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 insanely excited to get started.” The soon-to-be former executive was with Microsoft for 21 years, having joined the Redmond-based company’s developer support group in 1990. Kindel’s full email to his team regarding the decision follows below.

From: Charlie Kindel
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 9:00 AM
To: A gazillion old friends and colleagues
Subject: Goodbye Microsoft – After 21 Years It’s Time To Move On

July 2, 1990 was my first day at Microsoft and September 2, 2011 will be my last.

In the time honored tradition of “good-bye mails” this is mine.

My first Microsoft product was a Z-80 Softcard for my Apple ][+ in 1984. That amazing product enabled me to become a UCSD P-System, CP/M, and Turbo Pascal geek. I still remember opening the big clear plastic box for the first time.

In 1988 (my junior year at the University of Arizona) I decided I wanted to work for Microsoft when I discovered Windows programming (I conned my dad into buying me a copy of the Windows 2 SDK). Charles Petzold was my hero.

I got no-hired after my first interviews (a dev role in Languages; shouldn’t really surprise anyone).

I bribed my recruiter into getting me another set of interviews by sending her a Christmas card (clearly I was meant to be a PM).

The brightest memory I have of my first day at work was a Seattle Times sports page pinned to my manager’s (Ridge Ostling) cube: “Husky Women Beat Beavers”.

A few months later we threatened to quit because management kept turning the lights ON in Lincoln Plaza.

Arne Josefsberg: I feel bad about writing that tool that generated fake time tracking reports. But what did you expect? We were providing the best damn developer support possible and the number of minutes we spent doing it was totally irrelevant.

Curtis Palmer: I miss you. Our Bogus Software was the best. RIP.

Tunneling Todd Laney, one day I got so pissed that the Windows 8514a driver didn’t support “smallfonts” that I just fixed it and checked it in. I was still in PSS. My first “production code” at Microsoft and if you don’t count OLEView which was just a tool, my last.

I decided I wanted to be Chris Guzak. So I got out of PSS and into Developer Relations. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

Vertical Developer Relations was an amazing group. Out of that group came: Jeff Teper, Satya Nadella, Joe Long, John Wilcox, Bret O’Rourke, and others.

After writing OLEView I woke up and I was no longer an evangelist but a PM on the OLE team. Initially I was given all the glamorous stuff like Mac OLE. Mario Goertzel scared the crap out of me. It was 3 months before he and the other devs would invite me to lunch.

I got to work with Bob Atkinson. He taught me the trick of taking people on walks during 1:1s. He also taught me everything I know.

We gave all PDC ’93 attendees a CD with the first DCOM bits. ole.h was missing. One (one!) customer noticed. We thought DCOM was hot-sh**. It wasn’t.

The first name for COM+ was COM3. Windows used to let you create directories named COM3. But you couldn’t delete them. The real reason I’m leaving Microsoft? COM is making a comeback.

Sweeper and December 7, 1995 were epic. How the name “ActiveX” was chosen was not. Designing the <OBJECT> tag with Tim Berners-Lee was mind blowing for me. Ben Slivka still owes my sister an airplane ticket.

Shipping IE 3.0 was my first taste of what it really meant to build a product that changed the world. I would have never joined the Windows Phone team if I had not had that prior experience of an impossible, come-from-behind, project.

Somewhere along the line I learned the word “mentor”. Bob Muglia and Chris Jones: Thank you. I learned everything I know from you.

In 1998 a bunch of us from the IIS team were in Paris for some conference. We went out to dinner and when we came out of the restaurant there was a literal riot going on around the Arc de Triomphe. France had won the world cup. We joined in. I rode around the Arc de Triomphe on the roof of a city bus chanting Viva-La-France! Microsoft enabled me to see the world and I’m grateful for that.

Someday we’re going to have a Project42 reunion party. Or not.

Tracy Sharpe once worked for me. One day his office was cleared out. I asked HR “Where’s Tracy?” “Oh, he moved to the Xbox team weeks ago.” Oh, that’s how that works.

