When it comes down to getting a hold of someone, a simple text or Facebook message will usually do the trick. In fact, we’ve become so reliant on these means of communication that most of us don’t even remember telephone numbers anymore. We still won’t need to, because Facebook just released Messenger, a new mobile app that simplifies how messaging works.

What Is Messenger?

Remember Beluga? Beluga was/is a nifty group messaging application for iPhone and Android that I wrote a story on back in early March. It allowed you to quickly create groups to stay in touch with your friends. At the end of my article, I mentioned that I had just seen reports of Facebook acquiring Beluga, which was something we should all keep an eye on in the coming months.

Well, it looks like I was on the right side of history with this one, because the Facebook Messenger mobile app happens to be a combination of Beluga and Facebook Messages.

The end result is a standalone app that allows you to quickly message others.

What Does Facebook’s Messenger Bring to the Table?

Since Messenger is an extension of Facebook Messages, all of your conversations are in one place, including your texts, chats, emails and messages. Whether you’re on your phone or on the web, you can see the full history of all your messages.

You can use Messenger to reach all of your friends – whether they’re on Facebook or in your phone contacts – just by typing their name. As I said, it is a separate app, so it only takes one click to get to your messages or send a new one, and messages are delivered through notifications and texts.

Here are some of Messenger’s top features:

• Message friends, groups of friends, or anyone in your mobile contacts.
• Map your location, find your friends, and make plans on the go.
• Get mobile notifications so you never miss a message.
• Include photos so friends can see what you’re doing

Basically, now you can send Facebook messages directly to your friends on their mobile phones, as well as share your location (if you choose to!) and other things like photos, etc.

Where Can I Get Messenger For Mobile?

The easiest way to get Messenger is to head over to Facebook’s official page and click the Get the App button. A box will pop up allowing you to text the link to yourself. Or, if you have an iPhone or Android device, you can just go straight to their respective pages to download and install the application.

Once installed, you can begin sending messages to your Facebook friends. Those who don’t have the app yet will receive your message via text (This happened to me), and they will be able to respond just like they would for any other normal text message. They will also see a small link that, if visited, takes them to this simple message.

Conclusion

There has been speculation of video conferencing capabilities within Messenger as well (source), possibly for a future update to the app. It makes sense that Facebook would eventually build this into their messaging platform (Remember Skype?). I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on it.

What do you think of this move by Facebook? Are you surprised that they went ahead and built a standalone app for messaging?

For a long time I was using the official app provided by Twitter because it’s the first one I ever installed, and for a long time, I never looked back. Since it’s been so long, I decided to take another look in the Android Market to see what new and improved Twitter apps were available. Now that I have more than one Twitter account to manage, I really needed a Twitter Android client that could deal with multiple accounts.

After sifting through the many Twitter apps available, I finally settled on one called Tweetcaster. The reason for choosing this one (aside from the four and a half star rating), is due to the clean design, ease of use, and the fact that it can easily handle multiple Twitter accounts.

Setting Up Multiple Accounts On Tweetcaster

The main reason I wanted to try this app was because the main screen made it appear as though it could handle as many Twitter accounts as you want. From the main page when you first launch the app, you can see the big plus sign next to “Add Account”. Go ahead and start adding your accounts!

Once you log into each account, you’re ready to roll. The goofy bird icon is where you can view all of the tweets for the people you’re following. I really like how fast and easy it is to switch between tweets, mentions, messages, and other areas of your profile with just a single tap of the finger. Navigating through Twitter with this app is a breeze.

While you’re viewing any of these lists, just do a long-click on any one of the tweets and a pop-up window will appear where you can go directly to that person’s profile, send them a direct message, block the user or report them for spam.

Also, you can click on the menu option for more options like navigating the list, manually refreshing, reviewing followers and followees, modifying your settings or lastly enabling a tweet filter.

A tweet filter was a valiant attempt by Handmark to help people filter out those annoying users that seem to post updates every five minutes, flooding your entire view. Unfortunately, the filter doesn’t work quite as you’d expect. For example, when I tried typing “MakeUseOf” (not that I ever would, mind you), it filtered out all but one of the day’s tweets, even those that didn’t even have that word in it. Strange.

