Great User Experience

The app probably has the most beautiful interface I have seen in a while. It uses the space of the iPhone screen very well and gives as much as possible to the content. The menu is a small button to the top left of the screen. This menu then allows you to move through the content of the app by overlaying the menu on the content. Very slick.

Supersport iPhone Application

The image on the right explains it a bit better.

The only problem is that it is not very clear that this little button opens up a whole new world of fixtures, logs, news and all the fine details of your favourite sport. A friend I met the other day was raving to me about the app and did not even know about the extended menu’ button.

Great Content

The content is fantastic. The makers of this app understand their audience well and have provided very detailed info on all the relevant sports. This includes Live Results that stream the scores of games that are currently being played. I cannot fault the design of this content in any way.

No Social Media Links?

Here is the biggest opportunity missed. In fact I find it hard to believe that someone can create an app with out the ability to post the articles all over twitter and Facebook. App like this are being used by people who have a strong inclination to using social media and they would most likely become the foundation point of making your content go viral. Especially content this great!

My advice to Supersport?

1. Make the purpose of the menu button more apparant
2. Link to social media PLEASE!!!

Other than those two small elements the Supersport app has a great user experience that is packed full of the content you are looking for in sport and is well worth it.

Congratulations Supersport!

I took a few screenshots for you to look at!

Twitter clients are becoming increasingly useful as they allow you to customise what you see in twitter and most have now extended their service to facebook as well. Making it easier to manage your online social profiles.

To make life easier I have listed a few twitter clients that I recommend with a brief list of highlights:

1. Tweet Deck

• Mobile app suport
• Facebook, Linkedin and Myspace integration
• Works on windows and mac

1. Hootsuite

• Windows and mac compatible
• iPhone app
• Schedule tweets
• Facebook, Linkedin and Ping.fm integration
• Click through statistics

1. Thwirl

• Works on windows and mac
• Video recording capability
• Ping.fm support

1. Seesmic

• Works on windows and mac
• Blackberry and Andriod apps
• Facebook integration

At the end of the day its your choice!

Enjoy

Read it later

Read it later is an important social media tool because it helps in posting relevant information to your social networks in the form of links to interesting articles. People enjoy following people who are not purely self-serving and who off additional information in their social profiles, not just blog updates. This app allows you to tag articles relevant to your choosen niche market and then, after reading them, provides easy access to posting them to your social profiles. My twitter profile @mikesaunders would not be updated as often if it weren’t for this tool.

Linkedin Home Screen for iPhone

Linkedin

As far as I am aware this is the only iPhone application that allows you to manage your linkedin profile. Therefore it is an important part of your socila media toolset. The Linkedin application has recently been updated and Mashable once again has a great overview of the application:

If you’ve used the previous version of LinkedIn for iPhone, you’ll immediately notice the difference. The new interface is very similar to Facebook 3.0 in that it displays 12 icons on the homepage that provide shortcuts to features like the inbox, invitations, status updates and profiles. The update also improves LinkedIn 3.0’s search interface. The goal is to make it easy for you to find information on anybody you meet by bringing up profile information and mutual connections. There’s also a favorites feature to save profiles you may want to bring up again later.

Perhaps the coolest addition to LinkedIn 3.0 is the “In Person” feature.  Using a bluetooth connection, you can transfer contact information and automatically connect with someone else almost instantly.

This upgrade is worthy of your download: It has a bunch of UI upgrades, added functionality and some really innovative additions.

WordPress

A few months ago I wrote a post on my top ten iphone applications for 2009 which may have been a bit soon to place judgement on future applications coming out in 2009. Now that we have reached the end of this last year I feel a little more equipped to provide a more substantial list of useful apps in the iPhone. So here’s my list for 2009:

Echofon

This is my primary twitter application. It only manages a single profile and therefore allows complete focus on my main profile. I also use twitteriffic to manage my other profiles but I find the UI a bit to complicated. Echofon have done a great job at simpliying the proceeses of twitter and sticking to the neccessities rather than the trinkets.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite as a web-based application has grown leaps and bounds in 2009. Starting off as a way to update Twitter and schedule tweets the software has now extended to faceook, linkedin, ping.fm and a host of other services. The only thing missing (for me) was the iPhone app. I have since installed the app, and although it only allows access to updating twitter accounts for now, it is great to start scheduling tweets on the fly. This has already become a time saver for me.

