SoleSearch is a new iPhone and iPod touch app geared towards helping travel-prone sneaker aficionados hone in on hundreds of independent sneaker boutiques in U.S. cities and locations across the globe.  Pangaea Subsidiaries—a multi-faceted company with several endeavors in fashion, music, art, and philanthropy—released the application recently.

Black Digerati discussed SoleSearch with Pangaea CEO and Black Digerati Brandon Williamson, who also owns All City Kicks, a sneaker boutique in his hometown Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“SoleSearch is really for the individual who travels and sees parts of the world.” he said. “It’s been received pretty well. Anyone who’s purchased it, they love it.”

Williamson explained the new app via YouTube:

SoleSearch’s most useful feature is a directory with listings on local shoe shops as well as boutiques in Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. Chicago State University student and iPhone user Jonathan James is a fan of the app:

“There’s nothing like it,” said James.” Sneaker heads like myself, they have to feel the same—excited.”

One of the app’s impressive features is an interactive “Add a Store” option meant to continually expand the store database.  “Any store we missed, we give the user the ability to let us know,” Williamson explained.  Pangaea has plans to make SoleSearch more “user-active” in the future with updates allowing users to view and post reviews on boutiques.  “We want to make it more of a forum within an app,” Williamson said. “This allows the app to continue to grow.”  Williamson ended the interview with words of encouragement for young tech-minded African Americans.  “If you’re an individual who has an idea, you have to at least see it through to see what you can make of it,” he said. “Today’s idea can be tomorrow’s million-dollar check.”

You can view a video demo of the app over on Black Digerati or you can purchase the SoleSearch app for $0.99 at the appstore, keyword “solesearch.”

Follow SoleSearch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sole_search.

In this short video, Digital Sisters founder Shireen Mitchell is speaking on a panel about how to question designers on diversifying apps that can be valuable social software tools. In the video she gives an example of a question she posed to the developer of the ‘Are you safe?’ iPhone app. Check out the video below:

iphone app: Are You Safe? from digitalsista on Vimeo.

(via Black Digerati @BlackDigerati)

Mobile media company, Airborne Mobile is bringing FOX’s latest creation from Seth Macfarlane (Family Guy, American Dad) to cell phones all across North America.

Airborne will develop and distribute content from The Cleveland Show that will include; ringtones, ringbacks, graphics, and more. The partnership comes as no surprise as Airborne has helped make Family Guy ringtones some of the best selling mobile content in North America.

Andy Nulman, President and CMO of Airborne Mobile said, “The excitement for The Cleveland Show mobile products, even before the show’s debut, is staggering.” In fact, the anticipation is so high for The Cleveland Show that FOX has already picked up the series for a second season before airing the first episode.

The Cleveland Show premieres September 27th at 8:30 PM EST.

The holiday season is coming and tech companies are scrambling to get out their latest and greatest just in time for the holiday rush. Nokia, the largest smartphone maker, is attempting to claw its way to the heap of the pack with the N97 mini, the newest edition to the N97 series. Described as the N97’s little brother, the 4.4 x2 x0.5 inch device is only slighter smaller than the original.

Aside from the redesign, the mini comes with some solid features including a 3.2-inch touchscreen display with 16:9 widescreen and 640 x 360p resolution. The phone also takes some decent still images thanks to the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss Tessar lens with autofocus and flash. It also captures video 640 x 480 pixels at up to 30 fps and supports RealVideo and Flash Lite 3.0.

But the real buzz behind this phone is the partnership between Nokia and Facebook. Thanks to the deal, the mini will be the first phone to feature Lifecasting with Ovi. The app is Facebook widget that allows users to update both their location and Facebook status from the homepage as well as upload photos, much to the delight to all you oversharers out there (you know who you are). Travel junkies will enjoy the premium access to Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities. Lonely Planet gives users 155,500 points of interest via Lonely Planet guides while Michelin and Wcities gives you the scoop on the best restaurants. To further personalize the homepage experience, app addicts can check out the Ovi store to keep things interesting.

The mini comes with a music player with a built-in equalizer to get your music just right and has approximately 28 hours of music playback time. Talk time weighs in at a respectable 7.1 hours and 3.5 hours for video playback. There is 8GB of internal storage but it can be expanded up 24GB with a 16GB microSD card.

While it’s not the mythical iPhone killer that Apple’s rival companies yearn for like the One Ring, it is a solid competitor in the smartphone market that makes it a worthwhile purchase.

The Ghanaian government recently pledged to license no new mobile operators. With six operators in Ghana, the market is already crowded. The government says the decision is to preserve the integrity of the market, and encourages all operators not already doing so, to begin printed scratch-off airtime cards in Ghana.

