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This post is part of Mashable’s Social Media series for developers, highlighting handy tips and resources for software developers. This series is supported by Forum Nokia’s Calling All Innovators competition.

The stereotypical view of a coder is that of an anti-social hacker, sitting alone in a darkened room, banging away on a keyboard by the glow of a monitor (or six) until all hours of the night.  But that’s not true to life - today’s programmers, developers, and code enthusiasts have fully embraced social media. Whether you have a simple code question or are embarking on a collaborative code project to build your company’s next big product, code is best done learning from and working with others.

Social media is an incredible vessel for collaboration, sharing, and information discovery, and there are now many great tools that aid in web and software development. These features and tools are ideal helpers for both advanced app builders or those just starting out with HTML or PHP. The following collaborative tools, resources, and communities can help you develop and finish your project from start to finish. These are only a few of the many great social media resources available to developers, so if you have any others to add, we encourage you to add your favorites in the comments.

Developer tutorial/information communities

1. Stack Overflow: Whenever you’re stumped by a programming error or just have a general question about development, Stack Overflow is the place to go. It is a community based on asking your burning questions and getting responses. Voting and reputation help assure quality. Be sure to be detailed when asking your questions - no developer likes trying to form answers with insufficient information.

2. Good-Tutorials: A great tutorial website, Good-Tutorials has a range of different user-generated tutorials in a large number of development and design topics that go as deep as how to create Twitter counters in jQuery. It’s definitely comprehensive.

3. Dzone: Dzone is one of the most popular developer link-sharing websites on the web. It’s a perfect addition to your RSS feed.

4. Tweako: Tweako is a user-powered programming tutorial and developer social network. There are literally hundreds of how to guides on a plethora of programming subjects. There are even revenue-sharing opportunities.

Social developer communities

5. TopCoder: TopCoder is an example of what social media tools and community can really do. It’s a website where engineers and programmers can compete on different development competitions for prizes. The more you code, the more you make - and the more attention you receive. In fact, a strong reputation on the social programming website can often help you land a great job.

6. Hacker News: The development and entrepreneurship community of the YCombinator venture fund, it is thriving with intelligent users and great insights about development topics and the business of web startups. In fact, I’m a regular there.

7. Reddit - Programming: The social news voting website Reddit has a thriving community of developers that discuss programming topics and share great resources, news, and interesting gems.

8. Slashdot: While Slashdot is not a programming-exclusive community, and is not at the pinnacle it once was, it is still a great community for sharing and discussing developer, IT, and programming-related topics.

Social media web tools

9. GitHub: GitHub is one of the best tools around for collaborative and social software development. It’s one of the best uses of the Git revision control system around. When you have a team building a product, GitHub’s development news feeds, secure repositories, and inline editing are invaluable.

10. Yahoo Pipes: When you’re trying to build websites and web tools that require information from social media sources like Digg or Twitter, it’s not a bad idea to look to Yahoo Pipes. By combining simple commands, you can create powerful widgets, RSS feeds, and more that incorporate social media data.

11. Launchpad: Launchpad is one of the most useful free solutions on the web for the management of software development. It provides the ability to track bugs, integrates with Bazaar (a revision control system), and has its own community knowledge base called Answers. It’s the choice of not only Bazaar, but the massive MySQL open source database project, as well.

12. EtherPad: Etherpad is a very robust collaborative code editor with a free version and several paid ones. It’s easy to share code and work together to build the best application possible. If you’re looking to share smaller snippets of code, the code library Snipplr and GitHub’s Gist are great options as well.

Firefox add-ons

While you can perform web development in almost any browser, Firefox is the most popular choice of the code community because of its open-source, developer-friendly demeanor and its amazingly useful add-ons. I’ve only included four of the best, but suggest checking out 30+ Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers & Designers and Another 16 Firefox Add-ons For Web Designers for more.

13. Firebug: Perhaps the most useful Firefox extension ever created, Firebug allows any developer to inspect code and even tweak it on-page to see the effect without updating the actual server-level code.

14. Web Developer: The other must-have Firefox extension for programmers is Web Developer, which provides a toolbar and extensive options for parsing code, testing browser code and resolution, and disabling things like page colors and Javascript.

15. Bespin: Bespin is a project from Mozilla Labs that is trying to build a web-based development environment for programming using the Canvas element of HTML5. It’s an interesting code editor and an experiment that you just have to try out. Another development experiment to watch is Mozilla Jetpack.

16. Greasemonkey: It is, without doubt, the most dynamic Firefox extension around. On the Greasemonkey platform, you can build and execute simple scripts that will do everything from improve usability for Gmail to add countless features to Twitter. It’s a must-have for any developer.

