whrrl

Fun With the Palm Pre's Camera

I remember when my family got our first digital camera. It was 1.2 Megapixel, no zoom, and no flash. We were so tickled that we could take a picture and see it on our computer screen just minutes later.

Digital cameras have come a long way. Now we even have them on our cell phones!

My first cell phone's camera was less than a megapixel, but I thought it was amazing that I could take someone's picture and use it as their called ID photo!

Now, I could print a photo taken with my cell phone's camera. … Read more

Turn your status updates into a story

It seems like just about everyone has a Twitter or Facebook account these days and I find myself checking the so called "status updates" for my friends and family more than I'd like to admit. I never thought when these services launched that a status update could become anything more than a simple yawn-worthy report of personal activity. But as we've seen with these services' growing popularity, and the recent explosion of activity during the aftermath of Iran's election, the idea of a status update has morphed into something much bigger. A simple sentence or … Read more

Companies find ways to launch iPhone apps at SXSW

AUSTIN, Texas--Given that you can't walk more than a couple feet at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here without stumbling into someone tapping away on one iPhone application or another, it's easy to forget that just a year ago, there was no such thing as an official iPhone "app."

But now, of course, iPhone apps are one of the hottest technology segments of all. And since SXSWi is ground zero for cutting edge social media and the people who are often the earliest adopters of such technology, a series of companies have used the … Read more

Whrrl's geo-social network comes to the iPhone

Location-based social network Whrrl has a new application for iPhone users called Whrrl 2.0. It lets you post photos and status updates that are tied to a geographical location. It includes integration with Facebook Connect and Twitter, meaning you can sign up and use the service with your Facebook credentials, and have your location updates and status updates from Whrrl cross-posted to both your social-networking profile and Twitter page.

Built-in privacy features let you pick how much of an update you want certain groups of people to see. For instance, when posting your location you can choose whether to … Read more

Stalk your favorite TV characters (legally) with Whrrl

Location-based social network Whrrl has forged a rather odd partnership with content provider HBO to place various fictional characters from the show Entourage as real users on its network.

Events from the television show will end up as annotated items on Whrrl's user-generated map. You can subscribe to whichever of the characters you want, and each of their items go into your central friends feed along with regular users who are providing "real" ratings and locational bookmarks. As the series progresses, locations seen on the show will continue to be placed on the map.

This is a … Read more

Whrrl parent company nets $15 million in funding

Location-based social networking might be a clogged market, but it's still hot: Pelago, the parent company of mobile service Whrrl, is set to announce that the company has pulled in a $15 million Series B financing round. It'll be used for "strategic technology investments," as well as partnerships, which are crucial for mobile services that have to deal with cell carriers. Whrrl also hopes to expand across North America and into overseas markets.

The new cash comes from lead investor Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile Venture Fund, with contributions from Reliance Technology Ventures and DAG Ventures. Previous … Read more

Where 2.0 preview: Whrrl shows the way

We've covered Whrrl, and several of its competitors, already on Webware, but with the Where 2.0 conference coming up next week, I thought it'd be interesting to dive into this product just a bit more, since it represents some very interesting trends that are central to the creation of location-aware apps.

Whrrl is a fascinating project. The idea is that it tracks where you go, through your mobile phone, and makes that information available to your social network if you allow it. It also uses the behavior of other Whrrl users in general, and your friends in … Read more

Five shiny new mobile social networks

It's the year of social networks wrought with the mobile experience in mind. I spoke to five companies peddling their handheld experience as The Next Big Thing; here's how they stack up.

Bluepulse is the most advanced of the bunch, with a messaging service core and a profile, activity feed, and friend-of-a-friend discovery as other central activities. Messaging is easy. The single in-box shows status updates, all message types, and friend requests, and filters within this section highlight new messages and allow search.

You can post photos and 3G videos, but click-to-call is still under development. I dig the automatic spell check and basic grammar correction, but wish the messaging had a drop-down menu or predictive text to quickly choose from among friends. Unlike others, Bluepulse is purely mobile, operating on a slim and simple WAP site that never looks right from the desktop.

Based out of the U.K., Trutap has much more momentum abroad--in the U.S. the closed beta only works on AT&T and limits all-in-one IM to MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and ICQ services. Trutap is more a mobile facilitator than pure mobile social network in that photos and posts push to partner sites--Blogger, LiveJournal, Flickr, and so on. Trutap friends can also chat in-network.… Read more

Rummble, Whrrl: Social networking doppelgangers

There are very few essential differences between Whrrl and Rummble, two new social networks built on geotagging, ratings and recommendations within a trusted network, and an amphibian experience of comfortable operation on the Internet and cell phone.

Both Rummble and Whrrl pin users' whereabouts and ratings on a local map so their friends can see. Both also contain stealth settings to dissuade stalkers or shunned friends, and a manual mechanism for updating location if the phone isn't GPS-enabled.

The major differences between the reviews service and Yelp is mostly philosophical. Yelp, too, contains filters for whittling opinions to your … Read more