We’re big fans of the iPhone and all of its handy features for work and play, especially all of the cool apps at our fingertips. Here’s a list of our favorite iPhone apps at the moment. 

Aaron’s Picks
Lightsaber - The first app I ever downloaded. Made the iPhone worth every penny right out of the gates.
Epicurious - Awesome and quick way to find great recipes. It makes the iPhone the perfect kitchen computer.

Kendra’s Picks
Photoshop Mobile - I take lots of photos with my phone, and I love fixing them before ever uploading them to my computer.
Bab Bab Lite - This is an electronic "rattle" that has fun noises and graphics when you shake it; my baby loves it.

Jeremy’s Picks
ESPN Score Center - I love being able to track all scores, professional and college, in real-time regardless of where I am. I can mark my favorite teams, leagues and sports to follow, so only the relevant content is right at my fingertips.
Benjamin Moore Color Capture - This app allows you to use the camera on your iPhone to take a photo, then touch any part of that photo to get matching Benjamin Moore paint colors! It’s addicting and may lead you to paint and re-paint every room of your house three times a year.

Monika’s Picks
Shopper - This is my absolute favorite (yet extremely practical) app. It’s essentially a shopping list where I can make a list for each store that I shop at, then categorize the items on the list. I always forget my written lists, but I rarely forget my phone, so my lists are always with me.
Screen Cleaner - This is my other favorite app. It has different types of dogs that “lick” your screen clean. Always makes me smile.

Arden’s Picks
Kayak - Lately I’ve been researching lots of flights and this makes it super easy to find a good deal. With this free app, I don’t even have to open my laptop to do a quick search. It’s all about convenience.
Sheep Launcher - Totally silly. The goal of the game is to launch a sheep into different levels of the atmosphere. I downloaded it for research, and Jessica and I enjoyed a challenging afternoon of sheep launching at the office that day!

A few months ago, I wrote about Twitter and how surprised I was at how much I use it. Now the craziest thing has happened. Not only do I Twitter more, but I find myself using Facebook less. Why? I had to do some soul searching. After all, just about everyone I know is on Facebook, and most of the people I follow on Twitter are strangers. I realized when it comes right down to it, the people I follow on Twitter try harder.

It came to me when I was talking to someone on the Wright Strategies team. He mentioned not logging into Twitter lately, so he didn’t know what good parking spaces anyone had gotten lately. I responded that it’s actually Facebook where people report their proverbial parking space dilemmas.

On Twitter, there is no reciprocal “friendship” relationship, so you can follow or be followed by people other than your friends. This makes people try harder to be entertaining and informative. People I don’t know write about things I am interested in – travel, cooking, Austin, etc. Some people on Facebook I haven’t talked to in 20 years write about getting the sniffles.

This brings me to another point about why I don’t use Facebook more. I use both Twitter and Facebook almost exclusively on my iPhone. While Facebook has an iPhone application, it doesn’t carry over my “hide” settings from the browser version. In my opinion, Facebook is missing out on one of the key best practices on the Internet – relevance.

Maybe I do care if someone I am in frequent contact with has the sniffles or is tired, but for someone from high school that I barely remember, this is Too Much Information! Shame on you, Facebook, for not respecting my desktop “hide” settings. I’ll be interested to see if I use Facebook more once this is fixed.

For now, I’ll continue my dates via iPhone with Twitter. Maybe I’ll even add to the conversation more often. But either way, I’ll enjoy the relevant and entertaining information I find there.

The year was 2008 (ages ago in Web years), and at SXSW Interactive conference, everyone was atwitter over Twitter. We really didn’t get it yet, but we somehow knew it would be big. (After all, SXSW was also the first time we ever heard of a blog, saw a Flip video camera, etc.) We just didn’t know how big it would be.

Our team implemented a three-day mandatory Twitter obsession. In those days, we didn’t know anyone else on Twitter, so we pretty much only followed each other. I remember there was a memorable exchange between two team members in the same hotel room tweeting back and forth about passing the remote control and other equally interesting topics for public consumption. Fast forward to 2009.

