Hey everybody,

eBuddy is nominated for “The Europas” - TechCrunch Europe Awards 2009!

These tech innovation awards honour the best web & mobile companies and startups from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. To win these awards, we need help from YOU

So, show your support for eBuddy & vote for us in both categories:

• - Vote eBuddy for Best Web Application
• - Vote eBuddy for Best Mobile Application

The winners will be announced at the Techcrunch Europe Awards Ceremony in London on Thursday, July 9th. The voting has already started and closes on Wednesday July 2 this week. Please vote now!

Thanks!

Posted in eBuddy 15 Comments »

Since we introduced eBuddy IM in the Android Market a little more than a month ago, we’ve been steadily bringing out updates to make your chat experience on Android even better. We got a lot of valuable feedback from you, which really helps us to improve eBuddy. Keep it coming !

Right now we’re at the fourth version: eBuddy IM 1.0.4 – a good time to tell you about the improvements we’ve made so far.

Improvements in eBuddy IM for Android 1.0.4:

• - Always connected: if your Internet connection is lost, eBuddy IM will keep on trying to reconnect. Also when eBuddy runs in the background.
• - Notifications in the status bar: when eBuddy is running in the background and you receive a new message (or if something unexpected happens), a notification is shown in the status bar.
• - Blocked buddies will not show up as online anymore

Lately we’ve had some problems with Facebook chat, and not everything is working perfectly yet, but of course we will keep on improving the application and adding new features. So keep an eye on eBuddy IM in the Android Market!

Ivar

P.S. Haven’t got eBuddy IM on your Android phone yet (e.g. the T-Mobile G1 or Vodafone Magic)? Find us in the Android Market or directly with your barcode scanner:

Posted in eBuddy 17 Comments »

It’s not everyday that you win an award, but that’s exactly what happened to me last week

As one of the founders of eBuddy, I was awarded the prize of Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2009 in Portugal, my home country. All candidates had to live abroad like me, living in The Netherlands.

OK, maybe Entrepreneurship is not my real thing, but when it comes to Innovation I might have a few words to say about it.  Being the original creator of this service, I like to think that I - one way or another - help steer the company towards a direction that I believe is the right one when it comes to technology, and that I inspired others to bring out their own innovative spirit from within.

Personally, it was an honor to be recognized in such manner, specially because the award was handed by Mr. President Himself, but most of all it’s important for the company. Every award we win makes us stronger, gives us that additional strength to go the extra mile, innovate and build things in our own style that makes us different from everyone else.

Having said that, no award would have been possible without the help of my fellow partners in crime, the amazing teams we work with and of course the millions of users that use eBuddy every day.

For all of you… thank you!

Paulo

Posted in eBuddy 14 Comments »

Update June 26th:  Over the last week, our stats for Facebook Chat have gradually improved and the majority of our users can login & chat again. If you still have issues, we have not forgotten about you and we are doing all we can to find a structural solution

Update June 18th: We have fixed the issues for a big part of our users. You will see Facebook Chat gradually get better.

Update June 17th: Since 4 AM (European Time) this morning we are experiencing severe Facebook issues. We are working on an update, it should all work fine soon.

Facebook Chat on eBuddy has just been updated. Everyone using Facebook Chat on eBuddy probably noticed it wasn’t working very well lately. You either could not login at all or you were disconnected a short while after you logged in. Sometimes sending or receiving messages even caused problems.

Now time for the good news! This weekend we have made some big changes and Facebook should be a lot better now! Try it for yourself and login to Facebook Chat via our homepage, add it to your eBuddy ID or use it on your mobile phone!

Let us know if you still experience problems, by commenting on this post or sending feedback@ebuddy.com. Thanks for your patience while we were fixing these issues.

By the way, did you know you can become a fan of eBuddy on Facebook?

Happy chatting on Facebook!

Posted in eBuddy 94 Comments »

Hey there,

Over the past years, the eBuddy website has evolved together with all our messengers. If you are a long time eBuddy user, you might recognize these

The current eBuddy website has already been around for 3 years and we think it’s time for some change. And who better to ask for fresh ideas than YOU … our loyal users that see and use our website every day.

We’d love to hear about what you think & get some ideas for improvement.

Tell us what you think of our website here

Your time & input is greatly appreciated

Thanks,

Yi-Ling

Posted in Feedback, eBuddy History, Instant Messaging 19 Comments »

This is a big one… we’re officially announcing a partnership with one of the larger electronics companies in the world:
LG Electronics.

Our already immensely popular eBuddy Mobile Messenger, surpassing a whopping 20 million downloads last week, will be pre-installed on at least 1.5 million handsets in the Asia-Pacific area. To be more specific, that’s India, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia,Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia.

No downloading, no installation, just start up the phone and you get instant access to eBuddy on any of these phones:

These are the LG Cookie (LG-KP500), LG Arena (LG-KM900), the LG-KS360 and the LG Renoir (LG-KC910i).

So we’re not starting with one, not with two, but with four phones.
And this is just a start, more phones will be announced soon.

If you’re in the Asia Pacific area: check out any of these phones, coming to a shop near you soon!

Cheers,

JJ

Posted in News, eBuddy History, Updates & Releases, Mobile Messaging, Instant Messaging 16 Comments »

We’re really excited to announce the latest addition to the eBuddy family: eBuddy for Android!

Android is software for mobile devices, initially developed by Google. Android-powered phones, such as the T-Mobile G1 or HTC Magic, provide easy access to Google applications including Maps, Gmail, YouTube, and Calendar, plus real Web browsing capabilities. Android-powered phones also provide one touch access to Android Market, the place to discover and download a variety of fun applications.

And now, if you’re the proud owner of an Android-powered phone, you can find eBuddy for Android in the Android Market too. The familiar eBuddy quality and features you know, now also available on Android.

Here are some unique features of eBuddy for Android:

• - eBuddy ID – one login for MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, and ICQ
• - Free, fast, reliable IM experience
• - Stay online when you get a call
• - New message alerts in the Android status bar
• - Switch easily between chats
• - Support for emoticons, sound, vibration, and buzzers
• - Automatic reconnect
• - Receive offline messages

Curious to see what it looks like? Take a look at these screenshots:

Pretty cool, huh?

We hope you like eBuddy for Android as much as we do. eBuddy for Android is now available as a phone download via Android Market.

Enjoy messaging everyone, everywhere with eBuddy for Android!

- Ivar

Update May 15: Version 1.0.1 of the app has just been released in the Android Market, with some connection handling, blocked buddies and login improvements. Enjoy!

Posted in eBuddy 49 Comments »

Webcam Chat has finally arrived! Your requests during the past months haven’t gone unnoticed: we’ve now built webcam into eBuddy Web Messenger!

We are thrilled to announce that we now support webcam chat conversations. eBuddy has partnered with TokBox, the super simple Web service for video chat and video email. Now you can have a webcam chat with all your friends to see what they are up to or what that new haircut really looks like.

How to start a webcam chat

It’s extremely easy to get started:
Simply open a chat, click the webcam button and you are ready to go! It doesn’t matter if your friends are on eBuddy, MSN, Yahoo! or Facebook; you will always be able to start a webcam session with them. All you need is a webcam!

We have just enabled webcam on all our servers, so you should see the webcam button every time you log in! Do let us know what you think after using it, that helps us making it even better in the future. When you need help setting up or using webcam chat, take a look at this page.

See you later!

Vincent

Posted in News, Instant Messaging, Web2.0 71 Comments »

Hi everyone,

Over 1,300 users participated in our survey about social networks. In that survey, 70% of you indicated that you want to be fan & friend of eBuddy on social networks. Well, you can!

Connect with eBuddy & we’ll keep you posted about new stuff:

•  Become Fan of eBuddy on Facebook
•  Follow eBuddy on Twitter
•  Become Member of the eBuddy Hyve

More results from the survey:

- 80% of you use social networks

- Facebook is the most popular social network, followed by MySpace and Bebo

- Most of you go to social networks to chat with friends and check photos & messages

- Most of your friends on social networks are also in your buddy list

Interesting … then you might want to try Facebook chat on eBuddy. This allows you to have your Facebook friends together with your IM buddies in one buddy list and have all chats conveniently in one screen.

Thanks for participating & happy chatting!

Yi-Ling

Posted in News, Culture, Entertainment, Web2.0 162 Comments »

Check out eBuddy on this billboard in Indonesia. Mobile operator AXIS is promoting eBuddy as a reason to use mobile internet.
eBuddy is quite popular in Indonesia: we have hundreds of thousands of Indonesians using eBuddy every day. Happy Chatting!

Posted in eBuddy 83 Comments »