Monday 29 January 2007

Flash Lite to rock on mobile


Mobile youtubisation *blink*

Flash Lite 2 is a nice way to go and focus efforts in mobile development.
Developer.com, focused web site, awarded Flash Lite 2 with the title Product of the Year 2006.

New and exciting opportunities and challenges are ahead.
Adobe will present next month some of the flash beauty at 3GSM in Barcelona.

Scott Janousek reports a list of firms that will make live presentation.
I am aware that Alen Alebic, croatian developer, is much praised in the Flash Lite community.

Sumner Redston is smart businessman and he already made a deal with Adobe about Flashcast, so Viacom could distribute multimedia content over the ''pipe'' but with Flash Lite as the presentation layer.

Sunday 28 January 2007

Tongue Talk


Chat with her clitoris

Sexual human being as I am, I like sex.
My girl offers me sometimes to ''talk'' with her clitoris :)
No need to tell me twice !

- I'm coming dear !
- Would you like to talk with my clitoris ?
- My pleasure.


And then we go on with ''communication''.
Long time ago I read a small tip by some ''oral expert'' about spelling words when touching clitoris with lips.

- A, B, C, D.....S, R, R, R....B, B... ( splash )
- Oh, yes, mwoowoo ( moaning )


It's naturaly we develope full dialog during this act.
That's good communication :)
After her orgasm, I proposed.

- I wanna launch MVNO company called '' Tongue Mobile''. Are you in ?
- I am over and out.


Me too :))

Influencing your party jukebox


Save the last SMS dance for me

PartyStrands is interactive music service for bars, clubs and private parties.
Business model is interesting :

PartyStrands’ business model makes it easy for venues to take part. There is no cost for bar or club owners, but they must have a digital music system in order for the music selection to work. Partygoers pay a USD 0.50 or EUR 0.30 surcharge per SMS sent to the partyStrands system. The Ericsson Internet Payment eXchange (IPX) charging system distributes the revenues between myStrands, the venue, an affiliate when relevant, and Ericsson.


Still, it incurs charges. I wonder could such a service be made to support bluetooth.
In that case, you wouldn't have any business model at all for service.
Power to the partygoers, repeal those evil DJ ;))
Spanish Belchica Bar offers beers and SMS dances.

Saturday 27 January 2007

Softbank's fixed/mobile infrastructure


Fixed/mobile convergence with little help from croatian friends.

Softbank Mobile from Japan was, most certain, helped by croatian engineers when they have been launching IMS network over 3G ( first in the world ).
Croatian chapter of Ericsson Nikola Tesla is is one of the most important Ericsson centers for planning, design, implementation and system integration of IMS solutions and experts from this company have participated in more than 10 IMS projects across the world.

Dive in into Ericsson Mobility World.

Thursday 25 January 2007

Short advice to PR guy


Blues with 35 thesis for blog PR or PR blog or whatever.

During my drive home from Djurdjevac, come to my mind few thoughts.
Microcontent is described long time ago.

If we only think about small chunk of the content on the web ( blog posts, forum entries, CMS news, picturephoning etc ) like another microformat ( similar as these people define it ) , it has metadata.
We know Google thinks in terms of ''keywords''. Professionals ( journalists, copywriters ) who write for Web should fully understand metadata concept of microcontent and behave accordingly.

Google will add more metadata search later on, I am sure on that. Tim Berners Lee looked into this matter long time ago and name it semantic web. Who has a time for semantic, valid question.

PR guy the other day asked me about this, and it was main reason I wrote short guide for croatian PR guy, why he should care about blogs .

I replied that he should for the same reasons he spreads the message in traditional media and among audiences he chooses ( target public/audience ) , but this time you can envelope your message with metadata and the message is almost like microformat ( microcontent ) which gives more access to your data and it is ''automatic'' ( crawled with machines, and attributess of the message are extracted ) so you get speed, global spread, human response, word of the mouth, stickiness and pretty exact meassure of success
( Technorati, Nielsen BuzzMetrics , Google Analytics ).

