With all the buzz on Google+, most people haven’t heard about the release of Google’s latest product – a photo sharing app called Photovine. Although the product name and website doesn’t mention anything Google, rumors started about this mysterious Google project a few weeks back when the company file a trademark application for “Photovine”. It may be surprising to see Google not mention anything about it or release an app like this right after the launch of Google+ but I guess the reason behind this is because Photovine is a creation of Slide (acquired by Google last year) and not Google itself.

Well now that it has gone live, we know that Photovine is an social photo sharing app for smartphones. The Photovine iOS app is already available in the App Store but the service is currently in beta and requires an invitation to use it.

Official Photovine Video

Screenshot:

I’ve already downloaded the Photovine app into my iPhone but the invite hasn’t arrived yet so I haven’t tried the service. However, the Photovine FAQ does provide a hint of what kind of service or social app it will be and what makes it different from other photo sharing apps. “Vines” or tags that users add to images they post on Photovine will enable them to connect with users who share the same interest.

A vine is like a constantly growing family of photos connected through a common caption created by you, your friends, and people all over the world.

Some examples of vines could be: “What Weekends Are Made Of”, “Secret Stuffed Animal”, “Party People”, or, “Love of My Life”.

As people add photos to vines, they tell their own stories about the moments, images, and ideas that define our lives in a way that’s social, creative, and fun.

It will be interesting to see how Photovine will do in an already saturated market of photo sharing apps – Path, Instagram, etc.

If you want to try out this new photo sharing app, head on over to the Photovine website and request for an invite.

Anyone else heard or tried the Photovine photo sharing app? What social photo sharing app do you currently use? Would you consider using Photovine? Please share your thoughts.

Btw, I’ll be announcing the winners of the ThemeFuse premium WordPress themes giveaway tomorrow. I’m sure those who joined it are excited and all looking forward to it. For those who missed it, don’t worry because I’ll be having several more giveaways in the coming weeks.

Blogging

• 4 Ways to Keep Your Lifeless Blog from Boring Your Readers to Tears
• Why Your Self-Hosted Blog is More Valuable than Your Facebook Page
• What Bloggers Need to Know About Trademark Law
• Why You Should Use “You” and “I” In Your Posts

WordPress

• Cleaning Up Post Tags with WordPress Bulk Edit
• Tutorial: Using the WP_Filesystem
• Categories and Tags: What’s the Difference?
• Separating Frontend and Admin Code

SEO

• 8 Easy Wins for On-page SEO
• The SEO Panda Prescription: Think Like Google
• How to Start an SEO Business
• Confessions of a Content Farm Hand

Social Media

• Using Social Media to Go Green on Earth Day
• How to Make Social Media Sites Work for You?
• How Social Media is Changing the Traditional Marketing Mindset
• Social Media for SEO vs. Customer Engagement

Technology

• Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is Recording Your Moves
• FTP is 40 years old
• How the Social Tech Bubble Is Different
• Google Teaches Computers “Regret”

Gadgets

• Wacom iPad Stylus Unveiled
• Insect-inspired HECTOR Walking Robot
• NAB 2011-Fastec DSLR Sized High Speed Camera For 30K
• Toshiba’s 10.1-inch Regza AT300 Honeycomb

Pinoy Blogs

• The No Bullsh*t Speed Test of SMART’s LTE (Warning: Video is 25 minutes long)
• What You Should Know about NVIDIA’s Tegra 2
• What is HTC Sense? : 8 HTC Sense Features I Love on My HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z
• Save Your Videos from Google Video

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• WooThemes Happy Easter Promo
• Blog Updates 04.11
• JaypeeOnline Nokia Ovi App
• 2011 Summer WordCamps
• Yahoo! Buzz Shutting Down on April 21st
• WordPress for Android 1.4 Now Available

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or would want to share your article or any interesting story that you found in the Internet and have it featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

The front page of WeFollow features the popular tags or categories: celebrity, politics, actor, tech, music and news. You can view and check out other tags/categories using the Popular Tags section on the right side.

You can also view the Top 100 Tweeters on the WeFollow Twitter Directory.

To add your blog to the WeFollow Twitter Directory, all you need to do is send a tweet using the following format:

@wefollow #yourtag #yourtag #yourtag

As an example, I’ll use the tweet and tags I used for JaypeeOnline:

@wefollow #blogging #wordpress #reviews

Or if you’re already logged in to Twitter, just visit WeFollow.com and click on this button:

It will automatically create a tweet with the suggested format. All you need to do is replace the tags with your own tags or tags that you’d like your blog to be listed under. Maximum of 3 tags so you need to choose your tags wisely.

Its as easy as that. Once WeFollow receives your tweet, your blog will automatically be added to the directory. To check if your blog has alread been added, just do a search for one of the tags/category you used for your blog. Remember the list is based on the number of Twitter followers so users who have the most followers will be on top of the list.

I like WeFollow! It provides Twitter users like me a simple and easy way to find and track other Twitter users who belong to a specific niche/category. Its also a good way of finding other tweeters who belong to your niche to expand your network.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter which is another way of receiving updates on my latest posts aside from subscribing to my RSS feeds.

For those of you who are on Twitter, have you already heard or joined WeFollow? What tags/categories did you list your blog under?

[via Quick Online Tips]

Brand New and/or Improved Features:

• Native tagging support
• Update notification
• Canonical URLs
• Pending Review
• Advanced WYSIWYG
• Full Atom 1.0 support
• New jQuery
• Taxonomy system
• New method of doing SQL queries

Because of the plugin compatibility issue, I’ll be waiting a while before I jump in and upgrade my WordPress installation. Also, there are a few plugins I heavily use that will be updated soon by the author and I want to make sure all my plugins work when I do the upgrade. I know I’ll be spending a lot of my time doing research on the plugins and other issues involving tags. I wish I did it earlier like my friend Jhay who installed WP 2.3 RC 1 on one of his blogs.

For those who are intimidated or afraid of doing the upgrade, you don’t have to be. Just make sure you backup all your files especially your database. Then check if the plugins you’re currently using are compatible to WP 2.3 and update them to the latest version if you need to. You can check the plugin compatibility list for the plugins that work or don’t work.

If you’re using a plugin that doesn’t work with 2.3, you can look for an alternative plugin. I’ve already downloaded several plugins that will replace some of the plugins that I use which don’t work with 2.3 (in case the author won’t update them) and downloaded some plugins that are designed just for WP 2.3. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask help from your friends, other bloggers who have done the upgrade, plugin authors or from bloggers who you think can help you.

One more thing. Make sure you download all your plugins and WordPress 2.3 only from reliable sources.

Have you upgraded to WordPress 2.3? Did you experience any issues or problems? What plugins did you have to uninstall or install for this new version? If not, what’s keeping you from doing the upgrade? Share your thoughts!

For those who don’t know what it is, WordPress Theme Generator is an online site that generates custom WordPress themes. It doesn’t require any HTML, PHP or CSS knowledge. All you have to do is visit the site, choose from the different layout options available to customize the theme design and layout. The theme you create is automatically displayed on the right side so you can preview the theme while you’re creating it. When you’ve come up with a design that you like, just click on “Save” and you’ll be able to download all the necessary files as one zip file.

Personally, I haven’t tried it but I believe it’s a good alternative for those who don’t have any background knowledge in HTML, PHP or CSS and would like to have a unique, customized WordPress theme of their own.