Miscellaneous

17. SourceForge.net: The center for open-source software, SourceForge.net has been an epicenter for finding, building, and sharing open-source projects for years.

18. W3Schools: While not truly social media, there is no better place on the web to learn almost any language for free. It not only has great tutorials, but has a wealth of tools to help you understand how the code works and an active community on its forums.

Mashable’s Social Media series for developers supported by Forum Nokia

Forum Nokia’s Calling All Innovators competition challenges mobile and web application developers to submit best-in-class applications for use on Nokia devices. Winning Apps will be featured in Nokia’s Ovi Store, where consumers will find the best mobile applications and content for their Nokia devices. Total cash and prizes are worth more than $250,000. Deadline for contest submissions is 30 June 2009. Submit Your Winning App Now.

More web development resources from Mashable:

- The Evolution of the Social Media API

- 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design

- 7 Useful Tools for Web Development Testing

- Web Design Toolbox: 130+ New Tools to Make You a Better and Faster Designer

- Web Development Toolbox: 120+ New Tools for Web Development

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, karimhesham

Reviews: Digg, Firefox, Gmail, PHP, Twitter, reddit.com

Tags: developers, Lists, programming, social media

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This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: JD Supra

Quick Pitch: JD Supra is an online resource for attorneys that takes on old-school players like Martindale by spreading expert-legal content across the social Web.

Genius Idea: JD Supra may not be a startup in a sexy field, but it certainly has some utility for the average person, lawyers, and anyone looking to hire one. The legal startup promises to help spread your good reputation and documents across the web. But does it succeed?

The service is based on the premise that legal documents inside of a file cabinet are doing nobody good. Having them out and shared might not only educate people on a subject, but can make law more accessible for others. Lawyers, law firms, and others share legal documents, decisions, articles, forms, and more. The entire database is easily searchable.

So what’s in it for the lawyer? The answer: an authoritative digital presence. Most people like to search for information on doctors or lawyers before hiring them. The company promises to appear not only high up in search, but on Twitter, Facebook, and other major social media channels. Primarily, JD Supra has a Facebook application that helps bring documents onto your Facebook, as well as a Twitter presence.

The service has a great deal of advanced search features as well: you can search based on state, court, document type, subject, and jurisdictions. For contributing legal experts, the profiles are simple but effective. Users can subscribe to your document uploads, too.

This seems to be a service targeted more at lawyers than it is the general consumer. Lawyers will find the most utility searching for articles and creating profiles. For lawyers without the time or knowledge to create a decent online presence, JD Supra may be a way to go. We wish there were more social features, like the ability for lawyers to blog.

Yet opening up access to documents in the legal realm is a worthwhile goal. JD Supra does a good job at organizing documents and giving lawyers incentives to provide them. It may be worth signing up for a free account if you’re interested in law, although we’d like to see more features before putting $35 to $58 a month down for a premium account.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest - use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Reviews: Facebook, PHP, Twitter

Tags: bizspark, JD Supra, law, lawyer, legal documents, online documents

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Paul McGuinness, manager of U2, has found a new enemy of music artists and creativity in general: free. After firing against hippy technology and internet executives back in January 2008, he turned to ISPs, calling them shoplifters, going so far as to elicit an apology from Bono, who distanced himself and the band from McGuinness’ statements.

Now, he’s given a rather mellow interview to Cnet, partly contradicting his earlier statements (he criticized Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” business model earlier, but now claims he admires “what Radiohead have done tremendously in seeking a new model”), and partly repeating his earlier claims (with a bit more tact, this time) that the Internet should be regulated and monitored, and that the ISPs should be forced to do it.

However, he manages to step in it again, ending the interview with a very interesting statement: Ultimately, he says, free is the enemy of good.”

This sentence shows that he simply has no idea (actually, I don’t believe that; I think he’s merely refusing to admit the obvious) about how business works. In any business, there’s a lot of things that are provided free to the customer. Your ISP probably provides free 24 hour phone and email support to you. In your local supermarket, you can sample various products, like cheese or cosmetics, for free. Some companies provide free WiFi coverage around their headquarters. The list goes on. Free is an essential component of every business, and free does not mean “without value.”

Now, if an ISP wants to start charging for customer support, they’re welcome to try. They’re also welcome to file for bankruptcy when all of their customers move to another, friendlier ISP. The entertainment industry is welcome to try and charge (and even McGuinness admits that they’ve been charging way too much) for easily duplicated digital goods, such as MP3s, lyrics, tabs etc. But if they don’t provide enough added value to the customer, they’ll go out of business. If, however, they embrace free - and we now have many great examples of how free contentcanbe used to promote scarce goods - and try to figure out new business models which Internet has unlocked, they will thrive.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, billberryphotography

Tags: music industry, paul mcguinness, U2

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The Internet was abuzz today with the news of Typekit, an upcoming product from user experience guru Jeff Veen (who helped create Google Analytics) set to launch this summer.

