Dashwire opens public beta, threaded SMS and photo sharing included
I wrote about a very early version of Dashwire last fall and at that time you could sign up and hope that you were eventually selected for a beta invitation. Ford sent me some great news that anyone can now sign up for the beta of Dashwire for free. You will need a Windows Mobile device to use the service. And along with the opening of the beta, Dashwire is launching several new features, including photo sharing, instant status updates, threaded SMS, and phone-to-phone transfer.
The photo sharing functionality allows you to share your photos captured with your Windows Mobile device via SMS, e-mail, and social networking sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Bebo. This is similar to how Shozu works and I am glad to see it integrated into this service. You can also update your status on Facebook and Twitter right from the Dashwire.com site. Soon you will be able to do this with the Dashwire Mobile client, which is what I am looking forward to because I don't like having to go to multiple places to update my status and prefer to do it from one location. This Dashwire Mobile client looks like it will work similar to the upcoming Yahoo! oneConnect service in this respect.
Dashwire also improved their SMS module by providing threaded SMS views when you view and manage your text messages from your PC on the web interface. I like this since it will allow me to chat with family and friends via SMS rather than having to run an IM client on my PC (workplaces don't always like this). Photo viewing has been improved, along with performance enhancements and improved navigation (context specific hovering, etc).
You can get this latest mobile build by visiting http://m.dashwire.com in your mobile browser. Mobile client improvements include a progress bar, sync on/off for roaming, ability to select items that are synced, phone-to-phone transfer, and faster performance. I am a big fan of the phone-to-phone transfer since I switch mobile devices about as often as I change shirts.
If you want to know a bit more about what Dashwire is then I recommend you visit the tour page that has a couple of videos available. And you can also check out the full press release for all the details.