HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

Time flies! Already our little mobile Owl has grown one version older as HootSuite for iPhone celebrates version 1.1.6  for both the Full and Lite versions.

But what do you get an Owl for such a big day? Well we all chipped in and gave our feathered friend some shiny new features — which we suspect you’ll be excited about too.

This mobile Owl enjoys making life easier and these new tools will help you be even friendlier.

HootSuite for iPhone -- Now even Friendlier

Contacts are Special

These people we call “followers” are reaching out to learn your thoughts and actions from morning beverage selection to philosophical discourse — now you can get to know these people on the other end of the Twitters with refined “Contact Management” allowing you to search for user to follow.

Tap the all-new Contacts tab on the main menu to quickly search for people and view profiles. Simply type a friend’s name or nickname and HootSuite will find the most relevant person on Twitter. Then you can follow her in just a couple of clicks, plus add to your lists. Try it out and see how much friendlier you become, instantly.

List O’ Rama

“Lists are the new follow,” says Owly. And now, list management is elegantly integrated into the iPhone. Lists are a powerful way to follow just the stuff and people ‘you really, really care about’ in a simplified view. Within the Lists tab, you can:

• Add new lists — public or private
• Manage existing lists — add and remove people
• Modify lists — change names and descriptions
• View lists created (or subscribed to) by others
• Subscribe to lists created by others (even secretly)
• Save lists as a new tab with a quick click
• Read followed lists in a unique tab

Additionally, lists are a way to share the social affection as a sort of endorsement for your Twitter faves.

Bump, Owly Style

No longer must you fiddle with misspelling weird Twitter nicknames, typing at meetings and wasting time! Instead, just “Bump” to follow.

HootSuite for iPhone’s Bump feature has graduated from the Lab and is ready to make adding people to your social networks easier than ever.

Simply “Bump” your iPhones with a your new friend and the little owl will take care of everything else. (Note: Please, don’t get *too* excited and break your phones).

Even Shinier

To impress your eyes, everything in the new version is even shinier for iPhone 4 users –  each graphic from the icons to the interface elements are now in full hi-res so your phone will sparkle as brightly as your retinas will displays.

Custom Touches

Perhaps we are a tiny bit obsessive about making the app perfect for your tastes. Now with a list of new preference settings, you can adjust settings for a custom experience, including:

• Font size from 13 – 20pt
• Avatar size from none to large
• Geotagging — auto on/off
• Photo upload quality + save to library
• Re-tweet style — classic or native
• Timestamp — relative or absolute

Now you can really tune HootSuite to look and act as you’ve always wanted. If something is still missing, it might appear in the next release. Remember you can offer feature requests and encourage your fellow enthusiast to vote it up.

Mayor of Everywhere

It’s important to have a bit of playtime and the popular social-geo-location “check-in” game Foursquare is ready for your leisure time in HootSuite.

Just click the “menu” arrow from the compose box and choose “geo-location” and send your coordinates to your pals.

Whether you are at the pub or the park, your friend will flock towards you — check-in frequently and you’ll earn badges … and you’ll want these badges.

More from the Owls

Owls do manage to sleep occasionally … but all waking hours are spent making this application the fave tool in your app toolbox.

Always be the early bird by following @HootSuiteiPhone for the latest updates and news. And if you have any problems or concerns, visit the fully-loaded Help Desk and/or follow @HootSuiteHelp.

Download from Apple App Store:

HootSuite for iPhone
HootSuite for iPhone Lite

iPhone, mobile, releases bump, contacts, elf owl, elfowl, Facebook, foursquare, geo-location, HootSuite, iPhone, lists, mobile, mobile social media dashboard, profile, social media, Twitter

Stream Notes

This Owl looks somewhat stern -- pic contrib'ed by @AnneWeiskopf

Something amiss in your streams? Well, you’re not the only one.

Twitter’s API is currently experiencing a critical issue that is causing problems in some third-party clients, including HootSuite.

As such, you may notice that your Home or Mention streams on HootSuite.com are not updating correctly. This is a symptom of the issue with Twitter’s API.

Geek note: API stands for Application Programming Interface which allows sites like Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin to share data with HootSuite.

HootSuite for iPhone and HootSuite for Android are also affected by this bug. Some users are experiencing crashes when viewing certain streams. Again, this is due to a problem with Twitter’s API.

