New Bing Interface Rolls Out, Social Now Integrated
Last Updated on Tuesday, 15 May 2012 09:17 Written by Alan Tuesday, 15 May 2012 09:17
Bing recently announced a bunch of new features, the biggest of which was social integration, for their search service. Now those interface updates are available to a large number of users. All U.S. users should be able to get the new search results page, while those in other markets may or may not have the update as of yet.
The new interface features social results in the right column, with Facebook friends recommendations and “well known experts”, as well as an option to ask friends what they think via Facebook. In the main results you will see local results as well. Upon first use you will also receive the option to “Tour the new Bing”. The new and improved Bing is also faster according independent tests we have seen, although that may vary for some users.
If you visit the site and don’t see the new features you can try heading over to Bing.com/new. The default shows what a search for “movies” looks like and you will see movies liked by your Facebook friends listed to the side. Let us know what you think in the comments below. So far we think the new interface beats the old one by a mile, but that is personal opinion and not everyone may agree.
Social News App Brizzly Going Away March 31st
Last Updated on Tuesday, 6 March 2012 04:01 Written by Alan Wednesday, 7 March 2012 07:00
Brizzly launched back in 2009 as a full-featured Twitter client, later adding Facebook integration, along with integration from photo sharing services and also chat. In 2010 they were purchased by AOL and began to slowly roll their services into AIM (AOL instant messenger), one of the most popular chat clients on the web.
Now Brizzly has announced that their integration into AIM is complete and that Brizzly, as a service, will close it’s doors on March 31, 2012. Two side-effects of this are that users who relied on Brizzly for a Twitter client will need to find a new one, and users will also need to download any photos that they have stored on the service.
The announcement from Brizzly reads in part,
“As you might know, the Brizzly team merged with AOL in September 2010, and we set to work improving AIM soon after our acquisition. After a long year of work, we launched the next generation of AIM at aim.com.
Some of the key features of the new AIM will look familiar, especially if you used the Brizzly Picnics group chat feature. We’ve incorporated group chats and inline media previews just like you saw in Picnics, plus cool new things like notifications for activity on social networks and messaging platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.”
Stream, Share, and Manage Your Music with CloudTune
Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 January 2012 04:50 Written by Alan Tuesday, 17 January 2012 07:00
The average person’s music collection has moved from album to CD to MP3′s on a hard drive and finally into the cloud. iCloud from Apple, Amazon Cloud Player, and Google Music provide plenty of space to store music you own, but with streaming services like Pandora, Last.fm, and Spotify it seems many users don’t even need to own a music collection. However most of us are looking for a blend of a cloud stored collection and streaming of songs we don’t own.
A new service called CloudTune, which just recently entered Beta, is looking to provide that blend, along with a healthy dose of social thrown in. It doesn’t quite work like the true cloud storage services the I previously mentioned, so don’t rely on it as backup for your music collection. It does, however, provide some nice touches that you won’t find in any other service that I know of.
Once you have downloaded and installed CloudTune you will need to log in to your account or create a new one.
Next you will have the opportunity to import your songs from Last.fm and VK.AUDIO. If you choose no, but change your mind later you will still able to do this, so don’t fret over your decision.
Now the app will search your computer for music and populate your library. It’s quick, but if you have a large collection then this step could take some time. Once it’s done your local music will be displayed in the main panel of the screen.
Whenever you play a track it’s automatically added to your library and will then be available even if you’re offline. The search is a bit less obvious if you are using the app for the first time. Click the large blue cloud and music note at the top left of the player.
The left column of the player provides options for your library, favorites, and to get recommendations. You can also share songs via Twitter and Facebook, find the music video on YouTube, search for the lyrics, buy from iTunes and change your settings. The bottom provides the album art for your currently playing track.
CloudTune is free to install and use. To get it, just head over to the CloudTune download page. It’s a fast download and it’s easy to set up and start using, You can be streaming and sharing your music in 5 minutes.
