Text The Rainbow: Color...

A new app has just taken the App Store by storm — a colorful, rainbowful storm. It’s called Color Text Messages+ and the idea is relatively simple, but clearly appealing judging by the app’s popularity. The app is so popular, in fact, that Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Twitter have all just dropped down a spot to make room for the new kid on the social block. In essence, you can now send your friends customized color text messages, complete with backgrounds and various fonts. Yep, a huge chunk of Samsung’s Galaxy Note campaign around personalizing communication on smartphones just went down the drain courtesy of a free app. But that’s not the point — the point is that you can now send a Comic Sans text message inside a colored (or butterfly-themed) bubble. It’s glorious. So here’s how it works: You download the app from the App Store and once you’re in, you have at least 50 different colors to choose from for both background and text. You also have 42 different themed backgrounds, like ones with rabbits, hearts, stars and the aforementioned butterflies. Then you hop on over to the font tab, which offers way more fonts than I care to count out. Type in your message, and you’re almost done. There is the small obstacle of copying your message and pasting it into the Messages app for iPhone, but for most that’s a very small price to pay for the ability to send really cool colorful messages to your friends. And the best part is that the recipient doesn’t need to have downloaded the app to see the magical message on their phone. Oh wait, the best part is that it’s free. What’s perhaps more interesting is the fact that this app, from a relatively unknown company called Leping Li, has dethroned the most powerful and popular social companies in the world, Facebook and Twitter. Now, Facebook and Twitter haven’t maintained the top two spots consistently since their launch, but instances in which another app has surpassed the two power networks are few and far between. Congrats, Color Text Messages+, all you need now is a catchier name and you’re good to go.

500 Characters Or Less:...

There aren’t too many people who love email these days, but few of us can actually live without it. Thankfully, there are a number of startups that are trying to make email more manageable. One of them is 410 Labs’ Shortmail , which restricts messages to 500 characters or less. If anybody tries to send a longer message to your @shortmail address, the email will bounce and your sender will be asked to write a short message. This Twitter-like model should make for briefer and more focused discussion. Shortmail just launched its updated iPhone app today, which includes an offline mode, as well as the ability to “put a message on ice” and have the app remind you to answer at a later date. The update now also lets you see which of your recipients have read your messages. The highlight of the new app, 410 Labs co-founder Dave Troy told me earlier today, is its offline mode. Most email clients for the iPhone, says Troy, don’t handle being offline well. Instead, they usually “freak out” and throw error messages at their users. The new Shortmail app, on the other hand, simply notices that your are offline and just lets you reply to your messages in quiet. Once you are back online, it’ll quietly send your queued messages and sync up every other action you took in the app while you were on that long international flight. The other interesting new feature in the app is its “Let’s Chill” tool. If you are familiar with Boomerang for Gmail , you already know how this works: instead of answering a message right away, you simply tell the app to put it on ice for the time being and then put it back into your queue at a later date. One issue with the service, of course, is that it requires you to use a new email platform and address. The Shortmail team is quite aware of this and is working on making it easier for people to use it in conjunction with their existing email provider. Last summer, 410 Labs raised $750,000 in a Series A round with participation by 500 Startups, True Ventures, Fortify Ventures and the Maryland Venture Fund.

Buy Chocolate with a Fa...

This is a great concept from a chocolate store in Denmark. The Anthon Berg Generous Store has introduced a new way to buy your chocolate gifts without the need for any cash, you simply pay with the promise of a good deed toward a person you care for. This pop-up chocolate store, in the center Related Digital Buzz Posts: Lacta Chocolate: Facebook Campaign Case Study Lacta Chocolate: Augmented Reality Messages Cadbury: 1 Million Facebook Fans Celebration

The One Yahoo Patent Th...

Most of the patents that  Yahoo is suing Facebook  over are for  vague concepts that underly a wide variety of web services , but one is for a much more specific protocol that Facebook definitely employs: seamless communication between email and instant messaging users. If the other patents are ruled invalid for being too broad to enforce, it’s maybe this Patent 7406501  that could stick. Facebook could need a separate defense or answer to this complaint, or it could be forced into a settlement to close the case prior its IPO. Filed way back in 2003 before Facebook existed, and issued in July 2008 by the time the social network had roughly 200 million users, the patent’s abstract reads: “Systems and methods allowing an instant messaging user to exchange messages with an e-mail user. To the instant messaging user, the experience is a seamless exchange of instant messages; to the e-mail user, the experience is a seamless exchange of e-mail messages. Conversion of an instant message to an e-mail message includes insertion of a token into the e-mail message, and conversion of an e-mail message to an instant message includes validating a token extracted from the e-mail message.” My research hasn’t surfaced any other prominent companies that provide this service. Many will deliver email notifications about missed instant messages, but not actually allow users to have their full emails delivered as instant messages and vice versa. Over two years after the patent was filed, Facebook launched its unified messaging product that offers this service. Email users can send messages to [username]@facebook.com to have them delivered as Chats or Facebook Messages . Messages or Chats sent back are delivered as emails. That means Facebook is directly infringing on Yahoo’s patent. Facebook did make some significant improvements to what Yahoo patented. Rather than blindly delivering communications as Chats or emails, Facebook dynamically assesses what the best delivery medium is. If a recipient is actively logged in and “online” to Chat, they’re delivered as Chats. If someone is on the website but logged out of chat, or are completely logged out they’re delivered as Messages. If the recipient is on Facebook’s mobile interfaces they’re delivered through the standalone Messenger product, in-app Messages, or even as SMS. Yahoo’s move to troll Facebook with its patents was  dastardly , opportunistic, desperate, and frankly anti-Internet . It’s also likely a poor business move  because it will make make recruitment very difficult, and could  send current employees packing  to more scrupulous companies. Still, Yahoo might have a valid patent infringement case against Facebook over instant message-email communication because: Yahoo’s patent is relatively specific The technology is not widely used Facebook does appear to infringe upon on the patent Instant message-email communication isn’t essential to Facebook or social network, Facebook just wanted to make its product better The case’s outcome could include some combination of Facebook buying this patent from Yahoo outright, paying exorbitant licensing fees, offsetting it with patents Yahoo infringes on, and shutting down the feature. Facebook should start thinking which it would prefer. [Image Credit: Shutterstock - JelanaA ]

Ads on Your TV, Your Ph...

Imagine you’re walking down the street and as you pass a Starbucks, an ad for their latest frothy delight appears on your glasses. On the inside of your glasses, where only you can see it. The New York Times says that the day is nearly here thanks to secret augmented reality glasses created in a Google lab. First  of all, let’s take a moment to digest the concept that Google has a secret lab . I imagine it to be like the Batcave, buried deep within a hillside in Mountain View, California. Now imagine these Google scientists (I’m picturing brainy Oompa Loompas) working on all kinds of futuristic gadgets that they’ve seen in spy and scifi movies. The data-display glasses comes out of both genres. Alien hunter, Gwen Cooper of Torchwood has a pair of contact lens that allow her to read messages typed in by a remote computer.  Hopefully, the messages you get on your new Google Glasses won’t be as dramatic. The Times says the glasses will most likely be used to feed entertainment and helpful information to the wearer. They could offer walking directions (please, no driving directions), data about a landmark, clips from a movie playing at a nearby theater and, of course, ads. Just when I was getting used to giving the waitress my cell phone in order to use a coupon. . . Obviously, the displays are designed to deliver information without impeding eyesight, but the experts say they’re not for 24/7 use. What this means is that in the near future, not only will we have people walking down the street seemingly talking to themselves, but now they’ll be hopping over and dodging objects only they can see. This could be very amusing. Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community