Daily Bits

Arnold Zafra

RIM to Roll Out BlackBerry Internet Service IS 3.0 on March 28

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If you own a BlackBerry device you either have it connected with your company’s BlackBerry Enterprises Server to access your email or on BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) to connect your IMAP, POP3 email accounts.  If you’re BlackBerry is tied up with BIS, expect some downtime to happen during the wee hours of the morning as RIM will be upgrading BIS to version 3.0.

The scheduled BIS network maintenance will happen 0500 CT/0600 EDT on March 28 and will last for four hours. All BIS customers will be affected by the upgrade – meaning you may be unable to send or receive messages, view email attachments, and activate email service. In addition, wireless service providers and device resellers may be unable to create subscriber accounts or provision services for subscribers.

And what do you get after the upgrade? The BIS  version 3.0 promises the following new features:

  • enhanced Google Mail integrations through synchronization of read, unread, and sent email message status for new Google Mail integration
  • enhanced Google Mail Plug-in to allow you to create and delete labels
  • additional language support for Basque, Catalan, Galician, Romanian
  • increased attachment compatibility – OpenDocument Presentations, OpenDocument Spreadsheets, OpenDocument Text, Open Document Text Templates, Windows Media Audio
  • Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (xHTML) Support for non Thick Clients for richer user experience
  • Device Switch Revalidation to optimize email setup and deactivation experience
  • Hosted Email Address Passwords
  • Send Delivery Receipts

Via CrackBerry

WordPress for BlackBerry Updated to 1.1 with Geotagging, Notifications and More Features

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When I first tried WordPress for BlackBerry app, I was pretty amazed at how it simply gets the job done. I mean despite its simplistic approach to a mobile application, that is minus all the fancy interface, it’s really commendable that the app works fast. Perfect for mobile blogging.

And guess what, making  WordPress for BlackBerry even more efficient are some new cool features that extend the app’s blogging functionality. WordPress for BlackBerry 1.1 is now out and it’s really loaded with great new features including the following:

  • Comment Notifications
  • Geotagging of Posts
  • Improved UI interaction on Touch devices
  • introduction of Touch Gestures:
    Sliding a finger to the left or right quickly on the Comment screen displays the next or previous comment.
  • Photo Resizing improvements with user defined dimensions
  • New File Browser with thumbnails support
  • Overall enhancements to the speed and stability of the app

I was going to point out its greatest features but then as I was scrolling through the list, all new features are very important in making the app a great mobile blogging app. But yeah, the comment notifications is a much needed feature. While the geotagging of posts makes the app at par with the current location-aware feature of most mobile apps.

Wait, there’s more. The app also now supports several languages including English, Italian, Finnish, French, Indonesian, German, and Portugese.

You can snag the WordPress for BlackBerry 1.1 from the BlackBerry App World. It’s free to have, download, install and use.  Or you may fire up the old app from your BlackBerry and you will be prompted to update to the new version.

Digg Supports Twitter @Anywhere and Other OpenID Standards

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In the “socially-induced” tech world that we are living in, the old adage that “no man is an island” doesn’t hold true anymore. No matter how geek and anti-social you are, now is the right time foresake all habits, get out into the open, connect and socialize. Even for the pioneers of web 2.0 applications and tools this is now an SOP. If you want to stay cool and relevant to the social world – open up to other online sites even if they use to be your rival.

Such is the case with Digg.  Digg is struggling to stay relevant. After all, it used to be one of the pillars of the web 2.0 phenomenon. It won’t definitely not yield to competition easily. So the Digg folks are rolling out a couple of integration features with popular online services.

First, Digg will definitely support Twitter @anywhere framework which was just announced a couple of days ago. It’s Facebook Connect integration was pretty successful, giving Digg increased in user engagement and a registration increase of around 20-30%.

And after surveying around 14 thousand of its users, Digg is now ready to roll out some more integration with other third party site based on survey responses. So, aside from Facebook Connect, soon you will be able to log in to Digg using your Google, Yahoo, and Twitter accounts. These three plus Facebook are the ones identified by Digg users which they want to use when logging in to Digg.

In addition, Digg will continue to support OpenID accounts. So if a third party site is supporting OpenID accounts, you can use them also for logging in to Digg.

