Thankfully, it is an opt-in system. Only those subscribers who choose to share their viewing habits will have said viewing habits become visible to their friends (and vice versa). When you start watching another episode of Big Bang Theory, for example, that can get posted on your wall and then your friends can comment on your viewing activity. They can tell you why Sheldon is so awesome (or not).

The interesting thing is that while this Facebook integration is only rolling out this week, Netflix announced its intention to do this way back in July 2011. Then, they got hit by the US law that prevents rental companies from publicizing member rental history. They fought it and won. It’s likely that they’ll be expanding the social aspects of their service moving forward. Some GetGlue integration would make a lot of sense, don’t you think?

[Source

The post Netflix Introduces Facebook Integration for Social Viewers appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

What happens to your Facebook and Twitter accounts after you die? The assumption is that your presence in social media will simply fade away, but thanks to services like LivesOn and DeadSocial, that doesn’t have to be the case. It can be far, far creepier.

In the case of LivesOn, which launches next month, the service analyzes what you do online while you’re still alive, using algorithms to effectively create a digital version of you. When you do kick the bucket, your Facebook and Twitter profiles will live on as LivesOn will favorite tweets, share links, and do other social media-ish things on your behalf. In a sense, you get a digital avatar that lives on forever, mimicking the behavior that it recorded while you were still among the living.

If that’s too offensive of a “digital legacy” for you, then DeadSocial might be a little more palatable. Instead of algorithms feeding into your social profiles, you simply pre-write a series of updates and messages that can then be sent out posthumously on Facebook and Twitter. It’s still a little creepy, as you’re sort of writing from beyond the grave, but at least they’re your own words.

Would you use either of these two services? What should happen to your social media presence when you die? Should it simply pass away with you?

[Source]

The post Social Media Updates from Beyond the Grave appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Privacy has been at the center of social networking over the past couple of years. In fact, Facebook dedicates a great amount of time and money to protecting their users. But after a major hack to Twitter 2 weeks ago and one close call for Facebook just a couple of days ago, what you are about to read might push you over the edge to deactivation.

A screencast released by The Guardian shows a principle investigator from Riot (rabid information overlay technology) demonstrating Raytheon’s cyber tracking software. The main idea of the software is to pull together data from multiple social networks to create the big picture, also known as your life. Take a look:

Throughout the video, Brian Urch shows us how easy it is to peruse the social data of others. At one point in the video, he states that ”if you ever did want to try to get hold of Nick, or maybe get hold of his laptop, you might want to visit the gym at 6am on a Monday”.

When you post something online, there’s no holding it back from the entire universe. However, if somebody can bypass your privacy settings this easy, just think about the rest of your personal data. Just make sure that you have no reason to be hunted down by a crazed computer hacker.

The release of this screencast is not the least bit earth-shattering. This kind of technology exists at a handful of other companies throughout the world. However, the fact that this video is from November of 2010 should creep you out a little bit. More specifically, it took over 2 years for this video to go public and Raytheon has had 2 years to improve or distribute this software.

How do you feel about sharing your life online? Did reading this article change your thoughts in any way? Let us know in the comments below.

[ Source ]

The post Raytheon Can Track You Via Your Social Media Accounts appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

When you think of social networking, Google+ isn’t exactly the first website that comes into mind. However, according to Google, over 500 million people would beg to differ.

In a recent post on Google’s Official Blog, Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google, it was made public that Google+, Google’s social network, has reached 500 million members. More specifically, 235 million users with actively involved in Google+ via other Google services (+1, Gmail Hangouts, Google Search).

However, only 135 million of those members are monthly active users. These numbers were enough to make Google+ “fastest-growing network thingy ever”. Of course, this is a self-proclaimed title by Google. But, Google did reach the half a million mark in only 17 months.

