Is This The Right Way to Court A Customer? Sue them?

Google is suing the US government for not buying Google Apps. Hmmm. I just read this on TechMeme..so check it out for yourself...

Google Sues The US Government For Only Considering Microsoft Solutions

Eric Goldman alerts us to the interesting bit of news that Google has sued the US government -- specifically the Department of the Interior, for not seriously considering Google Apps when it put out a Request for Quotation (RFQ) to handle its messaging needs. Specifically, the DOI stated upfront in the RFQ that the solution had to be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Google is making the argument that this is "unduly restrictive of competition," and it seems like they've got a decent argument there.

Most of the lawsuit details the history of meetings and conversations between Google and the DOI, where Google sought to convince the DOI that its solution was acceptable. The DOI justified limiting its offerings to Microsoft, by saying that Microsoft had two things that other solution providers did not: unified/consolidated email and "enhanced security." Google disputes this (not surprisingly) and notes various problems with Microsoft solutions -- including well reported downtime issues. Google protested the RFQ when it was released, but the GAO dismissed Google's protest saying that since Google does not have a GSA schedule contract (i.e., what you need to sell to the gov't), it was "not an interested party." Anyway, should make for an interesting lawsuit if it goes anywhere...

Wait? What? Google isn't on the GSA schedule? Kind of a oversight, don't you think?

(Full disclosure: Microsoft is a client at my employer, Strategic Communications Group.)

Friday Links: Verizon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Foursquare, Facebook, AOL

Here are a few of the reports, articles and stories I found interesting this week.

Get ready for Verizon's 'Dream Phone'

The forthcoming Verizon iPhone will test those investments. As noted, wireless data usage on the device is a major burden on AT&T's (T) network; iPhone users who complain about AT&T service don't always realize how much they contribute to the strain, partly because the iPhone persistently reaches out to AT&T's towers, switches, and computers to grab data. While Seidenberg wouldn't comment on the iPhone specifically, he and Lowell ­McAdam, his operating chief and heir apparent, seem confident the Verizon network will hold up. McAdam points out that Verizon already carries a data hog of a phone, the Motorola Droid (which runs on Google's (GOOG) Android operating system), and that the average Droid user consumes more data than the average iPhone user.


IDC: Apple passes RIM to become No. 4 global mobile phone vendor

According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Apple's record quarter was enough to land it a fourth-place spot on the list of global mobile phone vendors, behind Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics, BusinessWire reports. Though Apple has consistently been a top smartphone vendor, this marks the first quarter that Apple has cracked the top 5 list of global mobile phone vendors.


Ozzie's 'doomsday' memo warns Microsoft of post-PC days

Departing Microsoft executive Ray Ozzie's just-published memo is a "doomsday-ish" missive that calls on the company to push further into the cloud or perish, an industry analyst said today.

Ozzie, who replaced Bill Gates as Microsoft's chief software architect in 2006, is leaving the company, although Microsoft has not disclosed the date of his departure.

His "Dawn of a New Day" memorandum, which was dated Oct. 28, is an attempt to focus Microsoft's attention on the day when PCs will no longer rule consumer or business computing, said Wes Miller, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland, Wash. research firm that specializes in tracking Microsoft.


AOL To Sell Pacific Corporate Park to CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust

AOL Inc. (NYSE:AOL) today announced that it has entered into an agreement for the sale of four office buildings it no longer utilizes and two undeveloped parcels of land on the East side of its Dulles campus to CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust for $144.5 million. As of October 29, pro forma for the sale AOL has approximately $750 million of cash on hand.

Foursquare Doomed? Facebook Places Has 7X More Users

On its "latest statistics" page, Facebook says "there are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices."

Does this mean Foursquare, the startup Facebook Places most closely copies, is doomed? It only has 4 million users. It had an offer to sell to Yahoo this summer for more than $100 million. Should CEO Dennis Crowley have taken the money and run?

Surprisingly, the answer to both those questions might still be "no."

Wrapup of CES 2010

Like most people, I can get a little gadget crazy. I almost never get to the point of actually shelling out real money, but I love to see and read about the latest, coolest gadgets. So last week was a fun week for me as I followed the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held in Las Vegas.

For those of you that don't know, according to Wikipedia, CES is

"The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a non-public trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. At the show, many previews of products are introduced, and new products are announced. The show is held at the Las Vegas Convention Center with additional venues used for some specific technologies. The CES is considered one of the major technology-related trade shows, after Comdex was cancelled.The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a non-public trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. At the show, many previews of products are introduced, and new products are announced. The show is held at the Las Vegas Convention Center with additional venues used for some specific technologies. The CES is considered one of the major technology-related trade shows, after Comdex was cancelled."

This year there were an especially cool assortment of new technologies and products announced. Here a few that caught my eye:

Lots of people have been talking about Google's mobile operating system, Android, over the past few months. But Do You Really Need a Microwave or a Washer-Dryer Running Android?

Samsung announced a new LCD TV, the C9000, that's "ultra thin." What does this mean? Oh, it's no thicker than a pencil. Really. No, seriously, check out the photo here if you don't believe me. I. Must. Have. One.

Except I might not and save up for Panasonic's new 152 inch 3D TV. Yep, a 152 inches. I have a 55 incher, I thought myself pretty cool when I bought it too.

Everything is going to be 3D TV this year. Olympics, the World Cup, etc. DirecTV announced three new 3D channels (which I'm sure they'll charge $10,000 a minute to watch).

In the end, I can't argue with Gizmodo. "If you only watch one four minute recap video of CES this year, make it Joel Johnson's four minute recap video of CES." It is a really good recap. LOL. I'll just stop here and let you just watch the video...

