A week ago, Identi.ca was updated to version 0.6.2 (rel Nov 18, 2008) of the Laconi.ca platform. The current version on the live site is 0.6.3 (rel Nov 24, 2008), which is the second list of items below. That’s two releases in one week!

Version 0.6.2

Here’s a list of some of the more notable features introduced in 0.6.2 (full list):

• Posted URLs are automatically shortened. You have your choice of ur1.ca, 2tu.us, ptiturl.com, bit.ly, tinyurl.com, is.gd (default), snipr.com, and metamark.net.
• Tag streams now have an RSS feed
• Replies made through the Web site will refer to the clicked-on message (threaded conversations?)
• Experimental theme for iPhone use - switching my user agent to Safari Mobile didn’t make it show up. Can an iPhone user confirm or deny this exists?
• ‘Invite-only’ mode for closed sites (Think enterprise microblogging)

Version 0.6.3

I happened across the list of features included in 0.6.3 via the Read Me (full list). It’s called a bug-fix release, but here’s some of the public-facing stuff. It’s worth upgrading to 0.6.3 if you run your own instance.

• ‘nudge’ functionality to tell a user that they’re missed
• User profiles have the option of RSS, Atom, or FOAF feeds directly on their profile (see image below)
• Favor/disfavor icons changed to images
• Twitter friend sync. Users who set up their Twitter accounts will be automatically connected to other local users who have Twitter accounts and who they’re subscribed to on Twitter
• List view of subscriptions/subscribers (instead of showing everyone’s avatar, now you get more info on them)
• Subscribe/unsubscribe button on subscriptions/subscribers list
• Add Featured users tab to public area
• Add Most favorited notices tab to public area
• Some pretty fancy tagging functions. You can actually tag yourself, then send to a list of people who have tagged themselves using @#tag. So if you send a message ‘@#helloworld hello world’, everyone with that tag will get the message.

Keep an eye out for more as the Laconi.ca team tends to crank out code at a pretty good clip. Maybe the next release will include a link to your own profile somewhere in the links at the top (not to your personal stream), which is my biggest annoyance.

Last week I received an email from Yammer letting me know about the new “Company Groups” feature they’ve rolled out, but there is actually much more than that going on in the Yammer camp these days. Here’s a rundown on the new things I’ve picked up on lately:

• Updated web interface - new graphics, drag-and-drop feed tabs, simplified right nav

  

• Groups - create a group for a department in your company and create a stream of messages specific to group members Read the full story
  

The Plurk Team is pretty mum when it comes to updates. However, this morning, @amix plurked that the Instant Messenger features were ready to be used. IM works two ways, both to send Plurks and to be notified of new Plurks or responses.

To receive IM notifications from a specific user, go to your “My Friends” tab. The left-most box is where you toggle IM notifications on and off. I couldn’t find a way to turn all on, but you probably don’t want to do that anyway. You can see from this image that I’ve turned on IM notifications for @microblink simply by clicking the box.

There are some reasonably sophisticated functions baked right in to the IM bot. To start using IM, click “My Account”, then the Instant Messaging tab. Enter your IM of choice (right now only Google Talk and Jabber work) and you’ll be prompted to add the Plurk IM Bot as a friend. From there, you can type “help” to see what you can do. One of the options is to turn new plurk notifications on or off; the same is available for responses.

There is a small glitch in receiving response notifications. If you mute a plurk and that plurk receives a response, you still get the response delivered to your IM client. There are also some minor quirks with langauge determination on a plurk from the IM bot.

What does this mean for Plurk?

Other networks such as Rejaw and Identi.ca support IM also. You’ll probably remember Twitter pulling the plug on IM recently, but they did at one point have it too. This is the first mainstream alternative for interacting with Plurk. Third-party applications are nowhere to be found (other than Plurk for the iPhone) and it doesn’t seem like many people are worried about that. Many plurkers are content to use the web interface because of how its laid out and the functions that are built in to it.

Plurk has been growing since it was released. Some argue that Plurk was a temporary stop-gap while Twitter was having downtime issues, while some argue that Plurk is becoming more popular by the day. No matter which side of the fence you stand on, alternative interaction for a microblogging platform is a good thing.

Rejaw continues to add features to their microblogging platform. On Tuesday night they shouted a need for some “brief downtime” and just 15 minutes later they announced support for real-time notifications over IM. The notifications include updates for new shouts, whispers and followers.

At this time, notifications only work with Google Talk/Jabber. In their shout they add that there are plans to add additional services such as MSN and AIM in the near future.

For instructions on how to register your instant messenger visit their settings page at http://rejaw.com/account/notifications.

