As you already know from my previous posts about the service, I am a big fan of Strands. While the lifestreaming application lacks some of the features FriendFeed does, lacks the categories socialmedian offers, and has a relatively small user base, the site has attracted a very loyal number of users who have enjoyed sharing their updates from various social networks and engaging with the growing community on items, adding comments, and giving a quick thumbs up or down to the content from friends you are subscribed to.While other services have worked hard to deliver a mobile version of their site, Strands has become the first lifestreaming application to be added to the iTunes Store. This is a big achievement for them, considering the service is still considered "beta".
The Strands iPhone App Gets to the Lifestream Quickly
In my testing of the application, I found it to be very slick. Rather than a jerky afterthought, as many mobile sites are, the application was smooth. I was able to post a new item, just by hitting the "Share" button, and could click on any item to add a comment or, as with the standard Web site, add a thumbs up or thumbs down vote.
The iPhone app feels as an iPhone app should. Clean. Simple, even to the point of being too simple - at least for someone like me who wants to get a full picture of activity quickly. While the Strands iPhone app showed updates from friends on the site whom I follow, I quickly found myself at the bottom of the screen, looking for what do next. Where is page two, or a simple "Next" button that lets me go see the next page of updates? Hopefully that will be added in the next revision, or information junkies like me will starve.
I Can Add Comments and Posts from the iPhone App
Drew Olanoff, Community Manager and Evangelist for Strands, wrote in an e-mail that the company's beta testers say the new app "makes lifestreaming pretty darn addictive." Having the iPhone app will absolutely mean I'll be checking into Strands a lot more while on the go than before, and if I get nutty, I can even sync it up with my Twitter account, so you would see all my activity from the app. You can do that simply by adding your Twitter credentials on the iPhone app itself.
Want to find out what the growing Strands community is doing and get engaged? Check in and sign up by going to http://www.strands.com and using the promo: "strandsiphone".
You can find me at http://www.strands.com/louisgray of course.