As a prolific LinkedIn and Twitter user, I was excited to hear the two companies announce an integration yesterday:

I was less excited when I actually tried to use it- and couldn’t. (more…)

When I watched Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices, announce the MOTO CLIQ™ (which will be called MOTO DEXT™ when it launches in the rest of the world) with MOTOBLUR at Mobilize 09 on Thursday, something interesting happened… something that I haven’t seen in a long time. The audience got visibly excited about Motorola.  Did they seem as excited as they seemed about Apple when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 3G? Maybe not, but they were genuinely interested, and at least among the people around me, there was a palpable sense of relief that Motorola announced an innovative device and software. (more…)

Yesterday, in researching the list of The Europas’ (TechCrunch Europe Awards) nominees for my last post, it hit me – there are still a lot of start-ups with great products that just don’t understand basic marketing.  Without calling anyone specific out on their mishaps, here are the top 5 basic marketing lessons you can learn from some of the The Europas’ nominees’ mistakes: (more…)

TechCrunch recently announced the nominees for The Europas, the awards ceremony celebrating technology innovation in European companies, to be held in London on July 9th.  I was excited to learn that one of my clients, ShoZu, was nominated for the Best Mobile Application in EMEA (shameless plug: you can vote for them in this category here).

While browsing the list of The Europas nominees, I noticed TechCrunch doesn’t provide company descriptions or links to each company’s website or page on CrunchBase.  I can’t imagine anyone besides the guys from TechCrunch and maybe a few VCs being intimately familiar with all of these companies (and I can’t imagine anyone besides me being interested enough to research such a long list).  So, to help you make a semi-informed decision before voting, I’ve done some company research for you.  Below you’ll find URLs, descriptions and CrunchBase listings for The Europas tech company nominees (Note: I have not included descriptions for the VC or founder awards). (more…)

I’d been looking forward to Apple’s announcement of a new iPhone for a long time, and while the iPhone 3G S (announced earlier in the week) looks marginally better than its predecessor, there are a handful of important features I’d hoped to see in this release that just aren’t there (more…)

Today at The WallStreet Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference, Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s executive chairman, and Roger McNamee, Palm’s director and co-founder of Elevation Partners announced some brand, spanking new features for Palm’s new webOS, the operating system that will power the Palm Pre when it launches on Sprint in the US on June 6.  So, will it be THAT good?  Here’s the scoop: (more…)

Today, I’m diverting from my standard mobile and social media musings to talk about something that’s bugging me: laptop bags.  I’ve been casually shopping for a new laptop bag for weeks now… I currently own the Tumi laptop bag, below.  It’s functional, but it’s your typical bleh laptop bag- grey, sporty, and not particularly feminine.  I love its durability, but carrying it is killing my mojo.

I want to replace it with something black, stylish, contemporary, high-quality, professional, and durable (i.e. no “pleather”/vinyl) – a bag that looks like it was made for a woman – not a 60-year-old salesman or a college student.  Call me demanding, but I won’t carry a laptop bag that’s pink, blinged out in gold cursive lettering, glittery, is made by Juicy Couture or Betsy Johnson, or pattered with leopard or flower prints.  I’m a business woman in technology, not an eccentric fashion maven, college student, or somebody’s “boo”.  If I showed up to a meeting with a bag like this, I’d feel ridiculous: (more…)

Nokia’s new Ovi Store officially launched today.  It represents a step in the right direction for the diversification of the mobile content market in general, but there are substantial kinks to address.  There are enough blogs and tweets out there that rehash the high and low points (highlights for me include: Terence Eden’s post, All About Symbian’s Post, Mobile Industry Review, and TechCrunch).  In this post, I’m going to focus on the lessons Nokia and others can learn from this launch:

#1: Call your first launch a Beta, and give users a chance to contribute to its success.

(more…)

You hear that? … What about that? …  Still can’t hear it?  What you’re probably not hearing is the sound of people talking about your brand online.  Right now, you could be missing tens, hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of consumer led conversations about your brand.

Unconvinced?  If you’re based in America, how many times in the last six months have you heard a friend utter the word “Snuggie” or a “ShamWOW!” versus the number of times you’ve actually seen an advertisement for a “Snuggie” or “ShamWOW!”?  If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably heard the words uttered and seen them printed on social networks more than you’ve actually seen the commercials.  Brands infiltrate both in person and online conversations every second of every day.  While you can’t eves drop on every voice to voice conversation about your brand, it’s now easy to find out what people are saying about your brand online. (more…)

Last Thursday, the Windows Mobile Developer Team (@wmdev) announced via Twitter that Windows Mobile 6.5 is done:

“For the record, Windows Mobile 6.5 is DONE… complete… looks really good IOHO and every bit functional. ping us if u want to know more.”

I’m excited to hear about this Windows Mobile release.  Though, I switched to a Nokia E71 last week (largely for the form factor), until then, I’d been using Windows Mobile phones as my primary mobile devices since I started working on the first Windows Mobile Palm Treo in 2005.  Windows Mobile is a robust OS, though from a usability perspective, in previous versions, it’s had some oddities, which took getting used to.

In Windows Mobile 6.5 Microsoft seems to have addressed several of these usability issues by introducing a new, friendlier user interface, gesturing capabilities, and these cool features: (more…)