What do people use mobile IM for?

Here is a selection of real-life ways [case studies] in which people have told us they use Palringo’s instant messaging service:

• “I use Palringo both to send myself reminders at home (I have an account for my cellphone as well as for my home connection) and to stay in touch with friends all over the world. One of our favourite things to do is have 'movie showings' where two or three of us all watch the same movie or tv show and use Palringo to send comments back and forth... it's almost like having a friend there in person to share the show with you.” - RP
  
  
• “Palringo is the only way I can use Google Talk on my phone. I have a lot of friends that sit on their computers and don’t answer their phones and, if I wanted to talk to them, I had to go home and log on Google Talk - or go to their houses. Palringo has saved me a lot of gas money!” - XW
  
  
• “I was recently on a snowboarding trip to Vail, Colorado. With the nice weather on the mountain I was able to chat it up with a few online friends. I could send them instant, high-quality pictures of the snowboarding and scenery. I enabled the GPS function and my wife could get a good idea where I was on my trip! I’ve also used Palringo to send instant pictures of IT-related issues I am troubleshooting at work. I have recorded small conversations and sent them to co-workers in real time.” - MS
  
  
• “Ever since I’ve had my iPhone 3G I’ve used Palringo with my MSN account when I'm on the road for my job. Because Palringo is very stable I can always be in touch with my colleagues, no matter were I am.” - BV
  
  
• “Besides my full time desk job, I also have a part-time, 'home health' job. Palringo is very handy as the patients I see contact me via whichever service they use.” - KN
  
  
• “I’m a long haul truck driver from North Carolina. My wife and I use Palringo to stay in instant contact and it allows me to send her pictures from the road. Your service allows me to be 2000 miles from home but be able to say ‘hello’ in milliseconds.” - WB
  
  
• “Palringo keeps me in touch with my husband who lives in another country. With Palringo, we can manage the 4-5 hour time difference; I’m on my iphone at work while he is at home. It's a relationship-saver.” - D
  
  
• “My daughter got married in Cancun last month and it seemed like our only option to talk to each other in Mexico was paying 59 cents per minute with a monthly additional charge from our phone company of US$4.99 for the service... until my son-in-law found Palringo. We talked to each other across the resort the whole time with no charge!” - L
  
  
• "My daughter has some health issues. We allow her to spend time on her computer, but I instant message with her often, just to make sure she’s alright. I use Palringo to continue to IM with her even when I'm out of the house. That connection makes me feel better, and I've not used anything else which offers me the options Palringo does.” - TR

Please contact us for further information on these.

Palringo now available in BlackBerry App World

Palringo's Webby Award-winning, multi-service, Instant Messaging application is newly available in the BlackBerry App World.

Palringo users exchange voice, picture and text-based messages with contacts on many popular messaging services including Microsoft’s Windows Live/MSN Messenger, Facebook™, AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Apple’s iChat®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® and QQ. This means that Blackberry users can chat, and share photo and voice messages, with all of their friends on many different IM and social networking services using just one application instead of switching between multiple, single-service applications.

Palringo first became available on BlackBerry devices in April 2009 [see here].

Video demonstration: click here.

UK’s Palringo wins Webby People’s Voice Award for ‘Best Use of GPS or Location Technology’

Newcastle, UK-based Palringo has won the Webby People’s Voice Award, voted for online by the global web community, in the Best Use of GPS or Location Technology category of the 13th Annual Webby Awards.

Hailed as the “internet’s highest honour” by the New York Times, the Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet.

Palringo’s founder and CTO, 23 year old Martin Rosinski, said: “The People’s Voice Awards are voted for by ordinary people, people who use the services or products concerned. To win one suggests we have developed a mobile service that people not only use, but love.”

Palringo adds Groups Gallery, enabling anyone to find and join the Palringo community through groups more easily

Key information

1. Palringo’s Groups Gallery is a browsable directory that makes it easy for people to find Palringo groups they’d like to join and participate in.
2. The addition of Groups Gallery means that Palringo groups are significantly more useful than before: until today there was no way to find out about specific groups other than by word of mouth or guesswork.
3. Now, the Groups Gallery enables people to meet others who share similar interests, all in the same virtual place.
4. Groups are also a useful way for groups of friends or colleagues to stay in touch. Businesses are using Palringo groups as well as the location functionality to enable better communications between staff and to respond more quickly to customer needs.
5. Using a Palringo group for messaging enables voice, text and photos to be shared simultaneously with everyone in the group.
6. Statistics: there are more than 21,000 groups on Palringo, and 50,000 Palringo users are members of at least one group. More than 4 million group messages were sent last month. The largest group has 1,995 members.
7. Group owners manage how their group is seen in the Groups Gallery by editing the description, adding a photo and selecting the most appropriate category for the group. For privacy, group owners may designate their group as ‘ex-directory’, ensuring their group is excluded from the Groups Gallery.
8. Group owners also have tools to manage their community of group members, by promoting other members to help them administer the group or removing rowdy group members.