Just like the other areas of the app, the Followers and Following page is designed for fast navigation. Flip back and forth between the two with a single tap, then long-click on a user to visit their profile or send them a message.

When you do visit someone else’s account, you can navigate through their information just as easily as your own. See their Tweets, messages they’ve sent you, lists they’re following and more. Use the menu button to follow the user (if you’re not already), add a mention, or block them.

Aside from the different things you can do with the app, the thing I like about Tweetcaster is how easy it is to customize it. You can see this just from taking a look at the settings menu. Not only that, it’s integrated with popular outside services people usually use with Twitter like bit.ly, plixi and Twitvid.

In the customize menu, you’ll see all the ways you can tweak the appearance of the app. Change from a light to a dark theme, alter colors, font sizes, and the behavior when you click on URLs, or how notifications work.

When you click on the pen icon at the top of the main page, you’ll go directly to the tweet page where you’ll probably be spending most of your time in this app. It’s also the coolest area of this app because of all the things integrated into this one page. Click on the eye icon to see current tweets in the upper part of the screen (nice if you’re responding to someone). Click the menu button and you’ll see the integrated features like adding pictures, videos and shortening URLs.

By the way, even Instapaper, an app David wrote about before that lets you save webpages to read later, is also integrated into Tweetcaster.

Of course, a pleasant surprise – because I wasn’t even expecting it – is the fact that the creators of this app were thoughtful enough to include integrating Facebook into Tweetcaster. This means that in one fell swoop, you can post to both Twitter and Facebook with just a single, quick text message. A pretty convenient tool when you’re on the go and just want to let everyone on both social networks know what’s up.

Have you ever given Tweetcaster a try? What do you think? How does it compare to other Twitter Android clients that are on the Market? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

PingChat! now offers a completely free cross-platform mobile chat program that supports iPhone, Blackberry and Android handsets. The app is downloadable directly from their website, which means that Blackberry users who don’t have access to the Blackberry App World can still download and use PingChat!

Once you’ve downloaded PingChat! to your phone you will be required to register the app. All that means is you will be asked to enter a unique username, which is linked to your phone number.

In order to chat with your friends using PingChat!, you have to have their username. They do make it easy to get the word out there, giving you a quick and easy way to broadcast your username on Facebook, Twitter or via email. As you start to add contacts and receive messages, you can easily link your PingChat! contacts to your address book.

Once you’re all set up, you can start sending and receiving messages. But you’re not just limited to text. You can send picture messages, by taking a photo while the app is open or by choosing a photo saved on your phone. You can record a voice note up to 30 seconds long. Using PingChat!, you can also send videos saved or recorded on your phone to your friends. iPhone 3G users can send videos that have been recorded with other third party apps that have been saved to the camera roll. Blackberry, Android and iPhone 3GS/4 users can send videos recorded with their native video camera apps. You can also send the contact details of anyone in your address book.

And it doesn’t end there. You can send your exact location using Google Maps, a feature that would be of huge help if you’re lost or your car has broken down and need someone to pick you up. Your location will be uploaded to PingChat! as a map.

And of course, PingChat! uses push notifications to let you know when you have a new message. You can choose to toggle the sound and vibration for notifications on and off from directly within the app’s settings on the iPhone. And if you change your number or phone, you can unregister the account, and re-register with so that you don’t have to change your username.

The Blackberry settings are limited to unregistering your account and choosing which sound profile to use with the app. iPhone users will be happy to know that their version supports landscape mode. The app works over 3G, EDGE and WiFi so you can keep in touch with your friends no matter where you are.

Have you used PingChat? Let us know what you think of it in the comments.

As the world crossed over beyond 2000 and more people adopt SmartPhones so that they’ll have constant access to their favorite social networks and email – I often wonder how this will impact the continued evolution of the Internet. One area that I believe is teetering on the brink of explosive growth are location-based, free mobile social sites that let you both share your location and see the location of your friends.

Top 5 Mobile Social Networks To See Friend Locations

While it’s nearly impossible to predict the failure or success of particular players within a brand new niche like this (does anyone still use AOL for Internet access anymore?) it is at least possible to take a momentary snapshot of who those players are in the area of free mobile social sites. At the start of any new technological trend, there are often a mix of large and small players. After a while a powerhouse eventually achieves the widest user-base – a few examples: Microsoft Windows, Google and Facebook.