Even though I knew it was coming, I can’t believe how widespread it is. And I’ve found it has completely changed my iPhone usage over the last few months. I used to spend much of my time reading news on iGoogle (or playing Solitaire - curses to that time waster!), now I Twitter. I admit I don’t add often to the conversation, but I certainly enjoy reading it, usually when I’m up at 3 am.

Who do I follow?

• I get my news on Twitter. Every day, I see what’s in the Statesman (@statesman) before even removing the wrapper. I also follow CNN (@cnnbrk) and NPR for news (@nprnews).
• I follow several technical resources – my favorites are @mashable and @smashingmag.
• I follow funny people – the funniest is a CNN producer named Jack Gray (@jackgraycnn), but also @hotdogsladies, @dooce and others.
• I follow Ryan Seacrest (@ryanseacrest) and several American Idol participants(@mradamlambert, @redallisonblack, @krisallenmusic). Guilty pleasure defined. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I found out about several recent news stories from Seacrest.
• I follow people that have info about Austin - @austinchronicle, @lifeinaustin and @austin360.
• I follow several recipe bloggers, including @amateurgourmet and @smittenkitten.
• I even followed an astronaut who was recently sharing updates from space - fascinating (@astro_mike).

How do I follow them?

I almost exclusively participate on my iPhone, using either Twitterfon or Twitterific.

Why do I love Twitter?

Because it’s customized info exactly for me. Who else is interested in geek stuff, recipes, Idol and Austin? Twitter is akin to iGoogle, except in more digestible chunks. And for me, it’s done for my web surfing what Tivo did for my TV watching. I do much less channel surfing, but only record the exact things I want to watch. And I spend much less time web surfing, because enough of what I’m interested in comes to me via Twitter.

Why don’t I Twitter more?

It’s a question of target audience. My personal followers (@teambuilder99 – an obscure reference to a show on HBO – funny when I knew only 5 people on Twitter) wouldn’t be interested in all the geek stuff I watch. But my clients and other industry friends might not want to know every detail about my adorable son Hudson. You get the idea.

So today, I’m starting a new Twitter account, only for news related to the Internet. If you’re interested, please follow @clickbits.

I look forward to seeing you on Twitter!

Perhaps the most profound thing I overheard at this year’s SXSW Interactive festival didn’t come from a panelist, or an organized talk, but from Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America one morning while getting ready in my hotel room. I had just zipped up my laptop bag, checked the mirror one last time, and was about to turn off the tube when Diane began reading “tweets” that they were getting from viewers of the show’s current topic of discussion. I lowered the remote, and stared at the TV. Did she really just say “tweets?”

If you aren’t familiar, Twitter is a micro-blogging site that began as a place where users create a personal page, and continually answer the question: “What are you doing right now?”

Beyond its practical purpose as a site that allows your friends and/or Twitter followers to know what you’re up to at any given time, it has really become a place to engage in real-time dialogue with your followers. But it doesn’t stop there.

Groups of people are also connecting on topics, and providing thought and feedback to the entire Twitter community by marking posts with keywords. I would venture to guess that 99% of the SXSW Interactive audience uses Twitter, and during the conference, it was an incredible tool to keep an attentive ear leaned toward the conference as a whole, so that you never felt like you were missing out on something important.

I think its value as a tool to open a real-time running dialogue with a business’s customers is invaluable. Obviously, since Diane Sawyer is getting tweets on GMA and working responses into the programming! It’s probably safe to say that Twitter is going to become just as mainstream as email, and will give consumers and companies new avenues to interface.

If you’re interested in more information on Twitter, check out the ultimate guide for everything Twitter.

Social Networking Profiles: We saw a huge growth in social networking profiles at the professional level, companies, politicians, musicians, etc., realized the potential for connecting with the public in a new way.

Micro-Blogging: With sites like Twitter, people give updates throughout their day in short, palatable messages. They’re an easy way to stay in touch with or follow friends, colleagues and industry leaders.

Google Maps Integration: Tons of sites have integrated Google Maps technology with a branded look, including custom icons and detailed information.

Wider Sites: Now that more site visitors are using larger monitors with better screen resolution, sites are trending toward wider displays that use more of the available screen.

HTML Text Navigation: For SEO purposes, most large sites you come across are moving toward navigation where every word in the navigation is HTML-based, not graphical.

Check our blog for posts on the latest web trends as they develop during 2009.