If we look back in history , we will find that much before Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, there was ICQ. For anyone who doesn’t know, ICQ was created in 1996 and is now wholly owned by AOL. ICQ was THE pioneer of social media and real time updates. It introduced us to instant messaging and a revolutionary new way to communicate with people instantly in real time. ICQ could have been Facebook or Twitter a long time ago. It’s taken ICQ quite a long time to get back to its status as a social pioneer but now with it’s new client, ICQ is getting back to what it was about all the way from the beginning – a place to interact with your friends everywhere. Everybody Everywhere is after all ICQ’s slogan and being an ICQ veteran myself, I am very excited to announce the launch of the new ICQ 7.

ICQ 7 is a client that brings together all your social interactions from across the Web. Instead of having to open a few different pages and applications to get my friends’ status updates on Facebook, to read tweets of my favorite people and to follow what’s happening on other sites as well such as Youtube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious.  ICQ 7 allows me to use one personal communication tool to integrate all my online social activities.  I am able to syndicate my updates to all of my social networks with a single click and get status updates & tweets from all my friends in my networks in one single platform.

ICQ 7 enables real-time updates from content sharing sites and top social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Digg and Delicious and will soon announce the integration of local social networks. Found side by side with the ICQ Contact List, users can find a separate tab of real time feeds and updates from their friends from their various social networks. Users will no longer need to open up a new browser and log in to separate networks that they’re members of each time they want to comment on their friend’s updates. From now on, consider ICQ to be your social networks’ one-stop-shop no longer will I need to search for content on different platforms – the content finds me.  ICQ 7′s interface is also improved with software that is fully compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 7.

My Status: Status updates I make on ICQ can be automatically posted in my other supported networks as well.  I can also easily share pictures and links.

Feeds from Friends: Updates made by user’s friends on leading social networks and content sharing sites appear in real time in the “Feeds from Friends” tab on the contact list.  The user can comment on these updates directly from his/her ICQ and the comment will appear also in the relevant social network/site.  ICQ users can see updates from all their friends in the various social networks – not just from friends that have ICQ.

My Box: The “My Box” tab on the ICQ Contact List is the place where ICQ users get all notifications of their personal online activity – who commented on my status and in which site, who liked the photos I uploaded, etc.

New User Profile: ICQ 7 presents a more enhanced user profile – both within the client and on the Website.  The user profile is the place where users can display who they are by sharing pictures and personal updates on their page.  The new user profile is now offered in color schemes that are fully customizable to suit the user’s mood. Additionally, the new user profile allows ICQ users to view their friends’ contact lists and add new people to their own contact list, thereby increasing their circle of friends.

Picture-Sharing Tool: A new, quick and fun application for sharing pictures with friends:

Faster, Lighter: ICQ 7 performance has been vastly improved with installation time reduced by nearly 50% and requested space for installation reduced approximately by 30%.

ICQ 7 offers a Social Messaging client that enables quick and easy communication friends from across networks, ability to view real-time updates from: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious. ICQ’s Managing Director, Eliav Moshe, says:

“ICQ 7 brings Social Messaging into play, integrating users’ online social world with their personal communication tool.  The new version answers users’ needs for a quick and easy communication tool that also helps you be up to date with everything that’s going on in multiple social networks and content sharing sites.  With a loyal community of over 42 million users worldwide, we are working on the upcoming integration of local social networks into ICQ 7 as well.”

It is only fitting that the company that was the pioneer of the Web 2.0 era has now integrated this Web 2.0 world into one manageable space in the best possible manner.  Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. In my opinion it offers the best solution we have today for one platform which integrates all my social interactions into one convenient platform.

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(Disclosure: Blonde 2.0 is ICQ’s social media firm)

Hashtags are becoming a useful way to organize information in today’s information age, when data is spread over a multitude of platforms. It is incredibly time consuming to log into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and every other niche network that you have an account on and update the same information over and over again. However, with the launch of a new hashtag service from Mobypicture, it is getting easier.

Mobypicture uploads all of your mobile pictures to the top platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, etc.) simultaneously. If you don’t know more about Mobypicture, Ciara Byrne previous wrote about them on TechCrunch. Since her post, Mobypicture has announced their new hashtag service. It enables companies and niche platforms to attach a hashtag to a platform. For example, if TechCrunch integrated with Mobypicture, using #tc could mean the posting is also routed to the editors at TechCrunch, the TechCrunch Facebook group, and other areas in which TC has a presence.