Those who are disappointed in the overwhelming choice of the masses – you should probably take a more active role in making use of those technologies while the technology is new.  Once any single free mobile social site gets a solid foothold with a substantial enough user base, group-think takes over and everyone else jumps on the bandwagon. If you feel strongly about a particular player here, then sign up and actively use the service. Encourage friends and family to use it and before you know it, your choice may very well be the app of choice for everyone.

Google Latitude

Of course, the Google solution, Google Latitude, which I wrote about earlier here at MakeUseOf, was an early contender in this location-based mobile social network race.

With Latitude, you don’t technically join a social network. Instead you build your own private social network from the ground up, based on the friends you have who are also running Latitude and keep it active on their phone. As you can see, my friend Jorge runs Latitude fairly often – his last updated location was January 14th. My buddy Mark chickened out back in May of last year and hasn’t updated his location since!

By the way, while there’s no Latitude “social network” per se, there is the option to add your “Latitude Badge” to your favorite social network or blog and share out your GPS location to the entire world (if you dare).

The Gypsii Social Network

The next mobile social network that I’d like to cover is Gypsii. So far, this is actually my favorite one – and I believe that it is soon to enter into the leader’s circle for best location-based social networks. There are lots of mobile social networks out there – or mobile plugins for online social networks, but the coolness factor from a social network like Gypsii is that every member is automatically location-identified. This means you immediately know where potential friends are located around you.

The “News” page shows all of the public Gypsii status updates – much like how Twitter works. As you can see, there’s already a decent base of worldwide users that are active on Gypsii – but it still has a very long way to go.

In my mind, the true test of such a social network would be how many members exist around me. I live in a remote location in Southwestern Maine – essentially “hicksville” – and not a whole lot of tech-savvy folks in the neighborhood.

Clicking on the “People” tab and searching for members who are closest to me, I was pleasantly surprised to see about 10 or so folks in the network located within 30 miles from me, and even one who just lives 10 miles away. As you can see, there’s a “friends” tab where you can view just the friends on your contact list, if you so wish.

The coolest feature of the Gypsii mobile social network, in my humble opinion, is the “Places” tab. Here, you can review images uploaded to Gypsii. This isn’t unique among social networks, but what is unique is the fact that you can isolate the images based on members who are closest to your location – and review some very cool personal photos for places around you. This would be very useful during a vacation, to see certain places and attractions and determine if it’s worth your while.

Match Up With People At Match2Blue

Another location based mobile social network is Match2Blue. Match2Blue is a much more scaled down application (at least on the Android), with basic functionality like searching for people near you, adding those people to your contact list and sending messages.

The main page shows a listing of all members, which you can view by proximity to you. Upload your photo and start updating your status with tempting messages to attract your future mate. As you can see – most of the status updates are folks doing just that. This is very much a mobile social network for dating.

The Exciting (But Empty) Centrl Social Network

Centrl is another new contender in this market. It’s a New York based startup, and I believe there’s a lot of promise – but it really needs to develop a user base as quickly as possible if it’s going to compete with the other new kids on the block.

The moment you sign in, you can either invite your own contacts to the network, or you can see what other users are near you.

As you can see, I didn’t have much luck. However, I like the fact that once there are other users, it won’t just show them as “near you,” but it’ll overlay their position onto Google Maps – just like Google Latitude. On the other hand, this accuracy may be a turn-off for many potential users who may have privacy concerns.

You can see from the public chat area that the social network itself isn’t completely abandoned – but it’s just in the beginning phase of building up a solid network of users. If you live in or around a larger city, it may have more usefulness to you in its present state.

Give Your Social Network a Glympse

I wanted to share one more mobile app called Glympse. This one isn’t so much a location based social network, as it is a location based notifier for your friends and contacts.

Using the service is very simple. Instead of constantly sharing out your location publicly, you can instead send out a public glimpse of your location when you want to share it. You can send the update to your friends via SMS or email or (and this is my favorite feature) you can send it to Twitter.

Sending your “glympse” to Twitter posts your comment plus a link to your Glympse page where people can see your location. The great part of this is that the location is only accurate for the amount of time you set. Glympse basically lets you turn Twitter itself into a location based social network.

