With more than 2.5 million downloads on Android, today Astrid brings its leading social productivity app to the iPhone.  Astrid lets you update your To Do lists via email, text and voice as it provides you with statistics on the whether your tasks are active, completed, inspiring others to finish a job or simply something you’ve supported with comments.

I’m so excited, as I can now use Astrid to gently poke and prod my peeps with Astrid’s playful reminders that will make the team smile as they get things done (I’m sure they’ll enjoy it more than my barrage of emails at all hours of the day and night).  You see, it’s one thing to set up your own to-do list.  But it’s another thing when you also rely on others to get things done.  Have you reviewed that press release yet?  Queued it up on PR Newswire?  Have you guys pitched the release to x, y, and z?  Now I can set up my list of To Do’s for the team and see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.  Of course, the team can also see when I’ve been slacking off and falling behind on my list as well (hmmm, better make this post short as I gotta get back to my Astrid list…).

Astrid is backed by Google Ventures, Jump Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners and is available at www.astrid.com.  Follow them on Twitter at @weloveastrid.

Related articles

• Astrid comes to iPhone so more people can get things done (Gigaom.com)
• To-Do Manager Astrid comes to the iPhone, Offers cross-platform shared tasks (Lifehacker)
• Astrid for iOS released today (CNET)
• Social to-do list Astrid launches on iPhone (vator.tv)
• Astrid to-do list app now available for the iPhone (MobileBurn)

Image via Wikipedia

Calling all hustlers, hackers and entrepreneurs – you’re invited to the Fleetly Startup Challenge

While we all love working at a startup and enjoy trying to make a difference in the world, we know it’s challenging and sometimes all consuming. As Paul Graham said, “what a startup (bootstrapped or not) takes is 100% of your performance, not 100% of your time. And optimizing for performance means spending some time on maintenance.” So here’s our chance to get the startup community in shape, have a little competitive fun, and promote a good cause.

The details:

• Competition runs from October 25th to December 15th
• Register in teams of 2-6 people on Fleetly (if you’re bigger than that, make more teams)
• Log all exercises and workouts for points
• The team with the most points at the end wins $500 being given in their name to Right to Play, a charity that improves the lives of children in disadvantaged areas through the power of sport.

There are going to be a few extra prizes for the winners, as well as something for all the teams that pass a set threshold, (Fleetly is keeping that secret for now) so get out there do some push-ups and go for a run in the park before the snow starts falling.

Fleetly also would like to encourage everyone to help make that $500 donation turn into a $2,000 donation by adding to the prize money on our Right to Play fundraiser site, which you can link to through the challenge page. They know many startups are bootstrapped right now but this really is a great organization that is making a big difference in people’s lives.

Sign up your team now Fleetly Startup Challenge

Related articles

• Fitness app Fleetly aims to make workouts a game (news.cnet.com)
• Fleetly joins the fitness gamification parade with a mobile and web app (venturebeat.com)
• The Lifehacker Workout: Exercise for Normal People [The Lifehacker Workout] (lifehacker.com)

Last week, Beyonce’s baby bump announcement at the MTV VMAs bumped Twitter’s traffic up to a new record of 8,868 Tweets per second, illustrating the fact that TV is becoming increasingly social.

Google Ventures-backed social TV company, Miso, was on this trend before it was a twinkle in social media’s eye, as they had been working hard on the first social TV app synchronized to the viewing experience.

Launched in partnership with DirecTV, Miso’s app enables real-time social features that change based on what you’re watching.  Viewers can enjoy a seamless, live, second-screen experience as they can see what’s on TV, switch channels from their smartphone and connect with friends in a new way that makes TV watching even more social and more fun.

Related articles

• DirecTV partners with Miso to deliver social TV to living rooms (news.cnet.com)
• Miso links social TV app with DirecTV (sfgate.com)
• DirecTV Taps Miso To Offer Synchronized Social TV Experience (mashable.com)
• Miso now knows what you’re watching, no check-in required (gigaom.com)
• Miso Now Knows What You’re Watching, No Check-In Required (nytimes.com)
• Miso Social TV App Now Synchronizes With DIRECTV To Know What Your Watching (socialtimes.com)
• Social TV Plugs In To DirecTV (adweek.com)
• Let your friends know what you’re watching (sfgate.com)
• Miso teams with DirecTV for ‘new era’ of social TV (lostremote.com)

Last week, Strobe lit up the social media airwaves when news broke they were giving away a limited number of access codes to their highly anticipated app delivery network, a one-stop shop that allows developers to create and manage HTML5-based web apps for smartphones, desktops and tablets from a single interface.  The Twitter-sphere in particular was aglow with requests to @Strobe for the access code, as developers quickly recognized the benefit of using Strobe’s platform to regain control over the way apps are built, published, monetized and managed.  Now the question of whether to go web app or native is dramatically simplified.  Just go Strobe.