The announcement may be related to Vice President’s recent courier to the National Communications Authority (NCA), requesting that the regulatory body apply sections to operators that have failed to honor their license and meet minimum quality services standards. As users increase, network quality in Ghana has markedly diminished. Common complaints include poor call quality, dropped calls, inadequate coverage, and network congestion.

The Vice President also recommended that mobile users walk with their cedis, that is, migrate from lower performing networks to higher performing networks. Unfortunately, because users can’t keep their old numbers when transferring networks, this won’t happen anytime soon. As the market won’t solve the problem, the government is looking towards the NCA to solve the problem and apply sanctions to under-performing networks.

This is article is syndicated from Appfrica.org. Appfrica.org facilitates, mentors and incubates entrepreneurs in software in East Africa and Uganda. Their goal is to offer a physical space with a solid internet connection, servers, software and computers that will allow students and recent graduates a place to develop their ideas in a constructive environment with industry professionals outside of school. For more great articles from Appfrica please visit Appfrica.net.

Okay so last week, I discussed some of the ostentatiously awesome gadgets some of our favorite celebrities are rocking and believe it or not, there are still more blinged out tech trinkets to be found out there. So I had to pay the subject a visit at least one more time. Last article, I did some celebrity name dropping in regards to Robin Leech-worthy gadgets. But just like technology, the next week promises to roll out something bigger and better making your shiny-new device suddenly obsolete.

Case in point: Remember Chris Brown’s gold-plated Macbook Pro? Well Computer Choppers has gone and upped the ante with their 24″ platinum-plated iMac complete with platinum coated keyboard and mouse. Or maybe he might want to jump ship to a PC if he catches a glimpse at what luxury PC maker Gaiser has cooking. And we know super producer Pharrell has a golden iPhone, but if it ain’t the latest, it ain’t the greatest. He might want to hit up Sayn Design for their limited edition gold-plated iPhone 3G with diamond accents.

But celebrity tech bling is more than jewel-encrusted gizmos and devices covered in precious metals. Sometimes all that copious celebrity dough can go towards purchasing something of the highest quality. Take speakers for example. When purchasing a new sound system the “you get what you pay for” axiom are words to live by. So with that in mind the Consequence Ulitmate Edition speakers by Dynaudio must be a top of the line affair at $70,000. But if you need a true million dollar sound, look no further than Transmission Audio’s ULTIMATE sound system. Chocked with face-melting audio technology, these speakers will set you back an unbelievable $1,000,000 PER SPEAKER.

So as our tech gets stronger, faster, and, better ala the Six Million Dollar Man, our money will have to do some serious calisthenics to keep up and celebrities will have to work overtime to make sure they don’t go broke trying to keep up with the Joneses, making it rain on this tech.

Brandon Lucas, the former executive director for business development at MySpace, has been hired as the new vice president and general manager of Black Entertainment Television (BET) Mobile.  Lucas reports directly to Denmark West, president of BET Digital Media, and is based in Los Angeles.As the head of BET Mobile, Lucas is responsible for driving the wireless business, strategy and partnerships for BET Networks. He will oversee the expansion and development of the BET Mobile division, and will also lead the creation of new business opportunities by leveraging BET Networks’ assets on the mobile platform.

“We are very happy to have Brandon lead BET Mobile. He is an industry veteran whose entrepreneurial spirit, vision and deal-making will be an invaluable asset to our company,” said West. “Our audience is made up of so many active and engaged mobile users. Brandon’s appointment reflects our commitment to making the BET brand and content accessible on any screen anytime, anywhere.”

The Harvard University graduate brings years of experience to the new position. During his first two years at MySpace, Lucas built partnerships with top U.S. wireless carriers, device manufacturers, SMS aggregators and ad networks, including Apple, Research In Motion, Microsoft, Nokia, AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

Last week I rebutted an article from the New York Times about the developing world being a collective boost to Web 2.0 application user numbers, but a bane in the sense that they have a hard time monetizing that international traffic. As I wrote that post, I had one of the projects we were working on in the labs in mind but it wasn’t quite ready to spill the beans just then. Today I am. Felix Kitaka’s Status.ug is the app we’re going live with today. You may remember Felix as the innovator behind Answerbird.com which launched earlier this week.

Status.ug is a completely mobile gateway for Ugandans to interact with their Facebook accounts. With around 60,000 Facebook users in the Kampala area, it seems absurd that no one locally has tried to engage the traffic with a local service. Especially since bandwidth in Uganda is currently so expensive and spotty. There’s already a few people working on local mobile services (check out Baraza or Sembuse for instance) but such services are both expensive to run and difficult to scale, so we decided we’d just make it easier for Ugandans to engage with the one they’re already most familiar with. As more local services come into existence, we’ll support them as well.