Quotes
Martin Rosinski, CTO of Palringo, said:

“The number and variety of groups in existence on Palringo is fabulous. Because it’s easy and free to create a group, if you can’t find what you’re looking for you can simply create your own group. Then you can promote your group in the gallery to attract new members.”
“The versatility of Palringo, the way it works across all sorts of mobile phones and operating systems, means it’s extremely inclusive – no-one is excluded because they’ve got the wrong handset, for example. The group functionality takes that a step further because everyone in a group can communicate with everyone else yet only needs to send one actual message. Now, by adding the Groups Gallery, Palringo has just made it a million times easier for new members to find and join any group.”

Links and resources

• Palringo Groups Gallery
• Screenshots

Palringo nominated for ‘Best Use of GPS or Location Technology’ Webby Award

Fans can vote online to help Palringo win internet’s top honour

Palringo has been nominated in the Best Use of GPS or Location Technology category in the 13th Annual Webby Awards. Hailed as the “internet’s highest honour” by the New York Times, the Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet.

“Webby nominees set the standard for innovation and creativity on the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards. “It is an incredible achievement to be selected among the best from the nearly 10,000 entries we received this year.”

Palringo’s founder and CTO Martin Rosinski said: “Being shortlisted for a Webby Award is a sure signal to our users and customers that the outstanding location functionality we’ve built into Palringo is at the leading edge of what’s currently possible and useful in a messaging service.”

Nomination also makes Palringo eligible to win a Webby People’s Voice Award, voted for online by the global Web community. From now until April 30th, all admirers of Palringo can cast their votes in The Webby People’s Voice Awards at http://pv.webbyawards.com.

[ends]

Notes to editors
The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 650-person judging academy whose members include Internet co-inventor Vinton Cerf, R/GA’s Chief Bob Greenberg, “Simpson’s” creator Matt Groening, Arianna Huffington, and Harvey Weinstein.

Winners will be announced on May 5th, 2009 at a ceremony in New York City on June 8th hosted by Seth Meyers. Winners will be able to share one of the Webby’s famous five-word speeches with the world. Past Webby Award winners - and their speeches - include Al Gore (“Please don’t recount this vote.”), Beastie Boys (“Can anyone fix my computer?”), and Stephen Colbert (“Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.”).

About Palringo
The Palringo service combines walkie-talkie style voice (vocal instant messaging), the real-time text chat functionality of instant messaging, the ability to share pictures, location and presence - all within the context of a discussion. Supporting connections to other popular instant messaging services, it enables both one-on-one and group discussions, and enables real-time dialogue, for users from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC. Palringo is a privately-held company based in Newcastle, UK.

About The Webby Awards
Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile web sites. Established in 1996, the 13th Annual Webby Awards received over 10,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide. The Webby Awards is presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Sponsors and Partners of The Webby Awards include: Microsoft Silverlight; The Creative Group; .ORG; Getty Images; The Barbarian Group; Digital Kitchen; Wired; IDG; PricewaterhouseCoopers; 2advanced.Net; KobeMail and Museum of the Moving Image.

Palringo goes gold on BlackBerry® smartphones

A new gold edition of Palringo for Blackberry® was launched today adding location functionality and support for Facebook™, iChat® and QQ.

