AppleTap » Social Networking

The Internet Marketers iPhone or iPod Touch.

Matt Petch — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:01:04 +0000

The iPhone is a wonderfully versatile pocket computer. Thanks to the tens of thousands of available app’s and the flexible way they can be arranged on your iphone or Touch, it is easy to set up individual screens to cater for specific workflows. Having more than a passing interest in internet marketing I thought I would set up a screen of app’s and links to serve my assorted internet marketing needs. This was the result: (Instructions for creating web links are at the bottom of the page.)

iPhone apps for internet marketing

1. iThoughts. A mind mapping application to plan your workflows and business models. Im currently using iThoughts but also give MindNode a look.

2. Shortcut to Google Keyword tool to help you select a niche and populate your pages with appropriate keywords so they can be found when people search for them.

3. DomainScout. A domain name search tool so you can check the availability of your preferred domain names. The thing I like about DomainScout is, as you discover various names you like you can add them to a favorites list. As names pop into your head during the day you can check their availability and add them to an ongoing list.

4. Go Daddy. Once you have found your domain name of choice you will need to buy it from a company such as Go Daddy. Yep there’s an app for that.

5. A shortcut to a hosting company such as HostGator will allow you to host and control your website via Cpanel, all via your iPhone or Touch.

6. WordPress for iPhone will allow you to add to and edit your WordPress Blog. Prefer TypePad? Well you may want to look at the TypePad app.

7. A shortcut to ClickBank. Search for products to promote and check your sales on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You may also want to look at the CB Stats app.

8. TweetDeck is great, not just for checking and posting tweets but it also allows you to search and connect with people talking about things related to your niche.

9. Facebook app allows you to interact with your Facebook contacts and post happenings for all to see.

10. Analytics Agent. Having a good Google analytics app on your iPhone or iPod Touch will help you keep track of how well you are doing online as well as giving you an insight into what your potential customers are looking for. Analytics Agent has a nice interface and is easy to use but you may also want to take a look at Analytics App.

11. The PayPal App. Keep tabs on your ingoing and outgoing payments with the PayPal App. You may also want to look at Pay Mobile.

12. Documents To Go. A text editor so you can write articles or blog posts whilst away from the office. I’m still looking for a solution that enables me to edit the same documents regardless of whether im on the desktop machine or iPod. Many text editing App’s claim to sync with Google Doc’s but the ones I have looked at don’t really sync, they just allow me to upload and download documents. The best solution I have found to date is Documents To Go, and its desktop syncing app. With this you can make a change to a document on your iPhone and sync. When you open it on your desktop machine it will be updated. It works equally well going from desktop to iPhone as well.

13. iTimeZone allows you to see what time it will be in your location at a certain time in a different part of the world. This is very useful for making sure you don’t miss webinars and teleseminars by your favorite overseas marketing mentors.

14. Shortcut to Online Success Coach. I like to have a shortcut to the web page of my current online marketing training course or tutor. I am currently with the Online Success Incubator which is part of TechTamers. After many months of looking for the right assistance, I chose the Online Success Incubator because of its extensive archive of information, Step by step guidance through the whole marketing experience, affordability and general no hype approach. If you’re looking for help getting started in Online Marketing I would recommend Online Success Incubator. They do a good news letter here

15. Briefcase. Online marketing is a continuos learning experience and you will find that you will accumulate a quantity of training courses, ebooks, tutorials, videos and audio. Its very useful to be able to get this info onto your iPhone so you can learn whilst away from your computer. There is a large collection of apps available to help you do this but I rather like Briefcase. Briefcase allows you to easily browse all of the files on your computer and pick out the ones you would like transfered to your device. It also allows you to view or play back most media types.

16. Instapaper. There will often be times when you will come across articles and web pages online that you would like to read but don’t have the time. Instapaper allows you to easily mark any webpage to be read later. Your iPhone will then sync with your instapaper account and download the articles to your device allowing you to read them at any time, on or off line.

17. What Tasks. One way to ensure progress is to keep a short daily to do list. What Tasks is currently my favorite allowing me to manually arrange the order of to do items and keep multiple lists so I can create long term as well as daily lists of goals. It is also nice and easy to use unlike many full blown get things done app’s.

18. Fenix Notes. Its always useful to have a quick and easy note taking system. I have taken a liking to Fenix Notes largely because I can open it and take a note very quickly.

