Ever wanted a way to catalog your favorite things? Whether it be books, movies, inspirational pieces, fashion, or your precious hobbies, Pinterest may just be what you’re looking for! Catalog all the things you love in a beautiful and visual way.

You’ll love this new site call Pinterest! Read more about it on WebBeat.TV

Follow me on Pinterest.

Looks like I may to redesign my page to fit the New Twitter better. It looks nice. I really love the top bar because all the things I want to get to are right there. But the right column is a bit too wide for me. I like to have my browser narrow so I can work on other things while reading Twitter. The part that I love the most are the messages. The redesign is wonderful! It makes sending and finding old DMs much easier. The new “send a tweet” feature is nice too. The pop up reminds me of an iPad app interface.

Overall, I like the redesign. Still keeping it simple by adding subtle changes. Thanks Twitter!

The website is fun to browse, but it’s much more fun to share your eateries while you’re on location. That’s why there’s a fun iPhone app for that! There are 5 major functions on the iPhone app — Browse, Find, Spot, Guides, and Profile. Let’s step through each one.

Browse. This is a photographic way to see all the foods around you! The app uses the gps to find photos of food taken near your current location. This makes it easier to find restaurants if you see something you like. The photos are displayed in a fun slideshow of postage stamps that you can swipe back and forth. See a food item you like? Tap on it to see the person’s review, their review, and the location of where you can get it. You can also tag the photo with “Want It,” “Nom it”, add in your own photo, or even leave a comment for the foodspotter.

Find. This option displays a list of restaurants that are near your current location. Click on a restaurant and view photos of the dishes taken there along with their reviews. Click on the photos for more options (similar to the Browse feature) — “Want it,” “Nom it,”, leave a comment for the foodspotter, and more.

Spot. This function is what makes the app. When you’re at a restaurant or eatery and your food comes out, click on “Spot.” It’ll prompt you to select or take a new photo of your dish. Once you pick an option to add a photo, also select the restaurant location and type of food on the top. After, click on “Add sighting” and your food photo would automatically be uploaded on the site for all to see and nom! You also have the option to connect to your Facebook, Twitter, and/or Foursquare accounts when uploading.

Guides. If you follow the Food Network and/or the Travel Channel, you’ll love this feature. Let’s say for example, you enjoy the restaurants Anthony Bourdain visits. You can follow one of his city guides on Foodspotting and it’ll list restaurants he visited in that city. You can then eat everything he ate! Add your own photos to complete the guide. Other guides include ones created by Zagat, Top Chef, Food Network, Travel Channel, 7×7 Magazine, and many more.

Profile. This section displays your Foodspotting user profile. The first page displays your recent activities, foods your spotted, foods you wanted, guides you’re following, and how many people you follow. Tap on the options to drill down deeper.

Overall, Foodspotting is a great app to really tie the Foodspotting community together. It makes it much easier to share, rate, and leave comments on food photos while on the go! So sign up, have fun and Bon Appetite! I want to see what you eat!

FoodSpotting for the iPhone is available for free in the iTunes App Store.

Website Screenshot

iPhone App Screenshots

Size: 3.3 MB
Requirements: iPhone
Version: 4.40
Rate: 4 out of 5 Stars

It’s been a long wait, but now it’s finally available in the iTunes app store! Qik Live debuted on December 24th, 2009 – just in time to capture those special holiday moments! Qik Live is a live video streaming app that allows you to share pieces of everyday life experiences with your friends and family as they happen via your cellphone / iPhone.

Creating a video is quite easy. If you’re a first time Qik user, a short registration page will show up when you launch the app. It’ll ask you to create a new username, password, and if you want your location to show when you stream. The latter option can be changed when you start streaming or in the settings options.

Once you fill out the form, you’re ready to start streaming live video! Click on the red button at the bottom and your video is live! You can also record an offline video if you like. And the video will be uploaded when your toggle the online button. The Qik app has two parts to it. The top display is what’s being recorded in your video. The bottom display is where your live audience can chat with you.

To change the video options, tap on the video display. Options include Mute, Toggle chat, Set permissions (Public or Private video), Edit video details, Share Video, and Send email.

In the “Share Video” option, you can post your video onto various social networks including Facebook, Twitter, 12seconds.tv, Brightcove, YouTube, Tumblr, or your contacts. To activate these social networks, you must first log onto Qik.com and add in the credentials. The newest share option is the ability to “add contact.” You can select contacts from your addressbook and an email will be sent to your friends/families telling them where the link to your Qik video is.