Key points

1. Palringo for BlackBerry now includes the option to share your location with other Palringo users. Location and proximity [distance] of contacts are shown, both on the buddy list screen and on map displays for even greater precision.
2. User feedback on the initial beta version of Palringo for BlackBerry has been instrumental in refining the gold version. In particular, the connection issues identified in the beta version have been resolved.
3. Palringo is available now for the BlackBerry Pearl™, BlackBerry Curve™ and BlackBerry 8800 series. The application is free and downloadable from http://www.palringo.mobi/.
4. Palringo users can exchange voice, picture and text-based messages with contacts on many popular messaging services including Microsoft’s Windows Live/MSN Messenger, Facebook™, AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Apple’s iChat®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® and QQ. This means that Blackberry users can chat, and share photo and voice messages, with all of their friends on many different IM and social networking services using just one application.
5. Palringo enables users to form and administer groups. Many businesses use Palringo Groups as an additional tool to enable communication with staff, whether they’re out in the field or in the office.
6. There are presently thousands of active groups on Palringo, ranging from entire businesses to special interest groups to sports clubs. There is no need to be online to receive messages; the conversation history can be read whenever a user logs in.
7. Palringo is designed for use on mobile phones, but versions are also available for Windows-based PCs and for Mac OS.
8. At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona [February 2009], Palringo was shortlisted for a 2009 GSMA Global Mobile Award – the most prestigious annual awards in the world of mobile. The shortlist of five, in the Best Mobile Internet Service category, also featured Nokia and Bharti Airtel.

Quotes

Martin Rosinski, CTO of Palringo, said:

“We know of businesses using Palringo to gain a business edge over their competition, simply because it enables them to react more quickly to a situation: they either get to the customer first, or they keep the customer happier. Palringo shows [via status] which staff members are available and their location indicates whether they’re near or far away – so colleagues can send the right person the right message at the right time.”

“Getting Palringo right on BlackBerry is obviously an important step because so many business users have a BlackBerry and the device itself is the ‘permanent fixture’.”

“The new version of Palringo is a huge improvement on the previous beta version. Some elements of the application have been completely rewritten, particularly where we were unhappy with the quality of the original user experience. We’re confident that BlackBerry users will find it a valuable, useful, and fun addition to their device.”

Links and resources

• Screenshots (Flickr): Palringo for BlackBerry
• Video (YouTube): Palringo for BlackBerry

Microsoft and Windows Live are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Symbian and all Symbian-based trademarks and logos are trademarks of Symbian Software Limited. Java™ and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. iPhone and iChat are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. ICQ is a registered trademark of ICQ Inc., a division of America Online, Inc. JABBER is a registered trademark of Jabber Inc., and its use is licensed through the XMPP Standards Foundation. Other product or service names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Palringo launches its multi-service IM application on Android Market

Popular mobile instant messaging application Palringo is now available on the Android Market. Using Palringo, Android users can chat to their friends on Google Talk, MSN, Facebook, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, iChat, QQ and other popular messaging services and social networks.

Key points

1. Palringo also enables Android owners to send photo messages to their friends in just two clicks [see video].
2. Android users can share their location with friends on Palringo: buddies see each others’ location and proximity (distance away) right beside their status in the Palringo contact list. Users may also view a map showing the whereabouts of all of their contacts who have chosen to share their location.
3. Using Palringo’s Group capability, people can chat with all of their friends at the same time. Groups also offer the opportunity to meet new people who share similar interests.
4. The Palringo application is designed specifically for mobile. This means that it takes account of limitations such as smaller screen size, and is considerate of battery life issues.
5. Palringo for Android runs in the background on the phone and notifies the owner when they receive new messages from their buddies. This means they need never miss a chat message.
6. Palringo for Android is built by the same, experienced team that has already made Palringo popular on the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Java, Symbian, as well as Mac, PC and Linux desktop environments.
7. Palringo for Android will be available as a free download through the T-Mobile G1 phone via the Android Market.

Quotes

Martin Rosinski, Palringo’s CTO, said:

• “Android is a 21st century platform and it deserves a 21st century messaging application that’s not confined just to text messaging. Palringo is that application.”
• “If you’re on a bus or in a library, then by all means stick with typing. But if you want them to see something, then it’s one click to take the picture and one to send it - and they're receiving the photo already.”
• “By integrating the messaging capabilities of popular IM applications and social networks into a single application, Palringo has created a messaging community that runs to hundreds and hundreds of millions of users.”
• “We’ve brought all our experience to bear on Android in order to make it available to people as soon as possible. We’re delighted to be the first to all users to connect to all of their friends no matter what IM or social network they use, as we were for the iPhone last year.”

Video: Palringo for Android

Links and resources

• Video: Palringo for Android (YouTube)
• Other Palringo videos (YouTube)
• Screenshots: Palringo for Android (Flickr)
• Palringo web site