MOpocket made it into another Carnival this week with my entry on the David Copperfield cell phone disappearance story… The Carnival of the Celeblogs is a new Carnival that focuses on the best celebrity gossip blog posts and is hosted every week by none other than former Life Styles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach as his AOL Vegas blog (I have heard that he likes to call it a journal, whatever) The Luxe Life.
I do not think I will be a regular on this one but since I made the cut along with some pretty big name bloggers in that field I am obliged to tell everyone to go read the Carnival.
The 25th Carnival of the Mobilists (where you can read the best news, observations and wisdom of the Web’s finest writers on the emerging mobile era) is over at my newly discovered neighbor Judy Breck’s GoldenSwamp blog. When sent me an email about my Carnival entry I discovered from her contact info that we live only one block away from each other on the Upper East Side of Manhattan! Amazing!
Nokia has teamed up with Yahoo! in order to provide Nokia NSeries Camera Phone users the means to upload, view and add comments to photos directly to Flickr. The technology will allow users to connect to their Flickr account without the need to download any other applications.
Full size photos can be uploaded to Flickr directly from the camera or image Gallery application on a Nokia Nseries device. Another supported feature is the ability to add comments to the photos that are uploaded from the Nokia Nseries device
Meanwhile, the company that has the most to loose from this technological availability, Shozu, just launched a new version of its popular picture uploading software.
Shozu v1.7 is free and open to the public. This upgrade includes the ability to configure configure ShoZu to be able to upload photos and videos to additional destinations, like personal blogs, other photo-sharing services (like Buzznet, which I use to send Video’s since Flickr does not accept those yet), and email addresses. Also, on some photo-sharing sites, you can now reply to comment threads from your phone. And in the smartphone version of ShoZu, there’s a cost-saving option to upload “blog quality” photos, if desired, rather than full resolution images. Shozu has also added support for the latest Nokia Series 40 Java handsets.
Shozu is probably one of the mosttly used installed applications on my Nokia 6682 N-Series phone and I openly admit having bought a Symbian Series 60 phone for the sole purpose of using Shozu.
According to the New York Post New York City Police confiscated 129 cellphones and 24 electronic devices yesterday at ACORN High School for Social Justice in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant. This was the first city high school subject to a new random screening initiative aimed at purging the school system of weapons and disruptive devices.
School Chancellor Joel Klein called the initiative a success.
Apparently there has been a ban on electronic communications in public schools since 1988, the scanning policy has raised the issue anew for parents and students who claim cellphones are their safety net in the jittery age of terrorism.
While parents want there children to have cell phones on them for security and safety reasons but as Klien points out that he has gotten reports of students using cellphones to take photos in locker rooms and to text-message each other answers during tests.
Confiscated items, with the exception of drugs and weapons, are usually returned at the end of the day but principals can require the student to be accompanied by a parent to get their stuff back.
Rhaleek Hatcher, 16, was one of the Acorn students caught with a cellphone.
“Me and my mother take care of my grandmother. Without a phone, I don’t know if there’s a problem” at home, he said.
Another student, Michelle Porter, 17, said her rights were taken away along with her iPod.
“I’m not a trouble maker, but they’re lumping us all into one group,” Porter said.
This story is not entirely about mobile but it does involve a mobile phone and I thought it was too cool a story not to report. The master illusionist David Copperfield used the tools of his trade and a cell phone to avoid being robbed this Sunday after his show at a West Palm Beach performing arts center. Apparently, he and two female assistants were held up by four teenagers riding in a black car while they were walking back to the tour bus.
One assistant handed over $400 in cash while the other assistant was forced to give up her purse which contained 200 Euros, $100, her passport, plane tickets and a Razr cell phone.
As the story goes, Copperfield says he turned his pockets inside out to reveal nothing in them, even though he was carrying his passport, wallet and cell phone. The trick, Copperfeld joked with the Palm Beach Post, is called “reverse-pick pocketing.”