Mobypicture is currently working on finding platform partners and is currently focusing on niche publishers. Mobypicture was recently used to promote Gay Pride in Amsterdam. This enabled users to post photos directly to the live broadcast. TV stations then used Mobypicture’s integration on the AT5 news site to report news of the event on their channels. This enabled them to get user-generated content about the event, that would have otherwise gone unreported.

The hashtag integration works with over 200 services, such as Tweetie, Twittelator, Gravity, Twibble, iPhoto2Twitter, Seesmic, and Slandr.

By adding the hashtag of an integrated company or platform, users can just add their hashtag using over 200 applications and it will post throughout their platforms. For example, you can post pictures to your Facebook wall by adding #Fb. By adding the #at5 hashtag, your post is sent to Amsterdam’s AT5 news site, which then displays your post throughout the McDonalds and subways in that city. Mobypicture has also worked on hashtag integration with MTV. They also offer a white label service to allow providers and content partners to use Mobypicture’s technology with their own branding.

Of course, while it’s great that there are over 200 services that users can post their hashtag to, more effort needs to be made in finding content partners in which the content is distributed to. It’s great that there are tons of apps, but there still need to be more niche platforms and content partners in order for the service to reach its full potential.

The company is looking for more niche platforms to partner with and it already has a solid revenue model to generate partnerships. Currently, however, the service is somewhat limited due to the relatively small number of content partners that have joined. Mobypicture has big plans to generate new partnerships, so there is plenty of room for growth and this service will be very exciting when the number of participants and content partners grow.

I also had the pleasure to speak to Mathys of Mobypicture while I was in London last month. Here is his introduction to the service:

For all those of you who spend a great deal of time outside the house trying to find and connect to open wireless networks, this is the post for you. WeFi is a free PC application which facilitates the process of finding and connecting to WiFi hotspots in any location. It has recently announced the opening of its public beta.

After you install the WeFi client, you will easily be able to find and connect to WiFi hotspots in your area. You will be able to see the signal strength of the networks, and also skip over the closed (secure) networks.

WeFi also adds an interesting social element to its application. The idea is this: When a user discovers an open network, he is then encouraged to share this spot with the community by marking his location on a map. Top mappers are recognized for their contribution to the community. The client then reports back to WeFi, which then shares the open access point with other WeFi users. The more users contribute, the more knowledge WeFi’s system gains, which also helps to continuously improve the application. Another cool feature is that the map and also the client displays the location of other WeFi users, so you can easily locate your friends.

I believe WeFi provides a real advantage for travelers who can easily see ahead of time where there are hotspots in any location and adjust their plans accordingly.

WeFi will soon announce Twitter support that will allow WeFi users to automatically let their friends know via Twitter where they are located and the name of the network they are connected to. Currently WeFi only works with Windows XP, but Vista and Mac versions are coming out soon. Those of you who spend a great deal of time outside, surfing the net, should definitely give WeFi a try.

Technorati tags: wefi, social, wireless, network, community, wifi, web 2.0, twitter, windows xp, vista, mac

Israeli company BubblePly which allows users on any video site to overlay images, text, and live links on video, has recently announced its open platform application. According to David Markowitz, one of the company’s founders, the company has decided not to label themselves as a brand, but rather to become an open platform application, usable on any video site.

BubblePly is not only a cool addition that users can integrate into videos for fun, but should also prove very useful for any company to promote itself or its products within the videos themselves. Since all videos uploaded are usually tagged, consider for instance, a car company that wants to promote itself in all videos tagged with the word “car” or a site that wants to promote itself in all videos tagged with the word “web2.0″. The possibilities are endless. For a long time now it hasn’t been determined how video sites will handle their overwhelming costs, and this sort of advertising could potentially be their salvation.

The Company which currently offers this service for free, has already partnered up with a few sites including Flix and others (which cannot be mentioned yet), and is currently looking to expand its network.

Copyright concerns are believed not to be an issue because the service doesn’t change the video itself, it just places a layer of data on top of it. Different sites have different rules of using the application, for instance, Flix only allows the person who uploaded the video to add plys whereas other sites allow anyone to add them.

Below you’ll find an example of a video with plys created by the BubblePly team:

Technorati tags: plymedia, bubbleply, open platform architecture, israel, video, image, ply, text, live link, brand, application, promotion, web 2.0, advertising, flix, tapuz