On the other hand, Facebook boasts over 800 million users, 584 million daily active users, and 604 million monthly active users as of September 30, 2012. Clearly, Facebook users are more active than Google+ users. Of course Facebook has also been around for a lot longer now. Along with the numbers, Google+ is debutting Communities. A take off of Facebook’s “Groups”, Communities will allow public or private membership to groups on anything from photography to astronomy.

Finally, be sure to check out Google+’s new Snapseed integration. Now, Google+ users can adjust photos better, use creative filters, and even use control point technology to focus your photos enhancements. You can read more about Snapseed here.

Do you like using Google+? Would you like to see Google prevail in the end? Let us know in the comments below.

[ Source ]

The post Google+ Surpasses 500 Million Members appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Echofon is  a Twitter utility that makes things simple and basic, and that is not a bad thing. Those qualities are exactly what has kept me loyal to Echofon since I purchased my iPhone. It does not have Facebook integration, nor does it get fancy with too many ways to customize. With a sleek design, Echofon sticks to what Twitter does best.

The app was released by naan studios, Inc. who have made it free in its current 5.2.3 version. However, you can upgrade to the “Pro” version for $4.99 to remove advertisements at the top of the app. To me, the ads are not intrusive; I never had a need remove them.

Echofon achieves near perfection in every area of Twitter. It offers shortcuts to compose and jump to the most recent tweet, view and edit Lists, read mentions in conversation mode, read Direct Messages, and Search for tweets, trending topics or users and gives you the option of which image service to upload pictures to. You can even change your profile on the fly or add additional accounts.

The most convenient features of Echofon for Twitter are picture previews in the timeline, being able to connect to a link from the timeline and viewing mentions in conversation mode. Viewing in conversation mode makes it appear as if you are texting with another user.

PROS

• The app has a simple, yet sleek design. You can understand how it works after just at a glance, but it is not hard on the eyes either.
• The customization options are just enough. Echofon does not over complicate the customization with giving you too many choices, but it gives exactly what is needed.
• It is easy to use. This ties into the simplicity of the app. You do not need instructions to know how to use it.

CONS

• The only part of the app that is hard to understand is knowing what the shortcuts are. I had to do a search to find out about the shortcut to jump to the most recent tweet (which is to tap the status bar), because scrolling through hundreds of tweets every morning was not my cup of tea.
• “Failed to load Direct Messages” error is a constant problem. While this error is not really an error, receiving the message itself is the error, it is still bothersome to receive it when entering the app. It does not always occur, but it is enough to be noticeable.
• Pricey “Pro” upgrade. While removing ads is nice, the $4.99 price tag seems a bit hefty. It would be more fair if it was a few dollars lower so more people could support the developer.

Overall, I can highly recommend Echofon for any iPhone owner that is glued to Twitter 24/7. It posts and updates quickly and gives you the options you need without making it too complicated. The flaws are minor and can easily be addressed by naan Studios. Otherwise, it is a close to perfect Twitter app.

Download Echofon on iTunes here.

The post App Review: Echofon for Twitter appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

A report was recently published by Juice Mobile, a company dedicated to mobile advertising and analytics. In this report, they discovered that 91% of mobile Internet access is to socialize. If you stop to think about it, that doesn’t sound that far-fetched. We go on Facebook and Twitter. We send emails. We post comments on YouTube videos. That’s all socializing.

Juice Mobile also came forward with a bunch of other numbers that may interest you. For example, 60% of Twitter sessions are from a mobile device. Similarly, we’re expecting to see 600 million mobile social networkers around the world by 2013. They’re also saying that mobile commerce will hit $11.6 billion this year and mobile app revenue grew to $12 billion last year. Tablet sales in Canada are expected to double to 2.5 million this year and only 9% of Canadians currently own a tablet device.

And tablets aren’t just for kids either. The average age of a tablet owner is 39. Tech is an expensive hobby, after all.

The post Socializing Makes Up 91% of Mobile Internet Access appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The regular old Twitter client on your Android phone is fine for basic updates, but what if you’re using social networks for a small business and you need more features? What if you need to handle multiple accounts and manage different teams of workers? Thankfully, there are more than a few alternatives out there.

