Microsoft’s General Manager of the Windows Phone Developer Experience on Monday announced that he is leaving Microsoft to launch a start up. Kindel did not share the details of his new endeavor, and his public profile on networking site LinkedIn lists him as Founder and CTO of <redacted> at A super secret stealth startup. “[The start up] has to do with sports, advertising, mobile, social-networking, and, of course, the cloud,” Kindel wrote in a post on his personal blog. “I’m i...

One of the most important features Apple announced at WWDC 2011 was iMessage. It’s not only a direct competitor to Research In Motion’s extremely popular BlackBerry Messenger service, but could serve as the start of a much larger social initiative. Looking at the big picture, iMessage isn’t just a text / photo / video messaging service that will work with all iOS devices including the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad, but it could also be the backbone for Apple to launch its own IM network tha...

We now spend more time using mobile apps than on the Internet, according to a new research report from Flurry. The firm, which pulls its data from more than 85,000 applications, noted that in June 2011 the average person spent 81 minutes using mobile applications each day and just 74 minutes surfing the web. That’s up from December, when the firm found that users spent more time surfing the web (70 minutes) than using mobile apps (66 minutes). More surprisingly, it’s a 91% jump from last year when...

BGR has exclusively confirmed with a trusted source that HTC’s ChaCha, the company’s first device with dedicated Facebook button and deep Facebook integration, will be launching on AT&T in the coming weeks. According to our source, the launch could take place as soon as one week from now. Following some troubles HTC has had with the device’s name, the QWERTY-equipped Facebook phone will land on AT&T as the HTC Status. Truth be told, anything would sound better than ChaCha to us. Addi...

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Twitter is in “advanced talks” to purchase TweetDeck — the popular desktop and mobile third-party Twitter client. The deal could be worth as much as $50 million, although neither party has commented on the possible acquisition. TweetDeck, based in the U.K, has 15 employees on its payroll. Twitter could use the acquisition to immediately offer a “native” Twitter client in the PC desktop space, especially if it has plans to begin target...

UberMedia, best known for its UberSocial Twitter application for Android BlackBerry and iPhone, could have bigger plans up its sleeves. According to CNN, UberMedia is planning to build a social network that will compete directly with Twitter in the microblogging space. UberMedia hopes to attract users that are frustrated with the limitations of Twitter, like the 140-character limit, or are confused by how the service works. The firm is no stranger to the social network landscape. In fact, it estimates that 11...

RIM has made Facebook for BlackBerry, version 2.0, available via its BlackBerry Beta World portal. The latest update includes support for Facebook Chat and messages — which will now automatically land in your unified mailbox. Provided that you leave yourself signed in, the app will automatically notify you of new chat messages, even if you don’t have the app open. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve accidentally “Liked” a random friend’s status while scrolling throug...

When Apple announced Ping back in September, some heralded it as another brilliant move from Apple that would keep people immersed in the iTunes experience and bolster music sales. Most people, however, didn’t seem to care. Ping is Apple’s social network focused on music — described by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as “Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes”. It allows users to follow friends and artists to see what they’re listening to. More importantly, it allows users to then buy the trac...

Following a very, very rocky start for Google’s latest social networking effort, Google Buzz, the Internet giant has settled a class action lawsuit related to the service. When Buzz launched earlier this year, Google found itself at the center of a media frenzy. The company decided it would forgo an opt-in process and share users’ locations with each Google account holder in their address books by default. The decision turned out to be a PR nightmare — and now it carries a financial burden with ...

Location-based social networking site Loopt has just announced a new feature, Facebook Places. As touted in a press release, a newly released iOS application will allow users to “view both Facebook and Loopt check-ins on an interactive map, providing a clear view of friends gathering nearby.” The new code will also allow users to simultaneously check-in to locations on Facebook and Loopt as well as view the history of Facebook and Loopt friends. Your one-stop stalking shop. “We are glad to...

Last night, the Android iteration of Facebook was updated to bring it more inline with its iPhone counterpart. While there are a lot of minor fixes, the major changes center around the homescreen, and include:The ability to post a status update or search for friends with just one click.A new photo reel that enables easy viewing of photos and videos from friends in your News Feed.A draggable Notifications drawer where you can easily see if a friend posted a note on your wall, commented or liked a post or tagge...

What do we have here… it would appear to be a video of the MeeGo mobile operating system with Nokia’s dirty little fingerprints all over it. The video was captured by an astute consumer who was, of all things, taking an online survey. The video covers how the operating system will handle multitasking, social network integration, application purchasing with the Ovi Store, and the multimedia player. Hit the jump to see the goods, we’ve the 90 second clip all queued up for you. (more…)...

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley did not mince words when speaking with the U.K. paper The Telegraph. Crowley said, “Our data generates hugely interesting trends which would enrich search,” and went on to note that they were in talks with all the major search players including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. “We can anonymise data and use it to show venues which are trending at that moment,” the co-founder said.  ”Twitter helped the world and the search engines know what peop...

Social networking is huge these days, and there are a lot of choices. Buzz, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Loopt, Foursquare; the list goes on and on. While all these companies have a slightly different slant on social networking, they all seem to agree on one thing: mobile devices are the future. So we wanted to know… what is/are your mobile social networking client(s) of choice, what mobile OS do your run said client(s) on, and what would you change about that client/service if you could? Most of us here...