Announcements/Strategy/Tips & Tricks

New phones from Nokia

Posted on by charlie

Not that I am enamored with phone launches (you get kinda jaded after many years of changing phones every 6 months), but today Nokia launched 3 new Nseries phones.

The funny thing, which is why I am mentioning it, is that I had no idea when or which phones would be launched. Darla and others let me know. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the N72 or N73, but rumors were that one of them was coming out.

I do think the N72 will be the next big seller for Nokia. The N70, which I had the good fortune to use for many months (and recommend highly to many), apparently was the best selling 3G phone last quarter.

As for the N93, I’ve been using it for a while now. The funny thing there is that up to now, I have been using a cover to hide the phone prior to launch. Because of Darla’s tip-off yesterday, I left the cover at home, expecting the N93 to be launched today.

And it was.

Now I can use it and show it off.

How is it like?

Yes, there are some unexpected changes, but for the most part, it’s a damn good device. I think most people will do more than fine using it. And, for those who know the Series 60 UI well, like me :-), there are a ton of really useful changes that were pleasant surprises.

Yes, the device is larger than your average RAZR, but it seems the same size, if not slightly smaller, than my niece’s camcorder. So, I think this is the one that is giving camcorders a run for their money.* And I think that’s the intent.

Another plus is the WiFi. Oh, it’s so nice to be home and surfing, downloading, or uploading stuff over WiFi. You then realize how slow GPRS or even 3G really is. Can’t wait for the Skype client to come out.

A few other things:**
– I haven’t tried the integration with Window Media Player – I use iTunes.
– I have played a bit with the flickr uploader. Pretty nifty, especially if you know how to point it to other services, like TypePad.
– For you geek browser types, the OSS browser is really nice, though I am not sure if it identifies itself properly to sites as a mobile browser (yo, Dave, now we can work out the user agents!).
– The 3-D Snakes game is really cool.
– And, of course, Lifeblog 2.0 rocks.

*Heck, digital cameras are so 2005, so no need to say anything more there.
** Of course, this is not a real review. Others will have more in-depth reviews, so go read them. This is just a ‘hey, check this out’ kinda review. 😀

The Narrative

MoJo’s Media Slaves – Life in Permanent Beta.

Posted on by charlie

MoJo just can’t sit still. She’s plunking herself down right where media and mobile mix.

Now she announces here the Media Slaves podcast. Go listen!

Link: Media Slaves – Life in Permanent Beta. | 4/20/2006 | mobile jones.

We are very excited to announce that the Media Slaves Podcast series is up and running! What is the topic for the first podcast?

Glad you asked! User Generated Content is a label that has been the subject of many blog posts…some of them even our own.

The Narrative

Russell Beattie bids adieu — for now.

Posted on by charlie

Russ has been a strong contributor to the conversations around gaming, blogs, and, most particularly, mobile. Now, he’s decided to take a breather from his four-year long brain dump.

Thanks, Russ, for the many years of great thoughts and attitude.

Keep up the stuff you’ve been doing as much as you can, I hope the reset doesn’t set you back too much. 🙂

See ya later, I am sure.

Link*: RussellBeattie.com.

Yep, after four years and almost 3,000 posts I’ve decided to close up the Notebook. There’s lots of reasons, but generally this is a continuation of the full-reset I started back in January. At first I was actually thinking about just transitioning to a more of a weekly blog where I write less frequently and was sort of cleaning everything up with that in mind. But then I just decided that I really needed a break, and that I’d really much rather start from scratch at another URL some other time when I’m ready to write again. Lot less pressure that way to do something new later on, and a lot easier to get out of the habit of posting daily now.

*Since Darla comes before Russ in my feed reader, she gets the credit here for letting me know about this news. Kinda fitting. I think Darla could be a good writer to pick up the slack left by Russ’ departure. 🙂 Kinda better in other ways, too – ‘pink’ and ‘diva’ are not two words I would associate with Russ. Ha ha.

Strategy/The Narrative

When you give a telco a server…

Posted on by charlie

I just attended a nice talk by Henry Sinnreich, CTO from Pulver.com, on P2P SIP. He was promoting P2P SIP since it solved many overhead issues, such as central servers. He also made some comments why we should be pushing server-less solutions to telcos.

His comment reminded me of something I said earlier that any new product should not require a new box for the telco, but it also made me think of a book my kids have at home, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Here’s what I came up with (heavily based on Henry’s comments, so the credit is his):

If you give a telco a server…

Then they are going to want more than one server to take care of geographical traffic and to ensure that at least one is running all the time for redundancy.

If they have a server, and more than one, then they will want a technician – a few technicians. They will want a few technicians per server to run in 3 shifts, 24/7 all year long.

If they have a technician, and more than one, then they will want a manager to keep track of all those folks, maybe a few managers.

If they have a manager, and more than one, then they will want an assistant, maybe for each manager.

If they have so many managers, with so many technicians and assistants, then they will want a VP to take care of it all.

Oy. Hence Henry’s push for P2P comms solutions that don’t really need central servers.*

*And don’t get me going about IMS!