Social Networking and Web 2.0

Filed under: News, Blogging, Social Software

Pew Internet released a report yesterday called Social Media and Young Adults that shows teen blogging down by 50% over the past four years, even as blogging increased among those over 30 years old.

The report also shows that teens are not very likely to be Twitter users (only 8% of internet users between the ages of 12 and 17 report using the service), even though they are heavy users of almost all other online applications; in fact, 73% of “wired American teens” are social networking website users. Twitter seems to stick out as a service that younger people are not as interested in.

Interestingly, even as MySpace popularity wanes overall, young people are still almost double as likely to maintain a profile there as are older adults, who have moved on to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The report’s summary has a ton of other interesting statistics about social network and wireless usage, which as Mashable points out, seems to indicate that teens just don’t seem to be very interested in content creation, compared to adults. This seems somewhat counterintuitive, but you can’t argue with the numbers.

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Social Media and Young Adults report shows teen blogging on the decline originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Internet, E-mail, Social Software

If you hate the Facebook inbox as much as I do, this will come as welcome news; according to TechCrunch, Facebook will soon be launching a full webmail client.

Dubbed Project Titan it will be a full blown mail client similar to Gmail with full POP and IMAP support. According to Michael Arrington your address will be your current Vanity URL @facebook.com.

With 350 million active Facebook users automatically getting a new email address all other webmail services are about to get a monsterous new competitor.

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Facebook working on a Gmail competitor originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Facebook has made some minor alterations the layout of its home page, aimed at simplifying your social networking experience. As with the last 5 design changes Facebook has made, this one has riled up users and inspired “bring back the old Facebook” groups. What’s to get excited about, though? The changes seem mostly positive to me.

“News Feed” and “Live Feed” have been changed to the more descriptive “Top News” and “Most Recent,” notifications have been clustered in a compact space in the top left corner (next to the Facebook logo), and the horizontal navigation at the top of the screen is now in a sidebar on the left of the screen.

Facebook has posted an easy-to-grasp tour of the new layout, in case you’re having trouble finding certain features that have been relocated. The only one I find needlessly confusing is the logout button, which is now hiding under the “account” menu in the top right corner. What’s the matter, Facebook? Don’t want your users to log out?

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Facebook simplifies home page layout, inevitable complaining begins originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Web services, Social Software, Microblogging

If a tweet gets posted in a forest, and there’s no one around to read it, does it make a sound? When it comes to finding a big audience, Twitter’s so far ahead of other Twitter-like services that it seems almost impossible to catch up, even if you’re offering features that Twitter doesn’t. A new site called Whispurr is willing to try, though, with a focus on groups.

Instead of making you send each post to all of your followers, like Twitter does, Whispurr lets you sort your readers into an unlimited number of groups, and send each post exclusively to the groups you pick. Twitter sort of halfheartedly does this with Lists, but Lists are basically read-only at this point. If Twitter is a soapbox and a megaphone, Whispurr is a table at a café. Quieter, more refined …

… lonelier? You can set up all the groups in the world, but there won’t be very many people to put in them until Whispurr reaches critical mass. Twitter is finally pretty mainstream, but now Twitter fatigue is setting in, which means Whispurr’s got a tough sales job to do.

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Whispurr: like Twitter with groups, and without so many people originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Social Software, Analysis, Mobile

A new mobile metrics company called GroundTruth has just posted a statistic on their blog showing that well over half (61%) of mobile online page views are to social networking sites. While anecdotally I’ve noticed that most of the people I see pecking away at their phone’s keyboard are doing so on Facebook or Twitter, GroundTruth is including a number of lesser-known social networking sites in this number.

The point of GroundTruth’s post seems to be that mobile users have distinctly different browsing habits than regular web users, but isn’t that fairly obvious? In a mobile context people are just snacking on info, or posting a quick update. You typically don’t do a lot of research on your mobile device.

Surely this information is interesting to advertisers, who need to find new and better ways to reach their target audiences. Mobile eyeballs are still eyeballs, so maybe this is a good sign for the longevity and financial viability of social networking sites.

