,” and the most widely used OS seemed like a logical place. Versions of the app for smartphones and tablets are both planned for the future. I’m sure Mac users will be keeping their fingers crossed for a native OS X version too.

MultiMi requires Windows XP SP3 or higher, 1GB of RAM and 500MB of hard disk space, and can be downloaded here.

Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you have a bunch of photos on your Android phone, and to show them to your friends, you all have to crowd around the one little screen? A brand new little app has just been launched that gives you a way to display the photos as a slideshow on your computer.

Wifi Gallery makes it easy to display your photos on your computer without having to mess with cables, transferring photos, or even any complicated settings. The only requirement is that your phone and computer are on the same wireless network.

Once you’ve installed the app, fire it up to view the URL that will enter in your browser to launch the slideshow. The settings available in the app are minimal at best. You can adjust the picture size in the slideshow, and choose a specific port if you want. The latter is, of course, not necessary to get the app to work.

To determine which images are included in the slideshow, hit the Pick Start Image button. This will then launch your default gallery viewer on your phone, where you can choose a specific folder to display the photos.

There are no options for the slideshow itself but the appearance is pretty slick and gives you an easy way to scroll through the photos one by one.

WiFi Gallery’s strength is its ease of use. It requires absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever to display photos on your Android phone on a bigger screen, really bringing the photos to life.

Aus Exkrementen Geld machen? – Wie das gehen soll, das erforschen die Zeitungsverleger neuerdings in Echtzeit mit ihren Qualitätsangeboten. Wozu bessere Inhalte anbieten, wenn man doch Leistungsschutzgelder einfordern kann – oder eine Klage einreichen, um seine alten Geschäftsmodelle auf die neue “Welt” zu übertragen.

Zurück vom NRW-Medienforum, das auch jenseits der Eröffnungsveranstaltung noch jede Menge Stoff für spannende aber auch nervtötende Diskussionen bot. Eines dieser Themen war z.B. auch der Streit um die Tagesschau-App. Zufällig haben 8 Zeitungsverleger just während des NRW-Medienforums, zufällig auch noch in Köln, Klage gegen den NDR eingereicht. Es geht, einmal mehr um die Tagesschau-App.*

Ob Bioleks-Bratpfanne, das Werbeverbot der Öffentlich-Rechtlichen, den 3-Stufen-Test, die 7-Tage-Regelung, das Leistungsschutzrecht – nun haben die Medienmacher also wieder mal (unter sich) ein Thema gefunden, mit dem sie sich in den nächsten Wochen, Monaten, vielleicht sogar Jahren selbst beschäftigen können. Wegen einer Nachrichten-App.

Wie bizarr dabei die Positionen der Verleger sind, habe ich in einem meiner ersten Blogposts (“Von Apps und Apparatschiks”) überhaupt, vor fast eineinhalb Jahren beschrieben.

Auf meinem Heimflug von Köln nach München schoss der Axel-Springer-Verlag den Vogel ab. Im “Business-Update” der Welt Aktuell (lese ich nur, weil man während des Starts nun mal seine elektronischen Geräte abschalten muss) entdecke ich folgende 2 Kurzmeldungen:

Die eine Meldung befasst sich mit der Verleger-Klage gegen die Tagesschau-App (man vergisst dabei natürlich zu erwähnen, dass die Welt Kompakt / Axel Springer selbst einer dieser Kläger ist). Auf der anderen Seite der Anreisser einer “Exklusiv-Geschichte” von Welt-Aktuell, eine Meldung die Appetit machen soll auf die Qualitäts-App der Zeitungsmacher.

Die ARD sagt “Danke, Zeitungsverleger!”

Social Media for Dummies – heute: Der “Streisand-Effekt“. Frage: Was passiert wohl, wenn man ein Produkt öffentlichkeitswirksam an den Pranger stellt? Na? Was wohl? – Richtig! Nach langer Zeit in der Versenkung ist die Tagesschau App wieder auf Platz 12 der meistgeladenen Apps im App-Store. Die ARD sagt danke, Ihr Helden der neuen Medienwelt ;-)

(der Hinweis kam von DerOwie aus Köln)

Worin das eigentliche Problem der Zeitungsverleger liegt, hat die NZZ in einem Überblick wissenschaftlicher Studien zusammengefasst: “Qualitätsjournalismus unter Druck” – Sehr lesenswert!

*Disclaimer – falls es noch jemand nicht weiß – ich arbeite für die ARD :-)

Dir hat dieser Blogpost gefallen?

