Tumblr release official BlackBerry Application

March 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It’s a constant new feature race between Tumblr and Posterous at the moment. As fast as one reveals a new feature, the other reveals something else equally interesting.

And now Tumblr has revealed an official BlackBerry application to let you post text,photos, video, audio and links. It was developed by Mobelux, who also did the Tumblr iPhone app. Apparently BlackBerry Storm 2 owners might experience some issues, but there’s already a workaround.

It does just about everything, including letting you send images and video from your library, or record new video directly from the app itself.

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Microblogging has always fitted mobile devices perfectly, whether it’s Twitter, Tumblr or Posterous, and the expanding range of applications which simplify the process of adding more to your content will only improve matters. There’s actually already a WordPress app for BlackBerry, but I’m not sure I’d want to type a typical entry of mine on a touchscreen or smart phone keyboard. But allow me to fuel a microblogging with link posts, short entries, videos and pictures, and that’s the perfect mobile form of expression.

Tumblr are hosting the app download as a direct link.

Filed Under: Microblogging, tumblr Tagged With: , , ,

Posterous adds post scheduling feature

March 18, 2010 By 1 Comment

The team behind microblogging service Posterous seem to be constantly rolling out new features – they’ve just announced you can now schedule posts anytime in the future.

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Posterous allows you to post to your microblog via a bookmarklet, which now includes scheduling options, or via email. If you’re posting via the email method, you just need to add a tag to the subject line of the email to have it automatically scheduled.

They’ve provided four examples, all of which will work:

((delay: in 3 hours))

((delay: in 1337 minutes))

((publish: on 3/12/2011))

((publish: on March 12, 2011))

Not only does this help normal users, but it’ll also be extremely useful for the new business customers which Posterous is courting as one new revenue stream.

Filed Under: posterous Tagged With: , , ,

Businesses use social media for the common good

March 17, 2010 By 2 Comments

For businesses, there are a couple of main ways to use social media for marketing purposes. One is to simply use the tools to get permission from fans and followers to feed out information and links, generally driving traffic back to your main site.

The other way is to engage with consumers and the public to use social media for something which could in theory benefit all parties, and boost the market the business operates in.

One example of the feed approach is Dell Outlet, which essentially streams details of the latest Dell offers onto Twitter. Followers interested in buying a Dell can opt-in to receive those messages.

An example of attempting to build value for the business, the public, and the market as a whole is a campaign starting today by building company Rok. Rather than feeding out information, the company is promoting a campaign to reduce VAT on property repair work from 17.5% to 15%. Obviously that has a benefit for any building company, including Rok, but it could also benefit the general public who might be encouraged to improve their current lodgings rather than risking more debt by constantly moving.

And they’re using the main routes for a campaign like this – there’s a campaign on the Downing Street petitions website, there’s a blog , a Twitter profile, a Facebook page, and the most interesting aspect in reaching people who might be useful networkers for the campaign, a Linked In group.

Neither route is wrong for a business – Dell Outlet has made direct revenue for Dell, and as an Opt In To Follow option, only those people interested will be receiving the messages, and they can opt out anytime – plus it’s surrounded by other Twitter and social media accounts and efforts which take a more mutually beneficial approach. And it’s that mutually beneficial approach, as used by Rok, which seems to be the growing future of marketing campaigns (As opposed to marketing which is built into the product itself). It’s quick, it’s easy, and it has benefits for the company concerned, the public, and potentially other groups and organisations could also come out in support to build awareness. The question is whether the Government is in a position to listen and act on the growing volume of direct contacts from the nation?

Filed Under: social media marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Bubbly isn’t the new Twitter – it might be the new Audioboo

March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Voice-based microblogging has existed for a while with services such as Audioboo and iPadio, but new service Bubbly has started to get coverage after hitting 500,000 users within the first four weeks of launching in India.

The voice-based mobile phone service allows you to share an audio snippet (usually around 30 seconds) with your followers. And it follows on from Bubble Talk which has 100 million users using the service to send voice messages to other individuals.

Users follow by typing in a person’s number or access code and are then updated when there’s new content.It’s free to upload, and the company earns money by taking a cut of the airtime used to listen. And with Bollywood stars among the early adopters of the service, it’s not surprising many of the half million new users are teens and tweens. There’s quite a high level of engagement with each message getting listened to by about 50% of the senders’ followers.

But I don’t think this is the new Twitter.

Mainly because the number of content creators on Twitter is pretty low compared to content consumers, and that seems to be even more of the case with an audio format. Rising all the way to video, which I overlooked when I tipped the original version of Seesmic as the ‘next Twitter’ at an event a couple of years ago.

100 million might be sending messages to other individuals, but how many of the current 500,000 are happy broadcasting and hearing their own voice being played on the mobiles of countless other people?

So far Bubbly has launched in 3 of India’s 23 states, and plans to expand to India, Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Brazil.

In the UK it’ll compete head-on with two existing services, iPadio and Audioboo. Both also offer the opportunity to upload audio from your mobile or a landline and have that audio distributed to followers. Both are gaining users by offering an interesting service, and neither has scaled to Twitter-like heights as yet, despite some very compelling content. And the issue for all three is that people like the thought of being able to sample fame by writing some content or uploading some audio, but there’s a bigger fear barrier to overcome when speaking.

That isn’t a criticism of any of the audio microblogging services. I’m a fan of all of them, I know some of the people behind them fairly well, and I’ve finally installed the PixelPipe workaround to use Audioboo from a Nokia. But to call them the next Twitter is akin to saying live video streaming sites like Ustream or Justin.tv are the next Youtube. Different tools, different distribution and different effects.

Filed Under: Digital Audio Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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