Google News now available on your iPhone and iPod Touch

As we sat in our offices in Trondheim staring off at the fjord -- we're Norwegians, that's what we do -- a thought occurred to us: wouldn't it be nice to make Google News accessible to readers on their iPod Touch or iPhone? The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, we're happy to announce that Google News is now available to iPhone and iPod Touch users in over 30 countries. This means that you'll see a full-fledged version of Google News on these devices, improved Google News results and, where available, relevant YouTube videos embedded with news stories.



There are a few ways to get to Google News using your iPhone or iPod Touch:

• Go to www.google.com, click on the "more" tab and follow the link to Google News
  
• Go to www.google.com and do a search, then click on the News link at the top of the screen
  
• Go directly to Google News at http://news.google.com in your browser
  

We hope you enjoy this new feature. We haven't been able to take our eyes off it yet, not even to look at the fjord!

Source: www.google.com

Well Matched: Facebook on the iPhone

Developers around the world have been building new sites and retrofitting existing ones for use on the iPhone, and the social networking site Facebookslide show posted to Flickr by Citizen Agency's Chris Messina. joined the fun yesterday. To see what Facebook on the iPhone (http://iphone.facebook.com) looks like, check out this

Facebook for iPhone is smartly designed because it keeps things simple. I found that you can perform most of the tasks you'd normally do during a normal Facebook visit (checking mail, checking up on friends, approving new friends, etc.) easily on the iPhone. The four parts of Facebook you use most--the Home, Profile, Friends, and Inbox pages--are organized in tabs across the top of the page. This helps you get to the stuff you need with just a touch or two; this is important because mobile bandwidth isn't always predictable. On a purely aesthetic level, Facebook for iPhone manages to retain much of the clean, uncluttered look you notice at the desktop browser version of Facebook.

Response from tech bloggers and discussion board posters today has been almost completely positive--Michael Arrington at TechCrunch called Facebook the best iPhone-optimized app yet.

The buzz over mobile social networking has been going on for awhile now, but actual user numbers remain low. M:Metrics released new research today saying that only 3.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (7.5 million) accessed social networking sites during June. The firm says Facebook’s mobile U.S. audience is about 2 million, and is made up of mainly college-age users.

Still, a lot of people believe that mobile social networking is going to be huge, especially as faster wireless networks become available. Meanwhile, mucho venture capital continues to flow into mobile social networking tech in its many forms.

What is it about mobile devices and social networking that make them a match made in heaven? Is the urge to social-network so strong that we simply can't wait to get home to do it? Or will new mobile social networking services simply do things that static, desktop-based sites cannot? Will mobile devices take social networking to a whole new level? If the future is really "unwired" and "always on" as they tell us, then people will demand it.

Source:www.pcworld.com

iRovr Launches Social Networking Site for the iPhone

We've seen a lot of new sites popping up designed specifically for the iPhone. What's more, many existing sites have designed iPhone-sized interfaces to make the iPhone user experience of their services more welcoming. The latest of these offerings, iRovr, is a full fledged social network designed specifically for the iPhone.

iRovr offers blogging, photo sharing, video sharing, bookmarking and user profiles - but all sized to fit the iPhone's screen. Media sharing is accomplished through POP email aliases.

Sites such as Digg and Del.icio.us have already offered iPhone an iPhone sized interface. However, the largest sites in social networking land - such as MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut - have not.

Source:http://iphonefaq.org