While the news of a possible Microsoft/Yahoo! acquisition/merger has been on the front page of every periodical including every Blog on the planet, I’d like to add my 2 cents with linking to this article from Information Week - kudos to Stephen Wellman for a thought-provoking article on why Nokia should buy Yahoo! without thinking another second. I’m in favor - anyone else?
Under the category of “it’s about time!”, we see Motorola getting agressive with alternative energy sources for powering cellphones - check it out here and other comments by CrunchGear here.
Of course, as my title suggests, this allows for wider distribution and logical use of cell phone technology in countries where electrical power for recharging is unpredictable at best and possibly not available at all in the worst case. Since other devices have been using solar power for self-charging for some time now, I think this could be a great step forward for large-scale adoption of solar power.
Skiing in the Mall (Ski Dubai), originally uploaded by Ed Weaver.This is a picture of the ski slope in the Mall of the Emirates, mentioned in the post below…enjoy!
Working Late, originally uploaded by Ed Weaver.This guy was always working (as a part owner of his MP3/MP4 manufacturing company, it should come as no surprise). This picture was taken during dinner around 10pm after a long day. The restaurant was the only place I saw a rat the whole week in Shenzhen.
Tatum Anderson, writing for the BBC, delivers this article today from Delhi. Half the world that currently doesn’t have cell phones is getting creative in finding ways to afford them, use them and profit from their use. Farmers are even getting better prices for their crops due to greater access to information.
While in this blog, you’ve read me postulating regarding the advent of media on phones as the new “iPod”, but this is fundamental change that ulimately can enable worldwide use of phones for media. If farmers don’t get better prices by using their cell phones, there is no perceived value for the phone. This alone will make a huge change in adoption rates and the interest in the carriers and manufacturers serving these geographies.
Ignore my sarcastic view of the PR sweet-spot words in this otherwise notable press release from Adobe. Flash has made a big comeback with it’s popularity driven by applications in YouTube and other media aggregation sites.
Some of you may say - “Comeback - have you been under a rock or something? Hasn’t Adobe’s Flash been a critical element of web design, rich media ads, etc for years?” and to some degree, rightly so. Here’s the reason for my choice of words “Comeback”: Flash grew popular in the late 90’s and early 00’s for visually stunning mulitimedia websites. Then came search engine optimization and search engine marketing best practices, which looked down upon the use of Flash in websites, as search engine spiders could not “read” a Flash file. So, it’s been out of vogue if you wanted your website to be search engine friendly.
With the advent of YouTube and other media aggregation sites, Flash has become the new poster child for media distribution capabilities. Now that it has an even newer lease on life on cellphone platforms, it may be here to stay.
So, strategic question - will the use of Flash media files take the place of MP3, MP4, due to the ubiquity of the Flash Player? Of course, you technology strategy geniuses out there are saying “Ed - I had that figured out 2 years ago - what took you so long?”.
This would have just a LITTLE impact on the current technology that drives music, film, podcasting and iPods, etc. If cellphone MFRs implement Flash as their media technology of choice, the ramifications are pretty large…..I’ve already said that cellphones replace the iPod and other MPx players in the end game. Maybe this accelerates the end game.
I guess it’s about time to discuss the iPhone. I’ve procrastinated on writing this post, due to the potential impact the iPhone has on the market and yet weighing the risks to Apple and other phone manufacturers. It’s somewhat difficult to be unbiased on either side of the battle that has begun.
First, let me say that the pictures of the iPhone (check here with my friend Blake Burris of CocoaRadio for some great firsthand shots) look great. The concepts of the OS and Software the phone is built around sound great. Watch Steve present the Keynote at MacWorld for details.
Question - how will we like typing on a completely flat surface (the phone screen)? It may take us a while to conform to a new manner of typing. We’ve all gotten comfortable over the course of our lives with the raised keys with “finger curves” and the feeling of pressing down to create a keystroke. I’m sure we can adjust, but wow - it will take some committed early adopters to stick with it!
Visual voicemail is new to cell technology, but old hat to VOIP users. I’ve had it for 3 years now - a great invention. Glad it’s finally coming to cell phones, although, since I have a Blackberry, technically I’ve been able to do this for a long time.
As usual, Steve blows people away, generally until they walk away and go…”hey - I’ve been doing this for a long time - how come he made it seem so special?” Welcome to the mystique that is Steve Jobs.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m looking forward to seeing this on the market and how it will force all the other manufacturers to get moving on some creativity. We, the consumers, will all benefit. Let’s be glad!
Yesterday, Steve Rubel articulated the issues around RSS and large, profitable web properties - specifically Yahoo!. He updates today with a broader discussion of this issue here. I’ve been discussing this in presentations for the past year that RSS, while a phenomenal “new” service that web users can benefit from, requires a web property focused on pageviews to rethink their advertising strategy.
Namely, should a frequent reader only subscribe to your feeds, there is NO reason for them to come back to your website. That is, unless you are primarily an e-commerce website. So, can you monetize your RSS feeds significantly enough to replace the the money you’ll see disappear from your CPM reduction? So far, advertising in RSS feeds is still nascient, so I’m thinking that you won’t be able to. Thus, those web properties focused on ad sales to survive have to reconsider how quickly they adopt an RSS strategy.
The big surprise for me is that Yahoo! appears to not have considered this when they started or at least when they saw RSS taking off. Poor strategic planning, guys.
What do you think CNN, WSJ, and Time should/will do in light of this discussion? AOL already has enough revenue problems and now, they have a new leader (Randy Falco) who doesn’t appear to appreciate email - is that a sign that he’ll adopt RSS or that he doesn’t yet know what it stands for….?
Well, Reuters breaks some news picked up by CNET which opens my eyes to some of the barriers for cell phone use and penetration in what would be considered 3rd world countries. It appears that state-owned telcos are not happy with other wireless carriers operating their own gateways to the world. Hey - you let the competition in, Zimbabwe. Now you have to pay the price.
Well, no great surpise as this from Matt Richtel of the NY Times has been discussed in the blogosphere for several weeks now. But, what I want to comment on here is that Verizon won’t have the lock on this for long (blinding glimpse of the obvious, BGO for you Barbarians at the Gates fans) and YouTube and other aggregation points will be readily accessed by cell phones soon and without too much muss or fuss.
Look for this to be the norm before long WITHOUT Verizon’s $15 surcharge….