A popular social network that has a strong following on the web and on the iPhone is now taking aim at the Android market. Brightkite, a slick little app that lets you check in at any location and share photos and notes with your friends, is available for free in the Android store as of this week. Current Brightkite users won't be disappointed with the Android version, and Android users will appreciate how it takes advantage of their device's location-based services.

The long-awaited app - there were reports over a year ago that it was in the works - takes advantage of Android's built in Google maps to let you visualize your friends' locations instead of reading them in a list. It also uses Android's notifications to alert you to any new activity in your friend stream. As an iPhone owner, I'm loathe to it admit it, but this looks even better than the iPhone version of the app. The maps, especially, are a great touch.

"Follow Friday" has become one of the most popular social conventions on Twitter. Users post the usernames of some people they want to recommend for their friends to follow, along with the #followfriday hashtag. It's a good way to find some new people to follow who might be relevant to your interests or part of your wider social circle. Now, some Twitter users have collected data from #followfriday tweets on a website called FollowFridays.com, that shows rankings of the most endorsed users each week, and lets you log in to send your own #followfriday picks.

FollowFridays.com bills itself as the official #followfriday site. I don't know the backstory behind its "official" status, but I can tell you that it's a pretty neat idea. It's easy to miss Follow Friday tweets, especially when you follow a lot of people, and this site lets you see who's gotten the most endorsements, and who the biggest #followfriday namedroppers are. Follow Friday isn't something I really get into myself, and I miss the days when it was less formal -- I think the tradeoff for a site that quantifies this stuff is that it can turn into a competition -- but it's often a better way to find people on Twitter than just looking at toplists and rankings that are crowded with popular users you either already know or don't really care about.

If you want to follow the Download Squad team on Twitter, you can find us at @downloadsquad.

We've seen a lot of attempts to offer an integrated experience social web experience, where users can easily interact with multiple sites in the same interface. Skimmer is the latest of these, and it's definitely a mixed bag. On the plus side, it's a cross-platform Adobe AIR app, and its UI is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, it's still a bit sluggish and buggy -- not such a big deal, as it's still in beta -- and falls into the trap of doing a lot of things, but not doing any of them exceptionally well.

The things it does, specifically, are Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogger. Activity from all 5 apps is combined in a really slick-looking stream that forms the heart of Skimmer. You can click on any item to expand it, and Skimmer has its own Flickr and YouTube viewer modes for checking out photos and videos at a larger size. This app looks so good that you're better off with a second monitor dedicated to it.

When it comes to interacting with the individual sites, though, I found myself annoyed at some silly choices: you can see all the comments on a Flickr photo in the stream, but you can't see its title unless you switch to Flickr mode; you can retweet something from Twitter, but you can't favorite it. Unless you have that second monitor, or unless you happen to use all five of the sites Skimmer supports, you might feel too restricted by the app and find yourself heading back to your browser.

Dodgeball was legend amongst Internet social junkies. This cool mobile app let you know where your friends and crushes were, and made meeting up easy. It was so beloved that there was a farewell party in San Francisco when the site shut down. Something with that much community support can't stay dead for long, though, so now there's Foursquare, a Dodgeball "sequel" from one of the guys behind Dodgeball.

So, what does Foursquare do? Like Dodgeball, it lets you check in from your phone when you go somewhere. Foursquare has several ways to do this, via iPhone, a mobile web interface, or good old text messaging. Foursquare also has Twitter integration, so you can get/send checkins through Twitter's direct message interface. It's launched in 12 cities so far, so go check if yours is supported. Dodgeball is dead, long live Dodgeball.

Yahoo! is staring to roll out a new version of the Yahoo! homepage today. Only selected users in the US and UK will see the new page at first, (pictured on the right). But eventually the new Yahoo! will be available for everyone.

So what's new? First off, the list of links on the left side of the page has been replaced by a customizable menu that gives you quick access to information like email, stocks, and weather. And that email section? You it's not just for Yahoo! Mail. You can also link your Gmail account and in time Yahoo! plans to add other services as well.

Yahoo! also plans to make its homepage more social by adding the ability to keep up on what your friends/contacts are doing. That could include notifications when friends upload new pictures to Yahoo!'s Flickr. Or it could include updates from other non-Yahoo! social networking sites.

All this talk about making the new Yahoo! homepage more social and more useful is all well and good. But you can't fool me. The ultimate goal here is to make sure the Yahoo! homepage looks less like the AOL homepage. You know, until AOL decides to copy Yahoo! again.

Ever did something that you wish you could take back? Maybe you snuck out of the convenience store without paying for that pack of gum or never returned that past due library book. Whatever the case maybe, why not voice it to the world and get it off your chest with i4Giveu.

i4Giveu is not just a sounding board, its members judge your confessions, rate them and ultimately decide if your confession is worthy of forgiveness. Of course, you too can dish out a bowl of moral soup if you're feeling a bit high and mighty.

Oh, Internet... is there anything you can't do?

We've covered several apps that integrate with the social music platform Last.FM, and we've expressed our worries about what might happen to the site when it was bought by CBS. As it happens, though, Last.FM has only gotten better lately. And now that they've released a shiny new version of their public API, we're hoping for more development on the downloadable app front.

Here's the skinny on the new API features: there's now read/write authentication for desktop, web and mobile apps, which, besides being essential for any service that logs your music listening, sets the stage for -- dare we hope? -- a killer Last.fm app for iPhone. The API will also allow apps to access search functions and make playlists, which means easier access to Last.FM's growing library of free streaming tracks. Scrobble on, amigos.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

UPDATE: Some of our astute readers have recommended MobileScrobbler as the killer Last.FM app for iPod/iPhone. Thanks, Neil and Robotrock.