More options are available when you log into the Qik.com website. You can update your settings and add additional social network options to your account. For example, you can set your account to send an automatic tweet when you start streaming, or have your video uploaded to 12seconds, or YouTube by default.

The user interface is beautifully done and the app is very user-friendly. The are a few minor improvements that I’d like to see on the Qik Live iPhone app though. I would love a landscape mode where the chat overlays the video and the record button is on the side. Holding the iPhone sideways seems more natural to me because it’s similar to holding a camera.

In addition to the mobile app on various mobile platforms, Qik also comes to the desktop called Qik-in-Touch. Qik-in-Touch is a desktop air app that will notify people of when live videos happen. It’s very fun to see what your family and friends are up to, the moment it happens, right on your desktop!

Although Qik Live is new to the iTunes App Store, it has been supported on various phones. See the supported phones page for more information.

Some things to remember before using Qik are:

1. Recording videos with the app uses up a lot of battery power.
2. Set your privacy settings accordingly.
3. You can connect with your audience and talk to them over Qik.
4. There are multiple ways of using Qik – have fun, be creative, and enjoy!

Overall, Qik is a great app that lets you experience what your friends and family are doing no matter where you are. That way you never miss an important moment again. Qik Live for the iPhone is freely available in the iTunes App Store.

Screenshots

Question: I have set-up/configured our Facebook, Twitter, and Blog this week. We are in the process of posting content to each, but I was hoping you could go over a few things with me. Mainly, how to integrate the 3 so that we don’t have to constantly update all 3 sites? And also, based on your experience, are there any general settings in each dealing with user interactivity that we should enable/disable?

Answer: I would first start with integrating Twitter into Facebook, instead of the other way around. The reason is because I think students are more familiar with the Facebook interface than Twitter.

How to make your Facebook posts go to Twitter

1. In a browser, log into Twitter.
2. In another tab in the browser, go to Facebook.com/Twitter. You will see your Facebook page and a button that says “Link to Twitter.”
3. Click on the “Link to Twitter” button
4. It’ll take you back to Twitter, prompting “An application would like to connect to your account.”
5. Click on “Allow.”

Image: Step 4 – Prompt to allow Facebook to connect to Twitter

This will connect the two accounts. So when you post something on the Facebook Wall like a status update, link, photo, etc. it will also post to Twitter.

How to Add your Blog RSS feed into Facebook

1. Log into Facebook
2. Go to your Page and click on “Edit Page” in the left navigation
3. Scroll down and look for “Notes”
4. Click on the pencil and then “Edit Application”
5. On the right side, click on “Edit import settings”
6. It will ask you for “Web URL.” Put in the RSS feed address, click on the checkbox, and click on “Start Importing”
7. The next page will ask you to “Confirm import.”

This will import your blog posts into the “Facebook Notes” section.

Interacting with Social Networks
Even though you are integrating all three social networks, you still need to attend to them individually. The audience and culture at each social network is somewhat different. Someone may respond on Twitter, and you won’t see it unless you’re on Twitter and in the conversation. Same with all the other social networks.

Settings for Social Networks
As for the settings that you should enable:

• In Facebook, allow your users to comment on the wall, add links, and photos.
• In the blog, be sure to allow comments in each post.
• On Twitter, go to Settings->Account, be sure to NOT checkmark “Protect my Tweets”

Books and Resources
If you’re interested in learning more about these social networks, I suggest reading some of these books:

• Inside Facebook.com is another great resource.
• Tweeternet – What is Twitter?
• Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

This is another official update to the original “Shift Happens” video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com.

Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler. Design and development by XPLANE, http://www.xplane.com. You can follow us on Twitter at @xplane

Here are some IT-related books that I read/want to read:

I enjoy reading books with topics in sci-fi, fantasy, technology, social media, library 2.0, and scrapbooking. Come join me on Shelfari. I’m also on GoodReads and LibraryThing if you prefer those book social networks.

So what can make me more happier than having a new shiny toy to play with? Joining a social network built around a community of shiny gadgets of course! I joined gdgt today and absolutely love the concept and community. The website is run by Ryan Block and Peter Rojas — two amazing gadget gurus, along with with the rest of the gdgt team!

So how does it work? My friend Veronica will tell you how!

So, what is gdgt? from gdgt on Vimeo.

As you can see, I’m quite addicted to it. Here’s my geeky gadget badge. You can see all the gadgets I own, wish for, and use to have. So what are you waiting for? Come join in on the fun — register for a gdgt account now.