Digital social networking permeates almost every aspect of our daily lives. From government to business to dating, social networking opens doors and greatly increases your sphere of influence. The apps in this section let you access your social network wherever you are to update your friends and colleagues about your activities with just a few finger taps. They make it easy to post to your personal blog, upload pictures and video, send out invitations, or let your customers know about a new sale offer. There are even apps that let you connect with people who speak Hawaiian, locate chess enthusiasts in your area, and find other special focus groups.
Best of the Best
Bump (Free, app2.me/148) You can share photos, contacts, calendar events, and more just by bumping phones together.
Echofon Pro ($4.99 app2.me/271) has all the twitter features you could ever need.
Facebook (Free, app2.me/260) With all the great apps out there, I still use Facebook more than the other apps combined.
Foursquare (Free, app2.me/160) You can see where your friends are, learn about the places they frequent, and unlock rewards as you travel through the city.
Skype (Free, app2.me/2378) Make and receive calls, and instant message anyone else on Skype, wherever they are in the world.
Texting/Instant Messaging
AIM ($2.99 Free ad supported version also available, app2.me/2887) lets you chat with your AIM and Facebook friends.
Animoticons + Emoji ($0.99, app2.me/2888) has all kinds of animated smileys, crazy emoticons, cute cuddly animals, and hundreds of other hilarious animations—like ninjas!
Textfree Unlimited (Free, app2.me/2335) gives you a phone number to send and receive texts from.
textPlus Ad-Free ($2.99 Free ad supported version also available, app2.me/2889) is a great text app with thousands of communities with people talking about pretty much everything.
Palringo Instant Messenger Premium ($4.99 Free ad supported version also available, app2.me/2890) lets you connect to all the popular instant messaging services. You can exchange text/photo/voice messages, update your status, and receive push notifications for messages while Palringo is not running.
VolP Apps
iCall Free VoIP (Free, app2.me/2850) Make and receive phone calls over 3G and Wi-Fi. Has free ad-supported USA & Canadian calling.
Fring (Free, app2.me/2329) lets you make free voice calls, free video calls, and have live IM chats directly from iPhone/iPod touch.
Skype (see "Best of the Best")
Twitter Apps
HootSuite for Twitter ($2.99, Free version available, app2.me/2926) is for users of Hootsuite desktop software. You can manage your daily tweets from the road.
Tweetdeck for iPhone (Free, app2.me/269) has a similar look and feel to the desktop version.
Twitterrific (Free app2.me/2409) Effortlessly read and compose tweets, search Twitter.com, filter message types, and much more.
Echofon Pro (see "Best of the Best")
