Like Twhirl and other desktop Twitter apps, Gwibber will show you a list of the most recent updates from your contacts and let you respond with short messages. In addition to Twitter, Gwibber supports updates from Digg, Jaiku, Facebook, Flickr, Indenti.ca and the now defunct Pownce.
One thing that's a bit confusing is that Gwibber doesn't provide a clear way to tell which messages are coming from which services. For instance, I added my Twitter and Flickr accounts to Gwibber and the only way I could tell that some of the updates were from Flickr was because they were accompanied by thumbnail photos. Update: You can adjust the colors for each account in the preferences.
Gwibber packages are available for Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and Fedora.
[Via: MakeUseOf ]
[Tag: facebook, gwibber, twitter ]
Gwibber brings Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and more to Linux desktops
Opera: There's a good chance you've visited Facebook on your phone
Opera has released a report on the state of the mobile web. And considering the company claims more than 44 million users for its Opera Mini cellphone web browser, Opera's in as good a position as any company to report on mobile web usage.
There are two trends that are particularly noteworthy. First, 77% of all traffic was to full web pages, not stripped down mobile pages. This probably shouldn't be that surprising, since Opera Mini renders full pages pretty quickly and lets users zoom in and out to read the fine print. And while WAP might have been pretty exciting a few years ago when there wasn't as much rich media content on the web, and when mobile internet connections were significantly slower, those days are long gone.
The second trend is a bit more surprising. 40% of worldwide traffic was directed to social networks. In some countries including the US, South Africa, and Indonesia, that number was as high as 60%. Now, it's not like we didn't know that social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, and Bebo were popular. We just didn't figure people would be spending half of their mobile web browsing time visiting them.
What sites do you visit regularly with your mobile web browser?
[Via: VentureBeat ]
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AOL completes take-over of Bebo
While Bebo is most popular in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, AOL is hoping grow this upcoming social network in the US. Silicon Alley Insider seems to think AOL will layoff employees working in the AIM/ICQ division due to the restructuring process.
What do you think? Did AOL make a good decision? Do you think this acquisition puts AIM at risk? Be sure to voice your opinion in the comments!
[Via: InformationWeek ]
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Sociagami adds Twitter support, status updates
Desktop social networking client Sociagami has added two features that were noticeably absent from earlier builds: Twitter integration and support for updating your status from the application. When we first looked at Sociagami a few months ago, the software provided an attractive (but RAM-heavy) tool for interacting with your Facebook and MySpace contacts. You could see all of the latest status updaes in one place, navigate through your friend list in a slick browser, or view the latest photos uploaded by your contacts.
But without the ability to update your own status, Sociagami wasn't nearly as useful as other desktop social networking tools like Digsby. The latest version includes a handy status update tool that lets you post to Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter simultaneously. If you only want to update one service, just uncheck two of the boxes.
The new Twitter client works pretty much exactly as you'd expect. You get a list of recent messages from your contacts in one window, and you can sift through your contact list in the browser. One thing that sets Sociagami apart from Digsby is the fact that you can see all of your latest Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook messages in a single window.
But while Digsby already has a reputation as a RAM-heavy application, at least that utility also gives you email notification alerts and an instant messenger application, two features that Sociagami lacks. Still, we're happy to report that Sociagami continues to get a bit better with each release, so we're not ready to give up on this application just yet.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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More acquisitions: Comcast buys Plaxo, Ask.com buys Dictionary.com
There must be something in the water this week. While the biggest new media acquisition story of the day has to be CBS buying CNET for $1.8 billion, big companies are swallowing up smaller ones left and right. Media company Comcast is buying social networking site Plaxo for something like $150 million, while Ask.com is shelling out an undisclosed sum for Lexico, the company that runs Dictionary.com.
While there's been a lot of speculation recently that someone was going to buy Plaxo, Comcast wasn't the first company that sprung to mind. We figured a company that already has ties to the social networking space like Google or Facebook would have made more sense. In a blog post on the subject, Plaxo CEO Ben Golub says Comcast has plans to "bring the social media experience to mainstream consumers." That means using Plaxo's technology to connect with your contacts across multiple devices. And since Comcast is already in the TV, phone, and ISP business, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. Perhaps your TV viewing habits will automatically be added to your social networking profile? Yeah, we hope not.