Picking the wrong name for your baby can lead to a lifetime of pain for both parent and child alike. I should know, I was once called Shirley (I’m kidding).

iPhone app Kick to Pick comes to the rescue by offering a way for your unborn baby to pick its own name.
You place your iPhone on your baby bump and using the built-in accelerometer, the app detects movement and scrolls through a list of thousands of potential names. If you’re not happy with the name it selects, you can try again but that would defeat the purpose right? Go with its first pick, Jack Goff is a great name!

The app was developed by UK based Nathan Parks and is available in the iTunes App Store for a mere $0.99.

On a side note to developers: This is the perfect example of an app that may not be ground breaking, but it will get thousands of sales and enormous press because: it’s different, it’s simple, it’s gorgeously designed, it has a great icon (believe me, that’s important), it’s the type of app you’d talk about at a dinner with friends AND anyone can relate to it.

3 years ago, if you saw someone in a coffee shop holding an iPhone 3G up to a speaker you would’ve been very confused. But in 2008, Shazam launched its sound recognition app, which quickly gained notoriety and created this new user habit. That person in the coffee shop is not crazy, they’re just curious.

One year later, a California based company called SoundHound launched an ambitious competing app that trumped Shazam’s recognition quality and its accompanying content. SoundHoud was the first app that allowed users to search for a song then instantly launch its Pandora station as well as returning lyrics, YouTube videos, downloadable ringtones, similar artists, geo-taggable search location, share buttons and a link to iTunes. Today, SoundHound has released a brand new app that leverages its proprietary voice recognition technology, which is simply called “Hound.” Hound is a voice search app that the company believes will further revolutionize the way that users interact with their mobile devices.

Katie McMahon, VP at SoundHound believes Hound will introduce a new user habit in which users simply speak their search – rather than typing and tapping – to pull up an artist, band or specific song. In theory, Hound is by no means brand new. Google’s Android platform already has voice recognition search built in. But Hound aims to “instantly delight” you with its more focused and instant results. McMahon, who used to work at Shazam, says the voice recognition industry hasn’t been widely loved because it’s such a lousy experience. McMahon promises that Hound will change that perception.

To use it: First tap, then speak the name of an artist, band or title of a song. Tap again and Hound instantly comes back with a song preview, lyrics, album art and videos as well as artist bios and tour dates. You can then share your result by SMS or broadcast it to your feed on Twitter and Facebook.  This functional results are very similar to SoundHound.

As a company SoundHound has been heavily investing in its R&D since 2005. While some companies in the sound recognition space turn speech to text first, McMahon says their core technology takes a “fingerprint” of each voice sample and matches it against their massive database. According to McMahon there are only four companies doing this right now: Google, Nuance, Microsoft and AT&T Labs. “SoundHound is a really under the radar company that has a wealth of that technology in our portfolio. This will be the moment we come to the stage to be recognized in the voice recognition category,” she says. The initial version of Hound will focus on the music category but McMahon says the company will expand into other search categories in the next builds.

How well does it work? First, the search experience would be better if you didn’t need to tap anything. And I hate to say it, but the actual search function failed to live up to SoundHound’s lofty promise. In fact, out of 10 voice searches, the app only returned accurate results half of the time. Michael Jackson and My Morning Jacket were easy ones. But when I threw Megapuss or one of their songs “Duck People Duck Man” at the app, no dice.

Download the free app here (Android iPhone) and let us know how it works for you!

Since TNW2011 I have traveled to Spain and Germany so I had a good opportunity to test the app. For those who don’t know what Onavo is: it is an iPhone app that compresses your data and saves you up to 90% on your data roaming costs.

Halfway Onavo’s presentation at our conference I stopped listening and installed the App. Their proposition was almost too good to be true and I knew I wanted it. The app is (currently) free and can save you hundreds of euros or dollars in roaming fees. Who doesn’t want that?

Since then I have been able to put the app to practice and found out some interesting things. As you can see in the screenshot on the right Onavo saved me 5.58mb or 39% on my most recent trip.

That doesn’t seem like much until you realize that I’m paying €1.68 per Megabyte in Germany according to T-Mobile. That means that I saved €9.4 in roaming cost, on just this trip.

This month I also visited Spain for a week where Onavo saved me €121. That was a different story though.

While waiting for my plane in Amsterdam I launched the appstore and updated some apps. One seemed to take a while.

In fact, when I boarded the plane the app still hadn’t downloaded and then I switched off the iPhone and forgot about it.

As soon as I landed the app started downloading again in the background, over 3G, in Spain. Sigh.

Fortunately for me Onavo compressed that data too and saved me a lot of money.

