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moblogging posts

Filed under: Audio, Photo, Video, Blogging, Web services, Social Software

Pixelpipe pushes video from your Android handset


Pixelpipe defies definition a bit, but basically it's a mo-blogging / mobile micro-blogging tool that satisfies nearly every sharing feature I've ever wanted from my mobile since the first time I picked up a smartphone.

When I mention Pixelpipe to people they usually say, "Oh, like Ping.fm." Yes, yes, Ping.fm lets you update a ton of services but, Ping doesn't do video or audio -- although they've been threatening to do video for a while. On the other hand, while Pixelpipe does text, audio, photo and video, until recently there wasn't a convenient way to get your video to Pixelpipe while on the move.

Friday Pixelpipe launched a new version for Android phones, taking advantage of the newly released video recording features in Android 1.5. When I read the anouncement, I realized -- as much as I've pimped out Pixelpipe on my own Twitter feed -- I've never actually posted about it on Download Squad. For shame!

With clients for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android, you can send quick updates, longer blog posts, just-snapped photos, just-taken video, and audio snippets to over 75 different social services. All your favorites are there (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, 12seconds, etc.. ) along with some services you might not have used -- If you can name all the logos on the PixelPipe list, you're doing better than I am.

Added to that, Pixelpipe will do traditional, non-social sharing like uploading to any ftp server, email any address or post to just about any blog.

Pixelpipe clients for all platforms are available for free at PixelPipe's site, and the updated Android client is available via the Android Marketplace from your phone.

Filed under: Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Posterous: it's like Tumblr via email

Posterous is a new blogging service that's being touted as even simpler and easier to use than Tumblr. The process is extraordinarily simple: send something to post@posterous.com. Hey, look, you've started a blog. When you want to add something to it, send another e-mail to the same address. Simple as that. Supported attachments include everything from JPGs to PDFs to Mp3s.

It's not as if Tumblr is extraordinarily complicated, but Posterous presents some interesting possibilities. You can post your cameraphone pics and other moblogging material via e-mail, and have comments sent to you and reply to them on the go (again, via email). Also, we're not complaining about a blogging service that lets you skip past all those annoying signup processes. You already have an email account, so what do you need yet another login for?

Posterous obviously has to be careful about security, since forging email addresses isn't all that difficult. Michael Arrington offered a free TechCrunch t-shirt to the first person to forge a post on his Posterous blog, and the challenge was over pretty quickly. Posterous addresses these security concerns in their FAQ: "If we think it might not be you, we ask you to confirm the email before we post it. No matter what, you always get an email notification of every post we put online for your blog, with an easy link to remove the post if you didn't do it."

Filed under: Design, Internet, Blogging, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Productivity, Yahoo!, Social Software, BlackBerry, iPhone, web 2.0

DLS Tip: Flickr can moblog your photos for you



We've noticed various bloggers kicking around options for moblogging pictures. Some use Blogger, which has its own built-in moblogging options, while most others use something like WordPress, which doesn't have the most straightforward process for setting up a blog-by-email conduit. The one common thread among everyone one of these bloggers, however, seems to be that nearly every one of them has a Flickr account. If you're in this same bucket - wishing to moblog and using a service that doesn't have a moblogging flip to switch but you also have a Flickr account - you're in luck, because Flickr can serve as your one-stop hub for posting photos via email from a mobile device, while simultaneously auto-blogging each one at a wide variety of compatible services.

Fortunately, setting this all up isn't very difficult. All you need to do is log into your Flickr account, go to your account management page (click on your name/user name in the upper right) and then click on the Email tab. On that screen are two options: "Your Flickr upload email" and "Your blog upload email." As you mght guess, we're going to focus on the latter for now, and this Upload by email link might take you straight there. If you haven't set up any blogs to use with Flickr, you'll be prompted with a setup wizard that walks you through allowing Flickr to post to your blog (and a surprising amount of blog systems are supported, including Manila, Vox, Blogger, Typepad, WordPress and more). Once you have that all set up, you should see a dialog much like the one in this post, allowing you to chose basic image layouts for your Flickr-powered moblog posts, as well as whether Flickr should post any text in the body of your email as text in the blog entry. Flickr even allows you to add tags to your images when uploading via email, and it looks like those tags are stripped out when this is all converted into a blog post.

And there you have it - easy-breezy Flickr uploading + moblogging that doesn't require a fancy plug-in or PHP ninja skills.

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, Social Software

Tumblr introduces mobile uploads, permalinks



We just felt a great tremor in the web - as if millions of mobloggers cried out in unified celebration. Tumblr, the new tumblelog service that we're already big fans of, just introduced a mobile uploads feature which allows anyone with an email-capable phone to get their tumbling on. Sending a message with a photo to a private email address that you obtain in your settings will publish it to your tumblelog, and the subject line will be used as a caption.



We specify a message with a photo not only because this is the language Tumblr uses for the feature, but also because sending a simple SMS or email with nothing but text seems to fall on deaf ears; nothing was published, which is at least a minor bummer. What about all those witty or "what'd they say?" one-liners we hear in public, Tumblr? Here's hoping that you really mean 'beta' with this feature, as it could use some fleshing out.

Another major addition to the Tumblr service is permalinks. Depending on the default theme design (or how you customize your own), each of your posts should now contain a permalink for optimum linking and re-blogging by all. Be on the lookout, however, as some of the themes actually hide the permalink until you mouse over the post.

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