Google made another play for the social networking space Friday with its acquisition of Slide, which makes games, applications and widgets for websites such as Facebook and MySpace.

The San Francisco developer provides free apps that Facebook users can install on their profiles in order to play simple games with friends or to arrange photo slide shows.

Slide's SuperPoke application and its animal-centric variations, for example, are a family of popular social games with which players can virtually hug friends or raise a pet pig. A feature similar to Slide's Top Friends was eventually implemented by Facebook into every profile, allowing users to rank online buddies.

Google didn't immediately return a request for comment on the financial details of the deal, but a report on the website TechCrunch says Google has agreed to pay $182 million plus $46 million in employee bonuses. Google's stock fell 1.7% on Friday, exceeding the 0.4% drop of the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index.

Faced with the skyrocketing popularity of Facebook, Google has been searching for ways to make products that are more fun and collaborative.

Apple Inc.'s own online support forum is heavy with user complaints that their iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G models are slower, have a quickly drained battery life and overheat, among other glitches, after upgrading to the new iOS 4 operating software.

But on Wednesday, Apple said it was investigating iOS 4 issues only related to iPhone 3G user complaints, not the iPhone 3GS.

"We're not receiving any reports regarding it being an issue with the iPhone 3GS," said Natalie Harrison, an Apple spokeswoman. If customers are having problems, we advise them to contact Apple Care for assistance."

Chris Squires, of Bakersfield, said he called Apple immediately when his entire contact list was wiped out after upgrading his iPhone 3GS to the iOS 4, but the employee couldn't figure out what happened. And with all the other issues he's been having, he said he's been trying to find a way to revert back to his old operating system.

"It doesn't sync up to my Bluetooth anymore," Squires said. "If I'm in the middle of a text or e-mail or website, it'll freeze and then I'll have to power it down. I never really had to do that with the regular 3GS."

Users of both older models of the devices have been complaining on Apple's forum and various blogs since the iOS 4 rollout out in June, but the issue has been overshadowed by the "death grip" antenna saga that has plagued the new iPhone 4.

The new operating system, which is also compatible with the iPhone 4, has 100 new features for the iPhone 3GS, which came out last year, and the 2-year-old iPhone 3G.

Although Squires said the upgrade delivers the features it promises for the most part, there are so many new problems that he's now at a crossroads.

"I'm in a situation now where I don't even know if I want to keep the phone or not," he said.

-- Kristena Hansen

Ha-ha-ha, wipeout!

Google has halted development on its much-hyped  Wave platform, which promised to revolutionize document collaboration and potentially replace e-mail.

The Mountain View, Calif., company said it will keep the service online until at least the end of the year.

Google Wave rode a cyclone of publicity when it launched in May last year. The service lets users send digital correspondences, called "waves," and edit the text as the conversation progresses, creating their own personal Wikipedia-like entries. Technology's early adopters were tickled by the idea of seeing friends' messages show up instantly after each keystroke.

All of that technical magic took a toll on Google's servers, which hosted each wave and every edit that happened within those documents.

Former Internet giant AOL Inc. posted a $1.06-billion loss Wednesday resulting largely from an accounting charge triggered by its recent sale of social networking company Bebo Inc.

AOL, which was spun off by Time Warner Inc. last year, is struggling to remake itself as an information and media hub as its decade-old dial-up business continues to erode.

Its ad revenue was down 27% since the same quarter last year. But the decline might have stemmed from a set of decisions that Wall Street likes, said Clayton F. Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. AOL has been selling off weaker advertising units as it steps up its efforts in higher-margin display advertising.

“The feeling is they've taken a lot of the right steps to become more focused,” Moran said. “They’re beginning to show signs that a turnaround is possible.”

AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong said company policies have made AOL stronger.

“The company is getting healthier every day,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Although we have much more significant goals for the future of AOL, we are pleased with this quarter’s internal and external trends.”

Investors seemed to agree, as AOL stock jumped $1.63, or 7.7%, to $22.75.

The loss stemmed from a one-time goodwill impairment charge the company had to take after its sale of Bebo for $10 million in June. It had bought the social network two years ago for $850 million.

In July, AOL also sold off ICQ, an online messaging service, for $188 million. It had acquired ICQ’s parent company in 1988 for $407 million.