The Ask.com/Lexico deal seems like a more natural fit. We doubt Lexico's popular web sites like Dictionary.com will disappear. Rather, Ask will be able to increase its overall web traffic by bringing the new sites into the fold.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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RIM and Microsoft announce Windows Live services for Blackberry handsets
Microsoft is no stranger to the idea of playing in a competitor's sandbox (remember Office for Mac?). By making Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail more accessible on the Crackberry, the company further pushes its communications services towards mass standardization especially in the business world. RIM also benefits from the agreement in the same way Apple benefits from Office for Mac: an OS is only as good as the software on it.
Messenger on Blackberry should retain most of its functions. It looks like users will be able to do the usual: IM, set status, pull up buddy lists, save conversations, use emoticons, and even send and receive files. While it looks like users can join group chats, creating group chats seems to be absent from the feature list.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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Google Friend Connect: a social network for every site
On Monday night, Google launched its entry into the growing field of programs that attempt to share your "social graph" -- your collection of friends and relationships -- across many social networks. The program is called Friend Connect, and it's starting with a handful of sites, including Facebook, Plaxo and Hi5. Friend Connect is also going to support applications under OpenSocial, Google's social network application platform that has been around since last November. For the average web user, Friend Connect means you're going to see social data cropping up on a whole bunch of websites that never included social networks before. You'll basically be able to plug in your information from any of the participating networks where you have a profile, and then you can interact with other users of the site who do the same. It's basically like a mini-Facebook built into any site.
What does this mean for site owners? Well, Google is promising to make setting up Friend Connect on your site ridiculously easy -- which is why we think you're going to start seeing it everywhere on the web. It basically generates the entire code for you, to be pasted into your existing site. If you're interested in trying it out, you can apply to Google now.Does every site really need to be a social network? Is this just an attempt to jump onto the "open" bandwagon and generate more data that might be valuable to marketers? We're sure that Google will have to deal with those questions from critics very soon, but for right now, we're still watching their bizarre "Love Da' Guacamole" demo video.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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TweetWire turns Twitter into a newspaper
Twitter may have started off as a micro-blogging tool that asked users "what are you doing" right now? But the service has grown into a complex communications platform. Some people use Twitter to keep in touch with a few friends, while others use it take part in wider discussions taking place throughout the blogosphere. Still others use it as a sort of micro-broadcast medium, sending out updates, but rarely responding to messages posted by others. One thing is clear though: People post a lot of links to interesting articles on Twitter.
TweetWire attempts to take some of the most interesting links and organize them in a newspaper style web page. Tweets are broken up into a handful of categories, including elections, technology, sports, and celebrities. And the links are collected using a combination of the Twitter search engine TweetScan and the Yahoo! Pipes RSS remixing utility.
The results are... mixed. On the one hand, we love the idea of finding some of the best links from Twitter laid out on a simple web page. This way you don't have to sift through page after page of messages from your contacts to find out what people are talking about. But TweetWire isn't going to replace your daily newspaper anytime soon. On the one hand, all the links were at least interesting enough for someone to post them online. On the other hand, a lot of the day's top stories might never make it to TweetWire simply because nobody bothered to tweet about them.
If you're only interested in tech news, you might want to check out TwitLinks, which compiles tweets from a handful of influential technology bloggers.
[Via: Killer Startups ]
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HelloTxt cross-platform microblogging site adds video, image support
If you have half a dozen social networks and microblogs that you like to update simultaneously, you probably need to go outside and get some fresh air. But before you do that, you can post an update to let all your friends know that you're going outside to get some fresh air using HelloTxt.
Last time we looked on on the site, you could post messages to 10 different services including Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku. And that was about all you could do. But now the service has rolled out a new feature that lets you post images and videos. Well, sort of. You can upload an image to the HelloTxt server and get a shortened URL to place in your message so that anyone can click through and see the image. But HelloTxt doesn't actually host the videos. You'll need to copy the embed code from another site like YouTube or Vimeo. You do still get a shortened URL that you can send out to friends, so there's some value in the video feature. Just not as much as we'd like.
Somewhat ironically, while HelloTxt will give you shortened URLs for videos and images, there's no option to shorten a regular URL, so you'll have to rely on old standbys like TinyURL if you just want to share a link.