Twitter is aware of the issue and are working on resolving this as soon as possible. Meanwhile at HootSuite HQ, we thank you for your patience.

Bonus:

Track Twitter’s status with these resources:

Twitter Status | @Twitterapi | API Status

Android, Support, iPhone, mobile android, api, iPhone, streams, Twitter

Hello HootSuite Community,

HootSuite is pleased to announce new premium packages designed for business and organizations, while also continuing to provide a free version for most customers.

Following in the steps of industry giants like Salesforce, Basecamp and Flickr, we’ve crafted the package tiers to provide the most useful tools to as many customers as possible while also providing advanced tools to customers who need the business-centric features. We’ll keep listening closely to see how we succeeded in meeting your needs.

Tiers for All

We aim to continue providing free service to approximately 95% of our current users. Based on a customer survey (thanks again to all of you who offered your opinions), along with a comprehensive review of usage data, we’re confident we’ll achieve this goal.

This means most of you will continue to use HootSuite in much the same way you do today. Additionally, power users and enterprises with teams can confidently rely on HootSuite for critical campaigns knowing there will be continuity of service from a stable company.

What’s This Mean for Me?

Starting today (Wednesday, Aug. 11th), all new customers will be required to select a plan upon signing-up — including choosing the free option if desired.

The following week, current HootSuite users will be asked to choose a package with the help of a migration wizard to help you choose the best plan.

For all customers (aside from Enterprise-class accounts), we’ll include a 30-day free trial. This period will allow you to experiment and discover which plan best fits your needs. Again, we’ll continue to offer a free plan for those of you who don’t require advanced options at this time.

While you don’t need to select a plan straightaway, take a look at the Pro Plans and Enterprise Package to see what is included at each level.

Keep on Flying

Since first spreading our owl wings over a year ago, we’ve listened closely to feedback from all corners. In the past 8 months, we’ve rolled out iterations galore — adding thoughtful tools to help you spread messages, monitor conversation and track results.

And don’t think we’re slowing down the pace! The upcoming road-map is loaded with new tools and integrations which will make for more enjoyable surprises. Plus we’ll keep listening to your feedback and offering help as we continue to create the preferred dashboard for social media managers, community builders, marketing agencies, and passionate fans.

Thanks to You

We sincerely appreciate you sharing HootSuite with your friends, mentoring your colleagues, and telling your company about the power of our social media dashboard. We take your trust seriously and look forward to growing with you.

Stay tuned to the HootSuite blog for more info and feel free to share your thoughts with us via Twitter @hootsuite_help.

With best regards,

Ryan Holmes, CEO, HootSuite

More

HootSuite Pro Plans
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Online Media Kit — includes logos, descriptions and interview scheduling info

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Wondering how the HootSuite social media dashboard can help your business or organization engage with social networks and web conversations? Great! We can help.

Check out this first-in-a-series HootSuite Info Sheet called “The Basics” — a brief document explaining the core tools in HootSuite including tactics for spreading messages, monitoring conversations, collaborating with teams, and tracking results. Additionally, this document points out the integrated social networks, plus shares a few noteworthy clients and methods to get more help.

“The Basics” ~ HootSuite Info Sheet #1 on Slideshare

Share these info sheets with your collegues, teams, managers, etc. by downloading or embedding from Slide Share. Keep an eye out for more to come and find the growing collection in the Library section of the HootSuite blog.

Info Sheets analytics, assignments, business, collaboration, Facebook, foursquare, HootSuite, LinkedIn, MySpace, social media, social web, socmedia, team, Twitter, Twitter for business, wordpress

Global Owl

HootSuite is truly an international social media dashboard and we love it that way. Why? Because we find fulfillment from seeing the actions and activities of users all over the world who are helping one another learn how to use the social web to spread messages to audiences from anywhere.

We’re working on providing more people a personalized experience in their own language with translation and localization on both iPhone and web versions for HootSuite which is exciting enough to celebrate on your vuvuzela.

While we keep working at our tasks, here’s a fresh news round-up with a sampling of what people are saying about HootSuite in their countries to peruse while you watch the finals of the FIFA World Cup — after which Twitter traffic may even return to “normal.”

The original posts are translated from the native languages using the wonders of Google Translate to give you the gist of what they say.