[via Business Insider]

What are mobile web users doing? Social networking originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Web services, Freeware, Social Software, Web

Deleting your account from a social networking site can be as hard as canceling a gym membership or convincing a telemarketer that you’re not interested in their product. Social networking sites and other online services don’t want you to delete your account. There’s value for them in being able to quote huge and growing user numbers, regardless of whether those users are happy to be there (though of course they hope that they are).

If you’re trying to cancel your Facebook, Digg, or LinkedIn account and you’re having a tough time figuring out just how to do it, head on over to Delete Your Account. Delete Your Account is an online resource that helps you delete accounts from an ever-growing number of online services. It currently lists Amazon, AIM, Digg, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Google, Hotmail, iTunes, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Meebo, Monster, MySpace, PayPal, reddit, The PirateBay, Twitter, Wikipedia, WordPress, Yahoo, and YouTube, with others on the way.

When possible Delete Your Account gives you a quick link to the page that allows you to delete your account, and instructions on how to verify that it is gone. If there are any details that you need to know like whether a site actually holds onto deleted data, that’s listed as well.

Happy account deleting!

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Delete Your Account helps you delete accounts from online services originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Security, Web services, Social Software, Web

In a new post on Twitter’s Status blog, Twitter points out that a sudden surge in followers on a few select accounts was due to a large number of insecure passwords being used by regular Twitter users. What’s happening is that users are re-using passwords that they’ve used on other sites, and some of those other sites turn out to have not been secure.

That’s the thing; as soon as any of the sites you log in to gets compromised, the email address or username and password associated with it can be tried by the bad guy on various other services. Since most people re-use passwords, there’s a high likelihood that they will gain access to your account. From there, who knows what kind of damage they might cause. If you’re lucky, you’ll notice something’s amiss.

This should be a wake-up call for all users who use the exact same password, or a predictable variant at each site they log in to. If you haven’t already, right now is as good a time as will ever be to make sure you’re using unique passwords for all of your online services. You never know when one of them might get compromised.

Twitter warns against using the same password on multiple sites originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Internet, Social Software

Yup, through the wonders of copyright law, the doppelgänger meme currently sweeping across Facebook is actually illegal and breaks the Facebook terms of service.

If you don’t use Facebook (??), or you haven’t logged in during the past week, the ‘doppelganger’ thing is all about replacing your profile photo with your celebrity look-alike. Harmless, you might think, but the Facebook TOS strictly forbids the uploading of copyrighted images and artwork that you don’t have permission to use.

Speaking to CNET, a spokeswoman from Facebook said: “Users are responsible for the content they post, but as always, Facebook will respond to requests for removal that it receives from copyright holders. In this case, we have received no such requests.” Curious — publishers and media outlets are usually all too zealous to stamp down on copyright infringement.

The copyright lords gave, and the copyright lords hath taken away…

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Facebook ‘doppelganger’ craze is illegal originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Features, Social Software, web 2.0

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday! Every week, I’ll bring you the latest in new Twitter clients and services, sprinkled with a healthy dose of news and rumors. Twitter Tuesday - please, don’t call it Twuesday - follows in the footsteps of Download Squad’s other illustrious weekly roundups, Chrome Corner and Firefox Friday Five.

Let’s jump right in and talk about what’s happening on Twitter this week:

There’s a new Android Twitter client in town: Handmark’s Tweetcaster. It boasts push notifications, support for multiple accounts, lists, and retweets. There’s even built-in URL shortening. The customizable UI candy looks pretty decent, too. Could this be the best Twitter client for Android? Check out the free, ad-supported version or the $4.99 pro version and decide for yourself.

One caveat, though: Tweetcaster’s free version makes you send out an annoying tweet about the app when you first launch it. I think that’s poor form on Handmark’s part, and I’d recommend testing the app on a dummy account to avoid spamming your followers.

Speaking of followers: Download Squad’s own Jason Clarke explained why your twitter followers aren’t as valuable as you might think. How much would you pay for each of them? Jason Calacanis tried to buy a million at 25 cents a pop, and you can buy followers on eBay for a penny a piece. Do you think that would be worth the cost?

