If there was one feature I wish Twitter would improve, it would be its live search feature (aka real time search). While the service works really well in tracking live discussions, its relevancy fades the further back in time one searches.
Fortunately it looks as if the boys and girls at Google are once again resolving this issue by relaunching their live search feature under a new location.
What makes this service truly remarkable is the ability to track events in the past, as well as receive email alerts regarding virtually every topic under the Sun (a tool that might be useful for businesses and marketers).
Unfortunately Google has yet to implement live search upon the iPhone, something their rival Bing! has done (albeit only for US users).
While live search is a feature that will probably not interest too many people outside of the geekosphere (as many people are fine with static news), it could give Google leverage over Facebook (the latter who could potentially launch a social search engine of their own in the not so distant future).
As every iLover knows, Facebook recently added Facebook Places to their iPhone. However instead of choosing to partner with their frenemy Google, Facebook instead is allowing Bing to power its location feature.
And, while location-based services like this are certainly interesting to me I’m writing this for you because Facebook is using Bing Maps to pinpoint everyone’s location-based experiences on Facebook.com. [...]
Select the Places button, find the location where you are and check-in. Just like that, the check-in will flow to your profile on Facebook.com complete with a Bing Map, a pin of your location and any commentary you’ve added to your check-in. Places also includes the ability to see where your friends have checked in, a link to get directions to a place (via Bing Maps) and a Like button for the respective place page. (Bing Community Blog)
While it’s no surprise Facebook chose Bing over Google (due to the latter’s upcoming social network), doing so may have handicapped the service as Bing via iPhone is only available for users within the US, despite the fact that Facebook has a large international audience.
Unless Bing plans on expanding their mobile feature beyond the US borders soon, Facebook’s places will probably fail to be as powerful as Twitter Places (the latter which choose Google Maps for their service).
Although Facebook places has the potential of making location statuses popular among the masses on a scale yet to be seen by any social network, its America only limitation may keep Facebook from being adopted globally (which may benefit rivals like Twitter and the upcoming Google Me).
RIM isn’t too thrilled with Apple’s latest press conference in which Steve Jobs was able to “duplicate” antennategate upon a respective Blackberry device.
RIM’s co-CEO’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie decided to issue a joint statement which accuses Steve Jobs of lying about Blackberry’s signal woes (at least when compared to the iPhone 4).
Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage.
One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry® smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple. (Inside Blackberry) More →
It looks like Microsoft’s Bing may have just upped the ante for search on the iPhone by fully embracing two of the largest social networks in the US.
Now you can connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts and see combined status updates from your friends from within the Bing app. But that’s easy. When we asked what else we could do with this personal intelligence, we looked at the data behind how people were using their social networks. Turns out that over 40% of the time when people ask ambiguous queries that don’t have a defined answer (like where should I go to eat tonight), social networks are faster at providing a great answer than traditional search engines. (Bing Community Blog)
Although Google has already included Twitter within their search engine results, Bing’s personal integration of Facebook and Twitter should make the latter more relevant against the search Titan (who is looking rather bland).
Social integration wasn’t the only feature Bing offered users, as they have also included a feature that may help the smaller rival compete against Google Goggles. More →
With the Gulf of Mexico fiasco spilling out of control (pun intended), the boys and girls at Bing have offered to help CNN raise funds for the media network’s telethon.
Bing’s fundraising attempts mimic Tumblr’s previous efforts, the latter who became famous for changing their dashboard from blue to black unless a user donated to a specific charity. More →
Yahoo might have scored big time with its recent deal with Zynga, the company responsible for popular Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. The two companies have reached an agreement that will see the integration of Zynga’s social games through Yahoo’s global network.
For Zynga, this could be a viable alternative to its Facebook presence, especially since Yahoo claims of more than 600 million users worldwide across all Yahoo sites. But the question is would users be open to the idea of getting their game on via the Yahoo platform?
Most of those users who play Farmville and Mafia Wars are into these games while at the same time maintaining their social networking profiles and connections on Facebook. Most of them play these games to while away time as they wait for their friends to go online, post updates and links. In short, Zynga games on Facebook are added functionalities for a site which has social networking as the main purpose.
Comparing these to Yahoo which doesn’t have a social networking site. Users go to Yahoo to find/search for information not to socialize. So, I don’t really see these Zynga games easily fitting into the demographics of Yahoo users.
Still, Yahoo is pretty positive that this deal would be both beneficial to both companies. Hilary Schneider, Yahoo America’s Executive Vice President tells us:
“Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users.”
And with this deal, Yahoo have finally laid down its social strategy and adds up to its previous partnership with both Facebook and Twitter. Would this finally bring some good tidings to Yahoo as a whole? That we will have to wait and see.
Sometime in November last year, LinkedIn started rolling out some Twitter integration features. If you’re one of those LinkedIn members who integrated your LinkedIn accounts with Twitter, you might also want to go deeper into these integration and install the Tweets app.