Let’s get going:

TwitterSmash (Germany) – HootSuite im Unternehmen

HootSuite in the company – This post comes from Germany and the author describes why they have chosen to use HootSuite. They go through the advantages (Vorteile) and disadvantages (Nachteile) of the social media dashboard. Danke for the feedback.

Descary.com (French Canadian) – HootSuite5, l’un des meilleurs tableaux de bord pour réseaux sociaux

HootSuite5, one of the best dashboards for social networks – Benoit Descary is from Montreal and writes that he wasn’t the biggest fan of HootSuite until the introduction of HootSuite5. He goes on to describe many of the new features in the HootSuite5 release and calls HootSuite “a true dashboard for social networks.” Merci Benoit!

Internet Watch (Japanese) – Twitterウェブクライアント「HootSuite」が日本語化、HTML5対応の新機能も

Twitter web client “HootSuite” of Japanese language , HTML5 support new features – Japanese users are excited about the localized version for their language and in this article, they extol the virtues of HTML 5 including “drag and drop” ability and improved performance along with the Japanese-i-fication.

Midia boom (Portuguese) – HootSuite | Nova interface em Html5 e recursos aprimorados para Redes Sociais

HootSuite | New interface and enhanced features in HTML5 for Social Networks – In this post, Chico Montenegro writes about some of the new features such as geo-location and themes from the HootSuite 5 update. We hope this is helpful for HootSuite fans in Brazil.

GeeksRoom (Spanish) – GeeksRoom Review: HOOTSUITE renovado: Lo bueno, lo maluco y lo pésimo

GeeksRoom Review: HootSuite renovated: The good and the bad – In this frank review of the HootSuite 5 update, Eduardo Wheeler writes that he likes the improved profile view, the themes, as well as the not so new scheduling feature.

Eduardo balances the good feedback with the bad and mentions a few other things that he would like to see improved. In the end, Eduardo remains a daily user and recommends HootSuite to professionals managing multiple social media accounts.

elNuevavodia (Spanish) – No dejes que la tecnología te esclavice

Do not let technology enslave you – In this provocatively titled post, Leanne Italie shares life-hacking productivity tips from former Google exec and congnitive scientist Douglas C. Merrill incuding using HootSuit to manage your social interactions so they don’t get out of control and control your day. Not much about HootSuite but interesting nonetheless.

TechVibes – Hootsuite’s Vorsprung durch Technik

Techically written in English but TechVibes’ Jeffery Simpson has some fun with Google Translate in writing about HootSuite’s localization: Forgive Babel Fish’s shoddy German, but it just did not feel right to title a post about the addition of localization support to Twitter manager extraordinaire HootSuite without at least trying to make it multilingual.  Localization support for Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and German joins the previous translation services that the application offered in its last update.

More HootSuite

Remember, you can catch all the HootSuite news via the social bookmark stream and/or by following @hootwatch for the full firehose feed of media mentions.

News Roundup french, german, HootSuite, international, japan, news, news round-up, translate, Twitter

This time around, the news round-up finds some new developments in business, partnerships and politics with dispatches from California to the Kremlin (well Washington DC anyhow).

As usual, catch all the HootSuite news via the social bookmark channel and/or follow @hootwatch for the firehose feed.

Aria Systems – HootSuite Selects Aria Systems to Monetize Twitter and Other Social Media

The folks over at Aria Systems issued a press release via wire and blogpost today talking about impending partnership plans with HootSuite.

HootSuite recognized an opportunity to develop recurring revenue streams for premium features and services that provide additional value on top of HootSuite’s core free client. HootSuite needed a revenue automation platform that supported a “freemium” business model, provided secure payment card handling and immediate service activation for paying customers, as well as automation for downstream billing and collections processes.

Given HootSuite’s historical agility and rapid evolution, the company also recognized that they needed a “future-proof” monetization platform that could enable their current model while providing complete flexibility for the future. Finally, the system had to integrate easily with HootSuite’s backoffice accounting systems. HootSuite chose Aria after reviewing several SaaS billing alternatives.

Great Aria! We look forward to seeing what we can come up with together with the SaaS.

The Atlantic Wire – Twitter Brings White House, Kremlin Together

You probably caught the news of the Russian President’s foray to Silicon Valley to visit entrepreneurs and execs from Google, Apple, and Twitter who helped him set up his own account. Of course, in true diplomatic fashion, the White House replied to the Kremlin’s translated tweet and chose (the Canadian made) HootSuite to deliver the tidings.