Another interesting thing to look at is how Onavo compresses data. As you can see it does very well with web browsing where it compresses as much as 77%. Results may vary with other apps. MobileMe isn’t compressed at all and Apple GPS seems to use data too.

Apparently I also checked Onavo’s status a few time this last trip which cost me 198 kilobytes and which Onavo doesn’t compress. Weird.

All in all I can recommend installing the app, if you have an iPhone and travel and want to save money. Right now it is free, easy to set up and will start saving you money right away.

Martin had a chance to interview the Onavo founders at TNW2011:

Twitter has announced the launch of a new web app version of their homepage. It is accessible now at Twitter.com from your Android or iOS Device although it is being rolled out slowly to users so you may not see it right away.

The new interface looks incredible and very snappy, with a smart row of icons at the top that mimic the official Twitter app for the iPhone. The new client is built with modern browser technologies like HTML5 and looks like one of the best and most ‘native’ experiences I’ve seen yet in a web-based app.

Twitter says that the new app gives you access to your entire Twitter experience, including viewing, mentions, trending topics, search, lists and more. It was built from the ground up for mobile browsers and uses touch gestures and the full capabilities of modern devices larger screens.

This web app allows us to provide a high-quality and consistent Twitter experience on high-end touchscreen devices – whether or not an official Twitter application is available. It was built from the ground up for smartphones and tablets, which have more advanced browsers that support the latest web technologies, including HTML5.

The new Twitter app is not yet available to everyone but Twitter says that they are rolling it out today to a small percentage of users on iPhone, iPod touch and Android smartphones.

Well, that did not take long at all. The Chrome version of Angry Birds has only been live for a few hours and it’s already been hacked to give players access to all of the levels. Web developer Wes Bos saw the potential to make a slight change to the web cache and had a working hack in a short time.

Bos says that he was able to quickly find a hack that gave him access to all of the levels in the game, even the special Chrome levels.

I was quickly able to find a hack that gave me access to all the levels, even the special Chrome levels!  So to  get access to all levels in Chrome Angry Birds, just copy and paste the following line into your browser’s address bar.

Here’s the code that Bos provided to unlock all of the levels, just copy and paste this into your address bar in Chrome and fire up Angry Birds.

javascript: var i = 0; while (i<=69) { localStorage.setItem('level_star_'+i,'3'); i++; } window.location.reload();

If you want to switch the game back to all levels locked, use this code in the address bar.

javascript: var i = 0; while (i<=69) { localStorage.setItem('level_star_'+i,'-1'); i++; } window.location.reload();

Bos goes on to explain that the key to the hack is that Rovio mentioned that it was using HTML5′s LocalStorage to cache game files.

If you open up Web Inspector in Chrome, you’ll see they are keeping track of your score and stars with localstorage. Lucky for us, that means we can use setItem() set all 70 levels to 3 and get access to them all.

So if you don’t want to play through all of the boring early levels, try out Bos’ hack and let us know how it works.

Smartphones have changed from status symbols into elements of luxury that no one can live without. Your friend still has a candybar monstrosity? He is for all intents and purposes asking to be shunned.

But with the massive new commonness of smartphones comes new problems, often involving data. To be precise, every user wants to use more data, and every carrier wants to make a buck off of that extra usage.

Israeli startup Onavo is out to change that relationship. Today at the TNW conference the company launched its tool into the world: an iPhone application that compresses the data that you use on your mobile phone, lowering the amount of data that you receive, in effect extending your data plan by cutting down on total transmission through your carrier.

It works by the company employing a “magical shrinking machine” on the back-end that crunches your incoming data. With all that work, you might expect there to be added lag, right? That is not the case, says co-founder Guy Rosen. He points out that as there is less total sent data, transmission times are lowered enough to offset any processing time increases.

Of course, the application is designed to be as worry-free as possible. Once you install the app, says the company, you can forget that you are even using it.

We were very curious as to what the app would cost, as it carries recurring expenses for Onavo to run. The app will have a free period upon launch. However, once Onavo does start to charge, users should expect to pay a few dollars a month for domestic use, and around ten dollars a month for international use.

While the company’s first goal is to save mobile users money, their larger vision is that of “transparency.” Onavo will show users which application on their phone uses the most data, helping them to understand where their monthly allotment goes to. This is what that part of the application looks like in use:

The team wants to make it possible for ever mobile user to not worry about going over their data limits. After all, no one can live without a smartphone, so why not remove the fear of overage charges?

The application currently only works with iPhone, but will be made available for iPad and Android in the near future. Be sure and check out Onavo now, and get in while the service is still free. What follows is a video that Onavo put together to illustrate its service:

Off the top of your head, could you name the best way in which you could get in touch with Chris Sacca for a business deal? How about Chamillionaire? What if you just wanted to find someone to play some football with in your network? While there are millions of connections that we have spread across numerous sites, there hasn’t been a very good way to interpret those connections in a meaningful way.

