Testing Mobile Vox from my Treo 750v (unlocked)… The app is very easy to use, but I wish you could take pics not only from your phone but from your Vox and Flickr accounts too. You can’t choose size or positioning of photos or spell check either, but it’s still a great app… stable and user friendly!  I also couldn’t figure out how to hyperlink, but hey… That’s what computer editing is for.

This is a pic I took at the recent Killers concert in San Francisco.

SocialMedia Netoworks just hit the 1000 mark, with over 1000 Facebook applications per day running on the Appsaholic network and making money for 3rd party developers.  Check out teh lates blog post I wrote on the topic at: SocialMedia Network’s Blog.

Today, Verizon reported (gasp) that it is “opening” up its network to any device and any application…that can meet it’s “minimal technical standard”.  I’m prepared to swallow my words (see my previous post “Will Verizon Become a More Open Mobile Network for Developers?“), assuming Verizon’s standards (to be published in early 2008) are as reasonable as the press release implies:

Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices...
While most Verizon Wireless customers prefer the convenience of full service, the company is listening through today’s announcement to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service.  Both full-service and “bring-your-own” customers will have the advantage of using America’s most reliable network.

I want to believe that the world is becoming a more open and mobile place and that Verizon is championing the effort, and Verizon’s release makes it sound like the company is moving in the right direction, but I’ll remain cautiously optimistic until I see Verizon’s execution.
If the ‘minimum technical standard’ is reasonable, it will be a huge step forward for the mobile industry and consumers. However, if that standard includes a requirement for handset providers to put bandwidth constraints on third party applications (i.e. purposefully limiting the performance of 3rd party application “bandwidth hogs” like streaming video apps), the network won’t be truly “open”. *

Here’s the part of the Verizon release that triggers my (ahem) skepticism:

Following publication of technical standards, Verizon Wireless will host a conference to explain the standards and get input from the development community on how to achieve the company’s goals for network performance while making it easy for them to deliver devices.

On the one hand, Verizon says the technical standards they’re introducing are ‘minimal’.  On the other hand, they’re going to have to “explain” them to hardware developers in conjunction with their “network performance” goals.  Verizon has always closely guarded its network.  While it’s possible that Verizon will throw caution to the wind in the New Year as they announce their new standards and become truly open, it’s also possible that they’ll establish a not-so-open standard that hardware developers must compromise to meet.

Here’s hoping that end result of Verizon’s announcement is a truly open network.

*Don’t get me wrong – I understand why Verizon (and other carriers) would want to limit bandwidth heavy applications… They suck resources and if used concurrently can negatively impact performance of a fragile or overstressed network.  But, with the amount of money consumers pay for wireless data and calling plans, networks should be investing to ensure robustness.  And, it sounds like Verizon is doing that.

Check out the latest post I wrote on SocialMedia Network’s blog.  The post is an interview with Dennis Yu, SocialMedia’s resident SEO and advertising expert.  In it, Dennis explains the basics of social advertising, especially as it relates to SocialMedia Network’s Appsaholic.

I always loved reading “Dear Abby” in the Sunday paper growing up… You know – back in the days where people actually read newspapers.  I always wondered how “Abby” got her gig – quite possibly the easiest newspaper column in the world to write (and hands down, the most fun)… getting opinion questions in the mail and answering them, without doing extensive research.  With my childhood memories at the forefront of my conciousness, I was particularly excited when my good friend, Paul (prolific Voxer and neighbor in SF), wrote me an email (which, he gave me permission to post) to ask my opinion about a popular social media topic – Plaxo:

“I have some substantially horrible memories of ‘plaxo spam’ from 2004, 2005 and 2006.  I had one particularly persistent cousin who took full advantage of Plaxo’s ability to bug the hell out of his uninterested acquaintances — he pinged me from Plaxo’s site at least once a month for two years.  I could have stopped the acquaintance spam by asking him to stop (though he’s not what we would call a ‘good listener’) or putting Plaxo’s address in my blacklist, but I mostly grumbled about it and deleted the messages.

Now I’m receiving new Plaxo-pings from my coworkers for a new service called Plaxo Pulse.  It seems to be some kind of uber-content-stream-sucker with little added value.  My question for you, oh-queen-of-all-things-2.0, do we leave Plaxo in the electronic doggy house for their acquaintance-spamming ways, or does Pulse represent a newer/better/faster Plaxo that deserves my clicks?”

Dear Paul,

Thanks for writing!  I too have “substantially horrible memories of ‘plaxo spam’ from 2004, 2005 and 2006,” and like you, I’ve recently started to receive Plaxo-pings from all sorts of people for Plaxo Pulse.  I know that technology products change frequently- mostly for the better, but since the spam hasn’t stopped from Plaxo, I’ve not bothered to give it a second look.

Am I being silly to ignore it?  Maybe, but if it “Plaxo Pulse” were really that good, it would take note of my blood pressure, realize that repeated spamming makes my blood boil, and it would stop spamming me.  Alternatively, when it did spam me, the email would thoroughly explain why I should want to join a service with a long history of spamming.  And, that reason shouldn’t be that a random acquaintance or friend has added me to their address book.  It should explain the benefits of Plaxo Pulse in detail and, in the process, apologize for the hundreds of spam emails I’ve received from it’s predicesor, Plaxo.

