Daily Bits

Internet

LinkedIn Improves Address Book Browsing

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One of my favorite social networking site which I don’t get to use more often,  LinkedIn has just announced that they would soon be rolling out an improved  address book. The new address book interface aims to make  LinkedIn members more productive.

Key feature of the LinkedIn Address Book update is the new browse panel that gives you a facility for viewing your connections based on their current companies, locations and industries. It also lets you search your connections using  first name, last name or current company.  There is also now a Recent Activity filter in the said browse panel that lets you browse your new connections and your connections who may have recently added a new connection.

The LinkedIn mini-profile now lets you view whether your connections have changed their positions, added new connections or even send them a message. You can also look up contact information such as phone numbers, email address and physical mailing address or add these information yourself in your LinkedIn address book.

Other features of the new LinkedIn Address Book include:

  • Connections automatically tagged with keywords such as “colleagues”, “friends”, “partners” and “group members” based on information you provide when inviting them to connect with you
  • Organize your connections into different groups via tags
  • Send a message to multiple connections at once based on how you’ve organized them by tags

Love it so far? Why not pay your LinkedIn profile a visit and see how cool this new Address Book is right now. I just did.

MySpace Launches a Better Looking My Music 2.0 in Beta

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Are you still using MySpace? I’m pretty sure there are still some if not many of you who are still maintaining your MySpace account. Or perhaps you’re still active in MySpace? If you are, you’re probably waiting for MySpace to launch its new My Music portal. Well, it just did, went out live in beta.

My Music 2.0 aims to become your hub where you can build and manage social playlists from My Space’s comprehensive online music catalog. And what does the new My Music 2.0 offers? Quite plenty actually, which include a new sleeker UI and several nifty features.

Some of MySpace’s My Music 2.0 key features that you may like and actually end up using include:

  • sortable song grids with a slicker drag and drop feature
  • subtle “reveals” which display the information and features as you need them
  • in-place edits and settings
  • vertical scrolling improvements
  • playback in-page

In addition, My Music 2.0 now also lets you broadcast playlist on your MySpace profile and share it directly with your friends. There is also a new “song activities” module which displays the latest song related to your activities. This makes it easier other MySpace members to discover most recent music that their friends or other members are sharing.

You can check out MySpace My Music 2.0 from this link.

Apple is Now a $50+ Billion Company, New Product to Boost Income

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Apple has just released its first quarter earnings for Fiscal Year 2010 ending on Dec 26, 2009. And guess what? Apple obviously posted significant growth in revenues.  Apple’s total revenue is at $15.68 billion while net quarterly profit is at $3.38 billion or $3.67 per share.

Part of this revenue was due to the sale of the Macintosh computers, accounting for 3.36 million units sold, a 33% unit increase as compared to the same quarter last year.  The iPhone too, managed to contribute to Apple’s overall growth with a 100% increase in unit growth compared to last year.  Apple sold 8.7 million iPhone in the Q1 Fiscal 2010.  The only product line that didn’t earn Apple quite well is the iPod family, representing an 8% decline from last year. Apple probably needs to come up with something new for its iPod products to renew consumer interest.

Of course, the biggest announcement from the earnings report was contained in Apple’s Steve Jobs statement:

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company. The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

Any idea what that product may be? Of course, well all know what that is – it’s the Apple iSlate or Apple Tablet or the Apple iPad. Whatever it is going to be called, I’ve very certain that Apple is coming out with another killer product. Something that everyone would probably want to have.

And we will soon find out about that on the 27th.

Facebook Lets You Communicate with Apps via Email

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Facebook has just announced a new way of letting your stay connected with your favorite Facebook apps. It’s really just a matter of applying the same email notifications that you receive whenever you are tagged on a photo or receive a message from your Facebook friends. And like other Facebook add-ons that requires access to your email account, this new Facebook feature will never receive your email address unless grant application developers the right to email you.

So, how does this new feature work? Starting probably today, you will start seeing dialog boxes on your application pages containing a question from app developers whether you want to receive notifications about their apps, coursed through your email address, of course.

And why would you want to receive email notifications from Facebook app developers? Honestly, I don’t see any good reason why. But the Facebook blog said that it will give you more detailed and interesting information from developers about your favorite Facebook applications. These information include – receipts of purchases, newsletters as well as notification of actions with their apps.

Of course, like any other email notification set-up, Facebook apps notification feature can be easily cancelled anytime. All you need to do is to hit the “unsubscribe” button located at the bottom of the email notifications that you received.

This new feature is just one of the many new features that Facebook is planning to  launch this year.

Whitehouse.gov Goes Mobile with iPhone/iPod App

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President Obama’s administration continues to take full advantage of technology in reaching out to millions of Americans who by now are getting into the mobile phone syndrome. The latest of the administration’s foray into technology is by way of an iPhone/iPod Touch app that debuted recently at the iTunes store. The Whitehouse iPhone App (iTunes Link) promises to connect with Americans by delivering real-time content from Whitehouse.gov to American iPhone users.

One outstanding feature of the Whitehouse iPhone/iPod Touch app is the streaming of videos coming from the White House itself. It allows you to watch President Obama’s attendance to public events at the White House, web chats with members of the Administration as well.

It’s a pretty cool app, if I may say so. As an opening salvo to the launch of this app, The Whitehouse.gov iPhone will be streaming Pres. Obama’s State of the Union address happening next week.

In addition to its iPhone/iPod app, Whitehouse.gov is also planning to launch a new mobile-friendly version of its website. It would be interesting to note whether the introduction of a new mobile internet access will be as successful as other top iPhone apps or give Whitehouse.gov more users.

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.