Today, on the stage at TNW 2011, Wosju is changing the way in which you will connect to people. Instead of a simple “you follow” or “you don’t follow” method, Wosju goes into the analysis of sentiment in conversations between you, the people to whom you’re connected, and the people with whom you want to be connected.

In other words, you might follow Chris Sacca on Twitter, but Wosju can show you the best line of your connections to access in order to speak to him about business. In part, Wosju is bringing the degrees of connection feature that LinkedIn has mastered and applying it across your entire social network.

Wosju has been in a private beta for a few months. What we heard today is that the company is opening up and aggressively growing its beta membership, so head over and get signed up for an invitation before the floodgates close. We got a sneak peak at the mobile app version of Wosju, but the API (and how third-party sites will use it) is what’s truly exciting.

Wosju’s connection scoring and context tracking are some of the most exciting things that I’ve seen in social networking to date. Have a look at the Wosju demo video and let us know your thoughts in the comments before checking out the rest of the TNW 2011 Startup Rally.

Everyone from heavy Dropbox users to those who are wondering just what the fuss is all about with this cloud syncing business should be able to find something useful to them in this list.

If you’re unfamiliar with Dropbox it’s a sync service that keeps one folder, the drop box, on your computer in sync with the Dropbox server and any other computers or mobile devices that you have Dropbox installed on. It’s a fantastic way to keep a selection of files handy no matter where you are.

This is a collection of 10 of the most useful Dropbox services, apps and hacks that take Dropbox beyond convenient and into the realm of necessity. Note that this list focuses specifically on addons and tweaks rather than applications that feature Dropbox integration. We’ll take a look at those another time.

Keep browser addons in sync with Dropbox
If you travel between two or more machines using web browsers heavily then you know it can get a bit annoying trying to keep your addons and extensions all in sync between browsers. The Mac Dropbox addon MacDropAny allows you to set any folder to synchronize with Dropbox. Just pause Dropbox on both machines, set your browsers Addons directory to sync to Dropbox, then set any other browser you use to point at that folder on your Dropbox. Once you restart Dropbox syncing you will now have a completely harmonious Addons folder that’s shared between all of your browsers. Windows users should check out DropboxFolderSync.

Use Jotform to allow people to send files to your Dropbox with a form

If you have a website or blog that you would like to set up to have people send you files directly then why not use your Dropbox storage? Jotform allows you to quickly create a form that allows users to send images, video or text directly to a folder that you specify in your Dropbox.

Airdropper let you set up a custom webpage to send and receive files with Dropbox

If you transfer files frequently but don’t have a page to host a form on and don’t want to send links to people manually every time you want to give them a file in your Dropbox then Airdropper is your solution. It’s a service that allows you to easily set up a page customized with your companies branding that people can use to download files that you send them. You can also use the page yourself to request files from people that get delivered to Dropbox. You can read more about Airdropper here.

Automatically download email attachments to Dropbox
MailDrop is an application for Windows that runs in the background and searches your IMAP inbox for emails with attachments to download. You specify a folder or label for it to search specifically so that it doesn’t just grab every attachment that comes in.  When you want it to download an attachment just move the email into that folder or change it’s label. Your file will be waiting for you in your Dropbox shortly.

Use Dropbox to host all of your game saves and program data

I always end up losing my game saves in hard drive crashes and computer moves. I’ve abandoned plenty of games because I’ve lost my progress to computer disaster. Dropboxifier simplifies the process of adding folders on your hard drive to Dropbox syncing. This doesn’t move the files it just references them so that Dropbox will back them up for you automatically. Add all of your games saved folder directories and any other folders you’d like backed up and you’re worry free. Windows only. Updated I’ve received some clarification from David Gagnon, the author of Dropboxifier as to the way that it works. It does indeed move your data into your Dropbox. It then creates a reference link so that your application looks to Dropbox to retrieve the data. This is similar to the way that Valve’s Steam Cloud service works. Thanks David!

Create a Dropbox Droplet to speed syncing and sharing
You can shoot a file directly to Dropbox and share it with someone lightning fast with Dropbox Droplet. Once you have the droplet installed it will pop an icon in your dock. Then, just drag one or more files to the droplet to send it to your Dropbox public folder and a sharing URL will be copied to your clipboard for easy sharing. For a Windows version of this use DropBoxPlugin.