Charlie: “Hey Chris (Jones) & David (Cole), we should build a Neptune Home Server! We’ll call it Ybox!”

Chris & David: “Charlie, shut the eff up and get back to work.”

Working on Windows Millennium is where I met Dave Alles.

The Connected Home Business Unit had this guy who drove a black Hummer. One day we put a “Yes, my penis is small” bumper sticker on it. Sorry about that Kevin Eagan.

Bedrock and the bBox demonstrated that a group could have all the technology and a great user experience and still not know how to spell “business”. BXT folks. BXT!

CHBU begat eHome. The first version of Windows Media Center was to be called “Windows Remote View”. Really.

When I think about my time as BobMu’s TA I’m reminded of the scene in Blade Runner, where Roy says “I’ve seen things you people could only imagine.” Did I mention that I learned everything I know from Bob Muglia?

You know why Quattro was named Quattro? My fourth attempt at building a home server product at Microsoft. Best. Team. Ever.

I’ve had some great managers (and some not so great ones). Chris Phillips the best manager I ever had. I learned everything I know from Chris.

To the people that helped build Windows Home Server: Chuck Norris doesn’t leave Microsoft. Microsoft leaves with Chuck.

Yamanote! Istvan, Friedbert, Bob, Drew, Tudor, Kevin, Akhil, Ron, Scott, and a slew of others: They doubted, but we fraking did it. Together. 27,000 apps and counting. Someone once gave me the advice “The first rule of dependency management is to not have any dependencies.” I call BS on this and we proved that cross-group collaboration CAN work at Microsoft.

The real reason I’m leaving Microsoft: At the last partner meeting Dave Alles didn’t ask SteveB a question.

To the Windows Phone team: I may stop using some Microsoft products now that I’m out of here. But not Windows Phone. The BEST product Microsoft has ever built. Do not let up!

To my wife: Thank you for putting up with “Microsoft Time” (“Honey, I’ll be home in an hour.” Four hours later…). I’ve learned everything I know from Julie Kindel.

To my kids: No, just because I don’t work at Microsoft anymore you many not use Google. Remember, every time you use Google, a puppy dies.

Back in 1990 I assumed I’d work here for 3 or so years. I’m an entrepreneur at heart and every few years I’d lift up my head and look around. I never had the need to look outside Microsoft because I kept finding one challenging opportunity after another.

21 years later I have finally decided I need to do something different: I’m leaving to start a new company here in the Seattle area. I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

There has been one constant in every job I’ve had at Microsoft: People way smarter than me. Microsoft has always enabled me to “play up”. It has truly been an honor working with all of you. Thank you for helping me grow as an engineer, a manager, a businessman, and as a person.

Stay in touch and keep changing the world!

-cek

charlie (at) kindel (dot) com

http://ceklog.kindel.com

@ckindel on Twitter

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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 that combines the company’s different strengths. Read on for my thoughts.

Right now, Apple has several ways to communicate on iOS and its OS X platform: iChat, FaceTime and iMessage. Why aren’t these services all tied together? Down the road, I think they will be. Imagine being able to add an iMessage account to iChat so you’re able to communicate not only from your iOS device with over 200 million users, but also from your desktop as well. Now your messages and conversations follow you from your iPhone to your iPad, and then to your iMac or MacBook Air as well. Why wouldn’t FaceTime be built into iChat too? The same way video calling now works on Apple devices could serve as the foundation for FaceTime calling to iMessage friends right through iChat.

Instead of relying on another IM network like AOL Instant Messanger, Apple is creating its own service on its own terms. The company has a chance to not only knock RIM down in the process, but also to finally switch hundreds of millions of users away from services like AIM to something much better and more comprehensive.

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 users spent just under 43 minutes using mobile apps, versus 64 minutes spent surfing the web. Flurry also found that mobile users spend 47% of their time playing games, 32% of their time browsing social networks, 9% reading the news, and 7% using other “entertainment” apps. Finally, the company said that 14 of the 74 minutes spent per day by consumers on the Internet is spent browsing Facebook.

