Testing a New Sprint Phone

sprintphone-737183 I got my Sprint phone in the mail today. Sprint is running a marketing campaign that involves handing out a free phone and 6 months of free service to selected people in certain cities. Since I am aware of several other bloggers who were asked to participate in this program, I imagine Sprint got my name via my blog.

The phone is a Sprint Power Vision phone, model A920, manufactured by Samsung. It comes with a charger, headphones, a USB cable to connect to your computer and a 32MB memory card (the phone has a slot).

It’s a pretty compelling deal. They gave me 6 months of free voice and data service, including web access, music downloads, etc. This will allow me to really put this phone through its paces and write about it a little bit. After 6 months, I get to keep the phone, but I have to buy service if I want to use it.

I will be comparing it to my current phone, which I bought the day before I got the email from Sprint (I’ve always been a master of bad timing).

So here are my initial impressions.

It’s a good looking phone, with a big, bright colorful screen. Other than figuring out how to turn it on, I haven’t had to consult the user manual at all. It came all set up with a new phone number (Missouri area code) and email address (ambassador7365@sprintpcs.com – feel free to drop me a line- no spam please – but I haven’t tried it so I can’t guarantee I’ll get it).

So far here are the cool things I’ve discovered. The phone is connected to a music store, where you can buy a wide selection of songs. I downloaded The Rolling Stones’ Monkey Man, and the sound is really good, even without the headphones. I’m not sure I’d pay the usual $2.50 for a song, but thankfully I didn’t have too.

The web access seems pretty fast, maybe even faster than my current phone, which uses the Verizon wireless broadband network. More on this after I experiment a little.

I have only begun to explore the media features. Movies, TV shows, Sirius radio and a ton of other stuff is available.

And it has a camera that seems to work really well (this is my first camera phone). I haven’t tried it yet, but you can send your photos directly to supported third party photo sites. Flickr doesn’t seem to be supported yet (that will be my first feedback), but you can email your photos to Flickr. Here’s my first camera phone photo ever.

firstphonephoto

Like my 7130e, this phone can also be used as a modem to allow your laptop to access the internet over Sprint’s wireless broadband network.

So far I’d have to say I’m pretty impressed. I suspect using all of the features would be a little costly if you had to pay for them, but so far, so cool.

My Favorite Records:Gerald Collier – I Had to Laugh Like Hell

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

There’s nothing I like better than well written, dark and brooding songs. No one does this better than Gerald Collier. The former frontman of the Best Kissers in the World (a fine band in its own right) has four released and a couple of unreleased records that are uniformly excellent. By excellent, I mean dark and brooding. With great writing, playing and singing.

But the best and most brooding of them all is his first one, 1996’s is I Had to Laugh Like Hell.

There are 12 songs on this fine record, from the downward spiral of Boozin’ Time and the biting I Ain’t the One You Hate. This is good stuff to listen to in an empty house, with all the lights turned off, the windows open and a bottle of whiskey in your hand.

I know Gerald a little, via email. He lives in Austin now, and normally you can get more of his music, including an excellent unreleased record and a great live one, via his website. He told me last week that his web site is down, at least temporarily. I hope Gerald gets another record deal and I hope his website comes back online, because he’s one talented dude.

Technorati Tags:
top 50 albums, record reviews

Web 2.0: Why the Buy Me Exit Strategy is Flawed

Phil Sim, one of my favorite bloggers, has a great and accurate article today about the Web 2.0 madness. His post ought to be read as a companion piece by anyone who remotely agrees with my Play Dough theory on Web 2.0.

Among Phil’s points is that Google Calendar will simultaneously take away a preferred exit strategy and strike a deadly blow to many of the hundred thousand or so Web 2.0 online calendars (many of which have been contestants in my Web 2.0 Wars series). Moreso, but similar, to how GDrive will strike a blow to any unestablished online storage service (Box.Net being one that may have enough legs to outrun the bullet).

We ran into some of this back in the day with ACCBoards.Com as we sought out big media partners. We’d get asked “why should I pay you to run an interactive site when we can do the same thing you’re doing and pay you nothing?” My answer, of course, was that we had all the traffic. We partnered up with Cox Cable and Jefferson Pilot Sports for years.

These Web 2.0 companies don’t have the traffic to trade for a purchase price.

That’s the biggest flaw in the sell yourself to Google as an exit strategy.

We are getting closer and closer to a Web 2.0 shake up. It’s coming.

ScobleFeeds A-Z: The T’s

This is part twenty of my A-Z review of Scoble‘s feeds. The rules and criteria are here.

Lots of T’s and here are my favorites:

Things that Make You Go Hmmm (RSS Feed)

This is Jordon Cooper’s Weblog (RSS Feed)

Things that Make You Go Hmmm is a great tech-oriented blog. Very interesting and informational content.

Jordon Cooper‘s blog talks about theology, digital culture and technology.

