Withings WiFi body Scale Gets Social Aspect

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You may recall that cool Withings WiFi body scale that I reviewed not long ago. The scale is a neat and accurate way to track your weight loss and fitness goals and it sends the measurements to your computer and your iPhone.

Withings has announced a new feature for the scale that builds Twitter integration into the scale. That means that your scale will Twitter your weight and BMI among other details for you. I think most of us are probably thinking the same thing at this point, why would we want everyone on Twitter to know how much we weigh? Read more

Posted on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:56:37 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Electronic Arts Acquires Social Network Games Maker Playfish

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Today Electronic Arts announced it has acquired Playfish, a creator of social network games. Playfish will operate within EA Interactive, a division of EA focused on the web and on wireless.

EA has acquired Playfish for approximately US$275 million in cash and approximately $US25 million in equity retention arrangements.
In addition, the sellers are entitled to additional variable cash consideration, up to a maximum of US$100 million, contingent upon the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31, 2011.
Read more

Posted on Mon, 9 Nov 2009 09:38:13 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Cellufun Offers Social Games for Pre

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Palm launched its Pre over the weekend and the handset started with an application catalog that was mostly in beta form with few games. Cellufun has announced that its library of social games will work on the Pre and are available for new Pre owners to play via their Internet browser on the phone.

Cellufun claims to be the world's largest mobile virtual community with dozens of different social games the mobile browser is among the few applications available for the Pre at launch. Among the games available from the service is the new title from Cellufun called Made Off. Read more

Posted on Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Razer and Raptr Partner for Gaming Social Networking

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When it comes to gaming peripherals like mice, keyboards, headphones and more one of the biggest names in the industry is Razer. The company has some great products and gamers often choose its wares for their play.

Razer and a new company called Raptr have teamed up to add a social aspect to PC gaming with a new program billed as the first social platform that allows users to know is real-time what games their friends are playing across multiple platforms. The Raptr program also allows users to join the Raptr community. Read more

Posted on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:00:00 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Nokia Productions and Spike Lee premiere the World's first social Film

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Nokia today announced that the premiere of Nokia Productions, the first user generated multimedia film, will be held tonight at 8:45 pm PST at the Nokia Plaza- LA Live with a simultaneous online premiere.
T-Mobile USA, Inc. partnered with Nokia to develop the Nokia Productions film which was built entirely by everyday people, using mobile devices to generate and submit original content which was then combined into one artistic multimedia film created by Director Spike Lee. Read more

Posted on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:58:26 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Playstation Home is all about Social

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The 3D online community platform Playstation Home is still slated to launch as open beta in Fall. Currently Playstation Home is in extended beta. MTV sat down with Jack Buser, director of the PlayStation 3 virtual world "Home" project last week to get a demonstration of Playstation Home in its current state.
Mr. Buser took a lot of emphasis on the social aspects of the Playstation Home platform and how it will help PS3 gamers to meet each other and "socialize". Read more

Posted on Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:53:58 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Social Bookmarker Reddit goes Open Source

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The developers behind reddit are releasing their social bookmarking software into open source.

Reddit means with 'open-source' specifically that the code behind reddit is available to the public for download, and we're inviting the public to submit code to help improve the site. Read more

Posted on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Gigya Socialize

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Gigya announced the beta release of Gigya Socialize, a technology that gives website owners the ability to grow both traffic and engagement by adding social features. Gigya takes on Google Friend Connect with their product.

From social networks like MySpace and Facebook to niche destinations like Flixster, sites that have made their user experience social have achieved phenomenal growth. With Gigya Socialize, now any site can tap into this growth engine by incorporating popular social features like invitations, sharing, and newsfeed. Read more

Posted on Fri, 30 May 2008 14:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NIM Gets Patent for GPS Social Networking System

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Networks in Motion (NIM) has been granted a U.S. patent for a social networking application that uses the GPS chip inside some mobile phones. The patent issued was titled “Position Determination System” and is said to protect its intellectual property for networking applications that request and or push a users GPS location through a wireless network.

The patent features a method of providing real-time position information from one person to another via the mobile phone, land line or a computer network. The method patented also allows for users to exchange location information including address, GPS coordinates, or nearby fixed locations. Read more

Posted on Mon, 12 May 2008 06:35:36 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Blip BlackLine GPS Geo-social Interaction for BlackBerry

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Users of GPS enabled BlackBerry smartphones can now get a free application called Blip that allows them to share their location amongst friends, family and coworkers. Blip says its users get full control over who sees their location with the service.

Blip allows users to track location history, view speed and direction when someone in their circle is on the move. Blip is also compatible with BlackLine's GPS Snitch vehicle security and tracking device. Blip is available now as a free download and is installed over-the-air from the Internet browser on the BlackBerry. Read more

Posted on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:34:21 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google announced the OpenSocial Foundation

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Yahoo!, MySpace, and Google today announced they have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation to ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web.