-- David Sarno

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to allow Google Inc. to continue moving the city's 30,000 employees to its online e-mail system, despite a number of performance and security problems facing the implementation.

The $7.25-million project, which was supposed to be finished by the end of June, has been slowed as the city and Google have had trouble satisfying data security requirements to protect the e-mail accounts of the 13,000 Los Angeles Police Department personnel, among others. Other users have reported delays of many hours in the sending and receiving of e-mail.

Because of the delays, the city will be forced to continue paying for its 10-year-old e-mail system at the same time as it pays for the new system. But city officials announced Wednesday that Google had agreed to cover the cost of the old system until the switchover was complete. The costs could rise to $415,000 if the project is not finished by next June.

However, city technology officials and representatives from the LAPD and Google said they expected the implementation to be finished in November. Before that, Google will have to satisfy data security rules set out by the state Department of Justice as well as conduct a successful pilot program with LAPD personnel.

An earlier pilot of the Google system by city employees ran long this year after users complained that the system was slow and lacked many of the features they needed. City officials have said the slowness is a result of the need to run the old and new e-mail systems concurrently.

But it's the security concerns that have caused the most problems. The state requires that law enforcement data be encrypted and physically protected and that Google employees with access to the LAPD data have had background checks. Some of those requirements have presented challenges for Google.

Though some council members worried about the slow pace of the project, others expressed optimism that the project would be completed in the near term, with Council President Eric Garcetti praising the city and Google for sticking with what he said was a forward-thinking project.

"I want all folks out there to see L.A. as a laboratory where we can make things work," Garcetti said.

-- David Sarno

How appropriate: The day that Rdio goes live, Kazaa comes back from the dead.

Rdio is the new music streaming service from Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström, the entrepreneurs who brought the Kazaa file-sharing software to market as the music industry was suing the original Napster out of existence. Kazaa eventually ran into the same legal buzzsaw, ultimately settling the lawsuit brought by the major labels and studios for more than $115 million. (Friis and Zennström had already exited by then.) The current owners of the Kazaa brand -- Brilliant Digital Entertainment -- announced the launch of the beta version of the new, non-file-sharing Kazaa service Tuesday, about the same time that Rdio made its offering available to the public.

I haven't had much time to explore Kazaa, but my first impression is that the Web-based service is miles behind the competition. It's as if the company locked its technologists in a room four years ago and they've just now emerged, having missed the growth of social networks, the explosion in smartphone usage and the death of music DRM. The service costs $15 a month -- 50% more than Rdio, MOG or Rhapsody -- and doesn't have a mobile app. Instead, it offers unlimited streams and tethered downloads (that is, songs wrapped in electronic locks to deter copying) that can be played only by Kazaa's proprietary plugin for Windows Media Player. 

It also has only rudimentary social-media features, most notably the ability to play other users' playlists and to watch a continuously updated list of what other users are playing. And although there are a handful of "editor's picks," there's no preference engine to recommend tracks based on a user's tastes -- a major handicap when it comes to discovering music. Essentially, users are left to search for tracks or artists they already know, or take unguided tours through the library's eight genres.

There are some nice touches, such as the ability to find songs by searching through a database of lyrics. I also liked the ability to find user playlists containing particular songs or artists, which could be a useful form of crowd curation. On the whole, though, the service struck me as being very much a work in progress, with a much smaller library of tracks (1.8 million vs. 8 million on MOG).

The press release from Kazaa put the best possible spin on the offering, saying "Kazaa’s beta offering of our cloud based download music application and everything that comes with it signals our commitment to continue developing new product offerings and services at full speed." Judging by the beta, Kazaa needs to go even faster.

-- Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

Fans of Wes Anderson will appreciate this clever riff on the head-of-the-class 1998 cult classic "Rushmore.”

Twitter originally set out to make a recruiting video that would show off the personality of Twitter and the people who work there.

"In typical Twitter fashion, along the way it became something way more fun,” spokesman Matt Graves said.

“Meet the Class of Twitter HQ” runs through a sequence similar to one in “Rushmore” showing Twitter employees with deadpan expressions engaged in various activities: “mobile,” “research,” “gardening,” (gardening?) and “twideokinetics” accompanied by the British Invasion band the Creation’s “Making Time.”