On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev toured the headquarters of Twitter. Besides having a fruitful cultural exchange with Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, he also fired off his first tweet.

You can keep up with both Russian President Medvedev’s English Twitter as well as The Whitehouse Twitter.

The Washington Post – Obama discovers ‘Twitters’ …

Of course each word from the White House is monitored whether by mouth or by web and this Twitter exchange was no exception with the pundits piling on the gaffe. Mixing Twitter and Hooters to get HootSuite? Well, not exactly but we encourage all politicos to use the tool no matter their command of the lexicon.

Twitters? This sounded like either a nervous condition or a cross between Twitter and Hooters. Actually, there already is a cross between Twitter and Hooters: It’s called HootSuite — from which Sharron Angle, the tea party celebrity hoping to dethrone Harry Reid in Nevada, tweeted this on Thursday: “We have now passed Harry Reid in number of Facebook friends on our “sharronforsenate” page! Let’s keep this growing!”

Who says great political oratory is dead?

Confused? This video shows the usually loquacious President Obama fumbling name of the almost-ubigitous micro-update tool for the amusement of geekerati everywhere:

(video)

Video posted by CQblogger

BIV Business Today – Ryan Holmes Profile

Speaking of Presidents, The HootSuite CEO was profiled in Business in Vancouver newspaper in an interesting article about HootSuite’s origins and direction.

Curt Cherewayko writes: The success of Invoke and other ventures on Holmes’ entrepreneurial scoresheet suggests that HootSuite will be another innovative online revenue generator to emerge from the funky work-play space in Gastown that Holmes and the Invoke-HootSuite team call headquarters. {snip}

The company is attaching a “freemium” model to the service in July, which means that users will be still be able to use HootSuite freely but will have to pay for additional bronze, silver and gold standard services offered within it.

“HootSuite has big potential in terms of the amount of traffic it’s pushing,” said Holmes from an Invoke boardroom down the hall from the head office he shares with his dog.

He explained that HootSuite, which manages one million social media accounts for about 400,000 unique users, will try to monetize the 3% to 5% of accounts that are most active.

Those accounts are generally owned by large brands from the media and retail space including Conde Nast, AOL, Banana Republic and Dell.

They use HootSuite to dig up analytics about, and to monitor and add to, the larger conversation in the social networking spheres of Twitter and, more recently, Facebook and LinkedIn.

“Those people are thoroughly entrenched,” said Holmes.

“The free users will either always stay free or they’ll at some point find some features that are worthwhile for them to upgrade to.”

WSJ.com – How Twitter and Facebook Can Get You Better Service At Hotels

The Wall Street Journal shares some tactics for hotels helping guests. In this example, the manager of a Marriott Hotel in Orlando uses HootSuite for real-time monitoring of guest sentiment as well as prospecting for new customers. The nuances of the job are illustrated in this comic strip:

Sarah Nassauer writes: At the Orlando World Center Marriott, Mr. Long and Ms. Pribila track what is said about their 2,000-room hotel every day, and often into the night.

One recent afternoon, Mr. Long peered at the computer in his small windowless office and opened up HootSuite, a program that lets users organize the millions of comments passing through Twitter at any given moment. He scanned the lists he has permanently set up on the software: current guests, past guests, people tweeting about Orlando hotels (so he can send notes to try to drum up business.), people tweeting about his specific hotel, and people tweeting about a conference currently at the resort. He checks HootSuite at least once an hour on his iPhone, often glancing at it while roaming the sprawling resort dotted with palm trees.

Via the hotel’s @TheFrontDesk account on Twitter, he and Ms. Pribila chat with future, current, and past guests. They answer questions and confront complaints. Then Mr. Long moves on to FourSquare, a website where people can use their mobile device to broadcast their physical location to friends, known as “checking in” at a location. “We monitor these people as well,” says the 28-year-old.

Small windowless office? Sounds like Mr. Long needs a room upgrade! PS We’ll be down to visit if summer doesn’t arrive here soon!

More HootSuite

Remember, you keeners can catch all the HootSuite news via the social bookmark channel and/or by following @hootwatch for the full firehose feed.

News Roundup customer service, Entrepreneur, Facebook, Hotels, Medvedev, monetization, Obama, SaaS, Twitter, Twitters, Whitehouse

This news round-up focuses on a few posts discussing social media efficiency, international versions, media convergence, plus planning and measuring strategic campaigns.