Allow people to send you files easily with DROPitTOme

The DROPitTOme service allows you to set up a custom URL, like ‘www.dropittome.com/choosaname’, to give out to people. They can then use that URL to send files directly to your Dropbox. You have the option to password protect the address as well.

Request files to be sent to your Dropbox with Filestork

Sending an email to someone requesting a file can be a tricky proposition. You never know exactly how they’re going to try to send you what you’re asking for. Will it come through a file sharing service? Heavily compressed and unusable by email? On horseback? Now you can use Filestork to request a file and have that file delivered directly to your Dropbox. Easy peasy.

Use Dropbox to start .torrent downloads while away from home

If you use a Bittorent client that allows you to watch a folder for .torrent files then you can use Dropbox to download perfectly legal files to your home computer while you’re away. Simply fire up your Bittorent client, uTorrent and Transmission are good examples, locate the watched folder option and specify a folder on your Dropbox. Then just drop .torrent files into that folder from wherever you are to start a download.

Send DRM free eBooks to your iPhone or iPad using Dropbox

You can download eBooks to your iDevices using the terrible iTunes file transfer but you can also access them directly from your Dropbox. Just find an eBook that you would like to read in the ePub format and save the book to your Dropbox folder. Then open the Dropbox app on your iPhone, find the book and tap on the Share button in the bottom corner. Use the ‘Open in’ option to open the book in your preferred reader. For a great selection of free ebooks in the ePub format check out Epubbooks.

Tapbots highly anticipated Twitter client for iPhone has arrived on the App Store, bringing a level of polish that Pixar would be jealous of.

Considering Twitter’s recent stance on third-party clients we may not see many more Twitter clients being produced by developers that are unsure whether they will be able to continue doing business with the messaging site.

If those potential clients end up being anywhere near as useful and polished as Tweetbot then that’s a sad state of affairs.

Tweetbot developer Tapbots is known for the highly polished look of their apps and consistently striking UI design. This willingness to experiment with the way that users interact with apps permeates offerings like Convertbot with its unique wheel-in-wheel interface that makes total sense with just a few seconds play.

Tweetbot has been rubbed and polished at the hands of Paul and Mark, the creators of all of the ‘bots in Tapbots line of iPhone apps. They credit the character of Eve Pixar animation film Wall·e for their idea to create a family of robots as iPhone apps.

In addition to a striking design and level of finish, Tweetbot features four unique ideas that set it apart from other iPhone apps.

First is the ability to easily set the main timeline to a list. As our Twitter streams get more and more crowded with information blazing by, lists become more useful to help us filter out just the Twitter users we want to hear.

The ability to ‘convert’ your main timeline view to a list view quickly is an obvious, but unique move.

Next, each Tweet is an active object that you can pull to the left or the right with a snappy return motion similar to the pull-to-refresh action popularized by Loren Brichter in Tweetie. If you pull to the right, you get the conversation of a given tweet. Pull to the left and you get all related tweets.

The third refinement is the use of taps on a Tweet to trigger actions. One tap to reveal an actions panel including retweet and reply functions, two taps to reveal the Twitter profile of the tweeter and tap-and-hold to reveal detailed options. The triple tap action is customizable and by default is set to reply.

Finally, the bottom right buttons on the toolbar are also tweakable with the option to set them to reveal lists, retweet, search or favorite tweets. Lovers of the ‘old-style’ quoted retweet will be disappointed to learn that Tweetbot supports only the new pure retweet. There is an easily accessible ‘copy tweet’ option.

It also bears mentioning that all of these taps and swipes and UI interactions are accompanied by some of the best sound design of any iOS app on the market. I unmute my iPhone every time I use the great Pastebot just for it’s useful and gorgeous sound. Ben Burt would be proud. Tweetbot doesn’t change anything that works just to change it.

Much of the client works the same way that the stock Twitter app does. Pull-to-refresh, slide down option panels and a visible break between old and new tweets are a few familiar cues. What it does do is add some very useful tweaks and present those in a luxuriously designed interface.

If you spend a good deal of your life on Twitter, then you couldn’t find a more pleasant client to spend it with than Tweetbot.