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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. Additionally, we have separately confirmed with HTC that despite earlier reports to the contrary, the other handset with dedicated Facebook button — HTC’s Salsa — won’t be hitting AT&T in the near future, if at all.

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 targeting enterprise Twitter users. Although TweetDeck’s engineers have certainly proven that they have the developing chops to compete in the mobile space, too.

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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 11.5% of all tweets sent in March were from an UberMedia product. However, CNN also notes that the social network project could be part of a backup plan in case UberMedia’s relationship with Twitter goes south — as it did briefly in February when Twitter accused the company of violating its terms of service. “Our foremost desire is to continue to innovate on the Twitter platform and bring some more users and usage to Twitter,” Steve Chadima, UberMedia’s marketing chief, said.

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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 through our Facebook News Feed, so a revamped layout that prevents this from occurring is certainly welcome. It’s also now possible to check-in, update your status, or post photos, directly from the top of your News Feed. Facebook for BlackBerry 2.0 offers revamped navigation controls, and a new notifications bar that looks a lot like the “Today View” in BlackBerry 6. Lastly, the profile view has been tweaked, and now allows users to toggle between wall, info, and photo tabs on a friend’s page.

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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 tracks shared by those they follow with minimal effort. We don’t personally know anyone who uses the service however, and it looks like we now know why. Apple sent out an email to iTunes users today in an effort to remind them, well, that Ping exists. The email states that Ping “already has millions of users” and that it’s “growing fast”, but we don’t recall receiving emails like this when Apple has launched successful products and services in the past.

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 it as well. As a result of a class action settlement, Google has agreed to put in place an $8.5 million fund dedicated to “promoting privacy education on the web,” and it is now in the process of informing its users. Hit the break for the email Google is currently sending to all account holders.

Google rarely contacts Gmail users via email, but we are making an
exception to let you know that we’ve reached a settlement in a lawsuit
regarding Google Buzz (http://buzz.google.com), a service we launched
within Gmail in February of this year.

Shortly after its launch, we heard from a number of people who were
concerned about privacy. In addition, we were sued by a group of Buzz users
and recently reached a settlement in this case.

The settlement acknowledges that we quickly changed the service to address
users’ concerns. In addition, Google has committed $8.5 million to an
independent fund, most of which will support organizations promoting
privacy education and policy on the web. We will also do more to educate
people about privacy controls specific to Buzz. The more people know about
privacy online, the better their online experience will be.

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail
can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is
included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before
December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement
on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more
detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including
instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at

http://www.BuzzClassAction.com.

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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 have access to the Facebook Places API, and we jumped to incorporate it into Loopt,” said the company’s CEO, Sam Altman. “You’ll see even more integration soon.” Hit the jump for the full press release.

iPhone and iPod touch app now blends Loopt and Facebook Places to make it easier to connect with friends while out and about

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – October 18, 2010 – Loopt, the mobile connection to people and places around you, today announced it has integrated Facebook Places with the latest version of its app for iPhone and iPod touch, making Loopt’s friend-finding capabilities even stronger. Now, Loopt users can view both Facebook and Loopt check-ins on an interactive map, providing a clear view of friends gathering nearby.

With this update, people can now see all their friends’ location updates in one app. Overall Facebook Places additions to Loopt include:

• Universal map view – Facebook friends are shown on an interactive map, for which Loopt has long been known. Friends using Facebook Places will populate your Loopt map, giving you a clear view of friends nearby.
• Dual check-in – When Loopt users check in and share to Facebook, it will show up as a Facebook Places check-in – a simple, quick update on both services. This action will add activity to the Facebook Places page for that location. For those with accounts on both services, comments on a friend’s Loopt updates will also show up as a comment on the friend’s Facebook Place update.
• Friend history – Facebook friends who have used Facebook Places will appear in Loopt’s Friends list. Through Loopt, you can pull up a friend’s check-in log (for both Loopt and Facebook Places). This comes in especially handy when you are heading to an unfamiliar city, but you have a Facebook friend who knows the area well. You can see where they like to go regularly, plus their input and photos.

