Evan Sims

Viddler’s Facebook app goes to Beta

Everyone’s favorite video sharing community Viddler unveiled it’s new Facebook app yesterday to a select number of beta testers. Colin made use of Twitter and Pownce to invite people to the test, and the demand has been quite impressive.

The Viddler app is everything a Facebook app should be; it integrates seamlessly, is easy to use, and provides a legitimate use. It’s essentially a front end to much of what you can do on Viddler already; you can record and post videos from your webcam right in Facebook, you can watch videos your friends have posted, and you can share videos you have posted yourself with visitors to your profile. Nothing new that you couldn’t do before, but now it’s all wrapped up and tightly integrated, so you can access everything Viddler has to offer without having to leave Facebook.

Here’s a video I recorded from within Facebook using the app:

The quality, as usual, is pretty damn good; what’s more, it’s ridiculously simple to record videos like this. Congratulations to the Viddler team; you’ve done another bang up job here and really raised the bar for video on Facebook.

Want an invite to the beta? Add me on Facebook and let me know.

Amazon launches DRM-free MP3 Store

Earlier today Amazon announced on their blog that they’re launching a brand spanking new online music store, simply called Amazon MP3 Downloads. Aside from the generic, easily forgotten name, I’m in love with what the site has to offer. DRM free, $0.89 (USD) a song, and a pretty hefty collection of very modern and popular music.

I’m going to hold off with any serious judgments of the service until I can get a few songs downloaded and give it a real test, but so far I’m impressed with what they’re offering. My only complaint thus far is the site design: it’s not very intelligent, or engrossing. The iTunes Store pulls you in and makes you want to browse for music; this gives me more of a “quickly in and quickly out” feel. At any rate, I’ll have a complete review in the coming week.

Update: Paul Stamatiou has a great write up on the new service, and a handy tip or keeping your purchases managed in iTunes.

Apple announces iPod Touch, iTunes Wifi, more.

Today at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Steve Jobs announced a several new iPods, a new iTunes Wifi Store and a new business partnership with Starbucks, among other bits.

iPhone Price Drop

Roughly $200 less. Overdue and very much welcome.

iPod Touch

Apple kind of gave AT&T a kick in the ol’ jewels today by announcing the iPod Touch. Basically, take all the goodness of the iPhone without the phone, and AT&T’s nonsense, and you’ve got the touch. It supports Wifi, has Safari, multi-touch, music playback, video playback, all that fun stuff. Just no phone; and the 8GB model is $100 (USD) less than the 8GB iPhone, after the new price reduction. I was so pleased to see this move, as it gives all of us who don’t need or want to converge their phone with their mp3 player an opportunity to get their grubby hands on the sexy device.

Personally, I think it makes a hell of a lot of sense to keep your cell phone - which, if you’re like me, you undoubtedly upgrade far more often than you do your MP3 player - and just get a very sexy iPod that will last you a long while. Convergence is great, but when you replace your electronics as most of us do, it’s not very financially wise.

(Images courtesy of MacWorld.)

iPod Nano

As many of us had expected, and several sites leaked imagery of in the past week, Apple launched a redesigned iPod Nano, lovingly referred to as the “iPod fatty” - and for good reason. The thing is chunky for a Nano. Honestly, I don’t care much for it. I think it’s pretty fugly. I like the fact that they finally added video playback support, but the design is just hideous. What was so wrong with the 1st gen design, or even the 2nd gen, that Apple felt this direction was worth going?

iTunes Wifi Store

iPod Touch and iPhone owners will be able to browse and buy music right from their palm of their hands using the new iTunes Wifi Store; purchases are delivered straight to the device, and synced up to your PC next time you dock. By far the most exciting them for me at this event.

Starbucks Partnership

Kinda goofy, but worth mentioning; iTunes on the iPod and your PC/Mac will now detect when you’re using Wifi in a Starbucks, and will open access to a new iTunes section that allows you to see what music is currently playing in the store, and purchase it right from your device. This will take a massive infrastructure upgrade for Starbucks, and will not be an immediate launch by any means. From the amount of work that it will take to launch this feature, I’m guessing this is just the beginning of the partnership; these two have got something up their sleeves, mark my words.