When the robbers took off, Copperfield read the license plate number to an assistant while she used his reappeared cell phone to call 911.
The alleged teenage robbers were eventually caught and all belongings returned to the assistants.
As cell phone theft and the security issues involved become more and more a problem… perhaps this is one trick that Mr Copperfield should share with the rest of us, as a public service
This post is dedicated to the magician of CTIA, wherever you are!
Looks like Nokia’s direct to consumer blitz that is taking of so well in Europe is finally coming to America with a Flaghsip store opening up in Chicago on June 21st and a fifth avenue store opening up in New York City sometime before the end of the year.
Both stores will sell phones not available directly through US carriers.
But that does not mean that you will be able to by an N70 phone here in the states before it becomes available in American formats. The stores will sell Nokia’s full North American product lines, including high-end phones like Nokia’s N93, N91, N73, and the wi-fi enabled N80.
Nokia retail stores are big news for the North American cell phone market where cell phone manufactures almost never sell directly to consumers.
They’ve already sold their 7300-series fashion phones through unusual channels at Nieman-Marcus and Bloomingdales department stores, and the N90 cameraphone was sold at Ritz Camera. They’re now going to sell more phones through more independent dealers, and open their own branded stores – the first for a phone manufacturer in the US. (Samsung has a showroom in New York, but you can’t buy anything there.)
“Virtually anything that could possibly be available in this market will be there,” said Nokia spokesman Keith Nowak. “The people who work there will be Nokia people, with knowledge that will be deep. And the luxury of having some of these new channels is, it gives us the opportunity to offer products which are a little lower volume, and a little targeted.”
Customers can also buy these phones online at the Nokia USA website (thats where I get my Nokia 6882).
Nokia also launched an intense blogger relations / viral marketing campaign for their N70 and N90 phones in which they have spread the word about their N Series phones by sending Nokia N70 and N90 phones to Mobile Technology Bloggers to review.
I have tried to get in on that action with little to no success (but I am still willing Andy).
The N70 and N90 blogs are fantastic resource for checking out the latest gossip surrounding these phones all across the blogosphere
The first wireless data center company ever, Wireless Services Corporation announced today that it has just acquired Mobile Media North America the largest distributor of branded, made-for-mobile entertainment, interactive TV formats and mobile marketing concepts. Wireless Services Corporation will merge the operations of the company into its SinglePoint division. SinglePoint makes it easy for content owners, media companies, and advertisers to create, deliver and confirm premium mobile messages. The acquisition was an all-cash transaction for an undisclosed amount. Wireless Services Corporation has acquired Mobile Media North America, the leading producer
With Mobile Media North America, SinglePoint will provide a simple, powerful way for content owners to create, connect and confirm the delivery of wireless messages to all mobile consumers in North America. It will also offer a fully-integrated distribution and billing platform and premium connections with all major wireless carriers, as well as continuous connectivity to more than 60 leading media and mobile content companies offering mobile entertainment, games, storefronts, and interactive TV applications currently serviced by Mobile Media North America.
“Overnight, SinglePoint becomes one of the leading connectivity suppliers in the mobile content market,†said Rich Begert, president and CEO of Wireless Services Corporation. “We are now positioned to help any media organization, advertising agency or company market its brand to reach more than 200 million mobile consumers in North America, and we do not compete with our partners by selling our own content.â€
SinglePoint offers mobile content providers and carriers unprecedented support, including access to 24/7 customer service and a network operations center to help with the burgeoning off-net content market. Mobile content providers are also able to track transactions all the way to the wireless consumer.