Take some time to enjoy the knowledge and let us know which articles you particularly enjoyed.

As always, catch more HootSuite news via the social bookmark stream and point out any articles we’ve missed in the comments.

Here we go:

Business Week – Stop Wasting Time on Social Media

Karen E. Klein and Ivan Misner (founder and chairman of business networking organization BNI.com) in a Q&A:

There are great services they should be using like Ping.fm, Seesmic, and Hootsuite.com. You can go there and it ties all your social media together. In other words, they’re probably logging on to their Facebook account and going to their page and typing in their message, and then going to Twitter and LinkedIn and doing the same thing. It kills time. If you use sites like this, you write one message and they ping everything so you’re not spending 20 minutes to do what you can in three minutes.

Some great tips for working efficiently – thanks Karen and Ivan.

ADO Strategies – Application Convergence: Have you seen the new Hootsuite?

Application Convergence: Have you seen the new Hootsuite? from ADO Strategies

Matthew Snyder writes:

What we have seen is that our friends in Vancouver  (Hootsuite) have really looked to market differentiation with these translation tools.

{snip}

When I saw the announcement in April by Hootsuite I felt like they were really listening to the customer; as there must had been lots others like me with the same predicament.  In my mind this is a big move by the Hootsuite folks in their attempt  at this and even though we have not yet seen this capability on Facebook,  MARK MY WORDS….. This is going to be one of the most important features for them with their 500M users in the coming months.  If they do not buy Hootsuite, then they will do this themselves by the end of the year.

Interesting points Matthew — we definitely feel it’s important to embrace users from around the world and take a true global view of the impact of the social web. Now, about HTML 5 …

CommunicateAsia – Hootsuite Awarded a Big Hat Tip (from me) for Thinking Like an Internationalist

Michael Netzley writes:

Hootsuite, one of the major tools for Twitter lovers, now has translation built into its iPhone app — Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. While this does give us access to one of the world’s truly leading digital markets, Japan, other Asian countries are not yet included (I remain hopeful). Still, a big hat tip to Hootsuite for thinking like an Internationalist! A rare thing in the 21st century, so much appreciated.

We’ve since added localization for Korean and Arabic to the iPhone with more language choices to come – thanks Professor.

thoughtpick – 4 Awesome Web-based Twitter Clients

M. Bamieh writes:

If you can appreciate the utility of an electric screw driver over its traditional cousin, you will appreciate Hootsuite. {snip} This is a heavy application, and certainly more enterprise centric providing you with a command console worthy of a marketing department HQ. If you have many Twitter accounts to manage or you are a star and would like to manage the accounts of your Twitter account ghost writers this is the tool to use.

HootSuite loves marketing departments and Twitter stars alike

inmanNews – How to measure social media strategy and success

Katie Lance writes:

Along with Google Analytics, I utilize the statistical feature in Hootsuite. I think Hootsuite is a must for any social media manager or anyone who is consistently managing a social media campaign on different platforms.

Once you are logged into Hootsuite, to view your statistics, look at the lower-left-hand corner of your screen and click the “Launch” button. From there you can check your stats summary or individual messages by clicking “Summary.”

Glad to hear Katie – have you tried the custom URL parameters yet?

Youngentrepreneur – 8 Awesome Tools Every Entrepreneur Needs

Navid Zolfaghari writes:

Through Hootsuite’s unique social media dashboard, you can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress and other social networks. Hootsuite helps organizations launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels.

Thanks for putting HootSuite at the top of the list Navid – we concur with many of your other tips too.

The WELDer – How To HootSuite Like A Pro

How To HootSuite Like A Pro from The WELDer

Gretchen Stone writes:

The beauty of HootSuite is that unlike some other apps, you can update multiple accounts from just one platform. So, for instance, if you’re tasked with managing your company’s profile, you can also update your own without having to log out. You can even send the same message to both, cutting your typing time in half.

{snip}

Short cuts like HootSuite take the frustration out of keeping up with your online presence and more importantly save time for busy executives.

Great tips and love that header graphic with the superhero lad.

StayOnSearch – Using Hootsuite to Manage Your Twitter Engagement Efforts

Mark Thomson writes:

In my personal opinion, I have found Hootsuite to be by far the best Twitter client out there.  I’m sure a lot of people can make an argument for clients like Tweetdeck and Seesmic, but I find Hootsuite to be the most user-friendly, feature-rich, and up-to-date Twitter client available.