(Cross-posted from the Google Docs Blog)Exactly one year ago, we launched a new version of the Google document editor, created from the ground up to take advantage of the latest capabilities in modern web browsers like Chrome. In particular, we baked in a way of supporting text features that aren’t natively included with browsers—for example, we added a ruler for controlling the margins, text that wraps around images to create eye-catching docs and discussions for a more collaborative editing experience.Today, we’re doing another first for web browsers by adding a classic word processing feature—pagination, the ability to see visual pages on your screen. We’re also using pagination and some of Chrome’s capabilities to improve how printing works in Google Docs. Pagination is rolling out now and should be available to everyone by the end of the day.Pagination adds visual page breaks while you’re editing your documents, so now you can see how many pages of that report you’ve actually finished. Because we’re able to show you individual pages, we can improve the way other features work too: headers now show up at the top of each page instead of just at the top of your doc, manual page breaks actually move text onto a new page and footnotes appear at the bottom of the pages themselves.If you prefer editing documents with a continuous layout, you can hide page breaks by selecting the “Compact” document view from the “View” menu.Pagination also changes what’s possible with printing in modern browsers. We’ve worked closely with the Chrome team to implement a recent web standard so we can support a feature called native printing. Before, if you wanted to print your document we’d need to first convert it into a PDF, which you would then need to open and print yourself. With native printing, you can print directly from your browser and the printed document will always exactly match what you see on your screen.For now, native printing is only available in Google Chrome, but we’re hoping other browsers will implement the same web standard so everyone can have the best possible printing experience with Docs.Pagination and native printing are great examples of how modern browsers are making it possible to take the best parts of the desktop experience and bring them online. Please share your feedback on the Google Docs forum.Posted by Luiz Pereira, Software Engineer

The LinkedIn team have been busy. Following the launch of its Developer Platform, enabling users to embed sharing buttons and plugins, LinkedIn has announced the availability of its official Android application, launching today on the Android Market.

LinkedIn for Android v1.0 is the realisation of the beta app the company announced in December 2010, incorporating feedback and bug reports from a dedicated group of beta testers to produce a polished app that allows Android handset owners to search for details on over 100 million professionals in real-time.

The app itself is fully featured, comprising of six modules that are designed specifically for Android devices. These include a notifications panel, search facility, a friends tab showing your Connections and outstanding Invitations. The Messages module integrates your LinkedIn Inbox and the Reconnect module suggests new connections that can help build networks, instantly.

The release comes two years after LinkedIn made an app available for the iPhone, the company realising the growth of the Android platform over the past twelve months. Although the app is available to download on an iPad, the company has not announced a dedicated version for tablet users.

To download LinkedIn for Android, search for the app on the Android Market or by visiting linkedin.com/android.

Opera Software has launched a new email service for My Opera, Opera Link and Opera Unite account holders, delivering a new AJAX interface that includes many features from the company’s acquisition of web-based email provider Fastmail.fm.

As of today, all My Opera accounts now have an @myopera.com email address, allowing users to access the new mail service located at https://mail.opera.com. Users simply have to log in with the same username and password they use for their Opera accounts and they will be granted access to the email service, currently in Beta.

By design, the Opera team has enabled fast and efficient access to its email service via its mobile and tablet browsers, delivering a dedicated mobile interface, a tablet interface with big accessible buttons or a desktop computer by way of “extensive keyboard shortcuts”.



Similar to Gmail, Opera’s Mail service combines email conversations, grouping messages in a thread inside a single page. The feature is supported across folders on Opera’s Cyrus IMAP servers, keeping the web service quick and nimble.

If you already hold a My Opera account, you can access your the Opera Mail service by visiting https://mail.opera.com/, if you do not, you can use the same link to sign up for an account.

There’s definitely not a lack of photo sharing services on the web. However generally speaking, we often just publish images and videos for friends to view without inviting them to actively participate in the album.

PhotoCollect, unlike other services such as Flickr, enables users to collectively contribute to public or private albums without having to ask friends to go through a sign up process.

Creating albums and inviting friends is simple because the service has integrated Facebook to simplify the sharing process. After granting PhotoCollect access to your Facebook account, albums can be published in seconds and you’ll also have the option to invite anyone from Facebook or via email.

Users can upload videos or images to their albums and there are 3 privacy settings to choose from; low, medium or high. Using the highest security level, the album will only be viewed by the people you personally invite via Facebook. Other members of the album won’t have permission to add anyone although they can still upload and view pics. All in all, if privacy is something you consider when sharing media files you’ll find this feature helpful.

The design of the UI is clean, intuitive and it provides a sleek full screen mode for browsing through the albums. It has also included a “favourites” folder, friend tagging and a commenting feature so everyone connected with the album can engage in conversations surrounding each picture. To keep tagging private, the feature only tags your friends within PhotoCollect and doesn’t show up within Facebook.

Free users receive 3 albums with an unlimited amount of space for videos and photos that can be accessed from anywhere. For more, users can pay an annual fee of $35 to create an unlimited number of albums. We should additionally note that PhotoCollect currently limits each video clip to 250MB.

