Android Social Media

I have owned the Cliq, Motorola’s first T-Mobile Android phone, for a little over a month now. I was a little weary buying it but by the end of the first day I fell in love with it.

The Cliq does run on Android 1.5, with MotoBlur running on top. If you are not familiar with Motoblur it is Motorola’s own special blend. You create an account and with that account you sign in. The Moto Blur service is quite unique for many reasons.

1. First, if you need to do a reset on the phone it saves your settings, which in my opinion, is a very nifty idea.
2. Second, say your phone gets lost or stolen you are able to login to your Moto Blur account from another computer and wipe all your information from the phone and track it. You can also put the info back on the phone. Thankfully I have not had to do this.
3. Third, the Motoblur service syncs all you contacts and accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Gmail, and more. It is a little much at first but you are able to link the accounts together. Say your Mom has Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail you can link all three contacts together to make one. Also you can choose which account your contact’s pics come from.

Unlike the MT3G and G1 you have five screens instead of three. So there is plenty of room for widgets. The Happenings widget displays all updates for your accounts. Let’s say Mary updated her status on Facebook, it will show up right in the Happenings widget.
The Messaging widget displays any and all messages you receive such as Text, Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook messages. So instead of having to sign in to multiple accounts you can do it all right from your screen. You can also add news widgets and stay up to date with all your RSS Feeds. All you have to do is click and scroll.

Now the phone itself I think is lovely. The overall design makes it really attractive. The screen is a little bit smaller than my MT3G, but like I said just a little. The phone is not heavy at all in my opinion it feels quite solid.
Oh and the keyboard is excellent, it is small and compact, the buttons are raised a little bit so you can actually feel them. The only draw back is no backlight inless you hit the alt button, which truthfully does not help that much at all inless you want to type with numbers and symbols.

The battery life on the phone is basically the same as all other smart phones. Depending on how much you are on the phone surfing the net,playing on Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter determines how long your battery will last. Let’s put it this way I am easily on my phone 12 hours a day, since I pretty much manage my life from my phone. So I usually go through, on average, three full charges a day. Like I said if you are going to own a smart phone expect poor battery life, it just comes with the package.

On to the camera/ video recorder. I like it, it takes decent pics nothing to get all crazy about. I do believe it would have been quite a bit better if it had flash.

Now the biggest debate concerning the Cliq is weather or not it will be updated. Truthfully, I do not know. However, I do believe it will be updated probably around the same time all other android phones get updated.

Overall, if you are big on social networking and staying connected to the world I would recommend the Motorola Cliq, it is an excellent phone with a lot of features to keep you connected.

Heaven DeHoff
http://heavendehoff.wordpress.com/

Flixster is the most popular movie application on Facebook and has become it’s own social network at Flixster.com Like any other social site you can add friends, send messages, and even IM om the site. It’s an easy way to network with similar people since you can see other user’s movie ratings and reviews but also a percentage 1-100 of how similar your tastes are in movies.

Flixster has had an application available in the Android Market for some time which allows you to view movies currently in theaters and on DVD. You can view reviews and watch the trailers. On October 27th they updated the app to allow you to login and view your own movies as well as rate and review new movies!

These new features set it apart as the premier movie app on Android and designate it a social media application! Rating movies may sound like a weak way to go about doing some social networking but people are passionate about cinema and the application will automatically match you up with people who have similar tastes.

Making contacts and adding friends directly from the application can be easy and the more moviews you rate and review the more people who will be likely to find you and add you as their friend.

In addition to being a great social tool, the Flixster app is also a great local movies tool. you can look up all your local theaters and check showtimes. You can read critic and user reviews and watch trailers. If you are at all into movies you need this application.

Jacob S. Paulsen

A few more ScreenShots:

We are please to announce the official launching of our first ever “Android Social Media User Manual.” This helpful E-book will help Android users who wish to create and maintain an active online presence in social media and generate an online revenue without wasting endless hours in front of a computer screen.
This manual is about FREEDOM. The freedom to leave your office and continue to be just as productive and effective from your Android phone. This Ebook is 100% FREE OF CHARGE!!! Here is a preview to what’s inside:

• Overview of Internet Marketing & Social Media Principles
• Overview of Mobile Internet and Utilizing the Android device
• Specific App reviews and instructions to help you create & syndicate content, track results, and create relationships
• App Indexes to all the standard Social Media websites including Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Freindfeed, Plurk, Blogger, Wordpress, and More.
• Productivity Apps that will help you get more done in less time including an overview of how best to utilize Android Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, etc.