Twitter employees are the stars of the video and wrote, filmed and edited it. Oliver Ryan, who’s head of “recruiting stuff” at Twitter, even has a cameo dressed in an American flag outfit.

There are other pop-culture references including “The Finer Things Club” from NBC’s “The Office.”

Below is the original sequence from "Rushmore." Enjoy.

-- Jessica Guynn

While Spotify struggles to bring its free music-on-demand service to the U.S., a growing number of companies are filling the gap -- although not on the same terms. For example, Guvera offers a limited number of free downloads on demand to those who'll tolerate some targeted advertising (and who don't mind a less than comprehensive selection of tracks). MOG and Napster offer unlimited on-demand streams for $5 a month. Rhapsody does the same for $10 a month, with the added bonus of mobile streaming to smartphones (MOG does the same for $10 too, and Napster's mobile version is on its way).

Another subscription service joined the fray Tuesday: Rdio, the latest creation from Kazaa and Skype founders Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström. Its offering is closest to MOG's -- both incorporate elements of social media to yield better music discovery and a more entertaining service. It also offers a $5-a-month web-only service and a $10-a-month mobile version. I've played with and enjoyed Rdio and MOG, although they have different strengths and weaknesses.

Both services allow you to search for tracks or artists, browse new releases (although only MOG makes this easy on a mobile device) and play an unlimited number of songs on demand for a flat fee. Rdio also enables you to virtualize the digital tracks you have on your PC -- the "match collection" function on the downloadable Rdio desktop player looks at your iTunes or Windows Media Player library and adds those titles to your collection in Rdio (just the titles, not the tracks themselves). That's a great feature in concept...

After creating a few sparks in the touch-screen arena, Research in Motion is burning its old e-mail-centric formula and focusing on a more fully featured BlackBerry Torch smart phone.

The Torch marries RIM's thumb-loving keyboards with a 3.2-inch touch screen -- smaller than the iPhone's 3.5-inch and the Droid Incredible's 3.7-inch displays.

It's the first BlackBerry with both a touch screen and a keyboard. With a slide-out keyboard, the hardware looks (and, according to some earlier testimonies, feels) like Palm's Pre, the portable hardware veteran's own touch-screen-driven reinvention.

During RIM's announcement Tuesday, the Canadian phone maker left no ambiguity about the Torch's importance to its product lineup -- "It is the best BlackBerry, ever," RIM says in its marketing materials.

Apparently, Apple's iOS 4 issues aren't limited to the 2-year-old iPhone 3G.

Apple Inc.'s support forum is piling up with user complaints that their iPhone 3GS, which rolled out last year, is also experiencing slowness, drained battery life, intermittent crashes, rebooting during phone calls and other odd glitches after updating to the new operating system.

"My phone will freeze and I have to reboot and it takes a long time (4-5 min) for the Apple logo to disappear and the phone start to work," wrote one iPhone 3GS user on the forum on Monday. "Apparently a lot of users have the same problem after updating the software."

Apple has not returned phone calls or e-mails for comment.

Similar complaints from iPhone 3G users have been reported in Apple's discussion forums and various blogs since the iOS 4 debuted in June.

The iOS 4 is compatible with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G models and boasts more than 100 new features as well as improved battery life. Some of the features, however, are not compatible with the 3G model, including multitasking, which allows multiple applications to run at the same time.

Issues regarding updates to the iPhone 3G have already gotten the attention of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company, which said Monday that it was investigating the problem. It has not said anything about the iPhone 3GS.

Although it's apparently impossible to revert back to the older operating system, some users are wishing on the forums that they could do so.

-- Kristena Hansen

There aren’t that many clean-tech deals being made in the U.S., but the ones that are making it through just came off a mighty fine quarter.

Electric car manufacturers and support companies especially. The big winner of the quarter was Palo Alto EV infrastructure firm Better Place, which landed $350 million in funding.

The Golden State also dominated, according to analysis of data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

“This might as well be a California report,” said Mark Sogomian, a partner and Los Angeles clean-tech leader at Ernst & Young. “Almost all of the companies are California-based. This just highlights how much activity there is in the state.”

