Archive for the ‘Virtual world’ Category

Certainly an interesting question: are there people out there that have visited the same place, at the same time, several times, without knowing each other? And what would have been if they had known each other? Because of questions like this, Ryan Kennedy developed Conga, which is actually a hand drum. With the help of location-based tweets, check-ins on Foursquare, or manual entries, the new community informs users whether or not they have subconsciously run into each other before. After all, when these people regularly visit the same places, there might even be a chance that they have similar interests. And who knows what the “congo” might lead to…

Users on the VZ-Netzwerke StudiVZ and MeinVZ can finally begin checking in at locations or events and thereby inform their friends what they’re up to. The feature is made possible my a cooperation with Friendticker. Rewards for repeated check-ins are also being planned, similar to the service offered by Facebook and Foursquare. What else can we say? Congratulations on catching up (well kinda…)!

Google is still a bit angry that it wasn’t about to buy out Groupon last year. Even Facebook has taken the opportunity to attack the ever-growing deal portal: Facebook Deals has officially launched in five US cities.
San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta – Facebook users in these cities can now get the latest deals on the “alpha”-version of the new service. Payment is accepted in the form of credit card or Facebook Credits. And of course, users can see which deals friends have taken advantage of, and there is a direct deal search for deals in your vicinity. Read the rest of this entry »

Online communities are gaining popularity at an exponential rate: the number of German users has grown by 10 million users within a year, as shown in the study “Social Networks in Germany”, conducted by the high-tech association BITKOM at the polling firm Forsa. In addition, about 40 million, or half of all federal citizens, are active in social networks. And which community is leading the pack? Facebook, of course. Read the rest of this entry »

Bing Maps, Microsoft’s local search engine, will be bringing its geodata service Streetside to Germany. Starting May 9th, the camera cars will begin photographing Germany’s streets and public squares for the panorama view. Microsoft barely had the opportunity to announce their intentions before data security officers began criticizing the plan, similar to the criticism faced by Google Maps’ service Street View. The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection would like to prohibit the photography of private buildings in the event that Microsoft does not offer a possibility to have the photographs excluded. Read the rest of this entry »

And they’re back: Andreas Degenhart, Peter Wehner, Jürgen Gerleit, Norbert Schauermann, Andreas Hauenstein – after the collapse of their social network Lokalisten, which they sold to ProSiebenSat.1 about three years ago, they are back in the net. Their new project child is called Finderia, a social directory which doesn’t solely focus on recommendations and ratings but also on the ratings from friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Groupon, the online go-to for anyone looking for a good deal, just seems to be getting more and more clever. The market is quite successful, proven by the fact that even Bloomberg is reporting that the two-year old company is in negotiations for an initial public offering (IPO) value of $25 Billion. But now with a potential threat from Facebook with their new gig Facebook Deals (we report), and of course Foursquare, Groupon is looking to raise the stakes. Read the rest of this entry »

And the check-ins have done it again! Well, sorta…newcomer View is kinda like a check-in, but you don’t have to check-in. Instead, you just open up the app and voilà!, you get information about various things in your vicinity.
This relevant information, called a “discovery” is automatically displayed in realtime. Examples of discoveries could be historical facts, passwords to wi-fi, best waiter in the restaurant, etc. In fact, there is no real limit to the amount of information you can receive, seeing as how anyone can post their discoveries from home in the categories News, Tip, or Deal. The app uses Foursquare and Google APIs to add the corresponding location. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything seems to be evolving into some sort of social network nowadays, and online radios don’t want to miss out on this. With Soundtrckr, users have the ability to personalize their own music stations, while keeping in tune with the latest hits out of the local vicinity.
The free app is currently available for the iPhone, Windows Phone 7, and the Ovi Nokia, and can even be used here in Europe, unlike the popular US-based Pandora service, which still displays a screen every time a computer in Europe tries to access it declaring: “We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.” Read the rest of this entry »

As the first German rating community, the Das Örtliche partner golocal has launched an iPhone app with augmented reality. With the new feature, users can not only see their surroundings in real time using their camera, but also receive information about locations on-site through the live symbol masking.
Those who download the free app in the app store and then register can directly jump into the service: after clicking on the “Radar” symbol, or going into the “Alles in der Nähe (Eng. Everything Close-by)” rubric within “Radar”, little signs pop up around the current view which display the current contact point of the user. With a touch of a finger, handy information like the name of the location, address, distance, as well as ratings from community members can be displayed. With this, users have the ability to know where the next café, restaurant, hotel, theater, museum, or movie theater is. Augmented reality is made possible through the iPhone camera, compass, and GPS. In addition, users can use all the functions of the PC version, like checking-in, uploading pictures, and the reading and writing of ratings.