Honorable Mention:

Techcrunch (RSS Feed) (ineligible because I already read it)

Tech.Memeorandum (RSS Feed) (ineligible for the same reason)

Techdirt (RSS Feed) (ineligible for the same reason)

Thomas Hawk (RSS Feed) (ineligible for the same reason)

Microsoft Onfolio!

Scoble reports that Microsoft has bought Onfolio.

Assuming they didn’t pay nutty money, this is a great acquisition by Microsoft. I am a long time user of Onfolio and have sung its praises here before.

Scoble, please tell your guys to figure out a way to use Onfolio with FolderShare to allow us to synch our Onfolio content across computers, including (and this is important) what RSS feeds have already been read. Stop whatever you’re doing and go tell them that.

My Duke loving pal Buzz Bruggeman is another fan of Onfolio. And while he doesn’t know how to pick a college, he certainly knows good software when he sees it.

I wonder if Onfolio will become a part of One Note or remain a separate program.

JK (my mobile technology guru), want to venture a guess?

Origami: Anatomy of a Buzzkill

origami-716726 Here’s how to make a buzzkill, courtesy of Microsoft.

So first Microsoft tosses out Office Live, only without the Office part. This confuses everyone in sight, including the best thing Microsoft has going for it, Robert Scoble.

Then we get 2006 a Flash Odyssey, giving us the vague feeling that something revolutionary is afoot. Scoble, having inexplicably been previously out of the loop, begins immediately and correctly trying to deflate the hype overload that Microsoft’s non-existent or bad (I can’t tell which) marketing department was engendering. He keeps trying, but Microsoft’s Fox Mulder-like approach to releasing details makes people believe that Origami will be made from Saturn’s rings and delivered by aliens.

By this time, there’s nothing Scoble can do. Yet, as he falls beneath the stampede he thrusts his pen once again at the problem.

By the time the truth is known, there is only one possible reaction: disappointment.

Now instead of a lot of talk about what Origami is and what it can do, there will be a lot of you’ve got to be kidding and is this what all the fuss was about.

Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Half Stepping the Big Stairs: the Irrelevance of IM

Fred Wilson is excited about AOL opening up AIM (sort of) to third party developers for incorporation into their products. He challenges AOL to take the only step that matters by allowing interoperability with the other IM applications. Jason Calacanis, who now works for AOL, agrees.

Letting developers build on top of AOL is fine. Steve Rubel points out the potential benefits to marketers via add-ons like AIM bots and feed alerts.

But this is a half step up a giant staircase. Rather than a parade and confetti, we need to be looking and AOL and saying “And……what else???”

Until IM applications are like phones, IM will never, ever be adopted by the masses. Text messaging has already passed IM in race for the instant communication mindshare primarily because you don’t need 5 cell phones in your pocket to make it work. Text messaging works cross-provider.

The IM race is still being run by closed, proprietary horses because they are competing based on user base and not on features and reliability. AIM has most of the AOL users (though you do not have to be an AOL customer to use it) and a large base of other users. Yahoo (the only company that can compete head to head with Google based on anything other than a large war chest of dollars) has a big user base. Microsoft has a program that is embedded into Windows, a large user base and a war chest of billions it can use to remain in the game. Google launched Google Talk, which promptly faded only to suffer relentless CPR at the hands of Gmail.

Each of these companies wants to win the user base war. Sharing protocols and allowing interconnectivity would turn IM programs into a commodity. These companies who are competing to become the one-stop internet shop for the masses do not want IM programs to become a commodity. Certainly AOL, trying unsuccessfully to stem the flow from behind the walls of its newbie castle, doesn’t want to give those newbies one more reason to cross the moat into the real internet.

Unless and until the day anyone can IM anyone else, all of this talk about IM applications is much ado about nothing.

In August of last year I wrote about the IM situation. I can’t sum it up any better today than I did then:

Until IM programs become like telephones, where the provider and the manufacturer of the telephone have nothing to do with who you can and can’t call, IM will simply not be adopted by grown-ups and businesses.

And that’s really too bad. IM could have been a contender.

Looking Through You

Your lips are moving
I cannot hear
You voice is soothing
But the words aren’t clear
You don’t sound different
I’ve learned the game
I’m looking through you
You’re not the same
– The Beatles

Seth Finkelstein and Ethan Johnson are talking about marginalization in the blogosphere.

This is a complex and touchy issue, but here are my thoughts.

Common Sense and Fairness

Many, many times I have read things on a blog that have already been talked to death on other blogs. What’s OK and not OK in that situation is a “know it when you see it” sort of thing. Clearly if someone links to another blogger or engages him in a cross-blog conversation, then it would be wrong of him to restate what was said as if it were his own original thought.

On the other hand, if I talk about an issue today, some other blogger might talk about the same issue next week or next month, perhaps in a similar fashion, without ever having seen my post. The blogosphere is a big place and it’s impossible to know what everybody said today, much less in the past.