“When we first learned that Facebook would enter the location space, we saw a huge opportunity before us,” said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of Loopt. “Facebook is introducing its 500 million users to location services. We are glad to have access to the Facebook Places API, and we jumped to incorporate it into Loopt. You’ll see even more integration soon.”

The latest Loopt app involves some additional updates, including:

• Fine-tuned Friend Alerts – Friend alerts, launched recently, have become an extremely popular feature on Loopt. Previously, users would be notified when a friend was within one mile, but we’ve now added a greater customized range – you can adjust Friend Alert settings to receive notification when friends are between one and 10 miles away. This is especially useful for finding out a friend is in town – 10 miles is often worth the journey to meet up with an old friend.
• Upgraded and simplified registration system – An e-mail login option has been a highly requested feature. Now new users can join using either their phone number or email address.

As always, Facebook activity through Loopt will respect the privacy controls set on both Facebook and Loopt. The Loopt App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/ .

For instructions on how to get up and running with Facebook Places on Loopt, see our blog post.

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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 tagged you in a photo.
• Video playback from the app. Similar to the Facebook for iPhone application, we are using the H.264 baseline profile for encoding videos.
• Support for Events. You can now review your upcoming events, read your event details, and even RSVP – all from the application.
• Respond to friend requests without leaving the application.

The interface looks more polished, and it is far easier to tell if you have wall notifications (or any notifications) from all 3,000 of your closest internet friends. The photo drawer down the bottom is also pretty cool. The updated code — version 1.3 — is available in the Android market as we type. Enjoy!Read

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.

[Via Engadget]

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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 people are talking about. Foursquare would allow people to search for the types of place people are going to – and where is trending – not what.” It all sounds good to us, what about you? Do you 4sq?

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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 at BGR use Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare, how about you? Hit the jump to vote!

This post is part of Samsung’s Mobile Trends content series. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Samsung or its partners.

]]> http://www.bgr.com/2010/07/14/mobile-social-networks/feed/ 78 http://www-bgr-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Social-networks-80x80.jpg http://www.bgr.com/2010/07/06/twitter-for-blackberry-launches-tonight-out-of-beta/ http://www.bgr.com/2010/07/06/twitter-for-blackberry-launches-tonight-out-of-beta/#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:49:09 +0000 Jonathan S. Geller http://www.bgr.com/?p=55148

While this isn’t exactly earth shattering news, it’s always fun to welcome a new app out of the beta stage. Later this evening, Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones will start to roll out into a full launch. RIM has said that one of the reasons of doing the open beta since April was to get community feedback, and they have received a bunch. So much so that the first update of the application included various user-requested tweaks, fixes, and feature additions. Here’s the full rundown for anyone interested:

The full launch will include support for several additional languages:

• Portuguese EU
• Japanese
• Indonesian
• Russian
• Turkish
• Dutch
• Korean

This version will also feature “Go to User” – the ability to access any user’s profile from anywhere in the application using auto-complete functionality for followers.

Here are the feature lists from the original beta launch and the update that happened in May:

Features at launch:

• Push Notifications for Direct Messages
• Timeline Support
• Following and Followers
• Posting, Sending, Deleting , Replying and Retweeting Tweets
• User/Saved/Keyword/Proximity Search
• Tweet Photos/Links
• Trending Topics
• Seamless integration into core BlackBerry applications
• URL Shortening
• Auto-Update

New features during the beta:

• Quote Tweets (editing retweets)
• Auto Complete for @ usernames
• View Photos from Yfrog & Tweetphoto
• View Geotagged Tweets
• Personal Info Guard
• Hotkeys for Navigation
• Report as Spam

“The full launch of the Twitter for BlackBerry application will start this evening and we anticipate the roll out to happen over the course of tonight and tomorrow. The application will be available on BlackBerry App World (www.blackberry.com/appworld) in the social networking category.”