Basically, Typekit will offer a way for designers to license fonts for use on web pages, which is a big deal because of a CSS feature that is soon to be supported in most major browsers that will allow designers to reference fonts installed on the server and render them as fonts (rather than Flash or images) for users.

In other words, the web is about to get a whole lot more accessible and indexable even while it gets prettier. The problem, says Veen, is that most web fonts aren’t licensed for CSS linking or use on web pages. Even free fonts are generally not licensed for that type of use. That’s where Typekit comes in.

Veen and his company Small Batch, Inc., which also includes members of the original Measure Map/Google Analytics team, Bryan Mason, Ryan Carver, and Greg

Veen, have developed a way for designers to reference fonts installed on the Typekit servers via a single line of JavaScript under consistent, web-only font linking license.

Their platform “lets us to host both free and commercial fonts in a way that is incredibly fast, smoothes out differences in how browsers handle type, and offers the level of protection that type designers need without resorting to annoying and ineffective DRM,” wrote Veen in a blog post introducing the service. Typekit is expected to launch with both free and for-pay licensing options.

While the creation of a consistent marketplace for easily and legally linking to fonts is an exciting prospect for font creators, some designers worry that this is essentially adding an unnecessary layer of complexity that will mirror the DRM issues in the music world, despite Veen’s assurances to the contrary. UX designer Kyle Meyer worries that a licensing scheme like Typekit will actually cost designers more money in the long run.

“If the technology to link typefaces exists, designers can and will do so regardless of licensing. This will become the same battle DRM has been for the music and film industries, with the same outcome,” he writes on his blog.

Designers, what do you think of Typekit’s concept? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Reviews: Google Analytics

Tags: CSS, fonts, jeff veen, typekit

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When you need to send a voice note or a dictation to multiple contacts, Phonevite has always been a strong option. However, while it does have an iGoogle Gadget, Phonevite has mostly been limited to voice-to-phone sharing.

That was until today, when Phonevite opened the social media floodgates of its voice services. Starting today, you can not only send voice messages to your friends via phone, but you can also share recordings via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, email or just embed the audio directly to your website.

Once you have made a voice recording (either via a recording browser app or via phone), the recording will appear in your recording inbox. Now, however, you’ll see five small icons at the bottom for each of the key social services and embeds:

Facebook will post to your wall while Twitter will create the ready-to-share tweet. This makes it simple to send audio to all of your friends instantaneously. And of course, you can still send it to their phone if you need to send it directly.

Social media is an effective mass-communication tool, and Phonevite has tapped into its raw power to dramatically increase the potential of its products. Phonevite is no longer just for voice notes, but for rapidly distributing podcasts, interviews, and calls. It’s up to users and Phonevite, though, to tap into the potential possibilities.

Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter

Tags: facebook, phonevite, twitter

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Digg has just upgraded the license for all of its content - titles, descriptions, comments, everything - from public domain to Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

Under the public domain license, the content was already free for anyone in the US to use for any purpose. By switching to CC0, this content is now also public property internationally. The Internet is getting more and more fragmented each day, with copyright laws altering our entire online experience depending on where we’re physically located. So, although the license change may not seem like much, it’s a welcome change and a nice gesture from Digg.

Digg has also updated its Terms of Use to reflect the changes; the new wording can be seen in Section #6 of the TOU.

Reviews: Digg

Tags: Creative Commons Zero, digg, public domain

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Speaking at the Google I/O conference, Google’s Director of Mobile Platforms Andy Rubin said that 18 or perhaps even more Android phones are coming to the market, from as much as 9 different manufacturers, in 2009. Is this the Android renaissance we’ve been waiting for? Possibly, because so far the selection of Android phones has been tiny, compared to what we expected.

Currently, only T-Mobile G1 and HTC Magic are widely available; reports about new Android phones from Motorola, Samsung and HTC have, for the most part, been unofficial. Hearing that we’ll see 18 Android phones (most of them probably around Christmas) this year means we’ll finally be able to experience Android in all its multifaceted glory.

Rubin also distinguishes three different versions of Android: a completely Google-free version, which doesn’t have any Google apps pre-installed; a version with Google Apps pre-installed (as part of a deal with the manufacturers); and, finally, the Google Experience phones which will come with all available Google Apps, Google logo, and unrestricted access to the Android market.

Reviews: Android, Google

Tags: android, Google, smartphone

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Google promised to deliver something spectacular on the second day of the Google I/O conference, and they did not disappoint. Google has just announced Google Wave, a new in-browser communication and collaboration tool that is already being hailed by some as the next evolution of email. Yes, Google Wave is potentially that disruptive.

