More on the Mobikyo story.
Link: It’s Hard Out Here Being a Blog Pimp | 3/26/2006 | mobile jones.
My blogging has definitely been side tracked this week by the on going conversations around my Mobikyo post. Much of this discussion has taken place either via email or IRC with most agreeing that the implementation and communication aspects of the project were fumbled or warranted some criticism. All of the discussion whether agreement or disagreement has been informative and productive.
Chris is an extremely creative and clever guy at Nokia. Here he tells a great story about his Nabaztag bunny. It’s a story about how to design ambient devices in this ubiquitous computing era, how to make your product more interesting by raising the option value (hackability), and the fun stuff he’s already done with his bunny.
And here’s a funny part:
Link: anti-mega: smart goods – the story so far.
The choice of rabbit is right, the industrial design is right, and some of the actions of the rabbit (such as the breathing LED at the rabbit’s base) is right. It’s a boundary object, a conversation piece, and a statement of intent. When sitting dead at work, Nabaztag still attracted attention. I wish I could have taken pictures of people’s faces when they asked what it was – “It’s a wifi rabbit”… “Errrr, oh, umm”.
Now, go and read it!
Ajit is contributing to Read/Write Web, introducing a new audience to the joys of the mobile world. In this article (link below) he does a quick overview of what a mobile browser needs to contend with.
He asks:
After all, the browser works well on the PC as a universal client – why not on the mobile device? A corollary to this question is: are there fundamental differences with browsing on a mobile device vs. browsing on the web?
And then at the end he summarizes:
So, to answer our question – no, we cannot develop all mobile applications using the
browser only. However, as we shall show in subsequent posts, these limitations are being
overcome through Ajax and mobile web 2.0.
I think Ajit kinda leaves out at least one key point – because the browser on the phone will never (should never) equate to the browser on the PC and because the phone is not a PC, mobile apps will use the mobile browser differently than how the PC uses the browser.
So, it’s not fair to try and make comparisons. Let’s focus on how to use the browser on the PC to its highest efficiency, and, likewise, focus on using the mobile browser to its highest efficiency.
I know Ajit thinks this way. And I know he’ll cover it in his subsequent submissions. I just think we need to be up-front with PC-heads in getting them into the mobile-mindset, rather than letting them try and port their PC-centric thinking to a mobile phone. Right?
Link to Ajit’s article: Read/WriteWeb: Mobile web applications – do they need the browser?.
*We’re focusing on just the browser here as a universal client, not other types of apps. As for browsing apps, I don’t think Ajax is the answer. At least not in the near term. Better mobile app design is the way to go.
James Reilly pointed out a great essay by danah boyd on MySpace, comparing it to and making prediction based on the tragic trajectory of Friendster.
There are many aspects to this great analysis:
– social currency
– community critical mass
– community leadership
– social discovery and delight
– cultural capital vs hegemonic capital
– moral panic
– collapsed context due to growth and size
– super publics
A great read. This essay is relevant to anyone building, fostering, or belonging to digital communities in the 21st century. It is the narrative upon which we build our product and services, the manifestation of the undercurrent of people’s lives, and how a hyper-linked society extends its communication structures to higher levels of complexity.
Link: Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?.
A lot of folks have asked me "What went wrong with Friendster? Why is MySpace any different?" I guess i never directly answered that question, even though i’ve addressed the causes in other talks. Still, i guess it would be helpful to piece some of it together and directly attend to this question.
….
I began this as a blog post and it grew and grew and i want to put it
out there even though i know that i’m missing factors. Still, i think
that this should answer many of the questions that people have. MySpace
is not the same as Friendster – it will not fade in the same way.
Friendster was a fad; MySpace has become far more than that. If it
doesn’t evolve, it will fade, but MySpace is far better positioned to
evolve than Friendster was. That said, i think we’re seeing a huge
shift in social life – negotiating super publics. I kinda suspect that
MySpace teens are going to lead the way in figuring this out, just as
teens in the 60s and 70s paved the way to figuring out globalized life
with TV. I just hope law doesn’t try to stop culture.
In case there is anyone who reads this site who doesn’t read this guy.*
Link: Russell Beattie Notebook – Three years of rants about the Mobile Web.
Wow… you know, searching for that stuff I wrote about Lonely Planet years ago turned up so many other posts, that I decided to do a search on XHTML and Mobile Web and see what I pulled up, which turns out to be a lot. I’ve been thinking about this topic since the end of 2002, easily three and half years ago. It’s interesting to see my learning curve as I go along… So for your reading pleasure, here’s a link dump of the topic.
*If there is, I’d sure like to know who you are! 🙂
Emily posts on her amazing textually.org about another mobile version of Wikipedia.
I use Maxpedia.org and am quite happy with it, so I don’t know of the merits of this new one or any of the other ones Emily listed in the post.
Follow the link below to see a list of other mobile versions of Wikipedia.
Link: textually.org: Wikipedia Mobile.
Another way to access Wikipedia from your mobile phone. Wap over to Mobile Guru Wikipedia. [via Mocoblog]
Users of Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Java-enabled mobile phones running web browsers can now access a lightweight version of the Wikipedia on-line encyclopaedia. New Zealand-based company Instinct has created a mobile version of Wikipedia for mobile devices, currently available as a beta website.
Terva Snapsi, a fine gift from my friend Tipi
Originally uploaded by schickr.
Terva Snapsi is made with pine tar. Interesting smoky flavour.
Ziti with ketchup?
Shawn posts some interesting stuff on his Rabble service as it relates to location information. I think what he is learning is crucially relevant to what people ‘theorize’ about services that have a location component.
A few highlights from his post:
– An easy connection he made with someone, simply because of the intersection of being a Rabble user and being in the same town.
– How folks view a location as an excuse to connect (co-location) rather than a topic of conversation (location information). I like how he said it – ‘proximity browsing’.
Follow the link below.
Link: InterCasting Corp: Rabble Archives.
You might find this interesting: We have noticed that users of Rabble 1.0 don’t so much care about specific location. General location and proximity matter, but not specific location. Rabble enables a user to specify their location at different levels down to the Place level, so you could say “I am in San Diego” or “I am in La Jolla” or “I am at Harry’s Bar and Grill.” Then you can also define your proximity, which works like a physical search radius. Most Rabblers define their location at the city or neighborhood level. We thought there would be a user case where people would want to create Places and then blog about them, sort of like a user-generated city guide, but this has not happened. People don’t do it because there is really no reason to. Places simply aren’t strong enough nuclei around which to create any kind of community, conversation or even interest, as it would appear. Rabblers are very interested, however, to know who is around them, and we see a sort of proximity browsing a lot.
