next2friendsblog.com

The 2008 Crunchie Awards are open for nominations. If you’re a fan of Next2Friends drop by the TechCrunch Crunchie nomination page and cast a ballot for us!  The Crunchies is a kitchy and slightly irreverent awards ceremony for new companies, such as Next2Friends, who have been innovating over the past year.  In their second year, the awards will be hosted by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and TechCrunch on Friday January 9, 2009 at 7:30 pm the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

To nominate Next2Friends in the Best Mobile category go here:

To nominate Next2Friends in the Best Technology Innovation/Achievement category go here:

To nominate Next2Friends in the Best Design category go here:

And, of course, feel free to nominate us for whatever you like at the Crunchie 2008 nomination page!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We are proud to announce that the Next2Friends Social Suite is now available for the iPhone.  That’s right, owners of one of the most talked about phones in the world can now utilize the Next2Friends bundle of mobile tools to snap and upload photos in two clicks, easily interact with one another from their phones, create opinion polls on the move and meet others based on their real time proximity.

It’s been great getting to know all of our new members. There have been hundreds of new photos streaming to the site from all those iPhones through Next2Friends SnapUp.  Here’s one:

We want to extend a warm welcome to all our new members!  Thanks for making Next2Friends an even better place to be, and by all means, drop by and say hello!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We were trolling videos this week and came across something that exemplifies the power of Next2Friends.  When we began about a year ago we had some very cute and delightful videos submitted to us was by Hash of his daughter Aimen. One was a hilarious situation Aimen got in with her crib. Have a look (don’t worry, he assures us she was ok):

Another was Aimen learning to make kissing noises:

But what got our attention was a video shot this week of Aimen rolling out roti.  Like all kids she is growing up fast, but because of Next2Friends we have gotten to watch it all take place from the other side of the world!  Truly amazing!  And such a great example of the way that mobile tools can truly bring us closer.  Keep the videos coming Hash, and because of Next2Friends, we look forward to watching your beautiful daughter grow even more!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

This has been an exciting month at Next2Friends.  It began with our announcement that Next2Friends had developed the world’s first application for broadcasting live mobile video on the BlackBerry OS.  This was quickly followed by the release of Next2Friends Live for the BlackBerry Bold.  Since then we’ve seen a flurry of interest and activity.

The first large blog to break our news was Gizmodo, the highly trafficked gadget and tech blog.  Several others followed suit including JKOnTheRun, TheNextWeb, and dozens of others.

Next was a great article by Mike Butcher from TechCrunch around the BlackBerry Bold release.

AppAppeal, a web based application review site, also had some great things to say.

But perhaps the best part of all this activity is that we’re welcoming scores of new folks from around the world into our community.  It’s very exciting to watch this platform we’ve created become useful to people in all the ways we imagined it could.  One of our new members is Anthony Papillion, an enthusiastic tech writer and creator of CajunTechie.com.  He not only wrote a nice piece on Next2Friends he made a comment that really means a lot to us:

“Next2Friends has an incredible community that immediately makes you feel welcomed and comfortable - even when you’re a newbie making stupid mistakes.”

Sure the recent press is reaffirming but it’s really comments like these that act as our guide.  Our goal is and always has been to strengthen connections and build community through technology and if members are understanding and valuing the community we’ve built then we’re doing our job.  Thanks everyone and we’ll see you on Next2Friends!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We’ve gotten a slew of new signups this week, including continued activity from BlackBerry Pearl and Curve users, and now BlackBerry Bold users from around the world.  This week has capped off one of our biggest months yet!  So we thought it appropriate to highlight one of our newest members.  Jason1100 has his status posted as “HAPPY” and he should be, he’s a new father!  Such a great example of how Next2Friends allows you to share the most important moments of life.  Jason took us into the hospital in the moments after his daughter was born:

And here is another shot of his new daughter, Madalyn, sleeping. She looks quite content!

Keep the broadcasts coming Jason, congratulations to you and your beautiful new family!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We have been very hard at work lately.  Some of you may know that a few weeks ago we announced the world’s first free Live Mobile Broadcasting solution for the BlackBerry OS as we brought Next2Friends Live to the BlackBerry Curve and the Pearl.  Well now we’re adding to that list one of the most talked about phones by RIM in a while, the BlackBerry Bold.

The Bold is a fantastic new phone that features all the goodies you’d expect, Wifi, 3G connectivity, a 2MP camera, and the ability to connect to almost any network worldwide, to name a few.  Add to that having a display about which CNET writer Bonnie Cha says, “I was absolutely blown away. I can pretty much say I’ve never seen a better-looking display on a smartphone.”

Next2Friends Live turns a mobile phone into a live video broadcasting tool.  Live video broadcasting from mobile has been notably absent for BlackBerry devices, owing largly to the difficulty in working with the BlackBerry OS.  Next2Friends set about correcting this early this past summer.  There just were too many ways that live mobile broadcasting could be useful to the primarily business set who use BlackBerrys, from tradeshows to conferences to beaming images back home while traveling.

Singing up for an account is free and Next2Friends Live is just one of the mobile offerings from Next2Friends.  Our Social Suite is comprised of SnapUp, truly two click photo capture and upload to the internet, Ask, real time opinion polling, and Tag, real world profile matching.  Besides providing a comprehensive set of real time media tools, the Social Suite delivers much of the functionality of the website to mobile so members can look at and comment on photos, read emails and follow their friends’ latest activity from anywhere.

Here is a demonstration of how to get Next2Friends Live up and running on a BlackBerry Pearl, Curve or Bold.  Happy Streaming!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

It’s Friday and that means it’s time to highlight some of the great activity on Next2Friends!  The past couple weeks have been busy with the release of Next2Friends Live for RIM’s BlackBerry devices, and we’ve seen a tremendous surge in new members streaming live video from around the world!  This weeks member of the week is no exception.  Drewligan hails from the UK and by the looks of it is a typical teen having a good time with his friends:

We can’t help but marvel at the power of live streamed video to take us places we’ve never been while simultaneously showing us just how similar we are.  Anyone who’s been an adolescent (which should be all of you) should be able to relate to Drewligan and his buddies.  Here is a funny video of him in cooking class.  Not sure I’d eat those Drew!

Great stuff! Keep the videos coming!  Just try not to break anything…well, aside from a few hearts.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!