If you’re like me, the Facebook iPhone app just doesn’t cut it for you anymore. Quite simply, the current app is too basic, not taking full advantage of the capabilities of the incredible device running it and sometimes flat-out failing at merely allowing users to do things they can do on Facebook through regular browser access.
Well, the fix for (most of) our Facebook app woes should be coming any day now.
Hopefully we won’t have very much longer to wait, as the new app specifically designed for iPhone OS 3.0 has just been submitted to Apple for approval, according to the Facebook for iPhone fan page and also Facebook engineer and lead Facebook iPhone developer Joe Hewitt’s Twitter page.
Announced over the weekend, completion of the app arrives over a month after the first splurge of details about the much-needed update came at the beginning of July, when Hewitt listed every
thing new in the update:
1. The "new" News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call
The few screenshots we’ve seen of the update look like a tremendous improvement over the previous iteration, in terms of both aesthetic appeal and refined functionality, and iPhone users should be very excited about the list of additions above.
Additionally, for users who newly purchased the iPhone 3G S, which just came out in June, the updated Facebook app will enable video uploads.
This piece of news, it seems, will come just on time, for Qik just announced late last week the release of a free app exactly for that same purpose. Boasting of automatic uploading of videos and location sharing, Qik may have quickly drawn attention from Facebook to speed up release of its own app with video uploading capabilities.
Unfortunately, the one feature that this update won’t take advantage of yet is Push Notification, newly made possible by Apple’s 3.0 OS update to the iPhone in June. Hewitt says it will be implemented when his development team updates the app to version 3.1, an update that will undoubtedly be completed much faster than this epic 3.0 upgrade.
Now all we can do is wait for Apple to say the magic word (approve!)
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Anna Vod
Startup/Business
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Twitter is an online information network that allows anyone with an account to post 140 character messages, called tweets. It is free to sign up. Users then follow other accounts which they are interested in, and view the tweets of everyone they follow in their "timeline." Most Twitter accounts are public, where one does not need to approve a request to follow, or need to follow back. This makes Twitter a powerful "one to many" broadcast platform where individuals, companies or organizations can reach millions of followers with a single message. Twitter is accessible from Twitter.com, our mobile website, SMS, our mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, our iPad application, or 3rd party clients built by outside developers using our API. Twitter accounts can also be private, where the owner must approve follower requests.
Twitter started as an internal project within the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, and engineer, had long been interested in status updates. Jack developed the idea, along with Biz Stone, and the first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly in August of 2006. The service grew popular very quickly and it soon made sense for Twitter to move outside of Odea. In May 2007, Twitter Inc was founded.
Our engineering team works with a web application framework called Ruby on Rails. We all work on Apple computers except for testing purposes.
We built Twitter using Ruby on Rails because it allows us to work quickly and easily--our team likes to deploy features and changes multiple times per day. Rails provides skeleton code frameworks so we don't have to re-invent the wheel every time we want to add something simple like a sign in form or a picture upload feature.
There are a few ways that Twitter makes money. We have licensing deals in place with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft's Bing to give them access to the "firehose" - a stream of tweets so that they can more easily incorporate those tweets into their search results.
In Summer 2010, we launched our Promoted Tweets product. Promoted Tweets are a special kind of tweet which appear at the top of search results within Twitter.com, if a company has bid on that keyword. Unlike search results in search engines, Promoted Tweets are normal tweets from a business, so they are as interactive as any other tweet - you can @reply, favorite or retweet a Promoted Tweet.
At the same time, we launched Promoted Trends, where companies can place a trend (clearly marked Promoted) within Twitter's Trending Topics. These are especially effective for upcoming launches, like a movie or album release.
Lastly, we started a Twitter account called @earlybird where we partner with other companies to provide users with a special, short-term deal. For example, we partnered with Virgin America for a special day of fares on Virginamerica.com that were only accessible through the link in the @earlybird tweet.
What's next for Twitter?
We continue to focus on building a product that provides value for users.
We're building Twitter, Inc into a successful, revenue-generating company that attracts world-class talent with an inspiring culture and attitude towards doing business.
Startup/Business
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Qik is a little piece of software that enables you to stream videos directly from your phone to the Web. Use it to stream engaging videos to your friends in Facebook, Twitter, etc. or as your camcorder to capture entertaining and special moments. Qik enables you to share moments of your life with your friends, family and the world - directly from your cell phone!
Keep your world in the know, share a laugh, tell engaging stories. Just point your cell phone and stream video live to your your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. OR use your cell phone like a camcorder and stream hours and hours of video without worrying about storage on your cell phone.