Facebook

The facebook application needs little introduction as it is the top downloaded app from the appstore. It is most likely that if you own an iPhone you have this app already. In 2009 this application became very useful to Social Media marketers with the ability to manage Facebook Pages, events, chats, friend requests, photo albums and notes.

Hackbitly

A funky little app that lets you get the stats of your it.ly links. Very useful to track the success of your blog posts.

Ego

Aptly named, the Ego application is all about checking on the status of your online ego. How many followers on twitter do you have, has anyone signed up to your feedburner RSS today or ha any visited my webiste. The EGO app will kep you up to date with the latest results of your marketing efforts in a neat and concise manner.

Pingle

Pingle

If you are a ping.fm account holder then this will help alot. It uses a simple and straightforward UI (User Interface) to send an update to your ping.fm account, which in turn updates all of your social networks simultaneously. One update = many updated profiles!!!

Analytics Lite

Google Analytics is the measurement tool of choice for most internet marketers and this application gives you access to your acount. In depth stats can be downloaded quickly and easily. Literally putting all your websites statistical data in your pocket.

Read It Later

Still one of my favourite applications. Such a simple concept of being able to tag web-pages to ‘read them later.’ A new update has just been released which see’s the app take on a new look and feel. The app also seems to run faster and smoother than before.

WordPress

The wordpress app was rendered useless once I move over to a self-hosted wordpress platform. This was because the self hosted API did not allow for the remote access that the app needed to mange the blogs from the iPhone. A recent update to wordpress now allows remote access and now this app is back in my good books. I am able to manage and reply to comments, fix spelling errors and even write an entire blog post should I wish (although my html skills are not that great so hyperlinking and rich-text editing becomes a problem.)

Hootsuite

Hootsuite as a web-based application has grown leaps and bounds in 2009. Starting off as a way to update Twitter and schedule tweets the software has now extended to faceook, linkedin, ping.fm and a host of other services. The only thing missing (for me) was the iPhone app. Today I installed the app, and although it only allows access to updating twitter accounts for now it is great to start scheduling tweets on the fly. This has already become a time saver for me.

Shovebox

My new found software friend is Shovebox. Shovebox allows you to shove you ideas into a box for use at a later time. Ideas come to me at any given time and it great to be able to store them in an organised fashion for use at a later time. An example is when I have blog post ideas – I can shove the ideas for another time when I am lacking inspiration. Of course the iPhone addition to this Apple software make my life even easier.

Things

The most useful application I have ever used on the iPhone. It’s desktop counterpart is also the most used software on my mac. Things is the best task management system simply because it allows for complete flexibility, task scheduling, and the classic GTD inbox used to make sure you don’t forget the little things. The iphone app has also seen numerous upgrades in 2009 and has allowed for more and more control over task management straight from the phone. I have actually got to the point where I no longer need to take my laptop into meetings because of this application.

News24

A direct feed of collective news in South Africa. The application allows you to customise your news feed choices and saves you having to buy a newspaper to stay up to date. In addition the app has included sharing links on the news items which brings News24 into the social media realm. Big thumbs up to the News24 team.

Tripometer

An easy to use and intuitive application that keeps track of my milage. I can control both the personal and business milage and there is no guessing the distance as it calculates the milage by using the odometer readings. What would make this app the best, would be if it could calculate your milage without inputting any data and simply measuring the distance in a GPS manner. One can dream can’t he?

Wikipanion

This app is more useful than google because of its focus on providing information rather than general content. Google search will bring you the most relevant webpages in its results, but wikipanion will link to directly to ‘encyclopedia’ type info. I also find that the addition of the ‘wiktionary’ has rendered all other dictionary applications useless.

