Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Recently, Echofon came out with an update to their iPhone app. As the only iPhone user at Spyder Trap, I am the lucky person who gets to test out everything iPhone related.

I have used Echofon as my main Twitter application since it was called Twitterfon. The latest update only enhances the application and in my opinion, if Echofon was not at the top before, officially puts itself at the top out of all Twitter applications.

I tweet for numerous accounts, both personal and professional. Before, you could only have one account registered for the application. If I wanted to tweet from another account, I had to download another app. Now, you are able to hold multiple Twitter accounts on Echofon. Switching accounts is easy to do. Go to your ‘Accounts’ page and tap on the profile you want to tweet from, and it will instantly switch.

Another nice feature is the multiple re-tweet option. This allows the user to re-tweet with or without adding a message and editing the original tweet. This is a significant upgrade compared to the web version of Twitter, where re-tweeting functionality is far behind the capabilities of this application.

Arguably, the most impressive new feature is the ‘Nearby Tweets, Map or List View’. By using the iPhone’s built-in GPS, it’s able to locate your near-exact location and load tweets either by using Google Maps and placing pins from where the tweet happened, or in the traditional list view.  This brings in some of the functionality possessed in Foursquare, where you can view who is also at a place you checked in to, but minus the checking in feature.

Many other Echofon upgrades were introduced, such as:

• Attaching photos using TwitPic or Flickr
• Attaching videos (for 3GS only)
• Landscape keyboard
• Dedicated lists tab
• In-App web, maps, mail, YouTube, and full screen photo viewing
• User authenticated bit.ly
• Shake to reload (exactly like Urbanspoon)

For anyone with an iPhone and using Twitter, this is the application to go with. The free version, which is what I have always used, is great. The ads are never in the way of your tweet stream and never annoying in any other way. For clients, especially with companies who are focused in one area, with the ‘Nearby Tweets, Map or List View’, this can help you interact with your following, or anyone talking about your brand/product.

Example: if you’re a restaurant in the Uptown area, and you can see people within a certain radius of your location talking about lunch plans, you can connect with these people directly and try to get new people to your restaurant.

The next step of Echofon is to be able to search for specific terms within the ‘Nearby Tweets’ to weed out non-relevant conversation.

Now that I have shared my favorite Twitter app, what’s your favorite Twitter application for the iPhone? What features do you want to see from your iPhone app?

Earlier this week Google announced its launch of Google Latitude, which is an extension of their popular mobile map application, Google Maps. Google Latitude takes it a step further though by providing you with real-time location-based information using your phone’s GPS, such as where you are, traffic conditions, allowing you to search for restaurants and hotels around you (and rate them), and even where your friends are (provided they opt-in). You can view your friends’ status updates (similar to Facebook or Twitter) and even contact them via SMS, Google Talk or Gmail. While this isn’t exactly a new concept (see the location-based service BrightKite), Google Latitude as upped the ante with functionality. You can even view Google Latitude on you desktop through iGoogle with the Google Latitude gadget.

Google Latitude has some privacy advocates concerned however, citing it a “danger” to security, in a ComputerWorld article. However, Google has stepped up the security features of Google Latitude by making the process completely opt-in on behalf of the user, and it allows the user to change their privacy settings by allowing/denying certain people from viewing your location at any time.

In an article by Ross Dunn of Search Engine Guide, Google Latitude poses a high potential for mobile marketing. Through user-specific location-based advertising on the part of retailers, a Google Latitude user could see an icon on their map near their location of a store having a sale, or of a bar or restaurant nearby offering 2-for-1 specials at happy hour. Similarly, the potential for Google to recognize where you go most frequently and provide recommendations on places you may enjoy is not that far-fetched (see Amazon.com recommending books you may enjoy based on your most recent purchases).

So now I ask you, what do you think of Google Latitude?