We recently created a page for AlternativeTo on the popular social networking site Facebook. And while we were at it we even snatched the nice URL facebook.com/AlternativeTo to make it easy to find.

If you use Facebook and like AlternativeTo then add yourself as a fan to stay updated and show your support. See you there!

By the way, you can also follow us on Twitter if you want to catch the small messages and updates that never makes it to this blog.

It’s been a while since we updated the blog or released a new version of AlternativeTo, but that’s because we’ve been hard at work finishing the first major update of the site. This update includes many small changes and bug fixes, but most importantly it has a whole new version focused on applications for mobile devices such as iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 and more.

The version was released today and if you want to check it out then go ahead and visit the site and look for the new links under the logo for fast switching between the “Desktop” and “Mobile” versions of AlternativeTo. The mobile version has some applications added already but many are missing so go ahead and suggest your favourite apps!

If you have any feedback then we would be happy to hear from you. We would also love any help spreading this news! Digg it, tweet about it, write on your blog and tell your friends. Thank you and enjoy!

Hello again! We have made some new updates to the site the last couple of days. The most notable are:

• Possibility to filter the alternatives by tags. You simply get a list of all the tags that the application has and you can choose one of them and only the alternatives with the same tag will show up. This feature of course depends on that we have good quality on the tags so please help us suggest changes!
• You can now send messages to users on the site. You can also choose if you want to send it privately or public.
• We have built a notification system that notifies you if you get a new message, if someone “comment on a application you have commented on” or if we approve a application you have added. You will also get an e-mail with these notifications but you can of course turn that off on your settings page!

Of course we must mention that yesterday we became this week’s “Website We Just Can’t Get Enough Of” on Tekzilla. This is huge for us since we are big fans of Tekzilla, Veronica and Patrick. We knew that we had a great idea but all positive feedback we have got for the site has really been beyond all exceptions!

Hi people! As you might already know we recently moved to a new server and things seems to be working really well now. Unlike our previous solution everything should scale well if we hit another traffic boost in the future. In other news, we just uploaded a new version of the site with some nice fixes and features!

Here is a short summary of what’s new:

• The lists of alternative applications has a new design and now shows the icon, tags and a new button for liking the application.
• The urls to applications and users are a lot prettier than before which makes it a lot easier to post links to AlternativeTo. The new format is alternativeto.net/desktop/application-name and alternativeto.net/user/username
• Tabs have been added to the user profile page. It lets you browse the applications the user likes, all comments he or she has made or the applications he has added to the site.
• If you search for an application and you get it exactly right, and there are no other applications containing that name, you will be transported to it’s page instead of the search results.
• If RSS isn’t you thing, you can now subscribe to new applications via email.

It seems like the move went fine. If you were active on the site you probably got an error or two but nothing major.

And it seems like the time on the new server wasn’t the same as on the old one. But that will correct itself in an hour or two.

Please report anything you find via the feedback thingy to the left or send us a mail on hello@alternativeto.net.

We are moving to new servers. It will probably just take a couple of minutes. Hang on!

Btw. While you are waiting. Follow us on Twitter! Or digg us! Or make a cup of coffe and relax a bit.

Sometime during the coming days we will begin moving the site to a new server and you will most likely experience some downtime. We hope to make this as quick as possible and will do what we can to minimize any trouble. When the site is up and running on the new server it will be a better experience for us all so it will be worth the wait.

In the past couple of days there have been many minor bug fixes and improvements to AlternativeTo. Some of them are:

• The page where you enter your Facebook Connect or OpenID to sign in has been improved and is no longer a pop-up.
• A problem with the About/Feedback page has been fixed and it now works better on devices with small screens.
• We added a new share button from Addthis.com on every application page. You can use it to share an application and it’s alternatives with your friends on a lot of different online services.
• It is now possible to post comments on this blog.
• We improved the support for Internet Explorer 6. But if you still use it you should upgrade or find another great browser!

Remember to follow us on Twitter for all the important updates and a great way to talk to us.

AlternativeTo: @Alternativeto

Ola: @olaj

Markus: @raawmarkus

The last week was very hectic but really great for us since a lot of new people found their way to the site. They were introduced to AlternativeTo by the many blogs and other coverage that was posted lately. We would like to thank everyone of you who wrote about us on Twitter, blogs etc! Here are some examples from all over the world:

Lifehacker (blog post)

Download Squad (blog post)

gHacks (blog post)

MakeUseOf (blog post)

Hardware.no (norweigan blog post)

Applesphera (spanish blog post)

Software Player (taiwanese blog post)

Göteborgsposten Teknik & trender (swedish blog post)

TKJ (interview in swedish)

Olhar Digital (brazilian video review)

Ehrensenf (german video review)

MegaByteTV (british video review)

Wow, things ar starting to take off! Both when it comes to features (see below) and also when we look at the traffic statistics. People are writing blog posts, adding to Delicious, posting links on Twitter and doing some Digging. Thank you so much for your support and please keep spreading the word about AlternativeTo.

We just pushed a new version of the site and here are some of the updates:

• New tabs on the startpage where you can check out the applications with most likes, most views and recently added. The mysterious tab called OMG FAIL lists applications with no alternatives added. With your help we should be able to find alternatives to most of them so start suggesting, thanks!
• A list of top contributers have been added to the sidebar. By likes, suggestions, comments and feedback you help making the site better and the alternatives more relevant and this is our way to thanking you all.
• The sidebar also have a brand new box for sharing and following AlternativeTo on social networking sites. The services are Delicious, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg and subscribe via RSS. Let’s push things forward!
• A form has been added to the About-page for quick and easy submission of feedback.
• The latest posts from this blog are listed in the sidebar.
• Improvements have been made to search, application listing and many small bugs have been fixed.

There, we said it! We are soon out of beta and would like to let you know what features and fixes we’ve implemented since last time. Let’s get to it:

• Tabs has been added to the application page, see below for more info.
• It’s now possible to list all users who likes an application. Just click the tab on the application page.
• Comments! You can now leave a comment about an application. Maybe you want to let people know how much you like an app, ask a question about it or provide some kind of feedback about the application or its alternatives.
• No comments about the app you’re interested in on AlternativeTo? You can now click the Twitter tab and see what people are saying about the application on Twitter.
• You now have the possibility to filter alternatives by platform! As an example, this makes it possible to find “the best free mac alternatives to windows application Winzip”. Browsing applications cross-platform can be really useful for you switchers out there.
• As usual a couple of smaller tweaks and bugfixes has been made.

Thanks again for spreading the word about AlternativeTo letting us know what you think about the site. Keep the feedback coming. See you!