The interface is clean, customizable, and includes a wealth of information about your twitter account.  Let’s take a detailed look into how Hootsuite can be used to manage your daily engagements for both personal and business use.

We’re glad you are on-board Mark and props on a very comprehensive roundup about HootSuite.

Social Media for Dealers -  Twitter tools profile: HootSuite

The first tool we’re covering is HootSuite. HootSuite is a “professional Twitter client”, fancy for “free tool that allows you to post, schedule future posts, track, follow and stay updated with your Twitter strategy”.   Check out the article “How to Get the Most Out of Social Media Using Hootsuite” by Zachary Sniderman on Open Forum. He does a great job over-viewing Hootsuite.

{snip}

HootSuite offers the best tracking options of the Twitter tools we’ll cover. It offers statistics and tools that can tell you anything from what links were clicked on (and when) to which sites are sending traffic your way.  Of course it also measures retweets, replies, and mentions.  It’s a great way gage your success and set benchmarks for the future.

In case you were wondering, “Dealers” in this case means RV dealerships – nothing nefarious

More

As always, catch more HootSuite news via the social bookmark stream and let us know about any we’ve missed in the comments.

News Roundup asia, business week, convergence, Facebook, japan, localization, news, News Roundup, pro, social media, strategies, strategy, tips, translation, Twitter

Social World Cup

With the football matches in South Africa dominating the Twitter streams, HootSuite is here to help you stay on-side of the global chatter as the social web carries the conversation up-field for a goooooaaaaallll!

This fresh release of the HootSuite mobile social media dashboard for iPhone features localization for Arabic and Korean plus OAuth security migration, push notifications and deeper conversation browsing.

“Salam and Annyong Haseyo”

Building upon the localizations added in the last release of HootSuite iPhone, two more languages join German, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese to (almost) round out the top 10 worldwide Internet languages. Now, the dozens of Arabic-speaking countries, along with the voracious Internet user population of Korea, can enjoy full interface elements in their familiar language.

سلام

Use of Arabic language on the web increased 2,297.7 % from 2000-2009 compared to world average of 399.03 %. The total adoption was led by Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Algeria.

HootSuite’s new Arabic localized version reads right to left and will be a communication boon for over half a billion people who speak Arabic as a first or second language in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere around the world.

안녕하세요

As an early Internet adopter, South Korea was the 5th country to join the 30 club for over 30 million Internet users in 2004 (following US, China, Japan and Germany). South Korea remains in the top ten of total Internet users per country and boasts the highest Internet penetration rate of any top 10 country at 77.3 % (as of end of 2009).

Though Korean is a top 10 language on the web, scant statistics are available for Internet use in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (AKA North Korea) aside from a ranking of 227th in the “Internet Hosts” category by the CIA Factbook.

Push Notification

Fresh from the HootSuite Labs comes baked-in push notifications via Boxcar. This integration will alert you with a noise, buzz or pop-up whenever a new messages arrives. Tune it to receive @ replies, DMs or your whole home feed, and you’ll have one less reason to miss any mention of your name, brand or keyword.

Deeper Conversation

In the previous release, we added a threaded conversation view. Now we’ve made the conversations interactive allowing you to drill deeper into the back-story to quickly grasp context.

This update allows you to dig back into the stream to send replies and follow links from previous messages in the thread.

Avatar Zooming

Wondering who that stunning new follower is? Does that face look familiar? What’s your friend holding in that picture anyhow?

Zoom in on their profile pic to see their face in a full screen view. Handy at conferences and bars alike.

Security Migration

This release stays in step with Twitter’s evolving systems with a migration to the OAuth security protocol.

After installing the new version of HootSuite iPhone App, simply follow the prompts to upgrade your authentication scheme to OAuth which is: “An open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications.”

Keep in mind, you must update your app to OAuth before July 1st 2010 to keep your HootSuite app happily hooting with Twitter.

Owl-ized Addresses from Safari

Want to shorten a link quick while browsing the web? Just add “owly://” (no quotes) to the start of the URL in the Safari browser bar to instantly create a message in HootSuite including the short URL.

