Daily Bits

Mobile Location-Sharing Service Foursquare Goes Global

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Screen shot 2010-01-06 at 5.11.02 AMI’ve been reading some coverages about mobile location-sharing service Foursquare for quite some time now and was really curious about  it. But unfortunately, the service was used to be restricted North American and European cities, until now.

Foursquare has just gone global, lifting its geographical limitation. So, if you’re located anywhere outside the U.S. and Europe, you can now join in the fun and start using Foursquare. In case you’re wondering how, Foursquare has various applications for iPhone, Palm Pre and Google Android. For Blackberry uses, a native app is currently under development.

As the international version is currently in test mode, Foursquare is relying on users to build its local directory. So, Foursquare as it is for non-US and European country won’t be much of good use if it will not gain grounds in the local scene.

And if you don’t know what I am talking about, here’s a brief overview of what Foursquare does.

First, you need to get the Foursquare app running on your mobile phone. Then you need to “check-in”, which in other words is just registering your whereabouts on Foursquare. Foursquare will use this information to tell your friends who are also using Foursquare so that they can recommend places to go and things to do near where you are located right now. The process goes on and on and lets you learn about the places that your friends frequently visit hereby letting you discover new places to visit as well.

In addition, you can also create badges representing the places you’ve visited, and the number of checkins you’ve made. And the more you use Foursquare, time will come when you can become the “mayor” of most visited site. You can retain that position, until someone comes along to steal it away from you.

Sounds fun? Go check out Foursquare and see whether it fits your needs.

Top 100 Social Brands of 2009, iPhone Tops Again

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Vitrue, a social media management company has just released their Top 100 Social Brands of 2009. For the second time, iPhone is again at the number 1. Following the iPhone are Disney, CNN, MTV, MTV and NBA.

Aside from iPhone other social brands that show significant trend in 2009 are game consoles with Nintendo Wii at #7, PlayStation at #13, and Nintendo at #21. Adidas also made it to the top of the list among the sports apparel brands.  For Sports, NBA and MLB are among the most talked about brands.

For the fashion circuit, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Burberry made it to the top of the list while media brands such as CNN, MTV, ESPN, CBS among others also made some noise in 2009.

Incidentally, don’t be surprised if you can’t find Google, Facebok and Twitter on the list. According to Vitrue, they omitted these companies from the list since they are only measuring those that use social technology and not the companies who are the technology themselves.

Vitrue’s analysis comprised on over 2,000 popular brands on the social web.

Here’s the Top 100 Social Brands of 2009 according to Vitrue. [Read more…] about Top 100 Social Brands of 2009, iPhone Tops Again

Social Network BeautifulPeople.com Kicks Out Members Who Gained Weight

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If you’re a social networking site hailed as the sexiest website in the world, you’d certainly go leaps and bounds to protect your reputation, right? But would it be to the extent of kicking out your members because they’ve gained weight?

Believe it or not, that’s what the social networking site BeautifulPeople.com did to around 5,000 of its members who posted their photos showing that they’ve gained weight.

According to a BBC report BeautifulPeople.com founder Robert Hintze said that although they mourn the loss of any member, they can’t do anything about it since the site has to uphold is high standard of beauty. So, it only goes to show that for the site, being fat is being ugly. Ouch! that kind of hurts, right?

“Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded,” said Mr. Hintze.

Surprisingly, the move was initiated by the site’s other members, tasked to monitor the site for members who may be violating their high standard of being attractive.

BeautifulPeople.com accepts new members only upon being voted by other members as “sufficiently attractive.”

Curious as to how beautiful the site’s members are, I checked out BeautifulPeople.com but had to leave quickly before I got tempted to check it out as a guest. Saved myself from being branded as too ugly, lucky me!

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Facebook Had a Better Christmas than Google

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For the first time in its history, Facebook has become the most visited website in the United States on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. According to Experian Hitwise via a Twitter post, Facebook which was number two most visited website on the same day last year has dislodged Google which was now at the no. 2 spot.

Of course this is not surprising since Facebook users have probably used the site to communicate with their family and friends through the site, exchanging Holiday greetings and sharing photos of their celebration. And this might seem that email has become a thing of the past during this time of the year.

Interestingly, all through out 2009, Facebook has been running third behind Google and Yahoo! Mail despite being the most popular search query from all major search engines, as noted by Hitwise.

That’s worth noting. HitWise reported last year that Facebook was number two behind Google on Christmas. People say that Facebook vs. Google will be the Web’s biggest battle in coming years – but it looks like Facebook has already won the battle for Christmas.

Another interesting point to mention is the fact that the surge of site visits on Facebook happened amidst controversial privacy issues hurled at Facebook this year. Either users no longer mind these issues or they just couldn’t find a better and faster way to communicate with their friends and family during the Holiday Season.

With 2010 just a few days away, it would be interesting to see whether Facebook can sustain this trend and how Google will possibly react.

LinkedIn iPhone App Updated to Look More Like Facebook

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LinkedIn couldn’t wait until the new year before launching new features of its iPhone app. So, before we all bid 2009 goodbye, here are some new features and enhancements of the LinkedIn iPhone app.

First thing you’ll notice of course is the new home screen interface with the most common and important features of the LinkedIn app on top of the home screen – All Updates, Status, Profiles and Discussions. These options are arranged in a 4 by 3 square similar to the layout of Facebook app’s main screen.

Next improvement is a completely revamped search interface that display search results faster than you can imagine. Likewise, the profile screens were also improved with summary of details about the LinkedIn member, review of their education and experience, list of people you both know in common and the ability to mark that person as a favorite. This Favorite feature would be most useful if you want a quick look on some of the most important people you’ve searched on LinkedIn.

And then the LinkedIn app also makes it easier to check updates  through four new modules – all updates, status udpates, profile updates and discussions. The app even allows you to filter updates based on your favorited connections. You can make comments on the updates as well.

Other new features of the LinkedIn iPhone app include – more powerful inbox and Address Book Integration and a cool feature that lets you find and connect with LinkedIn members real-time in person through Bluetooth. Provided of course that the LinkedIn member is using the iPhone app also.

Alright folks, here’s the LinkedIn iPhone app download link.

Facebook Preps Up Help Center for 2010’s Surge in Userbase

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As early as now, Facebook is already gearing up for possibly a surge in membership base come 2010.  And first from Facebook’s list of feature improvement is something that we may have never checked at all in our entire Facebook life – the Facebook Help Center.

Yes dear readers, there is such a thing. If you’re aware of this Facebook section, let me ask, when was the last time you’ve read it? Or did you read it at all before you begin your Facebook life?

If you haven’t check it out before, now is probably the best time to do so, as Facebook recently made some changes to the Help Center to make it more – helpful especially for Facebook newbies.

Some of these improvements include, a new search interface, navigation filters on the left side, separate user-to-user support, new privacy and safety pages, separate user-to-user support navigation and unique web addresses or URLs.

The Facebook Help Center is loaded with useful information about making your lives better, easier and more fun as you become part of the Facebook community. So, there’ s no harm in actually visiting it from time to time.  What? You don’t know how to access it? Just hover your mouse cursor on the Settings tab and select “Help” from the pull-down options. Better yet, just click on this link to visit the Facebook Help Center.