Fill out this simple form to get your E-Book emailed to you right away!

Don’t forget to Re-Tweet & Digg this post!

My friend made the mistake of showing me an app for his phone that was for tweeting an audio recording, and then challenging me to see if the Android could do it. I don’t have to tell you that his phone was made by a company named after a fruit and he is always trying to show me something his phone can do that my Android can’t. Well I out did him again.

WHY: Why would it be important to syndicate audio? What’s the application? In internet marketing and social networking it is greatly important to syndicate content. Pictures, videos, audios, webcasts, blogs,and links all play a role in networking. If your end goal is to increase your business than you must drive more people to your site who find you as a credible source. In order to do this you must form relationships with people and allow your true transparent self to be reachable. By syndicating your content you become more transparent, real, credible, and above all else valuable to others. Each form of media has its place.

Audio recording can be great for interviews with people, quick inspirational thoughts, music, etc.

HOW: So now how can you go about it? You will need two apps from the Android market. 1st download Pixelpipe Pro. I know its not free but it is the single most powerful syndication tool for video, pictures, and audio recordings available both online and from your phone. You need this app. 2nd dowload an app call Hertz. I tried 11 different audio recording apps yesterday and Hertz is the best one that saves the file in the correct format for our purpose.

Record your audio using the Hertz app and save it with a title that you will remember. Then open the PixelPipe Pro app and (assuming you have already configured your pixelpipe account) hit the menu button. Go to the audio menu and find your recording. Make sure to choose a good title, description, and tags and then hit the upload button.

Done! Now it will upload the audio and update your status/tweet the title and a link to the recording on all the sites you have configured which could include Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc.

Cool huh? If you really think so then share this article on Digg and Retweet it to your network!

Jacob S. Paulsen

Video marketing has become a big trend in Internet Marketing because of the ways videos are listed on the search engines. If you can syndicate your video to enough of the biggest video based social websites such as Youtube you can get quick results. Videos are also a big part of social media because of their ability to form relationships and share a more “real you” with others.

The key is in the syndication. How do you create a high quality video with the correct title and description and then get it syndicated to as many websites as possible? Traditionally people without amazingly cool cell phones have used services such as TrafficGeyser.com and TubeMogul.com which both offer video syndication to a vast network of video websites such as Youtube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Viddler, Blip.tv, MetaCafe, etc. Now that we are going all mobile (THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS WEBSITE) we need to understand how this can be best accomplished from the Android device.

With the update to the 1.5 firmware on the Android platform earlier this year all Android devices now come standard with a camcorder app. By default you can share a video directly to Youtube.com. When you upload to Youtube you can select a title, description and tags but can only upload videos up to 3MB.

www.pixelpipe.com

I prefer the PixelPipe Pro app which will upload all videos regardless of size and also allows a title, description, and tags. Furthermore Pixelpipe will automatically upload your video to Youtube, Facebook Video, DailyMotion, and others. It will also update your status (tweet) the title for you along with link to the video on twitter, facebook, myspace, friendfeed, bebo, hi5, plaxo, and up to 40 other social networking sites. THAT IS POWERFUL SYNDICATION coming from a cell phone.

When syndicating a video consider the following helpful hints:

Taking video from a cell phone is naturally not as high of quality as other video recorders. Hold the phone extra steady while recording and consider your lighting conditions. Poorly lighted places will make for very poor videos.

Choosing a title for your videos is an important process. In addition to letting people know the general content of your video you also need to make a title compelling enough to make it worth watching. If your title shows up on twitter with a link will people click it? Questions often make powerful titles and including the word “video” will let people who see the tweet or status update know that the link will lead them to a video.

The description is your best place to put keywords in paragraph form while describing the video content. Including a url to your main site or blog will also help in SEO efforts.

The tags are keywords. Be creative. You want to consider keywords that people may use to search for you and your content without using the overly used cliches of your niche.