Don't forget clean web links made by blog tools which brings you Google traffic.
Then I went further and compiled ( in croatian ) 35, as I call them ''thesis'', of how PR manager should respond to today's internet and which tactics to use.
I am not PR professional, but I am informed internet user and creator about the subject ( digital publishing, media, blogs ) so I am not afraid to speak out. Know a bit about PR, though ;)

Maybe my most radical idea to some ears would be, for God sake, don't follow Cluetrain manifesto. Forget it to oblivion.
Micro- this and micro-that wasn't mentioned in the paper :)
Microsoft for that :))

Let's get back to professionals who write for the web. Take digital news desks ( newspapers, TV stations, online magazines ) or columnist.
You are lucky media owner if you mandate your job applicants fluency and skills for metadata and microformats ( and hyperlinking articles ) .

Every article in the digital newspaper should have ''inside'' compiled metadata ( about author, time, topic, label, issue, edition, keywords, picture tagged, location etc.) , even though it should not be displayed to readers fully and all the time, but it should be available in the ''open'' web waters for free machine retrival ( RDF schema ) .

It brings traffic and gives visibility. I know it's illusion that every columnist and writer should care about semantic web but software can help you if common sense and lack of time doesn't : )

For PR guy I had a just one more advice at the end of my expose. Don't forget about flash banners.
Yes, flashy and obtrusive flash banners.

I was at first ( few years back ) against them , but I think if they give you value ( make you more informed, engaged with the brand itself ) , give them to your audience but be modest , just like in everything. Flash is now standard for marketing people, you should still stick to the text, but make combination is better.

Don't forget your message needs audience, and web properties you are interested in( brought to you by web barons ) should not be demonstration of ''digital maoism'' , but advertising funded ventures ;)

UPDATE:
I become aware of The Great PR Blog Flop ( MS Vista and Edelman agency ).
Technorati and press releases is the way to go.

Tuesday 23 January 2007

Google's playground


Sergey and Larry should be checking SearchMash from time to time.
Searchmesh.com is Google's playground for improving search on the internet.
It's not branded effort so not too many people ( ? ) know this fact so it helps them go undistracted and get decent feedback.
I guess.

Miscommunication with Twitter


San Francisco discovered SMS and short code but at the end...it's all Web

Wrapped my thoughts today about Twitter.
It's unusual social web and mobile service coming from the Evan's garage. Not pure web play, not pure mobile play, not pure IM play. It tries to be ''something'' . For many, it's pointless and useless.
But is it so ? Internet fad comes to my mind.

I had a ''second coming'' effect, just today. But my negative attitude prevailed, although I tried to be positive .

Currently, it's low profile and simple service, but way too simple service that doesn't solve much of people's communication problems.
The buzz is around, even BBC jumped on the board.
It looks like Apple ''hive mind'' is hunting this web app along with such high profiled members from SF web community participating on Twitter.

IMHO, it is niche and it is another internet fad.
Why ?
It doesn't solve communication problems. Mobile communications and Web are not married.
This service can be global only on the web and not on mobile phones, and that's what I am interested at this moment.

So, I come up with my own solution ( concept ) , but it's strictly for my eyes ;))
Effective discussion is not possible with Twitter, it's not straightforward chat tool, it's not effective group organising tool etc.
Only networking and microformatting feature is straightforward, but I'm bit tired of so many ''friends'' ( favorites ) I have never met face-to-face ;))

Yahoo already launched service that pretends to be something similar and it's called MixD.
I didn't try it out.

Currently, I can's see much metadata about location, age, interest.
When you become twitter, you feel somehow isolated and banal, and don't find it much fun either.

How many people think and are curios to find out what I am doing now or what I have done during a day ?
Maybe few, but to find out that on Twitter.... There must be some other solution for that and the one that's more mobile friendly and accessible.
The above mentioned problem should be solved with mobile web in mind and not with SMS, IMHO.
Twitter will be my ongoing research. Hope to post more in the future .

Sunday 21 January 2007

FOX News audio feed on the phone

After my reverend's speech, it's time for Fox News in the sunday morning.


It's no secret among my friends and ''club experts'' that I think ''podcasting/audioblogging for the average user'' ( shall we say, audio voice for distribution on the web and mobile ) is in the combination of mobile phone, dedicated call numbers, blog account and co-branding of mobile operator and blog service provider ( Dial-in Mobilecasting ) .

I am aware it's not for iPod and Mp3 freaks, but for different type of users. Those that prefere making web sites with Blogger or Blog.hr and not with PHP Fusion and other shiny CMSs.
FOX News in the US ( I found out today ) thinks similar. Reuters reports very briefly.
Fox News has rolled out a new service that will let anyone with a cell phone access an audio feed of the cable channel.