Sprout Social has been around as a web-based desktop client for some time now, they’ve also offered an iOS app. Now, they’ve updated us with an Android application to let you better “manage your social media on the go.” This is a companion app for users of Sprout Social, so you’ll need to start with an account there first.

A Sprout Social Overview

It’s clear right from the beginning that Sprout Social is catering itself to business owners, particularly those where there are multiple team members working on the same social media accounts. The core service is designed to give you more information for sales, marketing, and support, as well as that collaborative experience for everyone on your social media team.

You can manage mutliple social media accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, complete with analytics, monitoring, top performing posts, publishing options, discovery features, task assignment, CRM, and location information. That last bit is interesting, because you can keep tabs on Foursquare locations for check-in data and trends, which is great for brick and mortar businesses.

Navigating the Mobile App

But what about the new Android app?

Everything is laid out in a relatively easy to understand manner, allowing you group together different Twitter accounts into workgroups. From there, you can see the main home feed as well as access your sent updates, look at tasks, and so on. Everything that you’ve come to expect from a Twitter client is here, though I would have liked the ability to “swipe” from column to column rather than simply tapping on the icons near the top.

When composing a new message you can choose which social media accounts you’d like to use (that’s the left column). There are also options to attach images (it defaults to a low-res image to yfrog) and schedule your tweets into the future. Unfortunately, just like HootSuite, there does not appear to be a way to check your scheduled tweets from within the mobile app; you have to go to the web-based desktop client to see that.

The tasks and statistics are available to you, though, so you can see how many clicks and retweets you are getting from your sent messages, for instance. The team management function is great too, since you can assign tasks to team members for following up.

The Smart Inbox

The primary column in the Sprout Social Android app is the Smart Inbox. Again, clearly designed with businesses in mind, this allows you to monitor everything that has to do with your company and your brand from one convenient location. The criteria can be customized, but it effectively lets you see all the mentions and activity related to you across mutliple services.

For instance, I named the workgroup “Mobile Magazine” and linked up my @dotcompho Twitter account. As you can see in the screenshot, it picked up the tweets that mentioned “Mobile Magazine,” as well as the mention directed at @dotcompho. This one inbox gives you an “at a glance” survey of how the social web is responding to your brand(s).

How Much Does It Cost?

Ah, there’s the rub. While the Android app is free, using Sprout Social is not.

Each of these comes with a free 30 day trial with no credit card required, but there is no “free” plan that can be used with Sprout Social. The plans range from $9/month to $899/month, offering anywhere from 10 social profiles to unlimited profiles. The cheapest plan supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Reader, while the higher end includes Foursquare and Google Analytics, as well as local search, task assignments, Facebook tabs, branded reports, and more.

I’m not sure that Sprout Social is quite the right fit for the regular old consumer, but its robust feature set — particularly with monitoring and analytics — and could prove invaluable to businesses of all sizes.

The post Sprout Social for Android Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Pronounced “social,” So.cl is “an experimental research project” launched by Microsoft Research’s FUSE Labs. They’re saying that this site is “designed to give students the ability to network with peers, share useful information quickly, and build their own pages that collect information from both inside and outside the classroom.” And give Microsoft a close look at their thinking, actions, and behavior.

So, it’s a site for students to socialize and build a “new way to learn.” That sounds awfully familiar, don’t you think? Oh right, that was almost the exact same foundation on which Facebook was originally built. For students. It’s not like Microsoft is ignoring the elephant in the room, though, since the way you log into So.cl is to connect through your Facebook account.

I’m not entirely sure what’s all that different with So.cl. They say you can “build posts” with photos, video, text, and so on, as well as “find students with similar interests and build communities.” I guess you could say it’s a more academically-geared Facebook, since Zuck’s site has expanded well beyond that niche. In any case, you can check it out at so.cl.