Weheartit is a fun way to share photos or videos you've seen while browsing the Internet. Others can see what you find interesting and also comment on them as well.

Weheartit works by bookmarking their I heart it bookmarklet and as you visit websites, images and videos are outlined in pink with an "add to my heart" text above it. Clicking on this link adds the image to your heart page where you can add tags, mark it NSFW or unheart the image. From there the image becomes viewable to all Weheartit members so that everyone can see what's hearting you.

The only issue we had while using the service is that it outlines all the potential images in pink and makes everything look like its February 14.

Instructional videos or online reviews can sometimes be difficult to follow. Depending on watch you're watching it might be nice to have a second video displaying additional information that would aid in the presentation. Viddix may have found the answer to this in the form of their iPanel.

Once you've uploaded your video to the website, you'll need to add cuepoints. These cuepoints allow you to add text, links, photos, html pages, charts or other media rich files that your viewers can read and interact with. Viddix also provides cuepoint presets to ease the production of your video.

From start to finish, the production concept is straight forward and the average user shouldn't have many issues with producing their own videos.

While still in beta, we find the concept very useful, especially since we've started taking guitar lessons.

Want to invite all your Twitter friends to one event at the click of a button? Twitzu has simplified the process, allowing you to quickly create and publicize events. Fill in the details and it's sent off as a link in a Twitter update, along with a short optional message. Your followers can then RSVP on the Twitzu website.

Twitzu has great potential for organizing public events like blog meets or advertising small gigs, but you won't want to use it to organize a private gathering. One of Twitzu's main drawbacks is the fact that your event is not only broadcast to all your Twitter followers, it's also posted up on the main Twitzu page. With talk of Twitter groups in the making - it would be nice to see the two concepts integrated - allowing you to invite only certain people who follow you. The website is also sorely lacking a privacy option. Another huge drawback is the inability to edit your event once you've submitted it. Don't be fooled by the 'Edit Event' tab. It seems to be there only for show.

Twitzu is far from perfect - and we don't just mean the glaring spelling mistake on the front page - but if it gets enough attention it could turn out to be one of the easiest ways to ensure a large turn out at your next public event.

Flock, the "Social Web Browser" built on the same Mozilla engine as Firefox, has launched the latest stable version, 1.2. The beta has been available for a while now.

In this version, Digg, Pownce, and AOL Mail integration. Digg and Pownce makes sense, but the AOL mail one didn't really excite us all that much.

It seems like Flock is stockpiling partners and features though and are putting together a very nice user experience "out of the box" that other browsers can't offer.

Firefox is perfect for the ubergeek that wants to install his or her own extensions, but for someone like our mothers or aunts who just want to try out this new fangled web thing, Flock is the answer.

Plus, the browser's blog editor is still the killerest app out there for any browser.

The knock on Flock has been stability which we haven't seen issues with on Windows or Mac, but the loadtime for first startup is a known issue that they're working on.

They recently won a Webby award for "Best in Social Networking" which is actually quite impressive considering that they were up against Facebook.

Go give Flock a shot and let us know what you think.

Do you want your web browsing experience to be social?

Flock, the social web browser built from Firefox code keeps getting more social. Flock 1.2 beta adds Digg, Pownce, and AOL Mail integration. Once you login to Digg for the first time from the Flock browser, you'll have the option of opening up a Digg sidebar which shows you all of your Digg contacts and their recent activity. You can also click a button in the sidebar to submit any page you're currently visiting to Digg.

Micro-blogging service Pownce has also been added to the sidebar. If you have a Pownce account you can keep up with your contacts without opening a separate web page. Previous versions of Flock already supported Twitter.

Finally, the latest beta adds support for AOL Mail notifications. This isn't so much a social feature as an essential feature if you happen to use AOL as your primary web mail account. Flock already supported Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. We're not sure why AOL wasn't already in there, or why Windows Live Hotmail still isn't supported.

Like Firefox, Flock is cross-platform. There are versions of Flock 1.2 beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

[via CyberNet]

If you have half a dozen social networks and microblogs that you like to update simultaneously, you probably need to go outside and get some fresh air. But before you do that, you can post an update to let all your friends know that you're going outside to get some fresh air using HelloTxt.

Last time we looked on on the site, you could post messages to 10 different services including Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku. And that was about all you could do. But now the service has rolled out a new feature that lets you post images and videos. Well, sort of. You can upload an image to the HelloTxt server and get a shortened URL to place in your message so that anyone can click through and see the image. But HelloTxt doesn't actually host the videos. You'll need to copy the embed code from another site like YouTube or Vimeo. You do still get a shortened URL that you can send out to friends, so there's some value in the video feature. Just not as much as we'd like.

Somewhat ironically, while HelloTxt will give you shortened URLs for videos and images, there's no option to shorten a regular URL, so you'll have to rely on old standbys like TinyURL if you just want to share a link.

[via Go2Web2.0]

Apparently social browser plugins are the next big thing. The other day we told you about Yoono, a Firefox add-on that brings FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking features to your web browser. Today it's Minggl's turn.

Minggl is a browser toolbar that works with Firefox or Internet Explorer. Every few minutes Minggl will scan your social networking accounts and display the latest updates. You can pull up a list of your friends or view an actvity stream in your sidebar.

The nice thing about toolbars like Minggl is that they let you keep up with the activity on your social networks without constantly opening a half dozen web pages and hitting the refresh button. On the other hand, the toolbar takes up some valuable screen real estate and provides a constant source of distraction.

The Minggl toolbar is currently in public beta, and supports Facebook, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, and LinkedIn, with more services cming soon.

[via VentureBeat]