Posty, an Adobe AIR cross-platform client we discussed a few weeks ago, released an updated version of the application on Saturday, October 18.

New features in the latest version include the following:

• Automatic updates. Upon confirmation Posty downloads and installs new versions.
• Improved usability of login forms (which show up when needed)
• Clickable in-text links
• Url shortening (via http://is.gd/)
• Support to Twitter Direct Messages
• Support to Identi.ca Direct Messages
• Configurable notifications of new Twitter updates
• Support to Retweet
• Support to Twitter favorites
• Support to Identi.ca favorites
• Memorization of services to update, preselected on startup
• Choice of active services to be displayed on startup

Read the full story

In a post on CNET today their tech enthusiast blogger, Harrison Hoffman (@harrisonhoffman), claims that by way of a topic on Get Satisfaction Twitter accidentally revealed their plan to integrate Twitter Search into the main Twitter interface.

This may be the first time we’ve seen a doctored up screenshot with Twitter Search in the sidebar, but Biz Stone (@biz) told us they would be integrating Twitter Search into the interface way back in July when Twitter purchased Summize.

Read the full story

Pownce continues to make updating your location even easier. We previously covered their integration with Fire Eagle, but now they have added Geode support to the mix. (And additional credit is due to Pownce’s Leah Culver (!leahculver) for her participation in the development and launch of Geode prototype)

So what is Geode? Geode is an experimental add-on to Firefox 3. This add-on is planned to be part of future Firefox releases, however, it has been made available now as an add-on to allow websites to start adding location awareness to their list of features.

With Geode, any Pownce users who visit the site with the add-on installed can now update their location using an update button under the Fire Eagle location. By clicking on the button the users are then asked to grant Pownce access to the location. Once granted the user’s new location should appear in the profile and each note sent on forward.

Pownce is working very hard to add location awareness to their site and with integration with Fire Eagle and Geode they continue to stay ahead of the pack. For more information including setup see Pownce’s blog post here.

Though its impossible to know by browsing their website, Yammer has released a new update for their Adobe AIR desktop client. If you already use the desktop client, you should have been prompted with an update window that asked you to update the app. Being on the Adobe AIR platform, updating apps is a snap and can be done in less than 30 seconds and a few clicks.

Updates and changes to the client include:

Optional new designs (found in preferences–the wrench icon in upper right)

Though the new dark and light themes are nice to have from a user’s perspective, I still find the default theme to be the most appealing.

What I would really love to see would be user and/or admin customization of the interface colors. This would allow company admins to design interfaces that fit in with their corporate color scheme.

Made it easier to resize window (drag bottom or right edges)

Corrected tab order (all, following, received, sent) to match website

Performance and memory improvements

Ability to close application without logging in

I noticed on the original version that with the “start Yammer upon loading” option selected, it would never actually log me in. With the new update, it works flawlessly, allowing me to get started with Yammer first thing in the morning.

Added “from Desktop”, “from Blackberry”, etc. to messages display

This feature falls in line with how services like Twitter state which source the message is originating from. It’s not critical information, but it is neat to see how different employees or peers are using the service.

To determine which version you are running (current version of this writing is v100101), click on the wrench icon in the upper right and it is displayed near the bottom.

When you update the app a link is given to the release notes, something fairly common in software and application development, but you’ll need to save that link if you want to go back later and check on other updates, as the release notes are not linked to from anywhere on the Yammer website.

The latest release of the Laconica platform (version 0.6.0) that Identi.ca is built on just saw a few major features introduced. The two most formidable changes are the ability to send direct messages between users and the ability to favorite an update. These features aren’t revolutionary by any means, but are certainly welcome changes to the federated platform.

In a quick test this morning, Mike and I determined that direct messaging can only be done on a mutual subscription basis - i.e. if I follow him and he follows me. We both pointed out the fact that we like how the Inbox and Outbox tabs are elevated above with the personal, replies, and profile tab. To send someone a message, head to their profile and click the “Send a Message” link below their avatar. From what I can tell, there isn’t a quick way to put it right into the notice box using the “d” modifier like you can in Twitter.

Read the full story

The Plurk team continues to crank out new features based on user requests and ideas to enhance the Plurk experience. Some of these were fairly minor updates such as adding sub-qualifiers, but last week the team shared two new and very notable features.

For users with a Karma of 25 or higher, they have probably noticed they can now upload images directly to Plurk to be shared in their stream. For a long time Plurk has allowed image sharing through 3rd party hosting services, but this is the first time users have be able to store images locally on the Plurk site.

Last week the Plurk team also announced the launch of Plurk Labs. Plurk Labs is an analytic tool for Plurk streams. The site allows visitors to look up any Plurk user and display three different breakdowns of the stream. Read the full story