19. Safari. Where would an internet marketer be without a web browser…

20. Or email for that matter.

Incase you are wondering how to get shortcut links to websites onto your iphone or iPod Touch this is how you do it. Use Safari on your device to find the webpage you would like to save a link to. Tap the + (plus) icon in the menu bat at the bottom of the screen. Select the Add to Home Screen button.

I hope you have found this article useful. Please leave a comment if you know of other good internet marketing app’s or sites I could have added to this list.

Upload Photo’s to Almost Any Sharing Site From Your Iphone or Touch.

Matt Petch — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:09:11 +0000

When I first decided to write this post, the intention was to review a collection of the better photo sharing app’s. After some initial research I realised that the list of available app’s was nearly as long as my To-Do list. To review and discuss them would have been an unenviable task and an even less enviable read.

What I have chosen to do instead, is recap on how you can upload your photo’s to your MobileMe gallery using only your default Photo app. I have then listed some other common photo sharing sites along with their corresponding upload applications. Because there are so many I have been a little selective and only included the more promising options.

To Share Your photo’s From the Default Photo App.

To do this you will need a MobileMe account: which is free for 60 days but then im afraid you have to pay for it. Before you dismiss it, it’s worth considering some of the many features you get with the service. Check it out here.

Assuming you have a MobileMe account, you first need to login to the service and create an album to upload your photo’s into. Do this on your computer beforehand. Make sure your album settings allow adding of photo’s via email or iPhone as shown below.

Once you have done this you can start selecting and uploading photo’s from your iPod Touch or phone…

1. Launch the default Photo application that comes with your device and open an album.

2. Tap the share icon in the bottom left corner of the screen.

3. You can now tap any photo to select it. You can tell that it has been selected as the photo icon dims, and displays a small tick.

4. Tap the share button and you should get the options of emailing your selection or sending it to MobileMe. Click “Send to MobileMe”.

5. Give the image a name and select the gallery you want to upload the photo to. When you have done this, simply tap the Publish button in the top right and off it goes.

The only problem with this is you can only upload one photo at a time. Luckily you can email lots of photo’s in one go but you need to know your galleries email address.

1. Use your browser to go back to your MobileMe gallery on your computer.

2. Select your gallery and then click on the settings button at the top: The one that looks like a light switch.

3. Just below the checkbox that reads “Adding of photo’s via email or iPhone” will be an email address you can use to email photo’s to the gallery.

4. Now when you want to email some photo’s from your device you simply select photo’s as we did before but this time select multiple photo’s.

5. Tap the share button and select “Email”. Your chosen photo’s will immediately be transported to your mail app.

6. Enter that email address (perhaps save it in your address book)and shoot them off to your gallery.

Other Popular Photo Sharing Sites.

Even if you do have a mobile me account, it may not be where you want to send your photo’s. I have listed below all of the most promising photo uploading apps and grouped them by photo sharing and social media sites. Pick your preferred service, download one of the app’s and share away.

Flickr – http://www.flickr.com

Photobucket – http://photobucket.com

Photobucket for iPhone

Shutterfly – http://www.shutterfly.com

Shutterfly for iPhone

PixMatter

Picasa – http://picasa.google.com/intl/en_US/web/learn_more_picasa.html

Picassolino

Portfolio

Youtube – http://www.youtube.com

Lifecasting

Twitter – http://twitter.com

pic.im

Snap2Twitter

Gyazickr

Multiple services including Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Picassa, and tumblr

FTP

Ok well thats it for now. I hope you have found this post useful. Feel free to comment.

MobileMe is available via my link here

iPod & iPhone Messengers Tested.

Matt Petch — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:58:42 +0000

Real time text based messengers are a convenient way to have impromptu discussions with friends, family and colleagues in much the same way as you might if you were in the same room. In addition to this services such as Skype offer free or very low cost, easy to use voice and video communication.

There are now a number of messenger app’s available for the iPod Touch and iPhone which allow you to keep in touch when you’re away from you computer. If you’re an iPod Touch user they can also turn your iPod into a low cost telephone. All you need is a internet connection and a mic.

In this article I discuss four of the most promising free messenger app’s. First up is fring.

fring http://www.fring.com

Services it works with:

Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM (& mobile me) and a range of SIP services.

Setup:

Set up is relatively straight forward. You first need to register with fring then select which services (Skype, MSN, Gtalk etc) you wish to add. If you don’t yet belong to any these you first need to register at their respective web sites to obtain login details.