I stick to these concept even if I know many ridicule my approach on daily basis looking what's catch and who would use it.
I already wrote about Podlinez service in US and express my opinion for combining web and mobile with good old phone calling ( no data plan needed ).

It is working, it's simple, it's more or less cheap, and people could be using it for short audio clips distributed over the net, but heard on every mobile in the country.
This should be first phase for the rollout mobilecasting in a way Melodeo does.
But it'll take time for mp3 downloads on the phones.

Mobile internet for TELE2 subsribers in Croatia


Tele2 Croatia online

The youngest croatian mobile operator Tele2 is finally preparing data plan for their subsribers.
Somehow I digg it up ( it's not official yet ) on their website.

MobileInternet 555 is the name of the data plan and it's combined with USB modem for desktop or laptop PC with 18 month contract.
General monthly rate for the Plan is 185,00 kunas.
It's 555 MB included in the Plan and above that user pays 0,35 kunas for 1 MB.
At first, UMTS signal is only available in Zagreb, but GPRS signal should be decent throughout the country.

I understand Tele2 hesitated for a long time to start such a service because of their agreement with VIPnet.

Friday 12 January 2007

LG concept, but Apple rule


Brother's out of law

iPhone seems to be having twin. Engadget reports about LG KE850.
LG is a company that sells a lot more mobile phones than Apple does, but it has a rock star and brand name CEO :))

Wednesday 10 January 2007

Searching SMS history

Find me an old quote of that woman ( horny, horny )

If messaging ( SMS in particular ) is the killer app, I wanna search function for all my text messages I have EVER sent.
Let's presume ( fiction to-be ) I'll be able to login and search my messaging history just like today I can search all my mail with Gmail.
Am I asking too much ? Oh, and ''print'' function would be neat ;)
This type of intelligence lacks and could be improved.

Apple's phone

Attack without batak

Phone, a mobile phone like no other mobile phone. Phone with charisma , multi-touch and enormous multimedia capabilities.
iPhone from Apple.
@ Anno Domini 2007.
Now, where's my cell operator and fast wireless line ?
We'll see. It's still fresh to say anything about iPhone.

P.S
Apple is ahead of time. Design is revoulutionary, but I'm not getting who's here targeted customer ?
The mobile ecosystem is tough to crack.
This phone will need decent data rate plan. Oh, battery too.

I think implementation of iPhone by Apple will fail ( no significant market share ) but it will push design and network matters on the table for Nokias , Motorolas, Vodafones of the world.
iPhone is a ''tablet'', I've read in one review. It could be true.

But look at these, Apple fans made a blog with many pictures / concepts of iPhone out of their imaginations.
It is truly amazing and potential good scouting for Nokia, Motorola and Samsung executives ;)

We all forget to look about texting capabilities of iPhone. Tomi Ahonen has an open letter for Steve.

I like particulary this one:

So please, Apple, make sure your SMS text messaging ability is as good as the current crop of top-end phones. Recognize that SMS is used by busy executives who carry a laptop briefcase in one hand and operate their phone in the other hand as they hussle from the elevator to the cab; and by college students who send secret messages to their friends in class, with the phone out of view. Your iPhone will need texting ability that can be used single-handed, and without looking at the phone.

Do they in US acctually know something about SMS ? It could be mystery to them :)

Monday 8 January 2007

Publishing better global news online

Online publishing on high heels and with The Cover.

The BBC and The New York Times for digital/internet age and 21st century is here:

DAYLIFE . Yes, DAYLIFE.COM

It's amazing news service that tooks concept of digital news aggregation as it allways should be done.
That's exactly what BBC and New York Times can't do because of its culture and business model or some start-up ( Newsvine ).
I might be overly enthusiastic, but I think Daylife has a concept for global internet news that is here to stay ( Google News, Topix, Newsvine and others were pioneers, but...) .

Look, they brought the concept of ''cover'' again as something really important. The main features are , Covers, Top Stories and My World.
That's transformation I havent's seen executed well in the internet before.
The global news industry is getting better ;))

Now, they need just to make PEOPLE ( editors, writers, producers, photographs ) and mobile phones somehow more involved into this project and they have winning position and become BBCs or CNNs of 21st century ;))
Without people it's only machine and it's not so relevant and if they don't do, FOX will do :))

I understand Craig Newmark and Jeff Jarvis are behind Daylife, and expectations are set high . The ''execution'' is the key ( no lazy people involved, please ) .
The founders should look at opportunities to mix up edited and user generated content. It's crucial to adopt philosophy of co-existence with ''old'' media .