Venture capital investment in clean-tech companies for the second quarter hit $1.5 billion -- a 63.8% increase from the same quarter in 2009 and the highest amount since the third quarter of 2008, according to Ernst & Young.

All that funding was spread among just 68 financing rounds, up three deals from the second quarter of 2009. The top 10 deals alone drew two-thirds of the capital.

Besides the electric vehicle sector, which is poised to release a slew of models later this year and next year, the solar and biofuels industries also scored major investments.

Solar companies ended the quarter with 182.6% more funding than in the same period in 2009. Of that $438.8 million pot, Brightsource Energy Inc. of Oakland tucked away $180 million.

And with $265.7 million, biofuel firms saw a 517.2% boom compared to last year.

Apple Inc. said it's investigating complaints by some iPhone 3G users of bogged down speed, drained battery life and excessive heat when their device is updated to the new iOS 4 software.

The operating system, which debuted in June, boasts more than 100 new features for the new iPhone 4 and the prior model iPhone 3GS, but some of the features are not compatible with the iPhone 3G.

Since the software's rollout, iPhone 3G users have complained about various problems on blogs and on the Apple's support forum. The complaints have been overshadowed by the "death grip" antenna issues that have plagued the iPhone 4 since it was launched June 24.

"Launching something as basic as text messaging takes about four times as long -- up to nearly 20 seconds for something that should be instantaneous," Don Weiner, an iPhone 3G user, wrote in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times. "Also, simply typing there is often a delay in characters appearing on the screen."

Tina Teng, an analyst with iSuppli, said the difference between an iPhone 3G and the most recent iPhone 4 is a big one.

“It’s like you’re running a 5- or 10-year-old computer and you want to run a really fancy program on it and that’s just going to exhaust your system," Teng said.

There are some new features on the iOS 4, such as multitasking, which allows multiple applications to run at one time, that aren't compatible with the 3G.

As Apple looks for a solution, some blogs and various websites have come up with their own concoctions and instructions to solve speed issues.

"Wouldn't it have made sense for Apple to notify customers about the problem and how to fix it rather than have them think they were stuck with a useless outdated iPhone that was no longer being supported?" Weiner said.

-- Kristena Hansen

For Chase bank customers on the go, there’s one less reason to stop by an ATM.

Chase last month added a feature to its banking iPhone application enabling customers to virtually deposit a check using the smart phone’s built-in camera.

Called Quick Deposit, it requires a snapped picture of the front and back of an endorsed check, which is then submitted to Chase via the app. The amount is deposited directly into your account; Chase encourages customers to destroy the physical check as soon as it clears.

Chase isn’t the first American bank to offer mobile check deposit services, but it is the biggest thus far. Last August, USAA, a privately held bank and insurance company, added a feature on its iPhone application that works much the same way as the Chase version.

The app requires an iPhone 3 or higher and is free for customers enrolled in online banking, with no cap on the number of deposits made with the feature. Customers can deposit up to $1,000 in an account in a single day, with a $3,000 monthly limit per account for deposits made using Quick Deposit.

“We know that people who use the iPhone want to use them for as many tasks as possible,” said spokesman Tom Kelly. Since the feature became available in mid-July “thousands and thousands” of existing Chase customers have downloaded the app, motivated in large part by the added deposit function, he said.

--Shan Li

Social networking is snowballing.

That’s the message from the latest Nielsen research -- which shows that Americans devote six hours a month, or almost a quarter of the time they spend on the Internet via their personal computer -- on social networking sites and blogs. That’s up from 16% a year ago.

Driving this trend is the social networking juggernaut Facebook, which recently celebrated reaching half a billion users worldwide. It claimed an 85% share of social networking use; News Corp.’s MySpace came in a distant second with a 5% share; and Twitter with just 1%.

For the first time, games beat out e-mail as the No. 2 online time killer, accounting for 10% of time spent. Nielsen found that half of all Americans online spend time playing games like online-gaming Zynga’s explosively popular FarmVille. It was unclear if time spent playing games like FarmVille on Facebook significantly influenced how much time people spend on Facebook.

It’s not that people are not e-mailing or using instant messaging. They are engaged in those activities on services such as Facebook. And they are still heavily involved in those activities while online. E-mail was the third most popular activity at 8%, and instant messaging came in fifth at 4%. It remained dominant on mobile devices, up to 42% from 37%.