Do you know of any other cool location based social networks that you can access from your mobile phone? Share them in the comments section below.

Keeping up to date on a daily to-do list stored on a desktop or even an online application isn’t always possible when you don’t have constant access to a computer or to the Internet. Thankfully, once I got a new Motorola Droid and started exploring the Android Market, I stumbled upon one of the best mobile personal organization application that I’ve ever used – Astrid.

Mobile Personal Organization With Astrid

Astrid is a to-do list and “task tracking system” from the good folks at WeLoveAstrid. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Astrid completely transformed my time management style, and it dramatically improved my efficiency and the amount of work that I’m able to accomplish in less time. It does this by evaluating the information you provide and then prioritizing your work appropriately.

By inserting everything that you need to get done, when it’s due, as well as priority status and what alert settings you would like, Astrid becomes your virtual secretary that assists you with your personal organization – telling you what you need to do right now and how much time you have left to do it. This lets you focus on the most important things instead of jumping from task to task, because you can’t figure out what’s really the most important to do first.

This is the main list that you’ll review every day. These tasks include everything – the daily, weekly and monthly tasks that you schedule to repeat as well as the one-time tasks that you need to get done every now and then. The main screen provides you with a quick glance at your workload, with your most important tasks (by the priority you set and the deadline) listed at the top. On this main screen you can see the task title and when it’s due.

Adding a new task can be as quick or as detailed as you want it to be. The fastest approach, when you’re in a hurry, is to just type in the task at the bottom of the screen and then press the “+” character to the right. This immediately adds the task to your list without any deadline set. When you’re running around from place to place, but you really need to remember to do something, just type it in quickly. You can always set the deadline and priority later, but at least you know you won’t forget about it.

Later, when you’re ready to assign a deadline and priorities, just scroll to the bottom of your task list (since there’s no deadline it has the lowest priority) and then click on the Edit button.

These three screens – basic, dates and alerts – are where all of the magic happens. This is where time management professionals will tell you that you can really do a stellar job at more efficiently managing your time, and more effectively spending your time. On the basic screen, you can assign one of four priorities to the task. This is intuitive enough – one exclamation mark for not very important, and four for tasks that are critically important. Insert tags to categorize your task (if you want), assign how long the task will take once you start it (this helps with the timer feature later), and any special notes that you need to remember for the task.

The dates screen is the one that I’m on most of the time, because I have so many deadlines throughout the week that I need to remember. On this screen you can set both an absolute deadline and a goal deadline. I love this, because it gives me a personal “early” deadline that I like to shoot for, and if I miss it because life is too hectic, I know that I still have until the absolute deadline (when the task is really due) to finish it. You can also click “Add Task To Calendar,” which automatically inserts it into your online Google Calendar (very, very cool!) and if it’s due far into the future, you can also select to hide the task and only have it show up on a certain date. If you’ve partially completed the task before entering it into Astrid, you can fill that in – which also helps with the timer feature.

I don’t personally like a whole lot of alerts ringing my phone all the time, so I usually only set up Astrid to ping me with an alert either at the deadline itself, or as the deadline approaches. However, Astrid is flexible enough to really perform any alert structure that you like, such as alerting after deadline or can set it up to annoy you with constant reminders every so often if that’s what you like!

When you click on a task in your main to-do page, you have the option to edit the page or start a timer. The timer basically counts down the time that you have left to complete the task once you start it. If you believe writing an article should only take you two hours, Astrid will count down two hours. A lot of people like to use this because they need to move on to other things whether or not a task is completed in the assigned time. I personally like to work through my estimated time to task completion whether I estimated correctly or not, so I don’t use the Timer feature – but a lot of time management enthusiasts use it. So, it’s there for you if you need it!

I’m not kidding when I say that using Astrid has nearly doubled the amount of work that I’m able to accomplish each week. I’ve also better aligned my time toward the most critical tasks, and I’m much less likely to be quite as forgetful as I used to be about those lower-priority tasks. Don’t get  me wrong…some things slip through the cracks, but only because I forgot to enter them into Astrid!

Do you have your own personal favorite mobile personal organization application? Share them in the comments section below!