The post Microsoft So.cl Is The Facebook For Students… Oh, Wait appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

MM: John, can you tell us a little about your background in the social mobile industry.

When I founded Vringo in 2006, I saw a tremendous opportunity for smartphones. Smartphones have these beautiful, large screens created for displaying visual content. In 2006 the way to personalize your phone was by having your own ringtone, but just hearing your phone ring was very last century. We identified this vacuum and decided to fill the screen with color, motion and light. At first we did this through our Video Ringtone App (aka Vringo) which allows you to set videos that you create or download from our library as your ringtone. It meant you could watch your favorite band play your favorite song, not just hear it. Then we added an extra layer of personalization and further integrated the social element by enabling your video ringtone to play on your friend’s device when you call them. It’s called VringForwardT and is a patented technology and industry first.

Our journey began by enhancing the social experience for our users within their primary social network, their phone contact list. Shortly after, we decided to integrate their extended social networks. We predicted that visual content such as photos and videos would play a major part in the social platform evolution. This is how Facetones, an animated social video tone, was born.

MM:. What is Facetones and how does it work?

Facetones is a mobile app that generates a video slideshow of your friends’ Facebook photos whenever they call you or you call them. It automatically matches your phone’s contact list with your Facebook friends so that when you ring each other, you see a visually exciting video slideshow of their pictures on your phone.

Facetones is available to download for Android, Symbian (and coming soon to iPhone) from all major app stores such as Android Market, Ovi store, Mobango, Getjar, AppBrain. We have already exceeded 200,000 downloads of Facetones and have launched Facetones with leading carriers including Verizon, Telefonica and NTT Docomo which means subscribers can download the app direct from their mobile providers’ app stores. We’re currently in discussions with several other carriers to launch Facetones.

MM: Are the photos pulled in real time? Periodic synchronizations?

Facetones refreshes itself every week but also lets you do a manual refresh. Either way, your friends pictures will never be old and boring.

MM: How does Facetones address the issue of multiple contacts with the same name?

Facetones knows you might have multiple contacts with the same name or contacts who you save as one name on your phone (eg Mom) but whose real name will appear on Facebook. That’s why we ensured that the manual matching process is as quick and simple as possible; you can manually match any contact in only 2 clicks.

MM: What’s the difference between Facetones and Facetones Pro?

Facetones is ad supported but free to download. Facetones Pro does not have advertisements and costs a few dollars to download.

We also offer a subscription version without ads together with major carriers such as Verizon. With Verizon the subscription fee is $0.99 a month.

6. What trends in the mobile industry do you see really taking off in the next year or two?

Demand for mobile social interaction. As more and more people are becoming connected to the internet and social networking sites, the desire to receive instant updates and social media driven content is growing exponentially. There is an extreme demand for this social interaction to become integrated into more traditional areas of our entertainment and our lives. The Facetones concept is a prime example of the latest trend – integration between the mobile and social experiences. Estimates suggests that there are 5 billion global mobile subscribers in 2011 and 91% of mobile internet access is to socialize. We can see this trend in action with the recent partnership of Skype and Facebook. This partnership represents the future of communications: Socially connected, context rich, immediate sharing of content, free, and utilizing rich media and it has been reported that more than 50% of Skype calls today involve video. Facetones demonstrates how Vringo connects to this huge secular trend.

The Personalization imperative. More and more people around the globe are using mobile devices, and yet they want a very personal way to stamp and brand their own mobile voice and data connection to the world. Initially this was done with a ringtone-a great way of telling your surrounding what kind of person you are. Obviously the Rolling Stones, Bach or Justin Bieber each tell a different story. However today with the advent of blazing fast data networks through mobile carriers, many consumers will want to do much better with broadcasting their own personal brand across the network. This can be with a video ringtone -which is Vring forwarded or with social network pictures and updates that are shared with friends.