Maybe I’m being naive again, but I think if you apply common sense and fairness, these things will take care of themselves. And if you don’t, someone (be it Seth, Ethan, Kent or somebody we don’t know yet) will probably let you know.

But No Footnotes Please

Blogs are not generally research articles (thank goodness). But fairness is fairness, so some rules should apply.

It boils down to a couple of things.

First, the whole greater mindshare/Gatekeeper thing. I’ve had my say about that issue and, pending any new perspectives, I’m not going to rehash it all over again. It’s there. It’s not as bad as some think. Most of it is natural; a little bit of it is designed to exclude. But you can get inside the gates. Yada, yada, yada.

More importantly, and the thing this conversation makes me wonder about, is whether there is some implied duty to do a Technorati or Google search before you post something to see if someone else has already covered it (or in the case of a new discovery, already dis-covered it).

How Much is Enough

I generally search a little on a topic before I post on it to make sure I have at least most of my facts right and to look for other relevant and helpful links. Most of the time, I do this via a Technorati tag search. Once in a while (though much less often) I’ll do a Google search. But I don’t know that a search should be a requirement prior to posting about a topic.

It’s one thing if someone knows another writer has uncovered something new. In that case, I think a link ought to be included back to the original story. But the internet is a big place and if I have to do vast research before posting on something, then I’m not going to post very much.

If I were to accidentally jump to the front of the line on an issue, however, I would hope someone would let me know in an email or Comment, in which case I would (and should) supplement with a mention, link, etc.

Looking Through

I fully understand the frustration that occurs when someone posts something that you’ve already covered and it gets treated like earth shattering news. I protested (mildly) via satire when that happened about this very same Gatekeeper issue.

I don’t want to come off sounding like I can’t relate to the desire to be heard, because I can. And whether I write this blog for another year or 20 years, I will always do what I can to find and invite new voices to the table.

Sure, some people (and I think it’s a relatively small number) hand out links like medals. But given the communal nature of the blogosphere, those folks are their own worst enemy. And their numbers will decline over time as the blogosphere continues to flatten.

Just because someone doesn’t speak to you doesn’t mean they are ignoring you. They just may not have seen you.

Web 2.0 Wars: Round 10

It’s time for Round 10 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.

This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.

Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Here are the contestants for Round 10:

Riya
Audible Wordcast
Opinity
Reddit
MeasureMap
Gumshoo
Bluepulse
Imvu

***There’s a little green dot at the end of the line I can’t read, so it’s not included.

Riya is a photo sharing service with a twist. It has face and text recognition capability that help you identify and name your photos. I haven’t used it, but it has received lots of positive press in the blogosphere.

Audible Wordcast is a service that allows users to manage, measure and monetize podcasts. It uses a proprietary audio format and allows you to include advertising in your podcast (just what we need, more advertising). You can sign up for their fancy package and sell (yes sell) the right to listen to your podcast on the Wordcast site. Let me know how that works out for you.

Opinity is a “reputation services company.” Somehow you can check out a person by filling in a form. Sounds sort of creepy to me.

Reddit is a link aggregator where users vote stories up and down, similar to (but much less known than) Digg. Well designed site, but as I have said, the news by contest thing doesn’t really work for me.

MeasureMap is a stats tracking service for blogs. The front page says it’s free, but you have to request an invitation.

Gumshoo is an eBay auction risk analyzer and misspelling search. It’s supposed to help you find stuff easier and avoid auction fraud

Bluepulse has something to do with mobile technology. Its vaguely written About page and the lack of an FAQ make it seem more like an online version of Myst. Get an FAQ already.

Imvu is a 3D Instant Message application. You chat via a 3D avatar.

Before Today I’d Heard of:

1 out of 8.

And the Winner of Round 10 is:

Riya in a cakewalk.

Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0

About this Second Life Thing

After reading about Second Life at Scoble’s blog and elsewhere, I gave it a try tonight. My thoughts later, but first a question.

Is this related to that deal that AOL (or maybe it was Compuserve?) launched or almost did 10 or so years ago? A long, long time ago I was a beta tester for something very similar. I can’t remember what it was called- maybe something “scapes?” Anyway, I was a beta tester along with a ton of other people, which meant we had many months of free service. It was pretty amazing by the standards of the day. Once it went live, I didn’t want to pay for it, so I never signed up. That spelled the end of my great avatars, Fritz the Cat and Shakes the Clown.

Anybody remember what I’m talking about?

So tonight I sign up (Ezra Snickerdoodle) and create a cyber-Kent/Ezra and wonder around the place a bit. Again, this is very, very similar to that deal I talked about above.

second life avatar

It is a pretty cool deal, but I really need to go when someone I know will be there, since I’m not much into the chat scene and am probably about 100 years older than the next oldest person in there.

The one problem I had, which is what made me stop playing Doom back in the day, is that I start feeling motion sick when I walk or fly (I had that dream as a kid) around.

I don’t know that Second Life has much appeal for me, but I can sure see how kids would dig it.