What comes after Social Media?

SILICON VALLEY – Year 2003 things were heating up again in the valley after the dot com crisis and 2001 WTC twin tower catastrophe.

Web 2.0 and social media made Internet services fashionable again, pulling back entrepreneurs who thrived or merely survived in the first rounds of activities on the Internet that began two decades ago.

New companies emerged from nowhere. Blogs became popular. We got wiki and microblogs. Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Skype and a myriad of other social media services emerged.

Google and Apple are now the most glowing examples of post-dot-com-crisis. Both companies have positioned themselves for future growth. But they are also becoming competitors.

Millions of people around the world learned to use Facebook and Twitter. Nokia is still the world’s biggest mobile phones producer and supplier but it’s not the leader in usability. Google launched Buzz this year.

It’s interesting to see how fast the competitors are countering the successful launching of iPad. Nobody has been able to deliver a iPhone killer? Is it going to take three to five years before we see the first iPad killers as well?

The innovation train on the small screen

The small screen is another way of seeing the reality.  Nokia was the leader of mobile technology for a long time, but things have changed.

It might take a year or more for Nokia to run through the circle of confusion and find the way to mobile mastering.

Nokia is still a big player and if the historical black box delivers the simple mechanism for future innovation and prosperity then we’ll see Nokia as a major performer ten years from now.

But the world has changed fast since the introduction of iPhone. That was a disruptive innovation and the small singular moment of change has already happened. The observed moment of change is already here.

What will be the next big thing?

New Samsung Phone: a Real iPhone Killer? - BusinessWeek

New Samsung Phone: a Real iPhone Killer? - BusinessWeek: "To hear Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talk about Samsung Electronics’ new upgraded smart phone, T*Omnia, Korean consumers will soon get the mother of all smart phones on the planet. “The T*Omnia is at the forefront of this new generation of mobile devices,” declared Ballmer at a Seoul ceremony unveiling the phone on Nov. 3. “I like the T*Omnia phone because it brings together communications, productivity, multimedia, and entertainment in a way that meets the needs of both consumers and mobile professionals.”

The T*Omnia, an upgraded version of the Samsung Omnia that has been available in Asia and Europe for more than two months, will be introduced only in the Korean market from around Nov. 20 by SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier. It certainly offers more features than the iPhone. It includes mobile TV and 5-megapixel camera with auto focus and image stabilizer as well as Microsoft Outlook, Wi-Fi, GPS, fast Internet access through 7.2-megabaud per second HSDPA and Bluetooth support. But the real reason why Ballmer speaks highly of the phone is that it runs on Window Mobile 6.1 to allow users to swap any Window-based files seamlessly with their PCs.

One big attraction of the phone, however, is Samsung’s flexibility to work with the carrier..."

Tivo for your iPod 2005 and what's new 2008

Tivo for your iPod - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com: "A new technology allows listeners to subscribe to homemade radio shows and listen to them on their digital music players."

I made this posting 5/14/05 11:13 AM.

With a million ideas in my head and with the help of our Networking partners we can create a new interactive media for East-West road navigation.

It was the time of road information systems. Now Finnish ABC stations are installing Free WiFi into their cafeterias and lunch restaurants.

That's great news for those who travel a lot. Free internet connection on the road is a great service.

I've new idea about iPod applications and wanted to take this posting for re-evaluation.

Paris is also on my mind. There are things in France that will get more attention from our part in the coming months.

iPod can be used for embedded training

I wrote this post 11/10/06 8:28 AM. Now there are new thoughts on my mind about the use of iPod for product training.

iPod, podcasting, audio from a little whit box you carry with you. The headpset is a superb user interface for the person in the move.

We can listen to music and talkshows created by artists and ordinary people everywhere.

1. In the Car
2. On the Street
3. While in the Gym
4. Jogging in the woods
   
5. Rowing on the river
   
6. Cycling on the track
   
7. Dish washing at home
   
8. At work to get attuned
   
9. At home spending your time
   
10. To get into mood with the music you like
    
11. Listen to your teacher, professor, adviser, mentor and seminar speaker
12. User manuals on an iPod
13. Internal training and communication
14. One company bought and distributed 2 500 iPods for in-house learning

There it was: the example, the company that delivered 2 500 iPods for employees to listen to corporate strategy, services and product information. This type of information distribution is still valid.

Amazon Now Hawks MP3s, Targeting iPod Crowd

Amazon Now Hawks MP3s, Targeting iPod Crowd: "Amazon Now Hawks MP3s, Targeting iPod Crowd By Nicholas Carlson There's a new way to fill up your iPod -- but the latest music store to open on the Web isn't from Apple. It's from Amazon.