Emerging wireless players for 2007.


Emerging wireless players to watch in 2007. , according to IDC.
Document at a glance.

Lady ninja


Kunoichi are around us, and maybe I have something in common with the term ;))
I've learned about Kunoichi last week .
They were lady ninjas in ancient Japan. I meant for real life and not video games.
Maybe Kunoichi escaped Japan or were in a mission in China or Mongolia ( it's something I talk on purpose ).

Call Japan and US for more info

*
Japan calling
Daniel Scuka from Wireless Watch Japan compiled Japan's Mobile Year (2006) in Review.
I would like to learn more about: naked mobile news, W950i Walkman, DoCoMo and Redmond tie-up,

*
Mobile phone sales in US
Red Herring has a top ten mobile handsets in 2006. ( US cell phone sales ). US market is unusual phone market, what gets chosen in the U.S. doesn’t necessarily reflect the rest of the world.

Sunday 7 January 2007

Dial for podcasts


Call me, call me, hear the latest from me about fishing in cold water.

Podcasting and practice of amateur internet audio shows is around for some time, but as a concept it never scaled much into non-techie and elderly community.
Well, solution for the opposite is at hand and it is calling Podlinez - podcasts on every phone.
Every podcaster can link their RSS feed to dedicated number and start to grow their audience with phone calls ( it's only US right now ).
I've seen many complaints from techies that this is pretty pointeless service. Well, I think it's not.
Matthew Kaufman is the founder of Podlinez and I found his logical explanation :


I’m the founder of Podlinez and I’d agree that — as someone with a computer, an Internet connection, and an iPod — at first glance it seems pretty pointless.

But there’s two good use cases that we’re getting a lot of positive comments on… one is the person who has a cellphone, free minutes, free long distance, handsfree via bluetooth, and a few minutes to kill while sitting in traffic. They can listen to today’s stock market closing report or this weekend’s fishing report even though they didn’t sync up their iPod with the latest episode while at work.

And then there’s the computer-illiterate elderly and the infirm who couldn’t make it to church last Sunday, listening to their church’s latest sermon podcast on their home phone for the first time ever.

I have yet to meet a podcaster who doesn’t want the size of their potential audience to expand. But I agree, when I first thought of the idea my first reaction was “who’d want to do that, when there’s much better technical solutions?”


Here's comparison with similar service in US called FonPods. They are similar but different.
Phone companies ( in every country, the cost of call is important so I'm not talking about global service ) that are smart and know that their killer app is still voice, could arrange smart audio services and connect amateur produceres with audience just like some preacher Tony in US does with The Bible CallCast.
Who cares about iTunes and iPod. I certanly don't ;))
Like many ordinary phone users who do not care if people call this practice podcasting or something else.
Yes, I am aware of Melodeo but it's different pair of shoes.

Saturday 6 January 2007

Vikendi.net to locate your weekends in Croatia

Find me escape I just might need, you portal :)

Before I go on weekend, few quick infos to add about Vikendi.net
Vikendi.net is a new croatian tourism site that immediatly appealed to me.
It is a nice user-generated portal for tourism providers ( users ) and related fields, still in its infancy.
The beuaty is in short distance traveling and the site provides infos for recreation, places and tourism offers. I think the audience will come and the base will grow ( if properly executed ).
The service Vikendi.net is very simple and works fast.

I can see it's done with PHP and has great SEO structure of links which will make them high with search engines.
The catalogue of information is structured naturally, and information are vertically and horizontally alligned ( geo information, type of service, offers ).
Yes, Google Maps is mashed up as well.

Finally something creative ( solves the problem ) on croatian web and decent idea for web site.
If I'm venture capitalist, you know what my words would be... ;))
To add my two cents, if possible, make it in english as well. There's huge expat community in Croatia and looks for weekends as well.

Peer talk with Fring

Fring is in beta.
It's the 3G mobile application that allows you to make free ( peer-to-peer ) mobile calls and send instant messages (chat) to other fring users and PC based VoIP services such as Skype and Google Talk at no extra cost beyond your existing data plan.
My mobile is currently not supported but I'll keep an eye on them via their blog.

Sada Rusei ?

Who's or what's sada rusei ? Is it name or is it some act ? Someone is looking for sada rusei video . The hit came from Brazil , according to my logs.
Maybe new Ronaldo or Ronaldinho ;))