“Mobile Media delivers unrivaled entertainment and interactive services to mobile communities in North America,†said Soren Schafft, general manager of North America operations for Mobile Media. “Wireless Services’ position as a leading wireless data services company provides Mobile Media with a tremendous opportunity to build on its vision to give consumers, developers, and carriers a superior personalized mobile media experience.â€
Wireless Services Corporation’s history of reliably handling billions of messages for carriers and its tested and proven customer care have established a standard for mobile data service and scalability. For example, in the first three months of 2006, Wireless Services Corporation and Mobile Media delivered more than 1.5 billion mobile messages in the US. Wireless Services Corporation’s carrier-grade infrastructure will help media and advertising companies to ensure content is properly formatted for consumers’ mobile devices. Broadcasters, whose high-volume events create tremendous spikes in messaging volume, will be reassured by SinglePoint’s capacity to handle, deliver and confirm that messages are delivered in a timely manner for their real-time events.
“Mobile Media’s connectivity and application portfolio make SinglePoint the first choice for developers and carriers looking for scalable, reliable, and trackable cross-carrier connectivity,†said Doug Busk, general manager of SinglePoint. “Today SinglePoint can provide content developers the keys to easily connect to wireless consumers.â€
The new organization will be co-led by Busk and Schafft. Schafft will manage SinglePoint operations in Vienna, Va., while Busk will manage its Bellevue, Wash.-based employees. Rich Begert remains president and CEO of the company and its divisions. The current employees of both companies will form the foundation for its significant growth plans as the mobile content market is expected to experience triple-digit growth in the next two years.
Looks like a company called Mobile Signal launched a text based social networking service that combines SMS and location based services (LBS) that will give subscribers the opportunity to communicate with people who share their personal or business interests in their vicinity via their mobile phone or PC. They also expect to boost mobile operator revenues by at least €30 million inside two years.
The technology can be accessed via a java menu that can be either be preinstalled on the handset or downloaded from the Mobile Signal website free of charge. The application can also sit directly on the SIM card in a mobile handset to enable extended features and one-click usages.
Once the tech is in full swing an SMS will alert users when there are people in the same location who share a whole host of similar interests such as sport, music, films, politics or even romance.
Whether it is a young backpacker arriving at an airport in a new country, or a businessman attending a congress alone, by activating Mobile Signal on their phone they will be made instantly aware of those nearby who also like to meet others sharing something in common.
The service will allow any person anywhere the availability to meet people who share things in common. I can just picture spontaneous flash-mob’s for the lonely traveler coming out of this. It would be a cool way to meet people when traveling by yourself or with a loved one.
Or as Dan Ake, Mobile Signal’s CEO, “Mobile phone users now have the freedom to reach out and communicate with people they’ve never met, according to personal and business interests. This is digital communications with a face, revolutionising the way people get to know each other.â€
At the third annual Personal Democracy Forum, taking place May 15 2006 at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, we will be featuring a breakout session on “Txt Messaging and Mobile Politics.†The panel will feature some of the best and brightest minds in the newly blossoming arena of mobile technology and politics. The panel will be a great opportunity to meet some of the industries major players and learn from their failures and success’ in the technology that promises to be the next big thing in political campaigns and activism.
The panel will be moderated by Personal Democracy’s very own Mobile Technology and Politics correspondent Justin Oberman (aka me) and will be featuring mobile all-stars such as Ben Rigby from Mobile Voter (winner of the Wireless Innovation Award - from the Wireless Innovation Network at CTIA 2006), Jed Alpert from Politxt, Dan Weaver from Mobile Accord, Dorrian Porter (CEO of Mozes) and Douglas Busk (the man behind the original SMS “4CARE” and “2HELP” fundraisers for the victims of Katrina and the Tsunami) from Singlepoint (Wireless Services Corp).
Other speakers are in the works.
To view other panels and great conversations that will take place at this years Personal Democracy Forum please visit our Conference Program Page.
Interesting article in TechNewsWorld about the transition of podcasting to mobile audio players to cell phones. Just consider it. There are tens of millions of iPods and about 700 million PCs already capable of playing podcasts. This is nothing compared to the 2 billion mobile phones now in use around the world. And as more and more of these phones come with more computer like features and memory, more and more people will be listening to podcasts on their already “always on” device.
Plus, two companies that have been around for a while now, UpSnap and Pod2Mod are making “Cellcasts” even more possible buy allowing users with “basic phone models” the ability to listen to Podcasts.