Open to public beta today, the online retailer's new Amazon MP3 music store features what the company characteristically calls 'Earth's biggest selection' -- over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists, represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels.

Making good on plans announced in May, every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format and lacks digital rights management protections (DRM), a company spokesman told InternetNews.com.

The absence of DRM means each song will be playable on any hardware device, from Microsoft Zunes to Apple iPhones, as well as through any music management application. Each song is encoded at 256kb per second and most will cost between 89 cents to 99 cents, Amazon said.

Typically, the top 100 best-selling songs will sell for 89 cents each, and mostly albums will go for between $5.99 to $9.99, with the top 100 best-selling albums marked at $8.99 or less."

NEW XtremeMac MicroMemo White voice recorder for ipod

NEW XtremeMac MicroMemo White voice recorder for ipod: "NEW XtremeMac MicroMemo White voice recorder for ipod BRAND NEW XtremeMac iPod Video 2G MicroMemo White Digital Voice Recorder Turn your iPod into a portable recording studio.

No tapes, no batteries, no cables. MicroMemo plugs into your iPod to record interviews, meetings, lectures, or any audio content directly to youriPod. Capture audio using the flexible, detachable mic—or another type of microphone with a 3.5mm-plug, like our MemoMic lapel microphone or a stereoor condenser mic.

MicroMemo also records directlyfrom a computer or soundboard via line-in capabilities. Recording time is displayed on your iPodscreen in real-time, and the built-in speaker allows you to listen to your recordings instantly. Managing recordings is easy too: your recordings are saved as files that import into iTunes at CD-quality.

From there, you can edit the audio in programs like Garage Band, or import as a soundtrack to a home movie, slideshow or presentation. MicroMemo plugs seamlessly into your iPod and comes in both black and white to match it perfectly. So go ahead, record like a pro with MicroMemo - the 2006 Best Audio Recorder award winner from iLounge."

iPone in Helsinki

About the iPhone in Helsinki

We had a meeting at the Helsinki Airport. The expert was a little late. I was reading e-mails and blog posts. “Some of the smaller details make the iPhone more impressive,” someone wrote. “The 3.5" wide screen ratio screen with the highest resolution yet for an iPod. It has wireless and EDGE for Internet, using a fully-featured Safari.” I read and scratch my head. “Is that going to be enough?” I find myself thinking.

“From partnership with Yahoo it uses Yahoo search and Yahoo IMAP email. From a partnership with Google, it uses Google search and Google Maps (with built-in GPS).” The report informs.

• It supports Widgets. “What is / are Widgets?” I asked myself.
  
  
• It has an accelerometer to orientate the screen as portrait or landscape. “What is that good for?”
  
  
• It has a sensor that knows when you put the phone up to your ear to turn off the screen and any music you are playing to take a call. “I guess that is a cute little feature.”
  
  
• The phone capabilities, like voice mail and conferencing, have an interface to make it easy to use--skip to your fifth voice mail without listening to the others. “Voice mail is a new world. It’s very important to have the ability scan the voice mails.”
  
  
• The battery has five hours of battery life, stretched to 16 hours for music. “OK, I get it. Big screen and four hours of battery life when phoning and 16 hours for music. Not bad. It means half a working day. I need to get it plugged before lunch. But I don’t call people all the time. The battery will last for one or two days. Maybe a week.”

"Hello," he said. "Sorry for being late. There were some problems at the airport in Paris."

I said, "No problem, I'd some time to look at the iPod features. It will be interesting to get your opinions." We were walking to the parking area.

As we got into the car he started talking about the new design features available for future phones. "What do you think about LG Prada mobile," he asked me. "It will be available in Europe before iPhone."

"I know, the high-end designer phones are going to change the market. First the phone's got slimmer and slimmer, smaller and smaller. Now the race is changing. The YouTube generation wants phones that are good for viewing."

"You're so right!" He said. "We tend to think that a phone is used for phoning. Yes, that's true to some extent. The multimedia aspect is so new that we can't grasp it yet. People on the move have time to listen. Here the iPod feature comes into the picture."

"We have been thinking along the same routes." I responded. "Bloggers will not have to write their blogs in the future. I think we will make photoblogs and videoblogs. We can send videoreports to our partners. Complex things can be described with short video clips."

"Yeah, that's a good point." He said. "Mobile workers can write the things they need to write when returning to the hotel or to the office."

"Another thing," I said. "Maybe we will see a renaissance of the secretaries. We can send podcasts to call centres where they are typed and edited. We get professional report writers. They can be located anywhere on the globe," I concluded.

iPod OSX Leopard Mobile

New OSX Leopard Mobile run on a touch screen iPod.