Kick Off

Get Hooting with HootSuite for iPhone by downloading from the iTunes App Store – all new features are released in both the Full ($2.99) or Lite (no-cost) versions and upgrades are FREE.

More Stats

Many nuggets of information for this article came from http://www.internetworldstats.com – thanks!

iPhone, releases arabic, avatar, boxcar, features, iPhone, korean, localization, oauth, push notification, secure, security, Twitter, world cup

As usual, we watched the news and commentary around the recent barrage of HootSuite iPhone releases and indeed there was plenty of conversation about social media tools for iPhones recently. No doubt people are passionate their phones and protective of their fave apps.

As outlined in many of the posts about new version, HootSuite iPhone is charting a unique course with tools like translation, localization, and click stats — plus multiple networks (Twitter and Facebook at this time) — to differentiate this mobile Owl from the rest of the flock.

Here’s a round-up of some of the posts which caught our eye. Certainly there are plenty more out there so consider following HootSuite’s social bookmarks to get the full firehose of news, and/or leave your recommended links in the comments for others to enjoy.

Mashable – Hootsuite Adds Facebook Support and Geolocation to iPhone App

Jennifer Van Grove writes: Now that Tweetie 2 is set to become the free and official Twitter app for iPhone, iPhone app makers have been forced to step up their game. HootSuite — maker of business-friendly Twitter apps — is doing just that, adding language translation, Facebook integration and geolocation support to its iPhone apps.

{snip}

Perhaps most significant is the addition of instant translation for more than 50 languages, which should significantly help marketers understand foreign language tweets, replies and direct messages.

When it comes to Facebook, users will able to send and receive updates from that network as well. HootSuite integration supports updates to Pages and profiles as well as the ability to view updates from friends and likers.

Cult of Mac – HootSuite’s iPhone App Souped-Up With A Translator, Bump-To-Follow, More

Eli Milchman writes: When HootSuite’s iPhone app landed late last year, it had already set itself apart with a unique stat-tracking feature.

Now, it’s leapt even further away from the pack with a slew of new tricks, including the ability to translatetweets from 50 different languages and a supercool feature that lets users bump the iPhone of users they’d like to follow. The developers have also upgraded HootSuite’s Facebook integration, given it geolocation functionality and generally tweaked the hell out of it.

Blog Herald – HootSuite Laughs At Tweetageddon, Adds Facebook And Translation Support

Darnell Clayton writes: After briefly disappearing from the iPhone app store, HootSuite has re-emerged with a meaner, leaner iPhone app that may help them survive tweetageddon when Twitter relaunches Tweetie as their official app.

{snip}

Another cool feature about the app was the ability to follow someone by merely “bumping” your iPhone next to theirs, (which is much more convenient than searching for their username), although this does require your iFriend to be running the HootSuite app as well.

Last but not least I am finding the translation tool very useful, especially when one is reading the latest rants of a certain Venezuelan President.

The app is impressive feature wise, although it seems to be geared more towards power users than those unfamiliar with Twitter (as the user interface is not as intuitive as Tweetie or Twittelator).

Overall I am enjoying HootSuite a lot more than when they first launched upon the app store, and hopefully they continue adding more social networks to the app (as not everyone enjoys updating their life on Twitter or Facebook).

Start-up Meme – HootSuite Isn’t Giving Up On iPhone: Integrates Translations, Geolocation And Facebook To The App

Sardar Mohkim Khan writes: If one wins the game the others find it harder and the best option they have is to give multiple things to gain some traction. Lets get real and talk sense. We all know that Tweetie 2 is gaining grounds to be fairly called the default choice for the iPhone’s Twitter client and competition is finding it hard to grab shares. There are always ways and HootSuite has one.

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What HootSuite is doing is something anyone else would do to raise share amongst competition. You know it when the ground is already taken by one, the only better way to compete is to offer multiple features that users find more convenient to use. Lets see how this one plays along for HootSuite.

Techvibes – HootSuite updates their popular iPhone app

Karim Kanji writes: Techvibes’ favourite social media tool, HootSuite has recently added a plethora of updates to their popular iPhone application.

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Not using HootSuite yet?  Shame on you.

Mobiletor.com – HootSuite for iPhone gets updated with Translation, Facebook & Geo-location

A mergence of instant language translation, social networking site, and geo-location may put squeeze on one to utter ‘yes’. HootSuite has just added more tools to the iPhone version of the highly appreciated social media dashboard including language translation, geo-location, and Facebook integration. The new update also comes with several key interface enhancements.

