It seems like only yesterday that organizing a night out with your buddies meant a frantic round of phone calls days beforehand. Nowadays, thanks to social media, you can organize an entire party in a few clicks. Whether you think this is just a fad or a revolution, the stats are truly mindblowing. Last year, for example, one in eight couples who got married in the US met through social media. With ever more powerful social media apps on hand, there’s really no excuse not to put the social into your life. Here are five of our favourites, which do that for free.
Think of all the information you have on your mobile: your address book, incoming calls, calendar, location, etc. Now imagine an app that makes them all “socially aware”. With full access to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare, you can sync friends’ profile photos with phone contacts, add Facebook birthdays to your phone calendar and receive social updates. It’s like having your very own social secretary.
Snaptu is a great way to catch up with news and social media while on the move. The aim of Snaptu is to keep “all your mobile essentials in one place”. Facebook and Twitter are combined with news, weather and sports, meaning that if you find a great gig in the news section, you can invite friends there with the same app.
If you sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by your social media options and seem to have too many friends on too many networks, you need to check out Nimbuzz. Not only does it give you free mobile calls and free instant messaging, it keep all your buddies in one place, whether they’re on Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo!, AIM, etc. Imagine having all your friends on hand. You could have a party every day!
Twitter is arguably the best way of keeping your network up to date with your comings and goings. Tweets60 makes Twitter more accessible and is quicker than the mobile site. No matter where you are, you can share your thoughts with your friends about what’s hot and what’s not.
Socializing is all about shared experiences. In the past, though, we’d often have to rely on blurred memories of a good evening out. Not anymore. Thanks to Pixelpipe, you can instantaneously share any pics or videos of you painting the town red with over 110 social web services, including Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter,. But remember to be careful. Your social network might not want to see your dodgy dancing!