[Via: Go2Web2.0 ]
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Tweeting in Linux part II: Twitux v. Twhirl
We're always on the lookout for good desktop Twitter clients. Because while the microblogging service is kind of useful as a web-based tool for sharing your thoughts, desktop clients make Twitter feel more like an instant messaging platform that allows you to communicate with hundreds, even thousands of people at once.
While there are a couple of excellent Twitter clients for Windows and OS X, Linux users have had a more limited selection. A few months ago we looked at gTwitter, an application for reading and sending Tweets from your Linux desktop. While gTwitter will get the job done, it lacks some of the features we use the most, like URL shortening and the ability to reply to tweets from other users with the click of a button.
So we were pretty excited when we read about Twitux, another Twitter client designed for Linux. Installation couldn't have been easier. We downloaded a deb file for Ubuntu, and our system automatically downloaded all the required dependencies and instlled Twtiux. And then we saw that it was almost as basic as gTwitter. Twitux gives you more control over your timeline view, allowing you to see the public timeline, your friends timeline, your own timeline, direct messages, or replies. But if you want to send a reply or direct message you'll have to do it manually. There's no option to click on a friends' name in the timeline and respond.
Fortunately, now that Adobe has released a version of their AIR platform for Linux, you can run popular AIR-based Twitter clients like Spaz and Twhirl, So while we're still kind of hoping that someone will develop a full-featured Twitter client that runs natively in Linux, we'll happily settle for the cross-platform Twhirl client. A new version of Twhirl was released this week with a few bug fixes and one major new feature: support for Friendfeed discussions.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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Another social browser plugin
Apparently social browser plugins are the next big thing. The other day we told you about Yoono, a Firefox add-on that brings FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking features to your web browser. Today it's Minggl's turn.
Minggl is a browser toolbar that works with Firefox or Internet Explorer. Every few minutes Minggl will scan your social networking accounts and display the latest updates. You can pull up a list of your friends or view an actvity stream in your sidebar.
The nice thing about toolbars like Minggl is that they let you keep up with the activity on your social networks without constantly opening a half dozen web pages and hitting the refresh button. On the other hand, the toolbar takes up some valuable screen real estate and provides a constant source of distraction.
The Minggl toolbar is currently in public beta, and supports Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, and LinkedIn, with more services cming soon.
[Via: VentureBeat ]
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Google Reader gets (more) social
Google Reader users have long had the option of sharing items from their feeds. Just click the share button and anyone who knows the URL of your shared item feed can subscribe or view your shared items in a blog-like format. A few months ago, Google even started showing your shared items to your Gmail contacts automatically. But if you wanted to share items or web pages from sites that you didn't subscribe to, you were out of luck.
Now Google has launched several new tools that turn Google Reader into a bit more of a blogging/communication tool. There's a new browser bookmarklet that you can use to share any item on the web, whether the site has an RSS feed or not. Google has alsdo added a new Notes section to Google Reader that lets you enter text notes to share with your contacts. You can either enter a standalone note or click the "share with note" button on any article you're looking at in Google Reader to add your thoughts to a shared item.
You can also choose one of four graphic headers for your shared items page. There's the default Google Reader icon, ice cream, ninjas, or sea. No, we have no idea why these four, but we wouldn't be surprised to see Google add to the list of graphics later.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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Microsoft's I'm Initiative hits Hotmail
The "service" makes using Microsoft's services -- specifically Hotmail and Messenger -- beneficial to several causes. Microsoft shares a portion of its advertising revenue collected through its email and instant messaging apps, and although this is "nice" on Microsoft's part, there's a clear business-minded motivation behind it.
Despite that, at least there's some good coming out of the ridiculous amount of instant messaging and emailing we all do. Though we can't praise Microsoft too much: $1.5 million out of the billions Microsoft makes everyday is hardly significant. Then again, if more companies donated a tiny portion of the tremendous amount of money they make everyday, the world could benefit significantly.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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Yoono browser plugin makes Firefox more like Flock
So what exactly does Yoono do? It adds a sidebar to Firefox that gives you quick access to your instant messenger, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Piczo, and Friendfeed contacts. You can send messages, update your social feeds, or just see what all of your friends are up to from within Firefox. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can also leave notes about the web sites you're visiting, rate pages, and share your bookmarks.
You can also add several widgets to your sidebar that will let you view web sites or pictures related to the page you're currently viewing. There's also a YouTube widget that will show you related videos, the day's top rated videos, or videos from your contacts.