Remote

This is the most convenient application when I am entertaining at home. I often set my laptop up to play music in the background through my home sound system. With the Remote app I can control the volume and choice of songs from anywhere around my house. Saves me getting up all the time to turn the music down when we start eating etc. Plus it always gets attention when people see it in action.

Spend

Still a great application that helps manage my budgeting needs. I have been able to keep better track on my financial status since using this application.

Logos

A recent introduction to my iPhone. Logos is a bible application that has a stronger search and study function than Bible (the app I was using previously). Logos also includes sharing fuctions to twitter etc which makes life easier in sharing thoughts with my twitter channel @onthingsabove

Look out for the next post outlining my top applications on the iPhone for social media!

Twitter has been very slow to take off in South Africa which begs the question ‘what value is there in twitter for South African social media campaigns?’

I believe that would depend entirely on what you goals are for your campaign. Who is your target market and what technologies are they comfortable using. South African twitter users are primarily tech savvy individuals. There would be very little benefit promoting soap through a twitter channel however a software product may achieve a greater level of success.

In my analysis of this marketing medium I have noticed a few fundamental ingredients to setting up a twitter profile that achieves it goals. The fundamentals have been evident in almost every twitter profile I have seen succeed. Using these fundamentals to your advantage could see your following grow and goals realised.

Focus Focus Focus
This first is the simplest concept in marketing and yet the one that people struggle the most with. Focus! Your product or service offers something unique to someone and that USP is what carves its place into the hearts of your consumers. Give you Twitter profile the same USP and let it elbow its way into the minds of people and become valuable to them. Good marketers know that you must promote the features of a product that matter most to your target market and you need to use a channel that can communicate those features the best.

I would like to use online software as an example here,specifically a company called TwitterFeed. @twfeed uses it profile to promote the technical updates of its software service to its clients. This give confidence in their users that should there be any complications in the service offered they will be updated on the progress via Twitter. In addition to this technical update service @twfeed also provides basic technical support to its clients. In fact it seems that the twitter profile has become a great technical support platform for TwitterFeed.

Twitter feed have focused their profile on providing a service to its clients around technical support. It does not use the profile to talk about its business objectives, company strategies, latest press and company news. Focus has given the @twfeed profile valuable leverage in the hearts of its clients.

Here are a few other examples of creative focused profiles:
Bushmills are currently running a pub quiz on twitter
Ashton Kutcher has focused on engaging his fans on a more personal level
Hayibo simply use twitter to exited their already focused satirical humor

Develop processes to maintain your profile
Ensure that you have a process that will keep the focus of your profile. In the case of @mikeasaunders if I stop updating the profile with links and articles about South African Social Media then I have stopped serving my followers. They have placed a degree of trust in me to provide them direction or news about this topic. If my processes fail then my brand fails.

I would suggest the following in setting up your processes:

1. Decide who is going to update the profile: This person should be an internet savvy individual who will enjoy updating the profile. The more enjoyment the more activity. Also make sure that your organisation trusts this person to communicate to the public on behalf of your company because the person updating your profile becomes a company ambassador to the public.
2. Put that person into the information loop: Whoever runs your twitter profile needs to be in the communication mix, without information there is nothing to communicate. This can be done by sending them the industry trade magazine, educating them on the interesting websites to subscribe to and most importantly making sure that they become avid readers of your company blog or website.
3. Go Mobile: Twitters main attraction is that you can tweet from anywhere. Empower you ‘twits’ with the knowledge and technology to update the profile via SMS or cellphone applications. This way it does not become as time consuming as it can potentially be and the profile is more accessible in a time of need.
4. Syndicate: Do you have an RSS feed? If not, its time you started thinking about getting one setup. An RSS feed is a subscription feed that can promote your company new or blog to the internet effortlessly. There are a number of ways that you can funnel your RSS feed to update your twitter profile. Meaning that when your blog updates – your twitter profile updates! This is a huge time saver and a great way to drive traffic to your website.