YouTube Now Lets You Create InLay Video Ads Easily

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Notice those animated overlay that YouTube displays at the bottom part of a video that you are watching? Well, yes I know those ads can get pretty annoying but hey, if you’re a video ad publisher those overlays is one major way by which you can sell ads on YouTube.

And besides, YouTube is not going to be doing away with it. Not in the near future, at least. In fact creating those InVideo  ads were  just made easier with the availability of the Display Ad Builder which everyone who wishes to advertise on their videos can use.

Since its launch in 2008, YouTube has added more templates and fonts to this Display Ad Builder. Making it easier and quicker to create video overlay ads. This is fully complimented by the Display Ad Builder’s functionality for creating animated ads.

With this feature in Display Ad Builder, you can now turn your image ads into overlays and run ad campaigns on YouTube in a matter of minutes. You can run those overlays on cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM). These ad campaigns will be matched to YouTube videos based on various criteria such as demographics and content categories.

If you want to run ad campaign overlays, the process can be best illustrated below:

Or if you want more details, check out this guide.

Nexus One, iPhone, Motorola Droid Sales Compared

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Mobile analytics company Flurry has published an interesting report. A comparison actually of the sales figures of the first generation iPhone, Motorola Droid and Google Nexus One during the first 74 days since these phones were first released. And guess what? The report found out that sales of the Nexus is nowhere near the outstanding sales achieved by both Droid and iPhone.

Apple managed to post its 1 million units sold on its 74th day of being released. This is the reason why Flurry decided to measure the same for the Nexus One to see how far its sales went after 74 days. Unfortunately, Google’s first major venture into the mobile phone market is an epic fail with the Nexus One managing to get only around 0.135 million units sold.

Interestingly, the Motorola DROID managed to post the most number of units sold during its first 74 days of becoming available in the market with 1.05 million units sold.

Can we now conclude that Google’s first venture into the selling and marketing of mobile handset is an epic fail? Before we do so, we might want to consider first how these three phones were made available. For all we know this might have affected the Nexus One’s sales performance.

Apple has its brick and mortar stores scattered across the states which helped Apple in selling the iPhone. This is in addition to its online store. For Motorola Droid, this was distributed by Verizon Wireless. While the Nexus was only made available for purchase online through Google’s web store. Even if it was released under T-Mobile contract plan, Google did not allow T-Mobile to distribute the phone on their own. [Read more…] about Nexus One, iPhone, Motorola Droid Sales Compared

BlackBerry Users Ready to Ditch Their Phones for the iPhone, and Android Too

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I was about to write a post about a different topic but decided not to when I chanced upon this article currently running on Ars Technica saying that 40% of BlackBerry users are willing to trade their current phone for  an  iPhone.  This has caught my attention since I recently got a BlackBerry Bold 9700, but I did not ditch my iPhone 3GS for it.

The report was citing the study conducted by market research Crowd Science. According to the study, two in five BlackBerry owners are said to be planning on swapping their current phone for an iPhone as soon as its time for them to upgrade.  And among the reasons suggested by the study is the fact that RIM may not be keeping up with consumer demand in its effort to fight the encroachment from the iPhone and even Android devices more particularly Google Nexus One.

This is quite interesting since RIM holds a pretty strong reputation in the smartphone market although this was slightly rocked by the iPhone’s rapid growth last year.

CrowdScience also suggested that this development can also be attributed to the fact that many smartphone users are now using their units for both personal and business use and not for business purposes alone anymore. And since the iPhone is both personal and business oriented it is no wonder that it is threatening BlackBerry’s stronghold in the business mobile phone market as well.

Aside from the iPhone, current BlackBerry users are also eyeing to replace their units with an Android-based phones, more particularly with the Google Nexus One phone. 32% of the surveyed BlackBerry users says they are ready to exchange their phone with a Nexus One.

Crowd Science CEO John Martin said that BlackBerry users are getting restless with the BlackBerry brand and are getting enticed by the allure of iPhone.

“Rather, BlackBerry as a brand just isn’t garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems,” said Mr. Martin.

Now, here’s the best part. About 90% of current iPhone and Android users are not planning to swap their current phones with another model.