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The open source microblogging service StatusNet - the power behind identi.ca - announced today the release of its iPhone app.

The app makes it easy to connect via mobile to a StatusNet site, and it supports posting from an iPhone, sending attachments, as well as following public, profile and friends' timelines. Users can connect to accounts on multiple StatusNet sites from within the app.

Over the last several months we have mentioned how minimalist micro-blogging service Tumblr has attracted traditional media outlets. The New York-based startup has begun providing publisher-friendly features and even managed to snag former Newsweek editor Mark Coatney, who serves as a liaison for traditional media.

Today, National Public Radio (NPR) became the latest media group to join Tumblr, and I spoke with senior strategist Andy Carvin to find out how the organization plans to leverage the quickly growing platform.

Salesforce.com just released Chatter to the public in June, but the company is already announcing the release of Chatter 2. The new version, which should be generally available in October to both Salesforce.com and Chatter stand-alone subscribers, introduces new features the company says were commonly requested. Specifically, Chatter 2 gives users the ability to follow more types of "stuff." In addition to people, Chatter users will now be able to follow files, dashboard updates, reports and more.

Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler's new book Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business, a follow-up to Bernoff's and Charlene Li's 2008 Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, was released today. Empowered takes a look at several trends we've been following at ReadWriteEnterprise, including Shadow IT, innovation managment and microblogging. We caught up with Bernoff to talk about the new book.

Forrester analyst Tim Sheedy writes in a new report that "The Internet and the mobile Internet have effectively combined." Facebook users who access the social networking site through a mobile device are twice as active as users who don't. It's no surprise then to see the announcement of Salesforce.com's Chatter Mobile, a mobile client for the company's increasingly popular Chatter social networking and microblogging platform.

Chatter Mobile apps for BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone and the new iPod touch will be available in late 2010, with Android support coming in the first half of 2011.

On a panel on the future of communication in the workplace, Nicky Wakefield, Human Capital Partner at Deloitte Australia, said "We have found a strong correlation between use of Yammer and staff retention." Can we add employee retention to the ways to make the case for microblogging in the enterprise?

StatusNet Inc announced today that it has closed another round of funding from First Mark Capital, BOLDstart Ventures, iNovia Capital and Montreal Start Up, bringing its total funding to date to $2.3 million. StatusNet, formerly Laconica, develops the open-source microblogging server that powers identi.ca and offers both hosted and on-premise enterprise microblogging solutions. The company also announced an addition to the StatusNet board: Scott Switzer - founder of open source ad platform, OpenX, angel investor and FirstMark Capital venture partner.

At the Socialtext blog, the company's marketing manager Christopher Lynch says that activity stream evangelism needs a reality check, and provides some helpful ideas on how to make the case for activity streams in the enterprise.

As we've said before, status updates are a must-have feature for enterprise collaboration tools - and have applications far beyond collaboration. Yet some enterprises are slow to recognize the business value of this technology. Lynch blames a culture of exaggerated claims and marketing hype and recommends an alternate course for spurring activity-stream adoption.

StatusNet released today a cross-platform desktop client for its open-source microblogging platform - the same foundation that powers the Twitter alternative identi.ca. Windows, Mac, and Linux users can download it here. It features support for multiple StatusNet sites (including identi.ca), notifications, search and more.

Twitter's URL shortening service, t.co, is being advertised as a way to avoid stumbling into phishing scam. Shorteners make it easier to microblog, but they also make it easier for grifters to blind their online marks.

"A link converted by Twitter's link service is checked against a list of potentially dangerous sites. When there's a match, users can be warned before they continue."