“We are not going online and doing anything fundamentally different,” said Dave Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen. “We are going online to communicate, get information, do research, stay abreast of the news and be entertained. We’re doing the same things we have always been doing online. The way we are getting to that content is shifting. It has become word-of-mouth. The power and recommendation platform of social networks like Facebook and Twitter are now driving that personalization of content consumption. Social networking is not just about connecting people. It’s a new way to distribute all types of content.”

The other activity on the rise is watching videos and movies on YouTube, Hulu and Netflix, which jumped 12% to account for nearly 4% of all time spent online, or an average of three hours and 15 minutes.

-- Jessica Guynn

Twitter’s 20-billionth message was sent by a user in Japan, where usage has soared over the last year, providing a glimpse into the service's exploding popularity around the world.

The giddy graphic designer -- with a passion for baseball and the handle "GGGGGGo_Lets_Go" -- who sent the tweet was flooded with congratulatory tweets. (Check out the Guardian for the translation).

The San Francisco company estimates Japanese send nearly 8 million tweets a day, about 12% of all tweets worldwide. About 16% of Internet users in Japan use the service, eclipsing the number of Internet users in the United States. Twitter users in Japan set their own world record when Japan beat Denmark in the World Cup, sending 3,283 tweets per second. Twitter launched a Japanese-language version in 2008 and a mobile website in October.

It took four years for Twitter to log 10 billion messages; that milestone was reached in March. It took less than five months to double that.

-- Jessica Guynn

In the beginning, there was cash.  Then we wrote checks for our purchases, which were quickly followed by credit and debit cards. And now there are -- smart phones?

The two largest U.S. wireless carriers, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., are in talks to create a way for smart-phone users to pay for purchases with the wave of the device, according to a Bloomberg News article that quoted three anonymous sources who said they knew of the plan.

T-Mobile USA reportedly would have a small stake in the partnership too.

The touch-free technology would allow customers to make purchases in stores by way of embedded microchips in their smart phones and would be tested first in Atlanta and three other U.S. cities, but sources quoted in the Bloomberg article did not say when the trial would start.

More people are using their smart phones for online banking and tracking their finances, and 10% of U.S. consumers use them to make purchases on the Internet, double that of 2008, according to a recent survey of 5,000 consumers in 22 countries conducted by tax, audit and advisory firm KPMG.

"Mobile payments are the logical next step for consumers," said Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman, although he and company representatives of both AT&T and Verizon said there was nothing to announce on that issue.

The service poses a direct threat to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., the two largest payment networks in the world, whose services currently account for more than half of U.S. consumer purchases, according to the industry newsletter Nilson Report.

The sources said transactions may be processed through Discover Financial Services and accounts  managed through Barclays Plc., whose spokesman, Kevin Sullivan, said in the article "facilitating mobile payments is a big part of the Barclaycards strategy globally."

Although the anonymous sources did not say how much each transaction would cost retailers, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said the new technology would cost $200 per reader, according to the Bloomberg article.

But the extra cost to retailers could be a trade-off if each transaction allowed them to upload advertisements and promotions directly onto people's phones.

-- Kristena Hansen

Google-powered Android phones have outsold Apple's iPhone in the U.S. this year, according to a report to be released Monday by the Nielsen Co.

Among consumers who purchased a smartphone in the first half of 2010, 27% opted for Android phones, compared with 23% who bought an iPhone. Android's total market share of 13% still lags well behind both Apple (28%) and Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry (35%).

The numbers add to the pile of evidence that Google's Android empire has become a serious threat to Apple's iPhone. In May, the NPD Group released a similar report noting that Android had outsold the iPhone in the first quarter of 2010.

The numbers in Nielsen's report do not include the month of July, the first full month that the iPhone 4 was on sale. In that sense, the report does not account for any sales spike from the new device's release, nor any subsequent effect on iPhone sales from the widely publicized problems with the device's antenna.

While Apple is the sole iPhone manufacturer, Google's Android operating system runs on dozens of phones from many device makers, including Motorola, HTC Corp., LG Electronics and Samsung. Google has said more than 160,000 Android devices were activated every day during the second quarter, nearly three times the 65,000 activated daily during the first quarter.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

-- David Sarno

At a time when automakers are stuffing new cars with interactive technology that integrates better with smart phones, iPods and other devices, more teen drivers are playing with these gadgets while driving.

