Using Palringo when on holidays abroad instead of making expensive roaming calls could save you a fortune this summer.  Although some mobile operators are reducing and even getting rid of their roaming charges (only in Europe if you read the small print) Palringo offers major savings in destinations worldwide.  Because we use your mobile’s data connection to send and receive messages the cost of a message corresponds directly to the length of the message.  That means a lot of talking, texting or picture messages for as little as fractions of a penny.

Just 1MB of data with Palringo can let you send and receive the equivalent of 4,500 SMS messages, up to 15 minutes of voice messages, and about 32 picture messages using a typical cameraphone.

With groups you can update everyone at the same time, and for the same cost.  So if you want to tell 3 of your friends all about your holiday you can send just one voice message, or one photo message.  No need to pay for 3 phone calls or 3 MMS messages, simply create a Palringo group and start saving.

But how much could you save? Imagine you’re in Turkey for one week, you make one five minute call home per day, receive one five minute inbound call, five texts in and five texts out.  That’s not excessive usage, but with certain operators on pay as you go it could cost more than £92.  On Palringo you could do this with the same mobile network operator for just £14. Plus as Palringo is free we won’t charge you a penny, the only charges you need to pay are to your mobile operator.

Making savings on your mobile when abroad may not sound very glamorous, but it all adds up.  And perhaps with the savings you make you can afford another holiday even sooner.  Make the most of your summer with Palringo.

We’re delighted and honoured to let you know that Palringo has been nominated for not one but two Europas. The Europas are the technology innovation awards for European tech companies, run by TechCrunch.

It’s great to be nominated but we need your help to win. The Europas are voted for by TechCrunch readers, just like you, so please help us to win by voting for Palringo in the best mobile start-up and best mobile application category.

Thanks for supporting us. Please spread the word to your friends and fellow Palringo users and help us win.

Palringo is now available from the BlackBerry App World™. The gold version adds location functionality and allows users to chat with their friends on MSN, Facebook, iChat, Google Talk, AOL and all the most popular services all from just one contact list. Download Palringo for Blackberry now

Palringo is available for the BlackBerry Pearl™, BlackBerry Curve™ and BlackBerry 8800 series. And best of all Palringo is still free to download and free to use. Download it now and keep the feedback coming.

Palringo has won the Webby People’s Voice Award, voted for online by the global web community, in the Best Use of GPS or Location Technology category of the 13th Annual Webby Awards.

The Webby’s are hailed as the “internet’s highest honour” by the New York Times and is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet.  And we’re extremely honoured to win a Webby Awards for Palringo’s location feature which allows users to share their location with their online friends automatically and see where their friends are in real time.

Download Palringo to try out the location service for yourself.

Winning this award suggests that we have developed a mobile service that people not only use, but love. Thank you to all of those who voted in the Webby People’s Voice Award and to all of you already using Palringo’s location feature.

With over 21,000 groups on Palringo it can be hard to find the one you’re interested in. That’s why we’ve been hard at work creating the new Groups Gallery. Now you can browse the directory of groups by category or topic and find the ones you’d like to join and participate in.

The Groups Gallery makes it really easy to meet new people on Palringo who share your interests or passions, whether they be pasta or Porsches, travel or technology.

Over 50,000 of you are already members of a Palringo group, sending over 4 million messages per month. If you’re not a group member yet why not visit the Gallery and find one you’d like to join now.

And if you’re a group owner you can now promote your group in the gallery to attract new members. Visit the Group Owners page to start promoting your group today.

We’re really pleased to announce that Palringo has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Best Use of GPS on Mobile category. The Webby Awards are like the Oscars of the Internet so we’re delighted to be chosen.

But while nomination is an honour, we also want to win. And that’s where you come in!  Help us to win by voting for Palringo in the Webby’s People’s Voice Awards.

To vote follow these steps:

• Go to the Webby Awards’ People’s Voice web site – pv.webbyawards.com. If you haven’t already registered, you’ll need to register and confirm your email before you can vote. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take too long.
• To vote for us, select the Mobile category and choose the Best Use of GPS or Location Technology sub-category. Then simply select Palringo Local and cast your vote.

Thanks for supporting us. Please spread the word to your friends and fellow Palringo users to vote for us and help us win.

Palringo for BlackBerry goes gold today adding location functionality and support for Facebook™, iChat® and QQ. Download it now

With the new version you can chat to all your friends on Facebook, iChat and QQ. Plus with location you can see where your friends or colleagues are in real-time making it really easy to arrange to meet up.

We think this version is a huge improvement on the previous beta version and we’ve done a lot of work to ensure that Palringo just works for all our BlackBerry users. Thank you to all of you who have provided feedback on our beta versions and helped us to make Palringo on BlackBerry better.

To see it in action check out our video demo over at YouTube.

Please download the new version now and keep the feedback coming.

We don’t like leaving anyone out and that’s why we’re happy to announce that Palringo is now available on Android. Palringo for Android is free and can be downloaded from the Android Market directly from your T-Mobile G1.

Now Android users can keep in touch with their buddies on all the most popular IM services using text and photo messaging. Busy? Not a problem, just choose the medium that works best for you depending on the message and the situation. Simply type, snap and share.

Plus Palringo can run in the background on Android and alert you to new messages as they arrive so you’ll never miss a chat conversation again.

Location features are also available on Android so with just one glance at your Palringo contact list you can see where your friends are right now and of course you can share your location with those people you trust.

Feeling lonely? Android users need never be stuck for someone to talk to again with groups. Simply find a group you’re interested and join the conversation to meet new people who share your passions, or start your own group and chat with everyone at the same time.

Remember this is a beta so it doesn’t have all the features available on other Palringo platforms, including voice messaging but we’re working hard to make this available. We wanted to release it as soon as possible and then let you, our users, help us to guide the development and suggest future improvements. So don’t forget to let us know what you think and what you’d like to see in the next version by sending us your feedback Download Palringo directly from your T-Mobile G1 on the Android Market. If you don’t have an Android phone you can console yourself by watching the demo video.

The news you’ve all been waiting for, finally with your help Palringo for Windows Mobile 1.3 goes gold. Download it now!

We’ve added lots of new and exciting features in this release including:

• Support for Facebook chat now means you can see which of your Facebook contacts are online and chat with them in real time.
• New notification options allows you to choose exactly how you want to be alerted for private and group messages.  You’ll never miss an important chat message again.
• Contact List Quick Search is really useful if you have lots of contacts.  Simply begin typing the name of the contact you’re searching for, choose from the matching contacts and start chatting.
• Update your status and nickname on Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM, iChat and Gadu-Gadu.
• Share your location real-time in your status message and impress all your friends.  Find out how to share your location in your status.
• Photo message previews let you see exactly what your friends are looking at directly from chat messages.

Thanks to all the beta testers who have helped us to improve this release.

Download Palringo for Windows Mobile 1.3 and please keep all your feedback and feature ideas coming to help us make Palringo even better.

A new version for Symbian phones is now available.  Download Palringo for Symbian (v0.99) here.

We’ve added some improvements which will make it easier for you to chat with your buddies, increased support for Nokia 5800 phones and also added support for Facebook chat.  In addition we’ve also made it easy to update your status across a number of services in one go and allowed insertion of location into your status so all of your friends can see when your location changes.

Download it now and send us your feedback so we can iron out any outstanding issues and keep improving Palringo on Symbian.