Month: July 2007

Categories
Wireless

Interpreting an artifact from the future

Has any consumer product felt so much like it came from the future as does the iPhone? How about this quote from Business Week [via Daring Fireball]:

The most expensive component on the phone, [Portelligent CEO David] Carey says, is the touch screen, for which Apple tapped a little-known German concern called Balda. The estimated cost of $60 per unit is mostly an educated guess. “This screen is like nothing Iíve ever seen before,” says Carey.

Sounds like a line from a science fiction movie.
If you’re an online publisher and haven’t already bought an iPhone, I’m about to do you a favor. I’m going to give you an excuse to buy one. Go ahead. You can thank me later.
I’m not an early adopter. I kept buying Startacs off Craigslist long after they were discontinued and hung on to my aging T616 long after pixel rot wrecked the display because the handsets we’re (still!) being offered by the carriers are such irredeemable rubbish. I’m glad I waited.
Once you use the darn thing, you’re reminded why WAP is so hoplessly lame and degrading. Of course, you already knew that. But — admit it — in your hunger to participate in the mobile future, you held your nose and did a little WAP.
Having access to a large, hand-held, responsive, high-resolution, touchable Web, you realize there’s just no point to WAP any longer. WAP’s adoption by consumers is grindingly slow, and now it’s staring doom in the face. When you’re using the Web on your iPhone, you don’t need a carrier’s “deck” to help you navigate. The ad model makes sense because it’s the same one publishers are already using. No one has to create special lite pages for this device, although it might be a good idea for some producers to do so.
Mobile devices that don’t compromise the Web are not the only problem for WAP. Julie Ask is working on a report about some other alternatives to WAP sites that don’t require an iPhone.
I know some publishers are making WAP work. If you’re not already one of them, you’re unlikely to be one. But when you play around with this device, you’ll wonder why you’re dealing with all the middleware, special clients, pixel-poor ads — and the carriers’ hands in your pocket.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.

Categories
Digital Home & Personal Tech

Another view of GrandCentral

I’ve been using Grand Central since last October and overall I’m very happy with it. Michael Gartenberg says that he doesn’t want to give them control of his phone number and doesn’t like the interface for incoming calls.
GrandCentral solves a problem that I haven’t been able to solve any other way — I can’t get cell service in my home — and it solves it in an elegant fashion. My GrandCentral number rings both my cell and my home office. Its email notifications and message inbox are beautifully designed and easy to use.
I still wish that it had a more powerful set of rules (e.g. don’t forward to my home number before 9am). I wish I had more control over the greeting. Like Michael, I wish I could turn off the “Press 1 to take a call” feature — for selected callers. GrandCentral seems to fluster some callers, who sound confused by what precisely they’re talking to at first. And I really wish I could use my GrandCentral inbox with my iPhone (It requires Flash, of all things). And although I’ve heard some complaints about call quality, there are so many steps in the telephone chain these days, it’s really difficult to say how GrandCentral affects the quality of your calls.
I’m a lot less troubled than Michael about giving GrandCentral control of my phone number. It’s a big advantage for me that I don’t have to make my “real” numbers — the ones I do plan to keep for life — available to everybody. I use my GrandCentral number in my email sig.
Ever since I’ve been using GrandCentral, I’ve felt like I’ve had much more control of my telephone communications. And that’s something I’d pay money for.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.

Categories
Analysis Media

NYT understands how to be a good host

The NY Times has posted a reader Q&A with Digital News Editor Jim Roberts [via CyberJournalist] that contains a lot of interesting information about the operation of the digital side of the paper.
I was struck by the following list of guidelines for readers posting comments on the site so they could avoid having their comments bounced by a moderator. You can see the full version over at the Times, but here’s the shortened version:

  • No profanity. No obscenity.
  • No name calling or insults.
  • Stay on point.
  • Donít bother sending press releases.
  • Donít rage and donít SHOUT.
  • Please use your real name.

These are pretty much the rules that I have adopted in forums I moderate after a few years of painful experience.
Every failure that I’m aware of involving reader generated content on a media site appears to involve a failure of moderation. I’ve come to believe that the biggest mistake that print media make when hosting comments is thinking there is no middle ground between their tightly-edited professional product and anarchy.
However, I also believe there’s more than right way to do this, and it’s a good time for everyone to share information on how to do it. One of my goals for the second half of the year is to come up with some best practices for hosting social media.
Originally published on my blog at JupiterResearch.