Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

Everybody is talking about the social networking thing this week on a number of levels. Loic Le Meur says he's looking for some centralization and back on his blog. I have to agree.

Michael Arrington weighs in on this on TechCrunch, with a focus on FriendFeed. I'm hot and cold on FriendFeed right now in and of itself.

Louis Gray on Internet Addictions. He thinks calling it an addiction is silly. I do too.

Meanwhile a judge says Facebook friends aren't real friends.

Ed Bott on What's Wrong with the Blogosphere.

Russia wants a tunnel between the Motherland and the US.

They are still caucusing in Texas?

Newsweek proclaims a "new" Super Tuesday ahead. Give me a break.

I'm not sure how I feel about all the talk about giving the US Treasury more power. On one hand we do need some system to keep the thieves and greedy buggers from crashing things down around us as they steal our money. On the other hand, there are times I just say "let her burn."

Dave Winer is talking to Pigs. They are talking back.

George Will waxes somewhat rhapsodic on baseball. He says one reason we like it is that there are 3 strikes and you're out and no lawyer can help you. Unless you dope up to play the game.

The New EverNote Is A Real Game Changer

I produced a GottaBeMobile.com InkShow review of the EverNote's latest and greatest, and it is a real game changer. It allows you to grab info and share it across platforms in ways that I find breathtaking. If you're a Tablet PC user you're silly not to check this out. If you aren't a Tablet PC users, but do work with multiple machines, you're silly not to check this out. Heck, even if you just use one machine, you're silly not to check this out. Check out the review and InkShow here, and if you hurry you can grab some invites to the closed beta on GBM. We've been giving them away like hot cakes as interest is really high. And rightly so.

 

Technorati Tags: EverNote

HTC Mogul Rom Update with EVDO Rev A and GPS Released

Repost from GottaBeMobile.com

Ok, those of you who have been waiting for the HTC (Sprint) Mogul ROM update to be released can start your downloads. Word has been popping up all over the place today of the official release, but most of the links point to this site, which isn’t showing the update yet. But here’s a link that takes you straight to the download of the official release of ROM 3.35.651.2. (Downloads are slow, as I imagine the server is being slammed.)

The ROM update promises EVDO Rev A, Bluetooth fixes, GPS. and some other bug fixes as well. It has been anticipated since the Mogul went on sale last summer and delayed several times.

Technorati Tags: Sprint Mogul,EVDO Rev A

Shut Her Down or Else

So, Pakistan shuts down YouTube because somebody got offended and now the Taliban is telling mobile companies in Afghanistan that they need to turn off their services at night, so that the US forces can't use them to trace them in all their Taliban-y badness.

So, I'm just going to ask this question. Why are you using the phones in the first place if you know you can be tracked? And next, if the towers are shut off, don't you have a problem communicating as well? My guess is they are just miffed that their unlimited plans are capped at 5GB.

Technorati Tags: Taliban,Cellphones,Afghanistan,Pakistan,YouTube

Everybody Into the Pool

So Verizon jumped in first. Then AT&T. Then T-Mobile. Sprint is still standing on the side of the pool after testing the waters. All you can eat voice on your cell for a monthly fee. Sounds nice. Interesting though that they are still holding back on all you can eat data. Verizon's "unlimited" is now 5GB a month and the others aren't going to dive into that deep water first. Even though that's were the real juice is in the future.

Too bad Google dropped out of the FCC auction.

Via the AP

Technorati Tags: AT&T,Sprint,Verizon,T-Mobile

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

I've been very busy this week, but I'm enjoying catching up on the Davos coverage from Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington. I wonder if anything substantive ever comes out of conferences like this, except for the participants?

Bill Gates' talk at Davos on a New Approach to Capitalism in the 21st Century is good reading and good viewing. Of course I always look at thoughts like this with the old axiom in mind, "the length of the journey depends on how much you want to make it."

The NY Times looks at gadgets that listen and obey. I still think this is far off from mass adoption.

Jonathan Sidener in the SanDiego Union-Tribune looks at how cell phones are transforming everything. I'm not sure they've mastered multi-tasking as he claims, but they might be on their way.

