Welcome to the Mercury Intermedia blog. We’re going to be posting here from time to time to announce new features and projects, share ideas, explore new topics in development, and share riveting tales about the questionable carpet choices building management made during building renovation.

So the first post here is of the announcement variety. We just pushed version 1.1 of USA TODAY for iPhone/iPod touch to the App Store today. This particular version expands upon the ways in which a user can share articles from the phone, including additional Twitter client support (Tweetie, Twittelator, TwitterFon now join Twitterrific on the supported Twitter client list), as well as integration with the new Facebook Connect for iPhone API.

Two other items of note:

1. Greatly improved LBS support: we had two LBS issues. First off, the app had a tendency to hold on to previous locations, which affected travelers who would be physically onto another location, but virtually stuck in their previous location according to our app. Secondly, the accuracy of our our location detection was in many cases just off, putting someone in neighboring cities. There will always be issues with iPod Touch LBS, and some issues with first gen iPhones, but in general, we’ve tightened up the Current Location process.

2. Sticky slider bar: we’re big fans of the slider bar as a method of navigation, immediately choosing to adopt it after seeing it’s effectiveness in the Facebook iPhone app. However, while our slider bar worked well for flick motions, it didn’t respond well to press and hold actions. That’s been taken care of as well - now you can take all the time you want,  indecisive section navigator guy!

There were a handful of other fixes, but we’re pleased to offer the additional Twitter support as well as Facebook integration. We’ve got much more in store for the app in the coming months, and we’ll expound as we can.

Thanks for reading, and hope to see you ’round these parts again real soon.