Giving your friends a free, simple and quick way to contribute to albums is easily done with PhotoCollect and its inclusion of privacy controls are a nice touch. The one step process of joining an album via Facebook is a plus and your friends won’t be annoyed with a lengthy sign-up.

The developers at PhotoCollect have now extended the service to iOS devices. The app isn’t out yet but we were able to get a sneak peek at the app, screenshots posted below.

With Amazon’s Android Appstore expected to launch later this month, the internet retailer is busy organising its store to soon offer applications to run on the devices it sells.

Today, a number of Android applications and their prices have leaked out after AndroidNews.de stumbled upon a placeholder page on the Amazon website. Whilst the retail giant will require Android users to download a third-party application to download the apps, Amazon will showcase apps on its product pages, listing them as recommended items as they would any other item.

The page was available at amazon.com/apps but has since been removed. Luckily, a number of screenshots were captured, showing what apps are likely to be available at launch and how much they will cost:

Amazon has already secured the exclusive launch of the next game from the incredibly popular Angry Birds franchise, Angry Birds Rio. With 48 other applications listed on the website, AndroidNews.de compared them and their Android Market counterparts, finding that Amazon has secured four other exclusive titles, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Force Recon.

The retailer has also priced 14 apps lower than the prices developers are charging for the same apps on Google’s marketplace. The strategy demonstrates how Amazon hopes to compete with Google – requiring developers to state the recommended retail price of their apps, changing its pricing should it see fit. Developers don’t miss out – if Amazon lowers the price of an app below the recommended price, they will still receive a share of the price they originally set.

Amazon has declined to comment on when its Appstore will launch – we think it won’t be too long until it does.

Zwischen Facebook und den Nutzern besteht ein implizites Abkommen. Facebook baut eine Plattform, auf der die Nutzer mit ihren Freunden reden und Photos austauschen können, auf der es immer wieder interessante Apps gibt, die man nutzen kann oder auch nicht, und wo man sich in einem Leanback-Modus auch mal unterhalten lassen kann, indem man viele Links, Photos oder Videos findet, die die Freunde miteinander teilen wollen. Als Gegenleistung kann Facebook Geld verdienen über möglichst zielgerichtete Werbung, deren Targeting die Daten der User zu Grunde liegen.

Facebook hat eine ziemlich geschlossene Umgebung gebaut, die, verknappt formuliert, dafür sorgt, daß Freunde nur mit Freunden bzw. deren Freunden in Kontakt kommen. Das Web wird quasi nur durch das Fenster Facebook betreten, die Freune fungieren als Filter und helfen damit, relevante Inhalte zu finden. Wenn man inhaltlichen Müll gefunden hat, dann lag das an den Freunden.

Derzeit hat Facebook allerdings zwei Probleme. Erstens sorgen Apps, bei denen man zu viel Zugriff erlauben muß dafür, daß Spam-Inhalte auf die Pinnwände oder in die Messages gelangen. Dies passiert in aller Regel unbemerkt vom User, der dann noch den peinlichen Moment hat, daß seine Freunde ihn darauf hinweisen, daß er unbewußt Spam verbreitet hat. Persönliche Messages a la “Hey, What the hell are you doing in this video? Is this dancing or what?? lol http://gvekvvgbvyf.tk/” sind derzeit keine Seltenheit und sorgen nicht dafür, daß das Vertrauen in Facebook gefestigt wird. Zweitens sorgt die Veränderung des Like-Buttons, der jetzt ähnlich wie der Share-Button funktioniert und die Likes zu direkten Posts umwandelt, aber ohne die Sicherheits-Abfrage des Share-Buttons, dafür, daß es für Spammer lukrativ geworden ist, durch gefakte Clicks massenhaft Likes zu generieren. Diese Likes führen dann zu Postings, die von Freunden erst einmal als relevant eingestuft werden und dann beim Aufruf wieder Likes erzeugen, die dann einen weiteren Freundeskreis infiltrieren. Unzählige Videos a la “Mann schlägt Frau k.o.” oder “Sternchen xy nackt” machen derzeit die Runde und all diese Postings sind ohne Wissen der Nutzer entstanden.

Bei allen Debatten rund um Facebook und das Verhältnis zu den Nutzern und deren Daten war bislang immer eins sicher: auf Facebook gibt es so gut wie kein Spam. Nutzer sind geschützt, vor allem auch, weil sie sich auf ihre Freunde verlassen können, keinen Spam zu verbreiten. Das offene Internet hat gegenüber Facebook viele Vorteile, aber der gesicherte Hafen Facebook bietet eben auch Vorteile, gerade für technisch weniger versierte oder interessierte Nutzer.