The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework; related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1, 2008. The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction. Read more

Posted on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:44:13 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Smart Party enables Social DJing

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Computer scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles developed an interesting solution for social DJing dubbed Smart Party.

Smart Party is polling via Wi-fi the playlists of the music players party guests would carry. This would work for instance with the iPod touch or the Microsoft Zune players. Each collected playlist is then sent to a PC where a software analyses the most popular tracks and genres.
Smart Party would then just play the most popular songs amongst all party goers which makes those self-declared party DJs a thing of the past. Read more

Posted on Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Xbox FOF Social Networking in Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update

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Microsoft announces that the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard Update on December 4th will include Friends of Friends social networking features.

With Friends of Friends You'll be able to check out the friends lists of fellow Xbox LIVE members right from the Dashboard. With this new feature, members can find old friends or connect with new ones within the community of more than eight million people on Xbox LIVE around the globe and send messages and game invites, as well as compare games and Achievements. Read more

Posted on Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:39:02 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Star Wars Social Networking Cards Scream I'm a Geek

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Fans of Star Wars who like to have their own business cards, even if they don’t have a business Star Wars social networking cards are here. Sure if you hand these out 99% of those who get them will think you are a monster dork, but hey that 1% will think you are way cool.

There are 73 different images you can choose for the front of the card where your name will be placed on the strip running down the lower section of the premium card; the standard card doesn’t have a name on front. Flip it over and you can choose information about yourself to go on the back. Read more

Posted on Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:07:22 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Mozilla works on The Coop - Social Tools for Firefox

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Mozilla Labs works on "The Coop", a set of Social network tools to be integrated into the Firefox browser.

With The Coop you can add your friends to show up in a sidebar on the browser. Shared browsing and content exchange from other sources like Flickr are possible. Read more

Posted on Wed, 4 Apr 2007 10:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Early Adopt the new Ning Social Network

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Marc Andresson's Ning just released a new version that is really very interesting. I have toyed around with social network platforms for several months. The new Ning was finally a solution I wanted to give a try.

This is your place. I imagine you share your experiences adopting new technology or how to hunt down the latest gadget from Far East. You can share your finds or technology leaks here. I will be actively monitoring the space and feature the hottest things on I4U News.

Invite your early adopter friends and make this your place. Visit I4U Early Adopter Network now.

This is really just very early and I want to see where this goes. If you have suggestions or ideas please email me.
Read more

Posted on Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Wired Buys Social Bookmarker Reddit

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Social bookmarking site reddit.com got bought by Wired Digital a Conde Nast company.

Apparently reddit had grown to 1 million unique users per month.
Conde Nast has already used Reddit's technology to launch a Lipstick.com, for the social filtering of celebrity news. No details on the size of the deal have been disclosed.

The largest social bookmarking site in the web 2.0 era is heavily rumored to be acquired, but it did not happen yet. I talk about digg.com of course. Read more

Posted on Wed, 1 Nov 2006 02:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

MoodBlurbs: Social Lubricant for Notebook Users Sitting at Starbucks

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MoodBlurbs are one of those low-tech product inventions that are kind of cool and could be mega successful - maybe.

I4U Reader Michelle R. explains MoodBlurbs like this:
"It attaches to your laptop and displays messages for you. Say, you are at the coffee shop and just updating your blogs. A hot chick in a tight sweater has been staring at you all afternoon but you had no idea because your nose was stuck inside your laptop. She did not want to interrupt the serious work you are doing, with these you can tell her its ok."
Michelle could have chosen a more real world example, but it explained well what MoodBlurbs are. Read more

Posted on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:46:51 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Mogi: Socially Connected GPS Gaming

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Mogi, a GPS game that may be The Future of Mobile Content, Version 1.0. Mogi is a multi-player network game in which individuals or teams hunt down virtual treasures hidden in Tokyo's concrete jungle; Mogi players interact in ways that even the much-talked-about i-mode has yet to deliver. It's new for Japan, even newer for the rest of the world, and there's no lucrative revenue model. Yet.
Watch the Video Report about Mogi on Wireless Watch Japan.

Read more

Posted on Mon, 5 Jul 2004 02:37:31 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

ICQ Launches Social Networks Service

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AOL's ICQ Instant Messaging Service launches ICQ Unviverse a Social Networks Service.

Jumping on the Social Networks hype ICQ has a head start with the new service is based on the hyper successful ICQ Instant Messenger. ICQ has 175 Mio.!! registered users and 8 Mio. active users everyday. Currently ICQ's Social Networks service dubbed ICQ Universe is in beta. It looks like ICQ Universe has a cool interactive user interface (see photo) displaying the relationships between users.

ICQ competes with this new offering against social networks pioneer Friendster and others Google's Orkut and ZeroDegrees.

Read more

Posted on Thu, 4 Mar 2004 08:13:28 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr