Software : Windows Phone Store boosted by 75,000 new apps in 2012

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• Windows Phone Store boosted by 75,000 new apps in 2012
• Roundup: How to automate your Twitter feed: 5 apps to try
• BBC iPlayer most 'buzzworthy' brand as UK tax row hits Amazon, Google

Windows Phone Store boosted by 75,000 new apps in 2012 Posted: Can we finally put to bed the old adage about Windows Phone not having enough apps? Microsoft thinks so after adding 75,000 new apps to its store in 2012. In a post on the Windows Phone developers' blog, the company said it had scrutinised and published enough apps to double the pre-existing catalogue during this calendar year. Microsoft said that it had also published 300,000 updates to existing apps, pointing out that Windows Phone users can now rely on having the latest, safest versions of the software faster than before. Microsoft revealed that, on average, Windows Phone customers are downloading 54 apps to their handsets, aided by the improved catalogue and new Windows Phone Store shopping experience. Live Tiles apps preferable "Over the last year we've made a lot of discovery enhancements including Bing-powered search and smart lists, as well as new collections and recommendations for Windows Phone 8 customers," wrote Todd Brix, senior director of the Windows Phone app team. Brix also mentioned that 85 per cent of Windows Phone users preferred applications with functioning Live Tiles, which bring information directly to the Start Screen, than those without. This, or course, would make perfect sense as the presence of Live Tiles is perhaps Windows Phone's most convincing selling point, especially with their new, customisable sizes in Windows Phone 8.

Roundup: How to automate your Twitter feed: 5 apps to try Posted: Twitter has taken the social media world by storm but, as anyone who's used it will know, it can be quite demanding. You need to use it regularly to get the most out of it otherwise your followers will lose interest. So what do you do if you're not always able to tweet, or if you want to keep your followers in other time zones happy whilst you're tucked up in bed? How can you be sure you're tweeting at the best time of day for maximum impact? The answer lies in a bit of automation. You don't want to completely automate your feed - much of the attraction of Twitter is interaction with others - but by applying it carefully you can keep your followers entertained and not have to worry about always being able to send tweets yourself. Here are our favourite five tools to help. 1. SocialOomph OK, let's start with the basic business of queuing up tweets so that they're sent at a specified time. SocialOomph allows you to type a 140-character tweet in the normal way. You can then choose when it's sent, either by setting a delay in minutes, hours, days or weeks, or specifying a particular date and time. A basic account is free and can handle multiple Twitter profiles should you have more than one online persona. Upgrade to a paid Professional account and you can access extra features like enabling automatic follow backs and automatic DMs to new followers – we don't recommend the latter as many people find it annoying. A Professional account also lets you schedule updates to other services including Facebook and LinkedIn. 2. Buffer One of the great things about Twitter is the ability to share things you find on the web – a particularly fascinating TechRadar feature, for example. But if you come across several interesting stories in the course of your surfing it's not good to send out a sudden flurry of tweets all at once. The answer to this problem is Buffer; it's available as a plug-in for Chrome, Firefox and Opera, as well as apps for Android and iPhone. When you find a webpage you want to share you simply click the Buffer button on your browser toolbar and you can compose a tweet to add to your Buffer feed. Login via the Buffer website and you can set a schedule of times during the day when your messages will be sent. The site also lets you access analytics information so you can see how many people have clicked your links. A free account gives you up to 10 updates a day; upgrade to the 'Awesome Plan' for US$10 per month and you get to send unlimited updates across up to 12 social profiles. 3. Twitterfeed If you have a blog you'll naturally want to update your Twitter followers whenever you make a new post. As long as your chosen blogging platform has an RSS feed then Twitterfeed can send updates automatically to Twitter. You can set the update frequency, how many posts to send at once, and apply a prefix or suffix to each entry. The service is free to use and can also update Facebook and LinkedIn. Setting it up is a simple three-step process: create an account, paste in the RSS feed URL, select the services you want to update and you're done. 4. HootSuite HootSuite is a jack-of-all-trades social media updater that can schedule updates to many services including Google+, MySpace and Wordpress, as well as the usual suspects. The free version restricts you to five social media profiles; upgrading to Pro for US$9.99 a month gives you unlimited profiles, more advanced scheduling and links to Google Analytics, among other things. Plug-ins are available for Chrome and other popular browsers or you can access HootSuite via the website. If you choose the latter option you get a TweetDeck-style column format showing your tweets, mentions, DMs and so on. You can import and manage your Twitter lists too. Use the box at the top left to compose a new tweet and you can choose to schedule it at a particular time or use the Auto Schedule feature which sends your message at the right time to achieve maximum impact. 5. Tweriod How do you know if your tweets are reaching the right people, or indeed if they're reaching anyone at all? Tweriod might help you find the answer. It analyses your account and produces a graph showing when your followers are online. It will also tell you the times of day when your tweets will get maximum exposure. The free version is fairly basic and only allows you one analysis per month. Premium accounts offer more detail with pricing based on your number of followers.

BBC iPlayer most 'buzzworthy' brand as UK tax row hits Amazon, Google Posted: The BBC iPlayer has finished top of an annual poll, which monitors the buzz generated by brands and companies in the UK. The YouGov BrandIndex poll surveys 2,000 people on whether they've heard positive and negative stories about the companies in question. The iPlayer, which enjoyed another year of record viewership, boosted its mobile offering further and offered acclaimed coverage of the Olympic games, reached a score of 30. BrandIndex director Sarah Murphy said that the iPlayer's positive reputation had been unaffected by some of the scandals, which have enveloped the Corporation this year. She said: "With all the dreadful things that have happened, the BBC brand is still very strong. While the BBC umbrella brand is definitely being hit and is at the lowest levels ever seen, there has been no knock-on effect for products like the iPlayer and its .co.uk website." Taxing issues for Amazon, Google The Beeb's on-demand service beat high street Retailer John Lewis, which scored 24.6 points, while 2011's winner Amazon came in third with 24.1 points. Google, which finished in fourth place last year, dropped out of the top ten completely in 2012. Murphy says the continued row over allegations of tax avoidance in the UK has affected the reputation of the two American giants. She said: "Amazon had a score of 32.1 last year, so a fall of eight points is a statistically significant drop for them. What we'd attribute that drop to would be the recent tax avoidance debate. "Until now, Google had always been one of the strongest brands we track." Apple losing street cred? Apple's Maps debacle, the relative disappointment surrounding launch of the iPhone 5 and the courtroom drama with Samsung may have affected Apple's reputation in 2012 among the UK public. It's overall BrandIndex score dropped from 24.6 points to 15 points in 2012, although the iPad brand enjoyed a good year, mainly due to the iPad mini's positive reception, BrandIndex claimed.

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