Das Ausbreiten von Spam-Apps und des Likejackings gefährdet Facebook, da es den Kern der Plattform angreift. Nutzer können sich nicht mehr sicher sein, beim Ausbreiten von Spam und Malware instrumentalisiert zu werden. 600 Millionen Nutzer sind ein lukrativer Tummelplatz auch für Kriminelle. Facebook muß daher ganz dringend die Funktionalität des Like-Buttons überarbeiten und Spam-Apps schneller identifizieren. Wenn Facebook zur Spam-Plattform verkommt, dürfte der Marktwert von Facebook rapide sinken. Und der Nutzwert für 600 Millionen Nutzer allemal.

Business cards are an important part of life, helping us quickly swap contact details and turn a brief meeting into a valuable long-term contact.

The thing is, business cards are so 20th Century. There are now a number of companies vying to replace them with far more tech savvy solutions. If you’re tired of getting having to take a box of cards around wherever you go, here are five solutions to try.

Bump
One of the highest profile replacements for business cards out there, Bump is an app for iOS and Android that lets users exchange their details between devices by simply “bumping” them together. Beyond simple contact information, Bump allows users to share pictures and calendar events, and connect to other people’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts by tapping their devices together and selecting which information to transmit.

The service lets you set up multiple profiles for different social settings and it works cross-platform, meaning that an iPhone can ‘bump’ an Android device, for example.

My Name Is E
This solution couples a good-looking Web-based “virtual business card” with a Bump-like wireless contact sharing service via its app for iPhone and mobile website for other platforms.

Contact cards can be shared wirelessly between phones, and you can even send your details to people who don’t use My Name Is E using the email option. Beyond basic phone numbers and email addresses, the service has fields for over 50 social services including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Skype. Friend requests can be sent directly from the app in some cases, too. Location tagging allows you to see exactly where you made contact with someone – useful if you regularly travel.

Jumpscan
Jumpscan places all your contact information into a single QR code image. Anyone with a QR code scanning app on their phone can take a photo of your code to be taken directly to your contact information.

You can either print out your QR code, with the advantage that you only need one copy of it to share with many people, or you could always keep an image of your code on your phone for people to snap from the screen.

Jumpscan is currently in beta, open to 50,000 users so if you want to try it, jump in quick while spaces are available.

SnapDat
Another competitor in the space is SnapDat. Currently only available for iOS, the idea is that to pass your details on to another user, you just ask for their SnapDat username and it’s sent straight across to them.

SnapDat differentiates itself from the competition via its 40 virtual business card designs, which it hopes will help convey your personality and individuality more than a plain vCard. That said, you can send your details to those who don’t use the app via an email option which attaches a vCard containing all your details.

Google Goggles
While it won’t help you do away with your own business cards, Google’s super-smart Goggles app for iPhone and Android can help you deal with other people’s business cards that you receive. Simple take a photo of a card with the app and, providing Goggles recognises it as a business card, you’ll get an option to save the information directly to your address book.

It’s impressive stuff, although if you find it’s not giving the results you expect, another option is ScanBizCards which does the same thing, but for iPhone only.

Quite often, searching the Android Market gives you less than helpful results. It turns out, however, that the Market uses smart search operators, so you can further refine your search terms and find the app you're looking for.
It's remarkable how some searches will give you 20 useless results before you find what you're looking for. Sometimes the official app for a product is way down the list of results, and other apps have extra themes, fonts, and skins that make the original app harder to find. Reader cinnamonster, however, has a solution:

Search in the Android Market supports smart search operators such as - and +. Especially useful when you are searching for an actual app and not a theme or a skin (e.g. home replacements or keyboards).

It's a simple tip, but one we didn't know about, and is pretty neat depending on the app you're searching for. Found any other cool Market search tricks? Share them with us in the comments.

[via #tips]

While there are some third-party apps that will help you discover other apps you'll like, the Android Market on its own doesn't do much to aid in the app discovery process. Today, though, it seems they're rolling out a new feature where, on an app's page in the Market, you can hit a new "Similar" tab to see related apps. It isn't earth-shattering, but it's definitely a welcome change to the Market, which is currently much better for searching out specific apps than it is browsing through them. We haven't seen the change yet on our devices, but a lot of folks running Android 2.2 are starting to notice their Market apps have silently updated, so let us know if you have it (and how well it works) in the comments. [via Andronica]

Google Voice ist ein kostenloser, webbasierte Telefonmanager. Unter dem Motto “Eine Nummer für alle deine Telefone, für immer” hat der bisher nur in den USA verfügbare Dienst das Zeug, die Telefonie zu revolutionieren – und könnte eines Tages Skype gefährlich werden.