10 Sep 2009

AOL Integrates Lifestreaming into AIM for the iPhone

via appadvice.com

One of the big things that Facebook brings to the age of streams is instant messaging and presence indicators - the ability to see who is online right now and active on the service so you can chat in real time. I hope that sites like Twitter (and its ecosystem of apps) do the same. My bet is that they will soon tie into IM networks more in the near future.

In the meantime, I am very interested in what AOL has been up to lately in bringing lifestreaming and social content the other direction - into IM clients that millions already use. This isn't just a big user base but they're also mainstream users too. Now it's all coming in the iPhone.

With the integration of lifestreaming into the mobile IM client and the potential to create even more value through location-based social networking services, this entire space is about to get a lot more interesting. Keep an eye on the big IM nets and their massive social graphs. They are sleeping giants that are waking up to the potential here.

29 Jul 2009

Share Tweets with Friends Right in GMail

Call me crazy, but I love email. I tend to gravitate to services that integrate with it. For example, like Jesse Stay, I often use Gmail to interact with Friendfeed. For the same reason, I am back with Backpack since I can shuttle to-do's back and forth via email. Evernote too works great with email for notes and other data. But this just scratches the surface - email is also a massive social network that's just waiting to be unleashed through APIs. Here's a taste.

A little app called Twitter Gadget is showing us the future of web services by mashing up your Twitter and Gmail contact social graphs. Once you add it to Gmail (instructions are on their site) it plops a nice Twitter client right inside Gmail. But there's much more. It also lets you selectively share tweets with any individual who is in your Friends group in Google Contacts. Your friends need to have the app installed in Gmail as well. If they do, they will see shared tweets inside Twitter Gadget the next time they fire it up. It's kinda like Google Reader shared items for Twitter.

This is a very clever way to combine two social graphs in a way that provides a real benefit to users. As our social connections become scattered among different services, I hope that we'll see more tools like these in the months head.

Steve Rubel's Posterous

Steve Rubel (bio) is SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman - the world's largest independent PR firm.

He is charged with helping clients identify emerging technologies and trends that can be applied in marketing communications programs. Rubel also explores these topics on his site and in monthly columns for Forbes.com and Advertising Age. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook as well.

Steve can be reached via email at steverubel@gmail.com.

Note: Everything posted on this site is Steve's personal opinion. It does not represent the views of Edelman or its clients.

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