Posts Tagged ‘iphone’

Annoncesjaunes.fr has launched a free iPhone application which gives access to 725,000 adverts for buying or renting property in France.

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U.K. job search engine AllTheTopBananas.com claims that iPhone apps are enjoying a spike in usage: “Most applications have enjoyed a 20 percent increase in downloads,” declares ATTB’s managing director Dave Martin.

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Yellow Pages Group, tasked with harnessing the wisdom of the crowd, recently launched the Urbanizer IPhone application for English and French-speaking consumers looking for dining places. Powered by YellowPages.ca, Urbanizer helps consumers find Canadian-based restaurants in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa, basing search results on mood and social networks. Moods are assigned based on user reviews and editorial content.

With Urbanizer, users can choose from a selection of pre-defined moods such as “romantic dinner” and “hipster snack” or create a custom mood based on categories for cuisine, ambiance and service. 

“Urbanizer uses the power of the YellowPages.ca network to help consumers make better decisions, said Stéphane Marceau, Yellow Pages Group CMO, in the announcement. “It leverages your social networks and own experiences to help you make dining decisions based on your current mood. We’ve created a mobile app that is both social and interactive to meet the needs of young, urban individuals looking for the perfect local spot to fit their lifestyle”.

Through Facebook Connect, Urbanizer users can share experiences with friends, tag dining places they’ve visited and assign them a mood, or identify their favorite locations. Favorites are then mapped by mood as well as location.

NYTimes.com just announced  the launch of its redesigned Real Estate section  with enhanced search functionality and more comprehensive market data. Search enhancements include filters for price reductions, new listings (those posted in the last seven days), and for sale by owner properties.  Gabriels Technologies remains the site’s classified platform provider.

The Times’ new IPhone real estate app includes listing access and search. From their IPhone consumers can locate properties for sale by GPS, view search results on a map, get directions to properties, and personalize listings with private notes and photos.

“These search enhancements and data will provide prospective buyers with the tools they need to make sense of a complicated market and get the best property for their money,” said Denise Warren, SVP and CAO, The New York Times Media Group and GM, NYTimes.com, in the announcement. “By combining our search technology with our deep and timely listings, we are creating a better experience for our users and advertisers online and on our mobile products.”

The New York Times Real Estate iPhone app is available for download free from iTunes

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AutoRevo, provider of auto dealer Web sites and on-demand software, just announced the addition of Black Book Guide integration for AutoRevo Mobile, its IPhone inventory management tool for dealers.

“I have never been more excited about a product release than I am for this one,” said Chad Polk, CEO of AutoRevo, in the blog announcement. “We have brought something to market that will revolutionize how dealers acquire cars and put them on the Internet. It’s so simple… Give dealers all the tools they need at the time of acquisition, whether it’s an auction or a trade-in, and allow them to have that car advertised in minutes.”

AutoRevo Mobile, and its new Black Book value tool, allows dealers to view both wholesale and retail vehicle values, run Carfax reports, VIN decode vehicles, take and upload photos and videos, put car listings online in minutes, update the inventory and the prices, display both phone and e-mail address as response to leads, create auction pick lists, and record lane and run numbers for specific inventory.

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, AutoRevo was founded in 2003 and has experienced triple-digit growth for the past six years. The company is aligned with the auto industry sites, such as eBay Motors, AutoTrader.com, OVE.com, Openlane.com, Cars.com, and Vehix.
 
The Black Book family of vehicle appraisal guides is published by National Auto Research, a division of Hearst Business Media. Black Book provides values for both new and used vehicles, including cars and light trucks produced since 1946, collectible and exotic vehicles, motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, personal watercraft, and heavy duty commercial trucks and trailers.

AoL just announced that the AoL Radio App on www.aolradio.com is now able to deliver radio streams in CD quality, with free access to over 400 online radio stations. Stations include 250+ AoL stations and 150 local CBS Radio stations. The app detects a user’s location, automatically displaying the nearest CBS Radio station.  So far, six million IPhone or IPod users have downloaded the app.

“In developing the Radio App, we listened to our consumer’s feedback and created an application that would engage them in a way they couldn’t find anywhere else,” said Lisa Namerow, GM, AOL Radio, SHOUTcast and Winamp, in the announcement. “Our partnership with CBS Radio has allowed AOL Radio to continue to grow, and having more than 6 million downloads and counting is further proof that AOL Radio continues to innovate in the Internet radio space. We are thrilled it’s being so well received by consumers and is a testament that the hard work of the AOL Radio and Mobile teams is really paying off.”

AoL Radio was awarded with a 2008 Apple Design Award for the Best Entertainment Application, being named one of the iTunes Best of 2008 Top Free Music Apps, and being listed as one of Gizmodo’s 50 Essential iPhone Apps.

The AoL Radio App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

AoL Radio is part of the AOL Radio Network, which also includes SHOUTcast and their product extensions within Winamp. Globally, the AoL Radio Network is No. 1 in the Entertainment/Radio category according to comScore Media Metrix Worldwide October 2009 data.

Here’s more on what the new AoL is up to, as recently reported bYAIM Group.

