Hi guys,

I’m Gilad from fring’s Product team, and I am excited to be writing to you on our blog for the first time. I want to share with you some behind the scenes stuff going on here at the fring HQ.

As you know we released a new Android version (Feb 3rd) which included our new notifications bar and activity log.
Our thinking behind this was how to provide instant information about activities that go on in fring. We wanted to address everything from missed calls, incoming chats, through to new friends’ alerts, as well as reminding you that fring is up & running.
And indeed, with the version, we saw a huge jump in people using fring daily. So that seemed to be working well.

However, just after the launch our Android development team leader, Guy, saw your comments about the permanent fring-is-running icon.
Your comments ranged from:

To:

So we sat down to re-think this, and think about what is more important – a constant reminder that fring is up & running, or letting fring run in a less visible way? Our solution – do both!

We decided to remove the fring-is-running icon by default from the notification bar, but this can be easily changed to see it in the application’s settings if you want to.
Thus – giving you the option to select which option works best for you, while still improving fring’s visibility.

We hope you like our new version – feel free to comment some more and help us make an even better fring for you.

Cheers,

Gilad

We’re very excited about AT&T’s announcement today (confirmed by Apple) that its 3G wireless network will be open to third-party Internet voice applications on iPhone.

Until now fring users could only use fring on their iPhone over Wi-Fi, so this comes as great news for us and our iPhone fringsters.

fring’s dev team is hard at work, making sure we will be ready to go once 3G iPhone gates are open . We will be live before you can even say “fring for iPhone over 3G on its way!” with the new feature-packed version we released just today… but also over 3G!

fringTEAM

Yesterday we heard a shout… not a scary one, it was a shout of joy.

A little background:

When you work at a startup you face challenges on a daily basis, you step into places that no one has ever been before, you explore new areas, you invent new things, you try to think out of the box, and then you have more challenges and technological barriers to cross.

When you work at a startup you hear a shout once in a while… when you hear the shout of joy you know that another major barrier has been crossed.

Since the launching of fring we heard a few (well remembered) shouts at the office. We had the famous “We have VoIP on Symbian 8″ one and then I remember the one with the iPhone as well (I’m talking months before the SDK was out)

So yesterday we heard another one… it was amazing to see that it actually works, it made us all jump of joy.

What was it all about!? oh, that I can not tell… we still have a long way to go there but I can tell you it’s worth the wait.

It looks like the winter months are going to be hot @ the fring HQ. Stay tuned…

[Picture by Kaptain Kobold]

Yes, the title looks a bit strange to you… we know. If you’re reading this you already know what fring is and you know the benefits of being able to use the services you love , while on the go. But what about your friends who don’t know what fring is? Don’t you wish you had a short video explaining exactly what fring is?

So here it is - fring in plain English.

Feel free to tweet, retweet, forward, email, fax, send by snail mail (you get the point) - let your friends know about fring because good things are meant to be shared, don’t be shy.

Hi There,

We went Karting two days ago and came back with a few pictures and this video.

As you can see, it looks like we know how to drive those little cars.

Hi Guys,

Some of you asked for the S60 theme we used on the Nokia 5800 post, so we thought we have just uploaded it to the fun page.

The theme was designed by our talented graphic designer Rita Gerchikov, it should work on any Nokia S60 handset.

Click here to download.

Enjoy.

fringsters, the time has come for you to decide who deserves the title Rookie of the Year for 2008. fring has been nominated in this category and we now need your vote. Rookie!?

As the NWA website summarizes the essence of this unique award: “We know that there are tons of awards out there, but we try to change the rules and distinguish ourselves by NOT building up a database (we don’t want your info, so no registration needed), by NOT nominating every company out there, by NOT having 100 categories and by NOT considering all votes equal (you can empower your vote -1 vote counts for 2- if you vote in all categories).”

This award is a collaboration of The Next Web Blog, TechCrunch UK, TechCrunch France, Loogic, and Frankwatching; winners will be announced in Amsterdam, as part of The Next Web Conference.

No one else decides who wins this thing but You! fringsters, it’s time to cast your vote for your favorite mobile application out there.

Voting ends April 4th, 2008. Vote today ’cause it’s fringin’ freedom!

Bad news for fringsters in Middle East and South Asia.

Severe internet outages in the Middle East and South Asia where reported on Wednesday after two submarine cables in the Mediterranean where damaged. The effected cables Flag and Seamewe 4 will reportedly take some time to be repaired, and services are currently being routed through an emergency cable. There is however not enough bandwidth available on the cable for everyone and users are being asked to stop downloading large files like video’s until the cables are repaired, to allow businesses to continue trading. [AP]
The countries mostly affected by the outage are Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Qatar and Bahrain.

According to sources more than 70% of internet users are affected. [MyBroadband]

Update: A third submarine cable has also now been damaged. According to the BBC the Falcon cable owned by Flag Telecom has now also been cut. The cause of the damage is not yet known. It is hoped that the service will be operational within a week, repair ships have been deployed and will start fixing the cables within the week. Countries affected by the latest cable break include: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, India.

Dear Bill,

If you’re still looking for a job… we have a few open positions that might suite your needs and experience