Lift Off

Some of the products 20fourLabs has engineered have already seen lift off and are orbiting the interwebs, while some are patiently waiting on the launch pad for final tweaks and sign off.
Yet more products are still scribbles on a chalk board… but not for long.
Here we will keep you up to date with what we are concocting in the lab and what we have already created.
Let us know if you have any suggestions or comments

Launched

Flirtaroo Mobile

Flirtaroo.mobi is what labs refers to as a “monetisable social network”. It’s a freemium mobile flirting/dating service, which boasts a virtual currency, messaging, profiling, virtual gifts and many other features. It has locative functionality (quite crude at this stage) and basic wap chat. It already has a thriving membership. To check it out or join, point your phone to flirtaroo.mobi or SMS flirt to 32424

J2me application

Now you can read the latest news, sport, finance, motoring and entertainment stories on your Nokia, Samsung or Sony Ericsson phone! Access 24.com mobile services – E-mail, Weather, Astro, Lotto, TV Guide and submit your news photos directly to News24 via your handset. Download the app here

iPhone Application

iPhone users can access the latest news stories, financial headlines, sports updates, entertainment snippets and more with the News24 iPhone application. Packed with loads of features, the application loads stories quickly and has a slick user interface. Download the app from the App Store

Nokia N97 Application

The News24 application is the first South African widget built for Nokia devices, specifically the Nokia N97, downloadable from the Nokia Ovi Store
The widget is essentially a shortcut key which appears on the user’s homescreen updating them with real time content and opens the full application at the touch of a button. All Nokia N97 devices will have the News24 widget embedded on their homescreens from October 2009.

Visual Bookmarks

Visual bookmarks allow users to easily download a bookmark icon of their favourite section or page of 24.com’s mobile site directly onto their phones. Highly compatible across multiple devices and operating systems, these useful apps are simple to install and easy to use. We’ve launched about 35 of these, which have received more than 100,000 downloads.

Android Application

Android is fast becoming the mobile OS of choice and the News24 Android application brings the best of 24.com to your Android device. The app’s UI and customisable homescreen widget has already received rave reviews from early adopters of Android phones. Download the app from the Android Market or Leaf Open Market

iPhone niches

iPhone users now have the option to download individual 24.com branded apps to their phones. Get separate Channel24, Fin24, Sport24 and Wheels24 iPhone applications on your phone. The apps are designed so users can access the latest stories and images quickly and come with lots of extra features similar to the original News24 application.

Letterdash.com Community Blogs

We’ve done quite a bit of thinking about our blogs. We’ve been unhappy with them for some time, and this marks the beginning of a dramatic revamp. The new blogs look better, allow more personalisation, and allow bloggers to promote their sites virally. A key difference between other platforms and Letterdash is that it promotes blogging around specific communities and subjects. There are many more additions planned in the pipeline. See them at www.letterdash.com

20fourLabs.com blog

This site is our link to the community within which we work and play, listing industry related events and offering valuable information written by both internal staff members and external experts. We list the names of the people we would like to play with and we update our peers on what we are up to, hoping for constructive criticism and valuable advice. No team is an island after all:)

Chemistry - online industry network

Chemistry runs off Social Engine and began as an investigation into the Social Engine functionality. Today is it a small selective network of passionate online collaborators and networkers. Join it at http://chemistry.20fourlabs.com

Alchemy - sourcing ideas

Alchemy is currently a competition for 24.com staff only but will soon be opened in a different form to the public. As a brave and curious division we are eager to draw on the knowledge and ideas of our peers and users and are looking at ways to source this information in such a way that all parties benefit.

Works in Progress

Letterdash Phase2

The new Letterdash.com will put the ’social’ into blogging. We’ll introduce a more intuitive, consolidated dashboard with messaging and status update functionality. We’re adding a social network layer onto Letterdash for its various communities to use. We’re also introducing Letterdash mobile and a new feature we’re calling “blogger syncing”. More to be revealed when we launch.

Flirtaroo Web

We’re not completely satisfied with just a mobile site, so we’re launching a web version to ensure the site is completely cross platform. From a development point of view flirtaroo.com and flirtaroo.mobi are closely linked. We’re also adding video chat to the site – and taking it international. The site can be fully whitelabelled to allow us to launch multiple niches.

Taqdir

Taqdir is based on the Flirtaroo platform, being the first to pave the way for future white-label/niche products.
As a dating/matrimonial service we understand the motivations of people within a diverse community searching for a compatible partner.
It is both mobile and web based with free chat and added premium services, providing a safe, relaxing and enjoyable experience.

the Hub

The Hub will be a social network built around publishing sites. We’re launching it off 24.com first, but it’s an independent social network that can plug into any publishing site. It essentially formalises the natural networks that exist around most publishing sites, and also adds a level of sophistication and user interaction around the comments areas found below articles. If you want to find out more, sign up at http://www.thehub.co.za

Personal Homepage

One page for you to store all your feeds, widgets, tools and content to save your time and attention. Your page can be personalised and customised and will contain only the info you want to see. This will be the new 24.com.

24.mobi

24.mobi is a directory play. We want to aggregate the mobile web in order to be the first stop for South Africa’s mobile web surfers. 24.mobi will include all the best national and international mobile websites, services and social networks.

Air App

This is an application that brings News24 and a few other 24.com channels to your desktop in a easy-to-use lightweight application. It will also include news alerts. - It’s a project in collaboration with Blueworld

24.com Channel Sites

We’re revamping the 24.com mobile sites. You can look forward to a better looking site and a high degree of personalisation, allowing to see only the stuff you’re interested in. Visit m.news24.com on your wap enabled handset for more.

Niche Social Network maker

We’re crazy about social networks. We believe social networks are the web. Together with the young geniuses at Blue World, we’re busy building a social network builder that will allow users to create their own networks, no matter how large or how small. Look forward to this at the end of the year.

Mobiganic mobile CMS

This solution will enable the client to brand, manage and publish multiple mobile sites using an intuitive and flexible web interface.
The mobile sites created using this tool will include image and multimedia content as well as text based content .Using adMob the client will also have the functionality necessary to run and track advertising.
Mobiganic will be available to clients from the beginning of 2010