Continue reading Twitter Tuesday - this week’s Twitter news, apps and more

Twitter Tuesday - this week’s Twitter news, apps and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Yahoo!, Freeware, Social Software, Web

Delicious, the social bookmarking site arguably started it all, was recently updated with a couple of new features. They’ve added the ability to display only private or only public bookmarks, and the ability to choose whether you want to show or hide the history of who you’ve sent bookmarks to. You can also choose whether bookmarks open in the current tab or a new tab.

Delicious has also added a “Browse these bookmarks” function which will open a frame at the top of the page that allows you to navigate forward and back through the bookmarks. This might be one of the first times that I’ve heard of a browser frame that actually makes sense.

Hopefully this latest release is a signal that Delicious isn’t dead, but was merely hibernating. The blog post announcing the new features states that there are lots of great new things to look forward to. I can’t wait.

Delicious adds filtering and browsing features originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0, Mobile

Foursquare’s exhausting week continues. After drawing some big-name competition from Facebook and getting an unofficial WIndows Mobile client, now the trendy location-based game is partnering up with the Bravo TV network. Viewers of Bravo TV shows (including “The Real Housewives,” “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” “Top Chef,” “Kell on Earth,” and “Shear Genius”) can now hunt for custom Bravo Foursquare badges at locations from the shows.

Foursquare has always been about interaction between technology and physical locations, so it’s not a stretch to use it to bring some sorely-needed activity to the whole reality-show phenomenon. Bravo needs Foursquare to get viewers engaged in its shows, but Foursquare needs Bravo to expand its audience beyond the early-adopted nerd crowd. “I don’t think checkins are a nerd-only experience,” Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley told the New York Times.

Am I the only one who’s sweating the increased competition for mayorships? I do hope Foursquare goes mainstream in a big way, but I’m barely hanging on to my title of Mayor of the 7-11!

[via The New York Times]

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Foursquare meets reality TV, partners up with Bravo for new badges originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News, Social Software

How do you determine what something is worth? Generally speaking, the answer is that something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. This comes up when trying to evaluate the value of companies, but it can also come up when trying to evaluate the value of something that is conceptually new. For example, years ago companies popped up that created an economy around the hyperlink. Today some people are trying commoditize Twitter followers.

As Techcrunch points out, a year ago Jason Calacanis offered $250,000 to Twitter to include him on their suggested user list, which at the time would likely have netted him about a million followers. That offer placed the value of a Twitter follower at about 25 cents.

Today, you can purchase Twitter followers on eBay Buy-It-Now listings for less than half a cent. That puts Jason’s valuation last year at 50 times the current value.

Of course, the problem is that just like hyperlinks, no two twitter followers have the same value. The followers you can get from eBay listings are likely either automated bots, or followers created by follower farms driven by cheap laborers in China. And Jason’s desire to acquire followers from the suggested user list would have resulted in similar low-value followers.

Of course what makes a Twitter follower valuable is engagement. If you have something to say, then you want your followers to actually be listening. On the other hand, if you just want to seem impressive with a big number of followers beside your name, I guess it’s not that expensive to do these days.

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Twitter followers are worthless, or worth a lot less than you might think originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Windows Mobile, Social Software, web 2.0, Mobile

The Foursquare phenomenon just keeps growing! Amidst rumors that Facebook might enter the location-based check-in arena, Foursquare continues to pick up users and expand to new platforms. Thanks to the service’s APIs, an intrepid developer has put together a client for Windows Mobile: WinMoSquare. It joins the roster of other mobile clients for Foursquare, which was already available in some form for iPhone, Android, Palm, Maemo and Blackberry.

To run WinMoSquare, you’ll need a touchscreen Windows Mobile phone running version 6.1 or 6.5 of the OS. WinMoSquare allows you to check in, add locations, and see where your friends are. Because not every feature is exposed via Foursquare’s APIs, the client does have some weaknesses: you can’t see the leaderboard or find and add new friends with it, for example. This will change if and when the features become available to developers. WinMoSquare may also pop up in the Windows Mobile Marketplace soon.