This new LinkedIn feature lets you easily find and keep track of your LinkedIn connections on both LinkedIn and Twitter. Once you’ve installed that Tweet app, you can access this from your Profile page by clicking on the “more” tab which you can find at the top of your LinkedIn profile page. Clicking on that “more” tab will display your Twitter public timeline including tweets from people you follow. From that page, you can post tweet to your account.
The new Tweet app also has a new module called – “connection to follow.” What this module does is to give you recommendations on new people to follow which are your LinkedIn contacts.
Another nice feature of the Tweet app is the “connections” category which list down your LinkedIn connections who have already installed the Tweet app. From there you can see their Twitter information, follow or unfollow them and see a sample of their last tweets.
If you’re into Twitter lists, the new LinkedIn Tweet app also lets you create a dynamic Twitter list consisting of your LinkedIn connections. This list displays tweets of your LinkedIn contacts and are updated real-time. It’s like your usual Twitter list built into your LinkedIn accounts.
Alright, enough of this blabber. If you’re into LinkedIn and Twitter, might as well integrate these two accounts. You may install the LinkedIn Tweet app from this link.
You know MSN, right? It’s Microsoft’s equivalent of the Yahoo content network. If you’re a Microsoft fan and an Internet Explorer user, this must be your browser’s start-up page. For the past couple of months, MSN announced that it was redesigning its homepage and so the site is finally being rolled out to U.S. MSN users.
And what does the new MSN homepage brings to the table? Here’s a quick rundown of its new features:
It’s all about Bing – the Bing search box is now larger and is located front and center of your MSN homepage to let you search as quickly as possible. The new homepage also gives you popular topics and an increased prominence of Popular searches. There’s also a new TrendWatch feature which highlights the day’s top movers on Twitter. And finally, an increased focus on editorial programming of search-related content such as videos and images.
MSN Local Edition – MSN also has a localized version which gives you specific information depending on your local area. The new homepage now lets you personalize MSN Local and save up to 3 cities to follow. The new feauture also brings in HyperLocal tweets which uses Bing search to power up local tweets. And MSN Local Edition now offers 3,000 news video clips a week across 36 local markets.
More HD videos on the homepage – in-line HD video is now being offered on the MSN homepage with minimal buffering.
Social networking on the homepage – Check your Hotmail, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live accounts on the MSN homepage.
Following the release of Twitter iPhone app, it’s now time for the official Twitter for BlackBerry to get some attention and loving. The Twitter folks has just updated the app which is currently in beta and brings in several great new features as well as enhancements to existing ones. The updated Twitter for BlackBerry app now features – quote tweet, username autocomplete, go to user, personal information guard, additional photo viewing support, viewing of geotagged tweets, and new navigation hotkeys.
The new version of Twitter for BlackBerry now lets you quote a tweet simply by selecting “quote a tweet” from your phone’s menu options. This new feature adds quotation marks around the original tweet so much so that you can edit or add some more text to the original tweet. This is different from retweet since it doesn not automatically put the “RT @username” syntax as soon as you click on the “retweet” button. Actually, it does act like “retweet.” minus the “RT.”
When typing “@” followed by the first few characters of the username, this feature will pop out a list of users as you type. It’s a pretty useful tool especially if you are trying to recall the complete Twitter name of a person that you are following on Twitter.
The “Go to User” feature now lets you access Twitter profiles from anywhere within Twitter for BlackBerry devices just by using the “auto complete” feature.
The new Twitter for BlackBerry app was also designed to help keep your personal information safe. The app warns you if any of your personal information is being shared.
The updated app also lets you view tweeted photos using YFrog and TweetPhoto as well as new navigation keys to help you navigate through your Twitter account. These new hotkeys are:
R (reply)
L (reply all)
Space (page down)
F (retweet)
C (compose)
D (refresh)
Alt+0 (home)
Alt+1 (mentions)
Alt+2 (lists)
Alt+3 (profile)
Alt+4 (inbox)
Alt+5 (find people)
Alt+6 (search)
Alt+7 (popular topics)
Ready to update? Check the upgraded Twitter for BlackBerry beta app from the BlackBerry App World.
Six months after unveiling Google Wave in by-invitation-only beta, Google has finally put this service into Google Labs. This means that you don’t need to search or wait for invites anymore. You can just visit wave.google.com and start using this collaboration and communication tool.
According to Google, the latest version of Google Wave in Labs is faster, more stable and much more easier to use. Google has done many improvements to the service for the past six months. These include – email notifications when a wave has changed, easy navigation to unread parts of a wave, and a facility for removing participants which you’ve added by mistake. In addition, Google has also added permission management options and an extensions gallery to Google Wave.
For Google Apps administrator, Google has also activated Wave. So, you can now easily enable it for all your users.
For developers, Google has also launched several improvements to the Wave APIs and has open-sourced additional components for building customized Wave services.
And in case you have no idea how to use Google Wave for your own collaboration and communication work, here are examples that you might want to emulate:
Creative collaboration: From virtual art classes to writing the Complete Guide to Google Wave itself, waves make it easier for groups to review and critique multimedia content like images and videos. (We’ve heard that Wave is fun for gaming, too.)