I would love to here your thoughts on twitter in South Africa! Feel free to comment below.

There are however a few useful and even life altering applications for the iPhone. These are the applications we should all be making a fuss about. So with this in mind here is my list of ‘Top iPhone Apps’ for 2009 on Version2.

1 ) Things

“Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager.” I run all my tasks from here including complex projects at work. ” Other task managers either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Either way you are not getting stuff done. Things instead has the right balance between ease of use and powerful features. You can even sync wirelessly with the desktop version of Things using Wi-Fi.” Read more…

2 ) Bloomberg

I use Bloomberg to keep up to date on my stock prices and charts as well as to research new stock options. The app design has used the iPhone strengths well by creating automatic chart views whenever you turn the phone sideways on a stock detail.

3 ) Bible

This application feeds from the website youversion.com. It feeds bible text directly from the website in a variety of bible versions including the NIV. Bible also allows for limited offline bible versions to be downloaded to your phone. Youversion has a unique concept of allowing users to comment and share thoughts on scripture and the application provides easy access to these contributions. The app also includes ‘email to friend’, bookmarking functions and a daily reading plan.

4 ) News24

A direct feed of collective news in South Africa. The application allows you to customise your news feed choices and saves you having to buy a newspaper to stay up to date.

5 ) Spend

This is most likely one of the most important apps I have. I use Spend to run all my budgeting. I have been able to drop my complicated excel budget spreadsheets and use a simpler, more intuitive interface for managing my budgeting and expenses. I now know exactly where I am in my spending all the time.

6 ) Pingle

A great application – simple because I use ping.fm to manage my status updates in the social blogosphere. Now with the Pingle app I have been able to update more regularly and more effectively to my various ping.fm update options.

7 ) WordPress

Using WordPress to run this blog means that an iphone application that allows me to stay up-to-date with comments and posts on my blog. I have found it a great way to load new post ideas as and when I think of them.

8 ) Remote

This is the most convenient application when I am entertaining at home. I often set my laptop up to play music in the background through my home sound system. With the Remote app I can control the volume and choice of songs from anywhere around my house. Saves me getting up all the time to turn the music down when we start eating etc. Plus it always gets attention when people see it in action.

9 ) Delicious

Gain access to you delicious boookmarks at anytime. This app is extremely helpful in the weirdist situations.

10 ) Tripometer

An easy to use and intuitive application that keeps track of my milage. I can control both the personal and business milage and there is no guessing the distance as it calculates the milage by using the odometer readings. What would make this app the best would be if it could calculate your milage without inputting any data and simply measuring the distance in a GPS manner. One can dream can’t he?

Apple have tried to censor and ban a few apps that have been submitted but it is clear that they are under tons of pressure to release these bans.

Censorship-of-iphone-apps

In the new software update iPhone 3.0. Apple have bought in the option to create censorships or restrictions over which applications can be downloaded. Even though it seems that Apple’s reason for this is so that it can allow adult apps into the App Store, I would still encourage you to make use of this ‘restrictions’ function. Especially if your children own an iPhone!

Click here to find out how to enable this on the iPhone.

I am afraid that once activated the restrictions do not stop the apps showing up in the App Store but it does stop example images from apprearing and the ability to download the application. (Even if it is free)

You will need to select your allowed ratings, so here they are directly from iTunes:

4+: Applications in this category contain no objectionable materials.

9+: Applications in this category may contain mild or infrequent occurrences of cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence, and infrequent or mild mature, suggestive, or horror-themed content which may not be suitable for children under the age of 9.

12+: Applications in this category may also contain infrequent mild language, frequent or intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence, and mild or infrequent mature or suggestive themes, and simulated gambling which may not be suitable for children under the age of 12.

17+: You must be at least 17 years old to purchase this application. (emphasis in the original)

Applications in this category may also contain frequent and intense offensive language; frequent and intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence; and frequent and intense mature, horror, and suggestive themes; plus sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs which may not be suitable for children under the age of 17.

Personally I don’t see any need to own an application that has a restriction higher than 4+.