Today, whrrl introduced v2.1 beta for the iPhone 3.0. There were some really big and exciting changes so I’m updating this post with new screen shots and my thoughts on the new features. I will be using whrrl extensively next week for our trip to Orlando so I will post a more thorough review of the new version when I get back. You can watch whrrl’s story about their new features for a complete list, but here are a few of my favorite:

• Add people to your story from Facebook, Twitter, text message, whrrl friends, iPhone address book or email even if they do not have an iPhone. It is much easier to do in this new version.
• If you are at a location, you can check to see if another whrrl story has been created at this location. You can read about past visits and maybe even find a new friend with the same interests.
• Edit your story right from the iPhone. This is a big help because I’m always messing up. [superemotions file="icon_biggrin.gif" title="Big Grin"]
• Edit or add captions to your photos right on the iPhone.
• Create a title for your story. Your title does not always have to be “So and So at Home,” you can edit the title right on the iPhone.
• Delete the entire story from your iPhone. For those times when you think twice about whether you should post the pictures or story you just uploaded.

Shameless plug – I have entered my story to the “Get Me to BlogHer” contest. The contest is sponsored by whrrl and SocialLuxe Lounge and the prize is a trip to BlogHer in July. Please leave a comment, share and click on “I Like It.”

Thank you!

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No, I didn’t make a mistake in my title. A whrrl is an online storytelling tool that I recently found via my iPhone. At first, I wasn’t sure why I needed it or how I’d use it, but that has never stopped me from trying anything before. (Note: I was not compensated in any way for this review. I found whrrl on my own, started using it and I love it, so I wanted to share. Let me know what you think about Whrrl and be sure to add to my story that I created in this review.)

whrrl

What is a whrrl? It is an online story telling tool. You can create stories with pictures and notes along with your exact location, share it with friends and family and share it on Facebook and Twitter. What really excites me about whrrl is that you can have your friends and family (who also have a whrrl account) add their pictures and comments to the same story using an iPhone or SMS from any cell phone.

For example, let’s say your family has an annual family picnic where everyone gathers to eat, drink and be merry. We all know that everyone brings their camera and takes lots of pictures and we all promise to share the pictures with each other. A few people may go home and do that, but the majority of the pictures stay with the person who took them, only to be seen maybe in the annual holiday newsletter. But, with whrrl, one person can create the whrrl story, add their pictures and comments and then every family member (with a whrrl account) can add their pictures to that story, write comments about any of the pictures that have been uploaded. Here are my whrrl stories:

You can see my story from our outing this past Saturday night. There are 10 photos that I took of us at dinner. Below is what you see when you go to the story at the whrrl site. This shows the location, who was there, the pictures and you can add comments here too. If you click on the “Tell Your Side of the Story,” you can add your pictures and notes to this story. Stories can be seen by only you, your trusted friends (you decide who is trusted and who is just a friend), friends and everyone. You decide who will see the story

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Whrrl also has an iPhone app which, in my opinion, makes this an outstanding tool because you can see what is going on as it’s happening from the viewpoint of many participants. A few weeks ago, EAS Active launched their new Wii Personal Trainer fitness game in New York City. I was able to follow some of the 30 day challengers on their adventures at the launch while it was happening. It was the next best thing to being there. This is a screenshot from Jessica Smith’s story, but you can see that 3 others who were there also added pictures and comments to her story. Click on the picture to go directly to the whrrl story.

So, let’s give this a whrrl (pun intended). I am going to create a whrrl story on my iPhone right now following these steps:

• Be sure you have the whrrl app (link to app store) installed on your iPhone. Search “whrrl” in the app store from your iPhone.
• Open up Whrrl app
• If you do not have an account, you will need to create one first.

• When you first open up the app, you’ll see two tabs at the very top. The left one says “Begin a Story” (This change makes sense) and the right one has an icon of a camera and a circle with an exclamation mark in it. Click the “Begin a Story” button.

• Click inside the “Say where you are” field and add your location. It will try to find locations of places around you, but you can add new ones by clicking the “+” at the top right. For me, I added one called Home and the location is Chantilly, VA. It did find my home address right away, but I didn’t want to post my home address. You may have to scroll down all the way to find the ones you’ve added.

• In the “Sharing with…” field (another logical change) is where you decide who can see the story. If you just want to remember this event for yourself, choose You. Trusted Friends is a for whrrl friends that you have decided can be ‘trusted.’ Friends is for any whrrl member that you have listed in your friends (whether they are trusted or not). And The Public is anyone whether they are your friend or not.

• Now let’s add a picture. Click on the tab with the camera icon.

• Click on photo. Choose between Camera (take picture now) or Photo Library (find a picture you’ve already taken.) I chose camera. Take your picture and either Use Photo or Retake. It will upload the picture to your whrrl story and take you back to the photo/note/share tab.

• Now I’d like to add a comment about this story. Click on Note (another change). Type in some comments and click Save. It takes you back to the photo/post/share tab

• If you added your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your whrrl account you can share this story (or any) with your Facebook and Twitter friends. I will do that right now. If you are a Twitter or Facebook friend of mine, you will be able to see it.

• You can click on the photo/exclamation mark tab to close it.
• If you would like to add your friends to this story, click on the “Your Story” tab as seen in this screen shot.

• Here you have You Are At… (Location), Who is there… (add friends), Sharing With.. (who sees the story), Leave Story and Next. Click on Add a Person.

• This next screen gives you the option to choose a
  • by Name – you begin to type your friend’s name and whrrl will find them on Facebook, whrrl or your Address book
  • by Twitter – enter a friend’s Twitter username
  • by Email – enter a friend’s email address
  • by Text Message – enter a friend’s mobile number

That’s it! Pretty easy and a ton of fun. Go to my story and leave a comment.

A few things I’d love to see on whrrl:

• Ability to add video (from new iPhone & web page)
• Ability to add to join in a story directly from the web page
• Be able to change the size of the widget for my blog. The current one they have is quite large and doesn’t fit well into my sidebar where I’d like to have it.
• Customizable profile pages.
• Availability on platforms other than iPhone (According to their website, they are working on this)

whrrl has a few of their own tutorials and a blog with a lot of useful information. Overall I’m giving this 4 out of 5 stars on my usefulness scale. I think once it is available on other platforms, it will be a 5 out of 5. Currently, whrrl is still officially in beta, but I have not found anything buggy about it at all. It has been quite reliable and a whole lotta fun! We are taking a trip to Orlando soon and I plan to use whrrl as a journal of our trip. We are going to be visiting with friends and family while down there and I’m hoping to get them on whrrl and have them add their pictures. Whenever we travel, I always plan to take notes about our trip so I can refer to them when I go back and create a scrapbook or put the pictures to DVD, but I never remember to do it and it’s usually quite inconvenient. I think whrrl is my solution to that problem.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Whrrl Brings Collective Location-Based Storytelling to Your iPhone (mashable.com)
• Whrrl’s geo-social network comes to the iPhone (news.cnet.com)
• Where 2.0 Preview – Pelago’s Jeff Holden on Creating Stories Out of Your Life (radar.oreilly.com)