In use:

The buddy list displays the various members of your selected networks as well as the entire contents of your address book. This allows you to contact people who do not belong to any of your networks, via email, SIP, Skype out, or iPhone call. If you have a mic for your iPod Touch SkypeOut effectively turns your iPod into a phone, as long as you have an internet connection. The only issue I have with the buddy list is its lack of service grouping and identity.

Tapping any of your contacts in the list allows you to type a message or make a call to that person. The message screen is clean and easy to read. Unfortunately there is no landscape keyboard option which makes typing a little more difficult than it need be. If you wish to make a SIP or Skype call to a standard telephone number, you can use the Dialer, which is essentially a full screen number pad.

Other than the lack of organisation in the buddy list I have few complaints about fring.

Nimbuzz http://www.nimbuzz.com

Services it works with:

Skype, Yahoo! IM, AIM (& mobile me), GTalk, MSN, ICQ, Jabber, Facebook, MySpace, StudiVZ, Gadu Gadu, Hyves and a selection of SIP accounts.

Setup:

Upon launch you are asked to enter your Nimbuzz login details or create a new account. Creating a new account takes a matter of seconds, then you can start adding your contacts by selecting the services you belong to from a list and typing in your login details for each.

In use:

When you return to your contacts list it will be populated with all of your contacts from the various services that you added. Contacts are listed in Alphabetical order but you can change this to “grouped by network” if you wish. Tapping a contact gives a choice of messaging, phoning or sending it’s own kind of mail message, depending on the service.

Sending messages with with Nimbuzz is nice and easy thanks to the fact that the keyboard works in landscape mode. Like the other app’s it has a nice large numeric keypad for dialing landlines. As an additional feature you’re also able to update your status across your various services.

Nimbuzz is good. Its nicely designed, easy to use and fully featured.

Skype http://www.skype.com

Services it works with:

Skype. Yep thats all. This is the official app for the Skype service.

Setup:

This is one of those “does one thing well” apps. It’s very easy to get started. You either enter your existing Skype details or create a new account.

In use:

Your contacts list is presented in a similar way to the iPhone’s built in address book with an alphabet index down the right hand side. Two buttons at the top allow you to view just your Skype contacts or your entire address book. This makes it easy to use SkypeOut to call standard land lines. Alternatively you could press the call button at the bottom to dial a number that is not in your address book. Skype text chat is nicely presented with icons and speech bubbles, but no landscape keyboard.

All in all Skype is a nicely finished, competent app. It’s ideal if you only want to use the Skype service or you want to use it for free or low cost calls.

Palringo http://www.palringo.com

Services it works with:

MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, iChat / MobileMe, QQ, Gadu-Gadu and Facebook Chat (Alpha)

Setup

As with other multi service messengers you are first required to set up an account which ties together the various services you may belong to. Setting up a new account is reasonably straight forward, though its done through web pages that don’t feel like they have been optimised for a mobile device. An additional screen then allows you to add optional, additional information. I just hit the save and done buttons and returned to the main application.

In use:

At first I was left wondering what to do next?. I had an empty buddy list and no obvious way of adding anyone apart from other Palringo contacts. I could hit the support button but instead opt for random button tapping until something looks familiar. I quickly find out how to add additional chat networks and return to my main contacts list.

Instant messages are sent in the usual way but again there is no landscape keyboard. Palringo say they have plans to implement this feature at some time in the future. Interestingly you can also send a voice message which can either be heard within the recipients Palringo app or via a web link. In addition to this you can send pictures, which is a nice feature that seems to be unique to this app.

Another unique feature of this app are its social groups. You can join a growing number of different groups each developed around a particular interest. If you can’t find the group you want, you can create one. I joined the itouch fans group. Once you have joined a group you have direct communication with all other members of that group.

Palringo isn’t quite as intuitive as the other messenger app’s but It does have some unique and interesting features.

To Conclude:

Its difficult to pick an app that really stands out above the rest. If I only wanted to use Skype or just wanted cheap calls I would probably go with the Skype app for its simplicity. Palringo is a fully featured app with some interesting functionality and a pro looking interface, but of the four, I feel most comfortable with Nimbuzz. It has a good feature set, is very easy to use and works with a large range of services.

AppleTap » Social Networking

The Internet Marketers iPhone or iPod Touch.

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iPod & iPhone Messengers Tested.

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