I love HootSuite. Since their most recent update that included support for Facebook and other social media networks, like Ping.fm and LinkedIn, as well as beta support for twitter lists, it has been my application of choice for updating my status across all of my social media profiles.

There was only one thing missing — mobile support. I have been using atebits’ Tweetie 2, TweetDeck for iPhone and SimplyTweet, but have not really committed to any of them. Hopefully, that is about to come to an end with the upcoming release of the HootSuite iPhone application as announced via email this morning:

Coming Soon to an App Store Near You

Our HootSuite iPhone app is coming soon! Once it is released, you will be able to schedule your tweets, check stats and manage multiple accounts from the palm of your hand.

You’ll have to salivate a little while longer, but don’t worry, we’ll let you know as soon as it is available.

Follow HootSuite for all the latest info:
Twitter | Facebook

I am looking forward to the app for sure. The was no mention what the cost was going to be for the application in the email. I will look into it further and update this post with what I learn.

Also, Facebook fanpage integration has also been added to HootSuite as of this morning according to their latest twitter update:

UPDATE Hootsuite dev team pushed Facebook FanPage integration. To add your FanPage go to Settings > Social Networks (FanPage) and add. [source]

Way to go invoke. You folks are awesome.

In case you haven’t heard, augmented reality applications for your smart phone and other devices are the next big thing.

What the heck is augmented reality?

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view. [source]

Augmented reality applications are another reason, besides the ability to shoot video, that I really want to buy an iPhone 3GS. As my current iPhone 3G does not have a built in magnetometer which allows for the use of a “compass” and augmented reality apps. There are already a number of apps in the Apple App Store like the Layar browser, wikitude and Yelp! that are using the iPhone’s GPS and magnetometer functionality to offer augmented reality.

Rocketboom, one of my favorite video podcasts, did a recent show about augmented reality. It highlights a particularly useful app for Lodoners with AR capable iPhones stumbling home after a night of debauchery in a strange neighborhood and needing to find a tube station. It’s called Nearest Tube from acrossair.

Sounds fun right?

How big is it going to be?

A new report from Juniper Research has found that the market for mobile augmented reality (AR) services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014, with revenues derived from a combination of paid-for app downloads, subscription based services and advertising.

The Mobile Augmented Reality report found that annual revenues from AR are unlikely to exceed even $2 million during 2010, due to the fact that only a small minority of smartphones will be AR-enabled. However, this proportion will rise dramatically in the medium term, the result of increasing adoption of Android handsets and iPhones, along with greater deployment of AR enablers such as digital compasses and accelerometers by other leading vendors. [more at source]

The applications seem endless. Imagine applications that will allow you to stalk your twitter and facebook friends in real time. They’re coming. This is going to be interesting.

If you want to hunt ghosts and have an iPhone 3GS, you can snag ARGH (Augmented Reailty Ghost Hunter) for the iPhone now. You are surrounded by otherworldly entities where ever you are. Boo!

Carol and I attended the Movember Tweetup last week and got to meet a few of the fine folks from Invoke, the company that is behind HootSuite. I have been using HootSuite off and on for a while and more recently with meeting and chatting with some of the people behind it. Today HootSuite became, hands down, my app of choice for following and updating my social networks.

I noticed last night that the site was down for service upgrades and had expected something was up after some cryptic discussions with Invoke employees at the party and some banter on twitter last Friday between myself and Dario Meli, a partner at Invoke, I knew good things were afoot. I just didn’t know what. I had my suspicions, and was right on the money with a couple, but there was even more.

After a day of running around and not being near my computer, I came home and logged into HootSuite to see what I would find and was more than pleasantly surprised.

This graphic stolen from the HootSuite site and edited by me shows a list of the upgrades they made.

I figured facebook and twitter lists would be on the upgrade list, which is fantastic in and of itself, but the inclusion of the Ping.fm and LinkedIn services as well excited me a lot. Here’s a part of why:

The ability to schedule Ping.fm updates is particularly noteworthy since through it you can update most popular social networks (such as MySpace, LiveJournal, etc.) Scheduling status updates now has near universal applicability. [HootSuite blog]

What sealed the deal, making HootSuite the social media app for me was the promise of an iPhone app. I have had trouble finding the perfect social app for my phone. But if the goodness I have come to expect from the folks at Invoke continues to be consistent, I suspect the iPhone app will be a thing of beauty as well. Count me in for one download — sight unseen.

Hoo! Hoo!

Great idea. I’m curious to see how this works. I have signed up:

When major films get released, film studios make millions of dollars. Why? Because they raise the money, so they reap the rewards.

But what if you took studios out of the equation? What if you replaced them with the crowd? What if crowdfunded filmmaking could reward the crowds instead of making studio moguls richer?

This is the Biracy Project.

Crowd Funded Film Finance | The Biracy Project.

I’ve seen this everywhere lately I just had to post it. It’s a wonderfully artistic take on Web 2.0 for the non nerds. Brilliance.