Video is the future. The latest smartphones, regardless of operating system, are pushing high quality video and visually stimulating content and applications at an increasing rate. The latest app designers and many mobile operators and cell phone manufacturers are coming up with innovative new ways to display video content on older models and more simple mobile devices due to their prevalence in major emerging markets with millions of consumers such as India and the developing world.

MM: What current trends do you see leveling off and fading away over the next while?

The old audio ringtone craze is over. People want more than just ri-ring from their smartphones.
They want some visual content and excitement. Thus video ringtones and social pictures and videos received while making and receiving phone calls are clearly the wave of the future.

Siloed communications is last century. The notion of separate applications and functions for messaging, chat, video, and voice will soon seem very quaint. It’s all about bringing the richest and most interesting form of communication to your phone with the best user experience. Soon all communication will seem like one big mash up.

Communications without social context will soon be over. Each time you reach out to your friends via phone you will want to share the social context we all create with our social networks. Bringing this social context seamlessly into the conversation will be where the money is made.

MM: Can Google+ and Facebook co-exist? Do people want to participate in more and more social networks?

The key to being a successful social networking platform is offering users a unique experience, or in other words, not being the same as the other guy. Over the last few weeks we’ve been watching a game of catch up by both Google+ and Facebook. Many new features were announced by both parties; however each one appeared to be already in play on the other’s site.

I think ultimately both platforms will reign for their own distinct features and will be mutually exclusive, appealing to different audiences and satisfying different needs. People will join networks that help them satisfy their particular need. For example, the reason a person signs up to LinkedIn will not be the same reason for signing up to Facebook. Facebook and G+ will need to create and develop their unique spaces. Right now Facebook has an obvious lead in social networking, and Google has an obvious lead in search. Both will continue to grow. Competition is a good thing as it will keep both platforms on their toes which should ultimately benefit the user.

MM: What other projects are on the horizon for Vringo?

Right now our goal is reaching 1 million downloads for Facetones by January 2012, but our overall goal is to use our experience and our strong patent portfolio to keep creating apps which engage and visually-excite mobile users whilst keeping them connected to their social networks. Our continual aim is to improve the mobile social and video experiences for all users. We’ll also be looking into other kinds of networks, e.g. enterprise networks, and seeing how we can take our experiences and technology to develop products for businesses.

MM: Anything else you’d like to add?

There are huge opportunities in building video rich social apps for other needs and situations. We created a Video ReMix application in partnership with music artists and brands that allows users to create their own music video by tapping on a Smartphone or tablet. We also developed ‘Fan Loyalty’ which is a platform that lets users interact, vote and communicate with contestants in certain reality TV series and even set their performances as video ringtones. It was first launched in June 2011 for the reality TV show “Star Academy” seen by over 300 million viewers in the Middle East. At the end of the day, life is made up of social interactions and Vringo is here to enhance them.

[Vringo]

The post Interview with Jon Medved, CEO of Vringo (Facetones) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Using Facebook, Twitter and other apps to chat with friends and give real-time accounts of what they’re watching, the trend was previously noted in the U.S. at 86 per cent of those under 25 doing the same.

In the U.S., this has sparked a new trend of “second screening,” where old movies and shows are run on TV with live commentary via social media. For example, HBO’s screening of 14-year-old movie Private Parts with commentary by Howard Stern, which garnered far higher ratings than the average rerun.

And while the trend is catching on in Britain, there’s still a question of how to profit off of the trend.

“Up until 12 months ago, TV was struggling to reach the younger market as more and more channels were becoming available,” Digital Clarity founder Reggie James said in an interview with Reuters. “Social TV has changed this completely by turning programs into online events where you have to watch them as they happen.

“The audience have already taken their seats and are ready to join the conversation,” James said. “It’s now up to the TV companies to tap into this huge and lucrative market.”

Reuters reports television networks are using this as a new marketplace to pitch to advertisers.

The post Social TV Trend Hits Britain, U.S. appeared first on Mobile Magazine.