Back in November when I organized the Facebook Garage with Leila Chirayath and Charlie Cheever, one of the things that stood out in my mind was Charlie’s exasperation at the number of people using Facebook unprompted around the local University (good for Facebook, bad for their professors, lol). It was encouraging for a senior engineer at Facebook to see the same potential I did. In a lot of offices here (as is the case around the world) Facebook IS the proverbial water cooler. I don’t know what the fb user experience is like in other parts of Africa but there’s a certain segment of the population here (mainly in the 18 to 30, employed and educated demographic) that can spend hours on this one social network that has no local server peers (that I know of). I’m sure if I added up all the minutes I’ve spent waiting on my Facebook page to load in the past 8 months I’d have a whole day to actually do something productive. =)

From a monetization standpoint, several local brands immediately saw the value in targeting a specifically local market. For them it’s a new frontier and I’m excited to explore the possibilities with them. They have advertising dollars to spend and the sheer costs of Internet here qualify the users of apps like S2S for many of their ad campaigns. We’re looking forward to showing some of these international Web 2.0 services how you capitalize on a market like our own. A tip to my big Web 2.0 startup friends back around the globe; the local portal isn’t your enemy, it’s your best ally. Hopefully developers all over the continent and elsewhere recognize this and instead of waiting for Rupert Murdoch to hand down ‘MySpace Light’, do something proactive for their own markets.

Thankfully, Facebook is playing nice with their API these days, allowing us to offer local services that ultimately add value all around (less bandwidth wasted from Facebook’s perspective, more engaged users and less down time from the local perspective). Status.ug and S2S (SMS to Stream) is another example of the awesome ideas Felix Kitaka is working on at Appfrica Labs.

To use S2S, users simply sign up for the application at Status.ug. When prompted, enter your mobile number and you’re all set! Program the Status.ug phone number into your mobile phone (to get the number, sign up for the app at facebook). Whenever you send a message to the service preceeded by the word ’status’ you’ll update the whole world! Status.ug can technically be used from anywhere but we strongly discourage it, as it was designed for the local market in Uganda and right now that’s all we can support. Felix’s plans for Status.ug, include giving people complete access to all the non-graphic intensive aspects of their social network profiles (adding friends, search, info and inbox headers). He’s also got plans to add utility for the other social networks and media publishers popular here.

Facebook users can sign up for Status.ug at http://apps.facebook.com/status_ugtek/

Felix Kitaka, Developer at Appfrica Labs

Disclosure: Status.ug and S2S are projects that Appfrica Labs is funding as part of our incubator. Appfrica holds an equity stake in the properties it incubates and launches

This is article is syndicated from Appfrica.org. Appfrica.org facilitates, mentors and incubates entrepreneurs in software in East Africa and Uganda. Their goal is to offer a physical space with a solid internet connection, servers, software and computers that will allow students and recent graduates a place to develop their ideas in a constructive environment with industry professionals outside of school. For more great articles from Appfrica please visit Appfrica.net.

Back in January we covered Atlanta based Salient Mobility’s product EcoTextSmart.  Simply said it allows publishers to set-up text based campaigns such as Text2Win, Text2Vote, and even appointment based reminders via Text.

Yesterday the company announced the release of its Ad-based version of EcoTextSmart. The new Ad-based version is offered to business account users as Publishers, and at no cost.  Yes you heard correctly…for FREE.  It also doesn’t hurt that the system is approved by major wireless carriers i.e. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, SPRINT, Alltel, Boost, and Virgin Mobile.

“Salient Mobility is one of the first application providers to offer a free full featured SMS text message application with nationwide reach to its users. The intent is to eventually monetize our vast database of SMS publishers through advertising.”

“A big differentiator for us today is our ability to deliver cutting-edge mobile data solutions quickly and efficiently, we deliver relevant and innovative content to consumers through the rich user experience of Business Text Messaging, powered by the EcoTextSmart(TM) Platform,” said Steven Collins, Managing Member Salient Mobility LLC.

By offering the service free, Publishers will more readily, and easily “opt in” to setup mobile campaigns for users to place votes, receive coupons, gather store locations nearest them or find new ways to integrate product/service into their lives. There is no end to the options that Publishers can provide and is only limited by their own creativity and vision of “what’s possible”.

Publishers are provided 125 characters of space to launch either campaign, with the remaining 35 characters being utilized by EcoTextSmart(TM) and advertisers. Advertisers have the ability to select from, and send mobile ad message phrases to handsets throughout the U.S. at ad levels of 50K to over 500K.

(via BlackNews)