Yoono is in private beta, but we've got 200 invites to give away to Download Squad readers on a first come, first served basis. Please don't leave comments asking us for invites, just follow the link after the jump.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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MySocial 24x7 launches Twhirl, Alert Thingy competitor
Because it wasn't hard enough trying to decide which Adobe AIR-based desktop Twitter/FriendFeed client to use, MySocial 24x7 had to go and complicate things by releasing their own desktop client. MySocial 24x7 started out as a Firefox sidebar add-on, but if you value your screen real estate, standalone applications are the way to go.
The desktop client lets you track and engage in Twitter and FriendFeed conversations without a web browser. One thing that sets MySocial 24x7 apart from other desktop clients like Twhirl and Alert Thingy is the integrated browser that lets you view pictures and videos without launching a web browser.
The interface is clean and easy to use. But it's not very customizable. If you want to see detailed user information, or send direct Twitter messages, MySocial 24x7 might not be the desktop client for you. We also had a hard time getting the client to connect to our Twitter and FriendFeed accounts, but it did a great job of tracking public timelines.
[Via: TechCrunch ]
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Social RSS reader Shyftr adds OPML support, actually becomes useful
Note to anyone developing an RSS reader: If you don't support OPML, we're not interested. While adding feeds for your favorite web sites one at a time might have sound like fun, once you've got more than 10 feeds, the charm of entering them by hand kind of wears off. And over the last few years, we've accumulated just a few more feeds than that. So when we first heard about new kid on the RSS reader block Shyftr a few months ago, we pretty much ignored the site. But now that Shyftr has added OPML support, we decided to upload our 465 feeds and take it for a spin.
What sets Shyftr apart from RSS readers like Google Reader or Bloglines is the service's social aspects. Users can leave comments on items they read, and those comments can be seen by any other Shyftr users who subscribe to the same feed. Shyftr got a bit of bad press last month when the company tried to add comments from the original article page to Shyftr, and eventually decided to remove this feature. The issue might not have been as controversial if comments left on Shyftr were automatically added to the original page, thus alleviating allegations that Shyftr was trying to move the discussion away from the blog itself and into the Shyftr community. But there are some technical challenges associated with doing that, not the least of which is that there are a number of different protocols that blogs use for posting comments.
Like any good social network, Shyftr lets you become "friends" with other users, view their profiles and activity, and invite friends who haven't already signed up for the free service.
One thing to note is that while Shyftr now has an OPML import feature, it's slow. It only takes a few moments to import a few hundred feeds. But it takes much, much longer to "process" those feeds. And if they don't process correctly they won't show up in your feed reader. So if you've got more than a few hundred feeds, you might want to hit the import button right before heading out for your lunch break. Maybe it'll be done by the time you get back. But if you leave the page during the process, you'll have to start all over again.
[Via: Louis Gray ]
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Del.icio.us releases beta browser plugin for Firefox 3
While the Firefox 3 web browser is still in beta, it offers a ton of features that you won't find in Firefox 2. There's full page zoom, full history search, and vastly improved speed and performance with many web services. But there's a downside: many add-ons designed for earlier versions of Firefox will not work with Firefox 3 beta. This week that list got a tiny bit shorter as social bookmarking service del.icio.us released a beta version of a Firefox 3 plugin.
For the most part, the plugin works just like the Firefox 2 plugin, allowing users to quickly tag pages or open a sortable list of bookmarks and tabs in their Firefox sidebar. But there are a few new features includng a new layout for saving bookmarks, a status bar showing network activity, and the ability to jump to tags by pressing F2.
[Via: Mashable ]
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Yelp launches business accounts
Yelp lets customers write reviews of restaurants, shops, and all sorts of other businesses in communities throughout the country. And that's the sort of service that makes the site both incredibly useful and incredibly dangerous for business owners.
Now Yelp is giving business owners tools that let them keep a closer eye on the reviews their establishment is receiving. If you sign up for a Business Owner Account, you can track how many people view your business page, update your business profile, and send messages to people who have reviewed your business. In order to get a business owner account, you'll obviously need to verify that you actually run the business in question.
Of course, there's no guaranty that you'll be able to prevent people from writing that your food tastes stale or that your bathrooms are smelly unless you actual improve your food and clean your bathrooms. You know, unless those folks on the internet are lying. But that never happens.
[Via: TechCrunch ] [Tag: ]