So as not to dismiss the merits of Plaxo Pulse without doing at least a little research, I went to Plaxo.com an dug around to uncover the ‘new’ value proposition. This is what I found:

“Sign up and get the only online address book and calendar that syncs with Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Apple, AOL — and your mobile phone.”

I don’t see the point.  Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Apple, AOL, and any smartphone (mobile phone) each sync with free address book/calendaring apps and Outlook… Granted, if you’ve got 5 address book and calendar accounts from 5 different providers, you may need Plaxo.  But, if you’re like most people and only have work calendar/contacts and home calendar/contacts, and you actually communicate with the people on your contacts list every once in a while, Outlook or Entourage should do the trick.

The only differentiating feature that I’m aware of with Plaxo Pulse is that it’s able to simultaneously sync information from 5 providers, and it will send annoying spam ‘fill in the form’ emails to your friends, family, and colleagues regularly to ensure that you have the most up-to-date contacts.

In a digital age where communication is often too frequent and less meaningful than it once was, I think you’ll have better luck staying on top of your contacts (and ensuring that they remain meaningful) by finding out where they are/ what they’re up to when you speak to them, rather than soliciting ‘fill in the blank’ updates.

– Abby (ahem, I mean Lisa)

Check out the new blog post I wrote for SocialMedia Networks about social advertising.

I just published a new post at SocialMedia Network’s blog.  Check it out!

Yesterday, I started a 2 month, part-time consulting gig with SocialMedia Networks, a leading provider of social network services including a large and growing network of applications across Social Networking platforms.  SocialMedia’s flagship product, Appsaholic, currently available on Facebook and MySpace makes it easy for independent software vendors (ISVs) to manage, market, and monetize the applications they distribute online. In other words, SocialMedia helps developers buy and sell advertising space inside their application, cross promote their applications, and more.

A couple of weeks ago, SocialMedia announced that it secured Series A financing of $3.5 million. The investment was led by Charles River Ventures, with additional investors including: Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner of SoftTech VC.

In the next couple of months, I’ll be getting Developer Relations up and running, writing the company blog (which is very good already), and working closely with Julia French from Covered Communications, who I’ve been working with over the last several months on marketing and business development projects for other clients.

If you’re a developer on the SocialMedia Network or are interested in joining, please drop me a line to introduce yourself!  And, check out SocialMedia’s blog
in the next few days (I’ll post a link on my vox blog when I do my first post).

Last week at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2007, Ryan Kim of the San Francisco Chronicle sat down with Lowell McAdam, the CEO of Verizon Wireless.  If Ryan Kim were one of my Facebook friends, I’d “high-five” him for putting McAdam’s feet to the fire during their chat.  In his Saturday post on the “Tech Chronicles” blog, Kim writes:

I asked [McAdam] about Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg’s blog comments about the big carriers acting like the old Soviet government restricting the freedom of their users, namely what kind of phones and services they can use.

McAdam said he had heard Mossberg bring this up repeatedly. He said that the U.S. mobile industry has nothing to be apologetic about in terms of innovation and competition but that Verizon Wireless is considering opening its network to new devices and applications, as Mossberg advocates.

“The industry is so innovative, and there are so many applications and devices coming, we’d be foolish not to respond to the market,” McAdam said.

Reading McAdam’s response to Kim’s question several times, I couldn’t help but think it could be interpreted one of several ways.  Will Verizon completely open it’s network? My bet is ‘not anytime soon.’  Will Verizon introduce cooler devices and increase the size of it’s developer network?  To remain competitive, they’ll have to.

While I won’t be surprised if Verizon introduces an increased number of apps – especially social networking applications and services in the next couple of years, I’ll be really surprised if they open up their network to the masses, voluntarily.  Verizon’s ‘walled garden,’ “V Cast” is the most fiercely defended ‘service platform’ I’ve seen in the mobile industry.  It’s going to take an unprecidented amount of pressure from mobile industry evangelists and critics including journalists like Walt Mossberg, entrepreneurs like Dustin Moscovitz (co-founder of Facebook who talked about the need for more openness in the mobie industry at CTIA), innovative OEMs (Google?!), ISVs, and customer advocacy groups to knock it down.

A colleague at Forum Nokia recently introduced me to a great mobile search product called “Boopsie.”  Until now, I’ve used Google search on my Windows Mobile phone to find the things I’m looking for.  Last week, I started using Boopsie, and I plan to continue.

Google searching on my mobile is still great for doing local searches, settling pub quiz debates, etc., but Boopsie is great for helping me find mobile content that I wouldn’t necessarily search for.  From social networking (Facebook, Plaxo,  Yelp,  Wikipedia), to google services (gmail, calendar, etc.), to store finders (Starbucks, Jamba Juice, CitySearch), to news and entertainment (Major League Baseball, eHowto, Fandango, etc.).  Boopsie aggregates channels of mobile content (including those outlined above) and makes them easy to find.  Think of it as a catalog for mobile content.   A native Boopsie application is available for download to your Windows Mobile, PalmOS, or Blackberry mobile phone by clicking here on your mobile browser.