UpSnap, which currently delivers 100 free podcasts, allows users to listen to the podcast of their choice by simply dialing a number. UpSnap’s major competitor Pod2Mob allows for the same features but also allows users to get podcasts to their phones wirelessly by sending a text message (UpSnap will be releasing a text messaging service in a couple of weeks).
Pod2Mob already claims to have built a database of users well into the 100 thousands.
UpSnap and Pod2Mob also solve the problem of getting podcasts onto the phone. I mean, if people are not downloading ringtones from data enabled SMS links or wap browsers then its very difficult, for most, to just get the ringtone put on your phone , let alone podcasts.
With so many more cell phone users then pod users the article is enthusiastic that “within six months, more people will listen to podcasts via wireless phones than via iPods” and will thus increase the amount of cellcasting enthusiasts from the thousands to the millions.
This is especially the case as more and more of the cell phone technology out there gets better smarter and more capable of handling music download and playing.
And of course all of this has only added to all the Apple iPhone related hype
The article points out that mobile podcast may or may not have to develop new formats to deal with the mobile medium. by, of course, becoming shorter.
Perhaps a longer broadcast would be sliced into 30-second “chapters,” so that if users are interrupted by a call, they don’t have to listen to the program from the beginning again. “The mobile phone is a new publishing medium that’s every bit as different from the Web as the Web is from print,” says Bill Valenti, executive vice-president at Melodeo and former CEO of Tegic, a developer of software for mobile phones that was acquired by Time Warner’s AOL.
Or perhaps a person can just utilize the pause button that either automatically or manually triggers when a call is taken. Either way, as the mobile phone begins to mesh with things like music players and video players I do not really see this being a problem.
What the article is big on, and what scares me a bit, is advertising: While it’s still in its infancy, mobile podcast advertising and sponsorship is revving up quickly and could eventually surpass the traditional podcast ad market in size.
and
In many ways, advertising on mobile podcasts makes more sense than plain podcast ads. As with a video iPod, a cell phone ad can feature audio, graphics, or video. With a phone, though, a user can immediately respond by calling a marketer’s call center or by wirelessly surfing the advertiser’s Web site.
No. No it doesn’t. As fellow mobilists Oliver Starr and myself have warned time and time again there is a great annoyance factor that must be taken into account when it comes to unsolicited advertisements (especially in a device that you carry around in your pocket) and it is important to point out that the eventual download or listening to podcasts on a mobile device from or on a network data plan means that phone users themselves will be paying for the ads (in data costs). This would not be fair.
So, while podcasts are still files that have to be manually installed into a phone the advertisement scheme might work. But once you start asking users to download advertisements at their costs things get trickier. Even advertisements with the UpSnap and Pod2Mod model are not fair since you are asking users to use up minutes listening to ads on a podcast.
But the question really is, when podcasting comes to a networked enabled mobile phone… is it really podcasting anymore or just another media that can be downloaded onto your phone, the same way Verizon allows you to download shows or music over its Vcast services.
The whole point of a Podcast, in a sense, was in the mediums limitation. A podcast was something that you had to download from your PC internet and either listen to their on your PC or dump it into your portable mp3 music player to listen to on the go. Of course, people that have started or will start to listen to podcats on their phone will be doing so by these same means. However, it is not to hard to imagine a near future when faster mobile data speeds and better phone equipment will allow people to download a podcast directly from the wap enabled browser on their cell phone or (duh duh duh) from some j2me or brew enabled client that some company will invent that links up to an updated database of podcasts and enable downloading directly to ones phone.
Are these still podcasts or just down loaded radio or video shows?
MOpocket made it into another Carnival this week with my entry on the David Copperfield cell phone disappearance story… The Carnival of the Celeblogs is a new Carnival that focuses on the best celebrity gossip blog posts and is hosted every week by none other than former Life Styles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach as his AOL Vegas blog (I have heard that he likes to call it a journal, whatever) The Luxe Life.
