Archive for the ‘apps’ Category

Posted on December 7, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Whim iPhone app launches to make it easy to go places with your friends

While in California for the summer I met two yobongo friends offline, Emmanuel @jewgonewild and Ben @benbinary who were  just getting started working on a new iPhone app to make it easy to invite your friends when going out. The app was called Whim @getwhim on twitter. Yesterday Whim launched in Apple’s App store [iTunes Link] . It’s great to see the progress that Emmanuel and Ben have made since the summer.

At it’s core whim allows you to do the following:

• Quickly share plans with friends
• See what friends are up to
• Find places to go, together
• Stay connected with real-time chat

Take a look a whim via the screenshots below.

Whim joins the growing trend of new apps to invite your friends to locations vs letting your firends know where you’re at after you have checked into a location. I all it “friends availability around location discovery”.

For more about whim visit: getwhim.com .

Congrats Emmanuel and Ben!

Have you invited your friends on a Whim yet?

Posted on September 10, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Screenshots: Holler iPhone App launches to help you connect with people around you for in person activities

I first learned about Holler during SXSW 2011 when founder Nick O’Neill showed me a few screenshots and talked about his vision to help connect people offline with the app. At the time little was posted outside of the Holler landing page but I still wanted to blog about holler as from what I saw I got the feeling the app could be a winner.

As time passed I wondered what was the status of Holler then I ran into Nick at the Google Ventures BBQ in Mountain View, CA. Nick gave me a status update, told me how he started over, learned iPhone iOS development and would be launching soon. Well, that day has come as Holler is now available in the iTunes app store and will be officially launching at Techcrunch Disrupt next week. Here are a few screenshots of Holler.

So… what does Holler do? Here’s the description from iTunes app store:

Holler is the easiest way to connect with the people around you for in person activities. While you can instantly connect with your existing friends, you can also meet new ones with shared interests.

Holler is totally free and works on the iPhone and the web.

Holler is perfect for:
- Connecting with other students on college campuses
- Meeting up with friends after work or school
- Discovering nearby activities with people who have shared interests
- Organize a volunteer activity
- A great excuse to say “HOLLER!”

Whether it’s meeting up for a pick up game of soccer, football, basketball (anything …), or finding someone to share a ride to work with, Holler makes it insanely easy to connect with others in the community, no matter where you are.

Yesterday, AllThinksD covered Holler in a post called: AllFacebook Founder Launches Holler to Help People Connect Offline

If you have downloaded Holler, let me know what you think about the app and concept in the commnets.

Posted on August 30, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

8 websites to help you create an instagram online profile

Instagram is one of those little startups that could. I’ve been blogging about Instagram since I fell in love with the app when they first launched. Now with over seven million users instagram is living up hype of what I call the new twitter and with the recent rumors that Facebook tried to buy Instagram the photo sharing startup only has one way to go and that is up. With a rapid user growth, an API that developers are building new mashups with and a list of growing brands such as Chevy, Playboy, National Geographic and ABCNews posting photos in the instagram app it’s hard to believe that instagram is still just an iPhone app. The instagram team has said an Android app is on the way but no date has been announced yet.

The other day I was editing my google+ profile and I wanted to add a public link to my instagram photos  and with instagram being only an iPhone app I had to turn to one of the websites built on the instagram API. There’s a few good ones but some require instagram users to login to see your photos. I wanted a site that would show my instagram photos in a public stream even if someone doesn’t have an instagram account. Instagram public profiles is something I’m sure the team will launch one day but right now they’re focused on mobile, which is a smart move. Below is a list of sites that allow you to create an Instagram public online profile or see your Instagram stats. I decided to go with Webstagram and you can see my webstagram instagram profile here: http://web.stagram.com/n/waynesutton/

 

1. Listagram
2. Inkstagram
3. Instagrid
4. Webstagram
5. Gramfeed 
6. Extragram
7. statigram 
8. followgram 

 

HatTip – Paul Ford  for items 1-4 via his  Instagram Online post.

What Instagram site do you use to show your photos online?

Posted on May 16, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

With 3.75 million users Instagram is the new Twitter

Today one of my favorite iPhone apps updated to version 1.7. That app was Instagram. I’ve been a fan of the simple photo-sharing app that allows you add a simple filter and share it with the Instagram community and your social graph for a while and with the new features it just secured its place as the new twitter. For me at least.

New in version Instagram version 1.7 are the following:
- Grid View for Profile Pages
- Optional Bio Field in Profiles
- Manage which push notifications you receive (on Edit Profile screen)
- Choose Profile Picture from Facebook & Twitter
- Stability Improvements for iOS 4.1
- Bug Fixes & Speed Improvements for Older Phones

Why is Instagram the new Twitter? For a few reasons. Instagram started as only supporting one mobile platform, the iPhone but via their newly announced API have allowed developers to create a desktop app and other mobile mashups such as Pic A Fight, the same way Twitter started. Also Instagram has connected me in a new visual way with new friends and old ones. Now I can not only have a conversation but see what my friends are seeing and have conversations about what they experiencing. If you’re looking for the whole follower numbers race, #hashtag support and with version 1.7 profile pages, Instagram is more like Twitter but all within a mobile app. The saying on instagram is not follow me but “hey, check out my photos!”.

Maybe I’m thinking to closed minded comparing Instagram to twitter but the similarities are there. I read recently that the instagram team didn’t look at the app as a photo sharing app but as a media application or something like that. Looking at the big picture I can understand what they’re aming for. Not Twitter or even Facebook but something better based off of experiences of mobile content from their users. I believe Path has the same goal as well. When you think about it, photos is what help Facebook reach 500 million accounts. Good luck to both Path and Instagram.

More post on Instagram
How brands can use Instagram and other mobile photo sharing applications today for customer engagement
The 7 most popular photos on Instagram, there’s more than lol cats!
Instagram now supports hashtags and launches Brisk Pics SXSW contest
On Thanksgiving Instagram is all about the Turkeys! 9 Thanksgiving Day Turkey photos on Instagram
Will Instagram become the next big mobile social network or just one awesome photo sharing app?

What is your favorite mobile photo or video sharing application and why?

Posted on May 4, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

How to Use Peter Pham’s iphone Color™ app – infographic

When your iPhone app become so cool that it users/fans create an infographic providing examples how to use it then you’re on your way to something great… right? Either way, it’s what the guys at Namesake has done. Namesake created “The New Party Crasher: How to Troll using Color” infographic of Peter Pham’s smart phone app Color™ .  If you’re not familiar with Color, it is a location-aware social application that allow users to take a photo of what’s happening around them.

 

How to Use @Color – Namesake Blog.

Have you used color yet? If so how was your experience?