With Facebook support, social bugs can update their status, track their friends’ news updates, and schedule their messages for future publishing. Equipped with translate-ability, HootSuite snoozes in as a great choice for monitoring relevant topics and brand mentions from global friends and customers. Users can compose in their native language and translate on the go.

iLounge – HootSuite update adds Facebook, geolocation

HootSuite has released an update to its popular iPhone Twitter client, adding support for posting updates to Facebook and including geolocation information to Twitter posts.

IntoMobile – HootSuite for iPhone Updated with Translations, Facebook

Simon Sage writes: HootSuite’s Twitter client for iPhone has been updated with a few powerful new features, like automated language translation, bumping iPhones to follow one another, and geotagging tweets. HootSuite also plays nice with Facebook now, just like their web app, enabling users to send updates to page fans and profile friends.

Geotagging support is excellent, but a bit of a no-brainer. I’m curious to see the real use cases for translations; HootSuite pegs itself as a twitter client for pros, so maybe companies dealing with a lot of international customers would find the feature handy. There have been a few usability improvements as well, including landscape keyboard, reply to all, Bump to follow people on Twitter, and general interface enhancements.

News Roundup blog herald, cult of mac, ilounge, iPhone, mashable, mobiletor, news, reviews, start-up meme, techvibes, Twitter

Indeed, there are a several other companies building tools for publishing to Twitter and other social media publishing platforms. And of course, each has a distinct focus, feature-set, and an audience of enthusiasts.

While we concentrate on building tools to help spread messages, monitor conversations and track results, several sites have put HootSuite head-to-head with other social tools to give the tale of the tape.

We’ve dug up a few recent (and one older) comparisons to share… kicking it off with a fun one which is a few months old, but worth the wait:

FlowTown: If Twitter Clients Were Action Stars

What would Chuck Norris do if he had to take down some chumps in a new and unfamiliar landscape? He would march in like he’s been there a million times and take care of the job. And then he’d tweet about it…undoubtedly via HootSuite. Similarly, HootSuite runs entirely online, allowing you to manage your networks with ease and style no matter where you happen to be and whatever Internet-connected operating system you are using.

ZDNet: CoTweet vs. HootSuite: Battle of the business Twitter apps

Who wins this battle? It’s really a tough call, as neither is a silver bullet in its current form. In the end, however, I need to recommend HootSuite as the free Twitter business application of choice. Its intuitive analytics, customizable dashboard, ability to integrate other social networks, and tweet management are overall superior to that of CoTweet.

Nate Bal: The Difference Between TweetDeck, HootSuite And Seesmic

Different programs = different features. Though all of these programs are real-time browsers that connect you with your contacts across multiple social networks they don’t necessarily have all the same features. See the graph below.

Nate Bal: The Difference Between TweetDeck, HootSuite And Seesmic

Articles Base: Social Oomph Or Hootsuite Is The Question!

After some in depth comparisons of Social Oomph and Hootsuite I decided that the following features were the best to bring  up on both programs: Social Oomph or Hootsuite will both do what you want them to manage your Twitter account and automate it for you.

Dragon Blogger: Comparing HootSuite to TweetDeck

Keep in mind that Tweetdeck is an Adobe Air application that installs on your desktop while Hootsuite is a completely web based application that doesn’t need to install so this leads to some difference from how the applications work. So without further chatter, I present to you the pros and cons of both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck and you can decide which works best for your needs.

Stephanie Burt: Product Review: Tweetdeck vs. Hootsuite

For me, the clear winner is Hootsuite. My multiple account management started in Tweetdeck, but I feel its more for users that have one or two account to manage. In Hootsuite, the ability to preschedule tweets/status updates alone is a lifesaver. Its an everything, but the kitchen sink type of product, which gets my 100% support. Now only if it really did the dishes.

Baby Boomer Entreprenuer: A Review of Hootsuite as compared with TweetDeck

I mostly like Hootsuite and will probably keep using it, but I don’t think I’ll give up Tweetdeck entirely, if for no other reason than to keep up with new followers. I think it’s easier to update my Facebook profile and page from Hootsuite and I really like the schedule later feature.

Need more? Explore past News Round-ups and, if there are others you think need to be shared, please let us know with a comment.

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