Created by two of the guys behind Google Maps with a small team in Sydney, the concept behind Google Wave is to “unify” communication on the web. It’s a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. It features the ability to replay conversations because it records the entire sequence of communication, character by character. Because of this, discussions are also live in Google Wave: you will see your friends type character-by-character.

The features don’t stop there, either. Google Wave also supports the ability to drag attachments from your desktop into Google Wave. It loads that file and sends it immediately to anyone in the conversation. It’s also embeddable, so you can embed Google Wave conversations on any blog.

As you can see, it looks very similar to a Gmail inbox, except it’s more focused on your contacts, whose faces you can see in your contacts sidebar on the left. As for conversations, well, it’s a bit different than anything we’ve seen before. You can reply and add your thoughts anywhere within a message. Communication within Google Wave is completely shared.

The key to it all is the faster line of communication. Attaching documents, like you do in email, is unnecessary in Google Wave. Real-time conversations and collaboration make it an ideal tool for business teams as well. Imagine an entire office having Google Wave open to quickly share and receive files. It combines some of people’s favorite aspects of many different web communication tools.

You’re going to have to wait a while though: Google Wave will not be available to the public until later this year. Right now it’s only available to a select group of developers, who will be able to create their own Wave servers. It’s also an open-source project with a lot of API integrations, so we can expect a lot of user-driven innovations and extensions for the platform as well.

So, back to the big question: could Google Wave really redefine web communication? Clearly it’s too early to tell, but we’re already very impressed with the client and its potential. We’ll be testing out its sandbox soon and giving you our assessment, as well as updating you with any more information coming out of Google I/O today.

Tags: Google, Google Wave

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As we reported this morning, Google is expecting a flood of new Android-powered phones to hit the market this year. With more handsets being used by more people, the opportunity to develop applications for Android will become increasingly attractive.

And in another twist today, we have what appears to be the first application that uses Facebook Connect on Android. Although we don’t yet have an official announcement from Facebook or Google, Playfish’s popular game Who Has the Biggest Brian? has been ported to Android, allowing“Android fans … to play together with their Facebook friends anytime, anywhere.”

As the blog PocketGamer speculates, “that presumably means that the Android game uses the same Facebook Connect technology as the iPhone version - which as far as we’re aware is the first implementation of Facebook Connect in an Android game or application.”

Facebook Connect for iPhone launched earlier this year, and we’ve already seen a number of popular existing iPhone apps (including Who Has the Biggest Brain?) and Web applications implement it to quickly create social interaction in their products.

With Android, Facebook Connect is perhaps even more valuable, because even if your friends don’t have a Google phone (which is more than likely at this point) you can still interact with them, so long as they access Facebook in some way.

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google

Tags: facebook connect, Google Android, playfish

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Google Wave, released earlier today, is already generating a lot of buzz, and for good reason: it’s a potential game changer in the realm of of email, IM, and project management. But there a few key features that really speak to Google Wave’s potential. Specifically, the fact that it is open-source and can be fitted with extensions and applications.

Today, the Google team showed off a few extensions for their new communication platform. One of the most interesting ones, though, was Twave, a Twitter extension for Google Wave. The integration makes sense: Google Wave and Twitter are both forms of real-time communication, so why not bring them together? The result, though, speaks to the potential applications of Google’s newest product.

Twave is an extension based on a Google Wave robot, which is an automated participant in a conversation. It is basically how an extension can perform tasks within Google Wave - in this instance, a Google robot, named “Tweety.” The result is a full stream of your Twitter feed within Google Wave. Not only can you see tweets, but it looks like you can manage them like you would email, with replies, archiving, and even Google Wave’s awesome playback feature.

There were several other great extensions and robots that were demonstrated today. Here’s just a few of the coolest ones:

- Debuggy: A robot that responds with debugging information about each event on a wave

- Stocky: Automatically detects stock quotes and provides real-time stock information

- Bloggy: Pushes wave content to a blog

- Maps: Allows for collaboration on a Google map to plan events

- Bidder: You can turn a Wave into your own eBay

- Ratings: All Wave participants can rate and review items - then it will show you a tally of the results.

These innovations are only the beginning of the many additions that developers will build for Google Wave. The web is truly transforming into a real-time engine, and Google Wave + Twitter is only the beginning. Not only can we expect a slew of great Twitter applications within Google Wave, but some really innovative use of Google’s new real-time conversation platform.

Update: We’ve included another screenshot, this one showing a little more of what the Twave and Google Wave robots can do in general.

Reviews: Google, Twitter

Tags: Google Wave, twitter

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