Amazon looks like it is serious about taking on Apple. They are going worldwide with the DRM Free model. Pressure point? I think so.

I, Cringely on Moore's Law, chips, and heat.

Steve Laser pens a controversial piece saying the HTC Advantage is the ultimate UMPC.

Caroline Kennedy endorses Barack Obama. Will that matter to anyone?

The sky is falling! Actually, not the sky, but a dead spy satellite will be crashing on the planet sometime soon. Gravity always wins.

The artwork accompanying this weekend's Sunday Morning Reading is from Chris Harrison's Visualizing the Bible.

Technorati Tags: Davos,Bill Gates,Mobile,Amazon,Apple

Sprint News Can't Be Good

This just can't be good. Or can it? Sprint is laying off a slew of workers and reporting that it saw a downturn in customers. Maybe they'll start to pay attention to things like, what makes so many of their customers want to run away screaming. When dealing with your cell phone company fills you with as much dread as going to the dentist, you know you're not doing something right.

 

Technorati Tags: Sprint

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

The AP's Top News Stories of the year.

Top Business Buzzwords of 2007. Meatball sundae?

The New York Times list of words we created in 2007.

And you thought you were worried about battery life?Villagers walk 20 kilometers to charge up their cell phones.

The NCAA comes up with new rules for live blogging a game. Almost as arcane as the NCAA's rules about amateur athletics and compensating athletes.

Dave Winer on his long bet with The New York Times regarding blogging vs big media.

Mathew Ingram on Will the Strike Change Hollywood? Here's hoping.

Is there really a dramatic comeback for the play? Ben Brantley in The New York Times thinks what we've seen this year in New York says yes. I hope he's correct.

Paul Szep sums up America's news coverage of world events and what's important. Brilliantly.

Doc Searls on Branding and Social Networking

Doc Searls usually nails the coffin shut on whatever issue he's talking about and once again he does it here. Talking about branding and social networking, which is still a hot topic of late, he says:

Fourth, the thing companies need to do most is stop being all “strategic” about how their people communicate. Stop running all speech through official orifices. Some businesses have highly regulated speech, to be sure. Pharmaceuticals come to mind. But most companies would benefit from having their employees talk about what they do. Yet there are still too many companies where employees can’t say a damn thing without clearing it somehow. And in too many companies employees give up because the company’s communications policy is modeled on a fort, complete with firewalls that would put the average dictatorship to shame. If a company wants to get social, they should let their employees talk. And trust them.

I just dealt with one of the world's craziest and most hated companies, Comcast, on a customer service issue. I got zero satisfaction from the front line employees I first dealt with, and in fact found the way I was treated very insulting. No surprise there. It is Comcast after all. I didn't stop there and ended up getting communications sent to the customer retention department and the local regional office late last night. I got calls from both this morning, assuring me that they would work out the issue. And the issue was resolved. But you could still sense the script and not a real communication attempt happening through the phone.

When you ask someone a question that takes them off the script you can hear the pause and the wheels turning. What I loved, though was one off the cuff comment that was made by one of the troubleshooting reps, and it echoes Doc's point quite well here. The guy said, "sometimes we have to break through a department's firewall to get things done here."

Apparently that's his job. I guess from a business standpoint, when you have to set up a customer retention department or some other kind of troubleshooting mechanism, then you've missed the point somewhere. All the branding and social networking can't save you once that happens. Because sooner or later the script will run out and there are no answers.

Technorati Tags: Comcast,Social Networking,Branding

Open: The Latest Word About To Be Mangled

Everybody is suddenly on the open bandwagon. Verizon, AT&T. I'm sure Sprint will claim it is soon followed by T-Mobile. Why the hell not? Some of these guys reinvented the word "unlimited" and I'm sure the same folks will have fun, as if they haven't had a good start at this already.

What a bunch of hooey. The only thing open around here is my mouth in astonishment that they think they can get away with this.

Om Malik and Michael Parekh have some interesting reading on this.

Technorati Tags: AT&T,Verizon,Open