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WinMoSquare: a FourSquare client for Windows Mobile, now in beta originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Macintosh, Social Software

Okay, it’s time to fall back on that classic reviewer trope, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good: Trillian’s message style and list style aren’t customizable (yet?), but the default style is attractive and easy to read. This might be a matter of taste, but I prefer Trillian’s chat bubbles to iChat’s. It also includes a couple of neat little preferences that I’d like to see in every chat client. AIM users will understand when I say that the option to hide AOLSystemMsg is a relief, and I also like the ability to automatically accept file transfers from contacts.

The Bad: Lack of customization and Growl alert support means that Trillian still has some work to do before it can knock over the reigning king of Mac chat clients, Adium. I’m taking the bare-bones features with a grain of salt because - and I can’t emphasize this enough - we’re talking about an alpha version here.

The Ugly: Alert sounds. They’re not the worst alert sounds I’ve ever heard, but I couldn’t find a preference to change them or turn them off. It’s not just new message alerts, either, it’s buddy on/off, message sent, and pretty much anything else. This doesn’t make Trillian very café or library friendly, and it might make the people you live with want to kill you. I’m sure this will change before version 1.0 officially comes out.

Trillian for Mac was at the top of my wish list 10 years ago, but competitors like Adium and iChat filled the gap, and they’ve spent years refining their products. I’m not saying Trillian can’t catch up; it’s off to a good start, and a popular brand name will help. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be a while before it’s ready for prime time.

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Trillian chat client gets a Mac version, now in alpha originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Web services, Social Software

It’s really not Foursquare’s week. Just after they’d launched Foursquare Everywhere, an awesome update that took Foursquare checkins worldwide, we saw a flurry of announcements from competitors both old and new. Yelp is in the game now, and Foursquare’s main nemesis, Gowalla, just rolled out some snazzy new features.

If you thought this pool couldn’t get any more crowded, think again, because Facebook is reportedly about to do a massive cannonball into the deep end of this whole social check-in thing. Will Facebook check-ins turn into a Foursquare killer?

They definitely could. For one thing, it’s likely that your friends are already on Facebook. If you’re one of the millions of users who updates Facebook daily, it’s not much of a stretch to check in while you’re there, and completely avoid opening a separate app like Foursquare or Gowalla. Check-ins wouldn’t be Facebook’s main business, by any means, but they would certainly help bump up the site’s engagement numbers, and help its ad revenues.

The thing is, Foursquare might always be one jump ahead of Facebook, unless someone else buys it out. When we talk about these services, we’re still saying “Foursquare-like location-based app,” and that’s because Foursquare - much like Twitter - was the first company to find a decent mix of simplicity and features. Plenty of people would still use it, even if Facebook launched a competitor. Personally, I’d love to see an app that lets you check in on all of these services at once.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

Foursquare’s newest competitor is … Facebook? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Games, Social Software, Mobile

Software is a lot more fun when there’s a little drama involved, which is why I’m thoroughly enjoying the rivalry between location-based social gaming apps Foursquare and Gowalla.

In the beginning, there was no clear reason to choose one over the other, but their featuresets have started to diverge in an interesting way: while Foursquare courts local businesses and works to get discounts for its users, Gowalla is focusing on the social side of its app. Now you can create and share trips with your friends on Gowalla and bookmark spots you enjoy.

Gowalla already included some recommended trips, but now users can add and share up to 5 of their own. Each trip can include 20 different spots, and you can assign them categories like “bar crawl” or “nature hike.” Of course, Gowalla will keep track of your progress toward completing a trip, and mark it as completed once you check in at all of the locations.

Bookmarks aren’t as big a deal as trips, but they’re still quite useful - and, more importantly, Foursquare doesn’t have them yet. Having a quick way to check up on (and check into) your favorite places is definitely. You can’t add bookmarks from any of the Gowalla mobile apps, but soon you’ll be able to. For now, you can still access your bookmarks from your phone.

Look out, Foursquare! Gowalla adds trips and bookmarks originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Microblogging

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the co-founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, said that software developers are working on ‘interesting hacks’ to evade the censorship by oppressive governments in China and Iran.