Most teens engage in distracted driving even though almost all are aware that it’s dangerous, according to a survey of nearly 2,000 male and female teen drivers ages 16 to 19 conducted in May by the American Automobile Assn. and Seventeen magazine.

Almost nine in 10 teenage drivers (86%) have driven while distracted, even though 84% say they know they shouldn’t, the survey found.  More than one-third of the respondents said they nearly crashed because of their own or someone else's distracted driving.

The survey found that teens who text while driving sent an average of 23 text messages while driving monthly.

“A quarter of all teens admit to texting behind the wheel. Teen drivers are some of the most vulnerable drivers on the road due to inexperience, and adding cellphones to the mix only compounds the dangers. We’re doing everything possible to get the message out to teens that driving while talking or texting on a cellphone is not worth the risk.” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Distracted driving is a growing problem on America’s roads, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Nearly 6,000 people were killed and more than half a million were injured in crashes involving distracted driving in 2008, according the agency, which is a division of the federal Department of Transportation.


The highest proportion of distracted drivers in fatal crashes were younger than 20. 


Distracted drivers are about four times as likely to be involved in crashes as those who are focused exclusively on driving, NHTSA said. Drivers who are texting can be more than 20 times more likely to crash than non-distracted drivers.

"Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for teen drivers and the proliferation of distracted driving among teens is a challenge all of us must face head-on," said Beth Mosher, director of public affairs for AAA. "Because of their lack of driving experience and penchant to take risks, it's imperative that teen drivers – like all drivers – remain focused behind the wheel at all times. "

The Department of Transportation, Seventeen magazine and AAA are trying to convince teens to change their habits by launching contest that will run from Monday until Sept. 10 to raise awareness among young people about the dangers of talking and texting while driving. The contest challenges teens to develop a catchy, creative anti-distracted driving video to promote safe driving that they can upload and share with other teens.

The best video will win a $2,000 prize and be featured on Seventeen.com, AAAExchange.com, Distraction.gov and at the Department of Transportation's Distracted Driving Summit on Sept. 21.

More information about the contest can be found here: seventeen.com/twosecond.

-- Jerry Hirsch
twitter.com/latimesjerry

Counting on an eager -- and large -- fan base for the Chevrolet Volt, General Motors Co. announced Friday that it planned to boost U.S. production of the electric car by 50%.

As President Obama toured the company’s plant in Hamtramck, Mich., GM said it planned to increase Volt production from 30,000 units to 45,000 in 2012.

The long-awaited vehicle will be released in seven states -- up from three -- in December and will cost $41,000 before tax credits, the company said this week.

Nissan, meanwhile, announced its rollout schedule for its own electric car, the $32,780 Leaf. The vehicle will be available in December in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee. Customers there, who make up more then 55% of the reservations so far for the Leaf, can start placing firm orders in August.

The car will show up in Texas and Hawaii in January. In April, customers in North Carolina; Florida; Georgia; Washington, D.C.; Virginia; Maryland; South Carolina; and Alabama can start buying. The rest of the nation will have to wait until fall 2011.

-- Tiffany Hsu

If ever there was an app made for the iPhone, DailyBooth is it.

The Internet service, embraced by Ashton Kutcher and wife Demi Moore, asks everyone to take and upload a photo of themselves every day.

Now DailyBooth has made that even easier with its first iPhone app. DailyBoothApp has been approved by Apple and is available for free download in the app store.

As we pointed out in our profile of the company earlier this month, DailyBooth was practically made for the iPhone 4 (and any other phone with a front-facing camera).

The iPhone app should give DailyBooth yet another boost. It makes it easy to upload photos to the service, see a stream of pictures from the people you follow on it and make comments with one click.

"Before the conversation would stop when you'd leave your computer since there was no way to do mobile picture comments," DailyBooth's chief executive Brian Pokorny said. "With the new app, that is all changed so people can carry on during the entire day snapping pictures back and forth with one another."

Snap!

-- Jessica Guynn

Photo courtesy of DailyBooth.com