Jacob S. Paulsen
www.jacobspaulsen.com

Here at Android Social Media we are in the process of preparing a new Ebook that will be a free download for our readers. This Ebook will contain a user guide to Android users in the Social Media & networking arenas.

As we approach the final draft we wanted to survey you (our readers) to see what you might like to see in such an Ebook?

Please comment below!

We are looking for people who would like the opportunity to contribute content to our blog. Android Social Media represents the very best of the Android Platform and how it can be utilized to play an active part in Social Networking and Internet Marketing. Would be authors are asked to fill out the form below.

Content submitted by other authors will be manually approved by the site admins but authors will have the chance to post their signature and website in all of their content.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Those of us who have been with Android since the beginning have been waiting anxiously for an app that would connect us with Blogger, the blogspot website by google.

First attempts were quite horrible and while we are still not satisfied I’m glad to have discovered AndroBlogger! AndroBlogger has a very smooth interface and allows you to connect to your primary blog on blogspot.com You can add/edit posts & view comments.

Its still missing some important components such as adding pictures and tags to posts, and having access to multiple blogs on your blogger account.

I’m grateful that all of our websites/blogs are in the wordpress platform but for you blogspot folk give AndroBlogger a try.

Screenshots:

Source: http://code.google.com/p/androblogger/

Today I set out to test out more Android Twitter applications. Its been a little while afterall and we have to assume that developers will improve their apps and come out with new ones.

I tested 15 total apps of which most were free. I only purchased the two paid apps that had the highest user ratings. I don’t see much need to discuss those apps that didn’t meet the standard but let me lay out the few that I feel really pass the test.

Twidroid. We have talked about this one before and it continues to be my favorite. I use it for my personal twitter account (@jacobspaulsen) and it is the very best at running in the background. It will always notify you when you have new replies, dms, etc. Lots of ways to change configuration settings makes it the most customizable. By far the most options and flexibility.

Twit2go. This one was new to me today and I’m impressed so far. I’m hopeful that it will truly run in the background and the interface is nothing short of beautiful. I had a couple of force close issues because I kept telling it to refresh, not knowing it does it automatically. It doesn’t show you that its working but with a little faith on my part it did its job perfectly without me hassling it.

Itweet. This is probably my very favorite interface and while the app has great features I have 3 issues with it. First it costs money and while I’m always willing to pay for good work, I don’t see any need with all the great free apps available. Second, It doesn’t truly run in the background. You have to remember to open it every once in awhile to keep it checking for replies and DMs. Third, it takes up a lot of space.

TwitterRide. Well this is an ok app giving you all the twitter functions that you need in a light app but once again it doesn’t run in the background. Only if its running will you receive notifications.

Swift. Not yet available in the market the promising twitter app from http://www.swift-app.com is already available for download from their site. It looks a little on the big size but I’m loving it so far. The interface is certainly good looking enough and the functionality seems to be all there. I will cross my fingers for the next few days hoping it will truly run in the background and if it does… you can be sure you will hear more about this app from me.

That’s it for today. Let me know if you use a different app that you think the world of!

Our friends who developed DroidAnalytics have done it again with Droidsense.

Adsense – Google adsense is a widely used advertising revenue system for internet marketers and web developers. Anyone can sign up for a free adsense account which will give the user html code to embed into their website. This code will display ads relevant to the content on the page and when ads are clcicked the user is compensated. Its the way a lot of online organizations pay the bills and fund their projects.

Droidsense – It is currently the only adsense app in the market I could find but honestly I don’t need more selection. Very inexpensive, this app is a no-brainer for any adsense user. They even have a demo version you can tryout until you are convinced.

Key features :

• DroidSense allow you to analyze your Adsense™ performance daily, weekly, monthly and yearly from your Android™ Phone
• Multi-accounts (If you manage more than one Google Adsense™ account, DroidSense can import datas from all your accounts)
• Reports by day, week, month, year
• Revenu charts by day, week, month, year (Chart generated of the current listview)
• You can manage Date Format, Number format, Money Symbol ($/€)
• Notification at the end of the update to see how many you earned since last update.
• You can choose witch CSV file to import (Adsense For search, for Mobile Content, for Domains, for Feeds, for Videos and Referals) separatly by account
• Etc…