He didn’t go as far to say what these ‘hacks’ are — he also said that the technology is being coded by third-party developers, rather than Twitter itself — but he alluded to some kind of distributed, and perhaps Tor-like, anonymizing service: “Twitter is a network that is accessed in thousands of ways.” — Twitter is not just a website but a framework of Internet and mobile applications. Barring access to a handful of IP addresses or protocols isn’t going to be enough if Twitter wants to get its service into the hands of those that need it most.

There was also admiration for Google’s attack on China, but Mr Williams said that Twitter was too small to make a stand on the same scale. You have to give it to them though — Google, Twitter, and any other liberal software company out there — these are noble ideals for a damn corporation.

[via Financial Times]

Twitter working on ‘interesting hacks’ to evade Chinese and Iranian firewalls originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Freeware, Social Software, Analysis

You’re probably aware of the insurance company Geico due to their ubiquitous quirky TV commercials featuring the Geico gecko. Some of their commercials are actually pretty funny, which I think is a good way to go about advertising.

Now the company has added a page to their website where you can download audio clips from their commercials as ringtones. This seems like a blatant attempt to “go viral” and have people passing around Geico’s URL on Twitter and Facebook. While there’s nothing wrong with the strategy, at some point making such obvious efforts to take advantage of social networking will likely backfire and garner disdain instead of positive word of mouth.

So that leads me to this question: do you think campaigns like Geico’s page offering free ringtones are fun and make the company seem more hip, or do you think people feel like it’s an obvious attempt to manipulate their feelings towards the company?

Personally, I’m in the latter camp, but I’m still going to install the Boss’s Ringtone on my phone. It’s pretty funny.

Ringtones from Geico commercials - cool, or trying too hard? originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Microblogging

In a flurry of interesting (if you’re into social networking) statistics, pie charts and graphs, RJMetrics has just published its latest Twitter data and user analysis. If social media or Twitter isn’t your thing, here are the vital statistics: by the end of 2009, Twitter had 75 million user accounts — of those, only 17% actually sent a tweet.

The delicious stats go on! About 80% of Twitter users have tweeted less than ten times in total. 40% of all 75 million accounts have never tweeted. 25% have zero followers. Also, while the service is still growing (6.2 million new accounts in December), it seems its growth has peaked and is now beginning to fall: July saw 7.8 million new accounts. The growth graph still looks very impressive — it’s just a matter of the inherent quality of those new users.

The report ends on a good note (for Twitter users at least): it doesn’t look like its loyal users are even thinking about jumping ship. Basically, despite the 83% of users not tweeting on a monthly basis, the remaining 17% make up them in a big way — they’re highly-loyal to their followers and actually become more active over time.

[via ComputerWorld]

Twitter activity at all-time low, only 17% of users actually tweet originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Business, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, Commercial, Social Software

There was a time when having a chat client on your computer at work was considered a no-no. These days, if you’re not available via some sort of online chat or instant messaging, you’re just not moving at the speed of business.

Many companies have begun using open instant messaging services for their internal discussions, but there are a couple of downsides to this approach. The first is a lack of control, and a potential lack of security. The second is a lack of collaboration tools; it’s difficult to share files between multiple people in an instant messaging chat.

HipChat is a new start-up that aims to fix the problem of secure, controlled corporate chat. Based on Adobe AIR which provides cross-platform functionality, HipChat is a fully functional chat client that as GigaOM points out, bears a resemblance to 37Signals’ Campfire product. To be fair, the basic layout of an IRC-like chat client has been the same for 15 years, so the similar look is not that much of a surprise.

Where HipChat has a definite advantage is in the fact that it is a desktop client (even if it does unfortunately rely on AIR), not a web client. While there are 3rd-party Campfire clients and even ways to run Campfire in a dedicated single-purpose browser, HipChat is simply a desktop chat client.

HipChat has plans available from $9/month for up to 12 users, to $99/month for up to 100 users, and offers a 30 day free trial.

[via GigaOM]

HipChat is a new private chat service for companies and teams originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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