Most iPhone apps so far promote the app maker – in the case of classifieds, that’s usuall the name of the site behind the app. Now an Australian recruitment Web site, RecruitmentDirectory.com.au, has released a white label job search app.

The app can be customized to include a company’s details, graphics and job feeds. Pricing was not released (or maybe it hasn’t been decided on yet).

RecruitmentDirectory provides, as its name suggests, a directory of recruitment agencies, job boards and solution providers for Australian, Canada and New Zealand. The company also consults in the areas of social networking and SEO.

We knew Zillow’s new iPhone app, released a week ago, would be popular. But its success exceeded even our expectations. The company’s blog reported that Zillow’s mobile app had 15,666 downloads in the first 24 hours, making it the number one real estate app in the Apple App Store. It’s closing in on the same rank for the lifestyle category overall.

In a separate report, the TechFlash blog says that Zillow’s staff numbers are returning to pre-lay off levels. In October last year, the company laid off 40 staff members. The site is now back up to 140, according to the report which is just below the number working for the Web site before October 2008.

Zillow has released a free iPhone application that will allow users to access property values and other real estate information (such as photos and agent contact) on the go. The app goes even further and allows users to locate open houses via GPS and to pop up price information as a user passes by a property. Homes for sale can be plotted out on a map. Zillow’s iPhone app grabs data both from the company’s Zestimates and Make Me Move sections.

Initial reviews have been mixed. SFGate.com, for example, called the application “buggy, incomplete and occasionally maddeningly slow,” but also admits that it is “easy to use and quickly draws out your inner voyeur.” Zillow can call up details on 3.3 million for-sale listings plus 95 percent of all U.S. homes, not just those on the market.

Zillow isn’t the first to offer such functionality, of course. Trulia did the same last year (an updated version came out in February) and has already had 170,000 downloads.

The Zillow iPhone app is an improvement over simply accessing Zillow via the Web browser. On a Blackberry for example, the map doesn’t appear.

For Realtors, the iPhone app is good news. Users can call or send an e-mail to an agent with one click.

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff was enthusiastic about his company’s new product. “To be honest, I think the iPhone app…might be better than our Web site” he told Inman News. For example, iPhone users can pinch to “pan and zoom” images on the iPhone. On the computer, this would require mousing and scrolling.

Pity the poor business that gives bad service. Yelp, the Web site that lets users review businesses, has updated its mobile version so that iPhone owners can post Twitter-like 140 character quick reviews while they’re actually in the establishment, rather than waiting until they get home. That means if there’s a fly in your soup, Yelp readers will know about it in real time.

If you’re more ambitious, you can compose a full review on your iPhone and post it later when you get back to your main computer and the Yelp Web site.

Going the other way, Yelp’s mobile app uses GPS so that reviews, tips and photos will pop up wherever you are, letting you decide which trendy wine shop to visit before you even walk in the door.

There’s even a Facebook style “feed” where you can see what your friends are reviewing.

Yelp is definitely onto something. Already, the company’s iPhone app accounts for five percent of Yelp’s overall traffic (about one million monthly visitors).

We wrote about Yelp and mobile competitor CitySearch previously.

Want to search Craigslist from your iPhone or iPod Touch? Now you can. PheedYou, Inc. has launched an iPhone app called CraigSearch. The interface is as straightforward as Craigslist as shown in the picture above. New features to come include the ability to save a search and receive alert notifications.

The program has been popular with 20,000 downloads from the Apple App Store in its first 12 days. The program is free.

Craigslist has in the past been wary of unauthorized services that grab listings from the site. It remains to be seen if CraigSearch will run into trouble.

If you’re looking for the new mobile tool, don’t go to CraigSearch.com – that belongs to an executive search firm specializing in the grocery industry. Instead, visit PheedYou.com.

Like a restaurant? Tell the world while you’re still finishing your ravioli.

Citysearch is taking on Yelp in the fast growing iPhone software space. Both companies now have their own iPhone apps. Citysearch is brand new; Yelp has been out a scant two months ago and is already the iPhone’s third most popular travel app (after Urbanspoon and Google Earth).

Both Citysearch and Yelp use the iPhone’s GPS to let you find nearby restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, and stores. You can rate and review the places you visit too. Soon you’ll be able to take pix and movies and upload those too.

Note to wait staff: really mean it when you say “how may I serve you today?”

Maps on mobile phones are becoming an essential part of next generation cellular devices. They’re an important way for everyone from local pizza joints to Realtors to get the word out about their offerings. Apple’s new 3G iPhone has made GPS a key selling point.

Just don’t try it in Egypt. The Cairo government has demanded that Apple disable the phone’s global-positioning system, arguing that GPS could allow terrorists to target military and other sensitive facilities.

Apple has apparently complied, according to The New York Times.

It’s not the first time Egypt has shut down new technology in order to keep better control over its citizens. A movement for political reform that used Facebook to organize protests over the spring was shut down and many of its organizers were jailed. Bloggers who present contrarian point of view have been jailed.

The mapping controversy is perhaps a tempest in a teapot. Google Maps is already available in the country and can pinpoint the same sensitive locations.