Strobe is founded by Charles Jolley, a former JavaScript Frameworks Manager at Apple, where he worked on MobileMe and iCloud. He’s also the creator of the open source JavaScript framework, SproutCore, which powered Apple’s Web services.

Related articles

• Strobe Launches Game-Changing HTML5 App Platform (techcrunch.com)
• Former Apple HTML5 Chief Builds His Own Apps Platform (readwriteweb.com)
• Strobe brokers the peace between web and native apps (gigaom.com)

Taking a vacation is always something to look forward to, but planning the vacation isn’t something that’s on the top of the list. 

Where should we go?  Which hotel? Where shall we eat?  Shall we spend hours surfing the internet, or call a travel agency and then get charged a commission?  I wish I could just ask my Facebook friends for their insider tips and advice, as I’m sure there are quite a few that could give me insider’s tips and advice.

Lucky for me, Gekko has just launched an app that will do just that, plus more.

Now, as MSNBC put it so well, you can “Friend your way to better travel.”  Gekko is a new Facebook app that allows users to get travel recommendations from friends, compare hotel prices, and also lets you request deals directly from hotels if you don’t find the price you’re looking for.  So instead of going through multiple steps – ping my friends, Google the hotel, check the hotel website, enter my dates and get a price, ring the hotel to see if there are deals missing from the website, ugh, you get the idea – I can now do all of these steps in one fell swoop.  Saving me time and money, which means I can spend more time packing sundresses and SPF, then working on my vacation.  Oh, it also gives me a nice way to spark new conversations with friends – “Ooh, so you’re thinking of going to Iceland?!  How cool is that?” (Probably very cool – or even cold).

Check it out at apps.facebook.com/gekko

 

Related articles

• Friend your way to better travel (MSNBC)
• Gekko Pulls in Prices and Lets Users Request Deals to Differentiate From Other Facebook Travel Apps (insidefacebook.com)
• Gekko launches new Facebook hotel booking app (Breaking Travel News)
• Gekko goes social with Facebook app (Trav0lution)

via insidesocialgames.com

In today’s Inside Social Games, King’s MAU (Monthly Average Users) and DAU (Daily Average Users) for newly launched Miner Speed are illustrated, showing a fantastic growth curve.  The game was just released on the iOS as a free app just last week, so these numbers are especially impressive.

The social games industry is moving more towards the cross-platform approach, yet few if any have been able to successfully bridge the divides.  With these results, King is proving they are onto something.  Puzzle Saga, Bubble Saga, Miner Speed and King’s games portal all occupyed spots in the weekly lists of top 20 games by growth on AppData in the last month.  I’m excited to see what’s next!

Related articles

• King.com Games Gain Growth Through Cross-Platform Play (insidesocialgames.com)
• King.com launches its first cross-platform mobile game (exclusive) (venturebeat.com)

I like to take a lot of pictures so I often encounter an intimidating backlog of pictures I need to sort through.  Gah – who was that person in this shot again?  Did I send this to my peeps already, or not.  When your mind isn’t operating like a spring chicken, it’s nice to have technology come to the rescue.

Hooray for Viewdle’s Social Camera – the only way to tag friends in your mobile photos and share them instantly with Facebook, Flickr, MMW or email.

Tag photos of friends with your phone

Want to tag photos from your phone? SocialCamera is the only way to tag the mobile photos that you want to send to friends.  SocialCamera works with the Android camera, so you can take photos with built-in, instant tagging. It uses Viewdle’s advanced face recognition technology to identify the people you take photos of the most, and tag them for you.

Automatically share your photos

It only takes 1 click to share your tagged photos with friends through Facebook, Flickr, MMS, or email.  As you take photos, SocialCamera will create a faceprint of your friends, so you can automatically match their social contact info to their picture – your camera will know who to send your photos to.   Sharing photos on Facebook will automatically add them to a new album for your friends to see instantly.

Socialize with your photos

SocialCamera was created to start conversations with the phone on your camera. Faceprints of your friends will let you communicate back and forth, with photos.  Adding a caption to your photo will let you add a message or status to any email, MMS, Facebook post, or Flickr photo you tag.

Download SocialCamera in the Android App market for free here https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Viewdle.

Related articles

• Viewdle Releases SocialCamera For Android: Instant Photo Tagging, Sharing (techcrunch.com)
• Android App Sees Faces & Tags Friends in Photos (mashable.com)
• Viewdle’s Social Camera App Tags and Learns Your Friends’ Faces (Forbes)
• Viewdle Ready with Social Camera. An Android App That Never Forgets A Face (AllThingsD)
• Viewdle SocialCamera Automatically Tags Pictures (socialtimes.com)
• Viewdle Facial Recognition for Android Goes Live with SocialCamera App (intomobile.com)
• Facebook Facial Recognition Could Get Creepy (pcworld.com)

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