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iBegin Labs Releases WP Lifestream Plugin

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iBegin Labs has announced the release of its WP Lifestream plugin for WordPress, which enables bloggers to consolidate all their “life streams” into one handy page on their sites.

The Lifesteram Plugin is simple – used with WordPress, it lets you create one single feed for all your activities online. One feed that can collate what you are listening to, what you are buying, and what you are doing. Twitter, Facebook, iTunes, Hulu, YouTube, your blog, Flickr, Steam, and a lot more – all in one easy to read place.

The Lifestream plugin includes the following features:

  • Unlimited number of feeds.
  • Stores entire feed history, not just the last week or two.
  • Extendable via a base PHP class. Easily add your own feed types with very little PHP code.
  • Customizable display using stylesheets.
  • Allows grouping of events to cutback on the daily feed spam.
  • Localization ready
  • Daily digest available to summarize your activities.
  • Efficient! Built on scalable database structures so it won’t bog down your website.

A sample lifestream using the plugin can be found at davidcramer.net.

I think this is a good way to consolidate one’s feeds from outside of a blog, rather than, say, publish your tweet summaries in a daily digest (which I have done before, but decided it’s a bit tacky). Having all of these in one dedicated page gives readers who are interested in your lifestreams the opportunity to follow your tweets, photos, and whatnot, but doesn’t necessarily clutter the main areas of your site.

The Lifestream plugin is scalable, and iBegin is considering creating a WordPress theme that already incorporates the plugin and a dedicated lifestream page.

Originally posted on December 16, 2008 @ 11:08 pm

Google Buzz Gets a Native iPhone App, Simply Called Buzzie!

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Why did it take an iPhone app developer to come up with the first native app for Google Buzz? Isn’t Buzz not too interesting enough to merit its own native iPhone? Frankly, I’ve been waiting for this one. In fact, I was expecting something like this to come out earlier.

Anyway, so there it is. Google Buzz now has its own native iPhone app and it’s simply called – Buzzie.

Currently selling for an introductory price of $1.99 during its first week run on the Apps Store, Buzzie lets yo do, well what you practically can do on the Google Buzz webapp. If you want to be specific about these features, it includes the following:

  • Receive messages from the people you follow
  • Comment on messages and mark them as liked
  • Browse all links and images attached to messages
  • Manage your followers
  • Browse the people following you
  • Find new people to follow
  • Check the places around you and buzz about them
  • Buzz from your phone, publicly or privately

It’s a simple, straight-out port of the Buzz webapp, so don’t expect too much from it. And besides, what can you possibly expect from an iPhone of the web’s latest noise maker?, I mean online communication tool.

Simply put, Buzzie is good native app that would help you get your Buzz fix in a faster and easier way.

Will you use Buzzie? Or is the Buzz webapp enough for your buzzing needs? If you want to get this app, here is its iTunes Link.

Originally posted on March 3, 2010 @ 3:55 pm

PleaseRobMe Hits on FourSquare, Other Location-Aware Services

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A new site called Please Rob Me is getting some media mileage not only because of its intriguing name but also because of its equally intriguing purpose.  Please Rob Me describes its goal as follows:

The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page (link). Everybody can get this information.

So, what does the site actually does? Well, controversial as well. It compiles and lists down all the status updates published on FourSquare and perhaps soon other location-aware services as well, that pertains to individuals saying that they are about to leave their homes to go somewhere else. These are posted on the site and on Twitter.

While Please Rob Me’s goal is unquestionably noble, the way it is pushing things to achieve this goal is not. Raising the level of awareness of the public over some dangerous matters is a good feat, but actually giving the would-be perpetrators an idea about this whole thing is certainly not commendable.

The site posts those updates on their Twitter account for all its followers to see and monitor.   They say that FourSquare, Gowalla and the others are just dressed up Twitter where updates live links that anyone can click through and access.

But the thing is, those location-aware service still give users the options to set up their privacy settings and control who among their contacts they would allow access to their updates. So, I guess location-aware services are still safe, just like Twitter.

Originally posted on February 17, 2010 @ 5:44 pm

TweetDeck 0.33 Unloads Great New Features

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TweetDeck as many of you might not be aware of is not only a great iPhone Twitter application but it is also a great social media management tool for your desktop.  Actually the TweetDeck iPhone app takes its roots from the TweetDeck desktop client. If you’ve been using TweetDeck on your desktop before, you’ll be glad to know that version 0.33 is now available and promises more great features to help you manage your social media life easier.

First of these new features is the extended API limit to 350 calls per hour. This gives those who configure TweetDeck greater flexibility without having to worry about running out of API calls. In addition, TweetDeck version 0.33 has also introduced an automatic API management option which is an ideal way for you to get the most out of your API allowance.

Next new feature – the Column Navigator which shows a representation of all your TweetDeck columns and lets you navigate through each of the columns quickly by clicking on them. Even more useful is the fact that when you hover over a bar in the navigator, key information about the column content will be displayed including the time remaining before the column refreshes and the current level of API calls remaining.

Another new feature that you might  like is YouTube integration.  Clicking on YouTube video links will now let you view the video in a TweetDeck preview window. This is also true for Flickr image links.

Other new features of TweetDeck 0.33 include – ability to edit definition of search columns and a brand new help screen.

You may download TweetDeck version 0.33 from here.

Originally posted on February 8, 2010 @ 4:40 pm

Justin.tv Launches Easier Web Broadcasting Feature

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When it comes to web broadcasting services, one of the most used that I’ve seen so far is Justiv.tv. Unfortunately, while I’ve found it a very good web app, I also find it rather complicated to use and set up. Until now, as Justin.tv just made its process of web broadcasting easier and faster.

According to the Justin.tv blog, they have overhauled the web broadcasting experience to make it easier to go live on Justin.tv.  The new process eliminates all the required configurations and setup such as resubmitting forms, fiddling with Captchas, selecting categories, uploading images, selecting cameras, adjusting bitrate and other tasks. So with the new interface, you will now be spending more time creating live video rather than doing many chores to prepare creating video.

Initial assessment of the beta tests conducted on new users to Justin.tv revealed that 10% of them made it to the last step of creating web broadcasts, signifying a 700% increase from the old version prior to the launch of the new interface and simple process. Justin.tv now requires fewer settings which can even be skipped. And Justin.tv hopes that this could turn first-time users to become frequent live streamers.

Let’s see whether this simpler process of creating a live web broadcast would actually encourage new users as well as retain old ones.

If you’re in need of a tool to broadcast yourself or your friends online, you might want to check out Justin.tv again. Right now, CNET observed that the site is frequently being used by gamers. Something which keeps Justin.tv from going.

Originally posted on January 26, 2010 @ 4:03 pm