Things I Found in My Google Reader

This morning I was stuck waiting at my car dealership. I was there for a oil change and a new battery. Of course, they found more things wrong with my car that obviously needed fixing immediately. That meant that I needed to cool my jets and wait.

Which meant that I spent some time browsing through my Google Reader. I don't usually spend too much time on Reader- mostly, I'm on Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook. I set up Reader a while ago with all the RSS feeds I'd been collecting for the past four or five years, so there is a bunch of stuff in there.

Here is what caught my eye. First, and I can't believe how cool this is,

Panasonic has finally invented the technology to create the Power Loader from Aliens. Seriously, check out the video. Badass.

Today is the day Google invited 100,000 people to beta test its new application, Wave. It's apparently a neat IM, collaboration, publishing platform. All the geeks seem to be excited.

Scientists at Bell Labs have broken the 100 petabit per kilometer.second barrier. Who cares, you say? Well, it means that you can download every song on iTunes in 25 seconds. Yep. Also badass.

Andy Beal has a snaky blog post about the musical chairs act among top tech CTO's, "For Tech Execs It’s Not About the Money…This Just In: It’s About the Money."

Are you a newly rich tech CTO? In the market for a new pad? Leona Helmsley's mansion is starting to look affordable, "Dunnellen Hall Price Dropped Another $15 Million." Now a steal at $60,000,000.

Brian Solis rides to the rescue of the publishing industry and explains "The reports of newspapers’ death are (perhaps) greatly exaggerated". Why, you ask?

1) Newsprint may be black and white but the media business isn’t – While people tend to lean towards a twofold viewpoint (the world was this way, now it’s that way; people used to do things this way, now people do things another way), the truth is that the advent of new forms of media have yet to wholly kill previous forms. Television didn’t kill radio. The VCR didn’t kill the movies. Okay so maybe the Internet struck a near fatal blow to the music industry, but even in that case, things continue to evolve. In Chris’ words, “People want to get into a binary debate that we used to just all want (the newspaper) because we had no choice and now people want the raw feed to mix up their own news. From where I sit what’s really happening is that people have splintered in a lot of different directions. You still have people who value the gatekeeper/passive experience at one end and then you have (people on the other end) who just want the raw feed of all data washing over them, but mostly people exist on the span in between.”

2) Never underestimate the power of human nature - The people who get newspapers in print tend to be committed to getting the product in that form and whether it’s habit or not, they tend to stick with getting that paper delivered to their doorstep. O’Brien related that when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased publishing its print edition and went web only, thanks to a joint operating agreement all P-I subscribers were switched automatically to the only remaining Seattle daily – The Seattle Times. People had the option to cancel, but something interesting happened. They didn’t. Not only did they retain their existing subscriptions, but when those began to run out, almost everyone renewed. O’Brien is not surprised by this and spoke of the digitally saturated people with whom he speaks every day – the venture capitalists and tech company executives whose lives are shackled to Blackberries and RSS feeds. “These are people who use technology for everything in their lives and they still get the paper in print. They still have it delivered to their doorstep.”

3) In today’s rapidly moving world, tactile yet passive experiences have merit - One of my favorite things about that morning paper is, quite simply, turning the pages. Humans are, after all, kinesthetic creatures, so the hands-on experience of a paper has some value. O’Brien agrees with that, and thinks that there’s something even more simple. Sometimes people just want a “psychologically different experience … a purely passive experience.” He went on to explain that oftentimes people don’t want “something with buttons or to click around. Even with a Kindle, there are buttons to push and that’s not appealing to them. They just want something that’s there. Something they don’t have to think about.” There are some who disagree with that perspective, but I’m not one of them.

Now, we turn our attention to two of my favorite topics, history and food.

Archeologists working in Rome have discovered the Roman Emperor Nero had a rotating dinning room in his modestly named "Golden Palace." This new fact about our culinary heritage prompted the food writer at the Guardian newspaper to go on a ballistic (but very properly British) rant on the eternal need for gimmicks in restaurants.

The Week Ahead...FOSE/GOVSEC

Well, I've done it...I changed the layout of my blog for the first time in two years. Exciting, huh? I'm now using the TicTac Blue template that Google has so generously provided me for free. For those who haven't been paying attention, I previously used the Minima template, also from Google- although I had customized it to have three columns, something that took me a week, if I remember correctly. Zzzzzzzz.

LOL, setting aside the first paragraph, this is going to be an exciting week! I'm going to be spending a great deal of time at the FOSE/GOVSEC show down at the Washington Convention Center. I'll be meeting with prospects, new and old, catching up with contacts I haven't spoken with in months and conducting some video interviews of senior level marketers who's expertise is how to sell technology and services to the federal, state and local government.

The impact of the new Obama administration is becoming clearer as the months go by.

• An increased emphasis on openness, transparency and communication with citizens is having mixed results.
• The cloud computing trend seems to be on everyone's lips as a solution to the ever present problem of silo smashing and data interoperability, but then the cybersecurity czar, Rod Beckstrom, resigns after a month on the job, because the NSA won't let him manage their data.
• Massive amounts of money are going to be spent on healthcare reform, healthcare IT, green technology and broadband access
• Massive amounts of money are going to be spent on just about everything except the Iraq war and insurance companies.

It certainly will be interesting to see how all this gets paid for: higher taxes (slower growth) or a debased currency (high inflation). Perhaps both. Not to worry- those are problems for another day, right?

I'm looking forward to speaking with the professionals at FOSE who interact with their government customers everyday. Their insight will be enlightening. This is what I want to know:

1. How is this year going to be different than previous years given the effect of economy and the new priorities of new administration?

2. What are government customers telling them about where procurement dollars are flowing? More, less? DOD/intel versus civilian?

3. What are they doing different this year in terms of sales and marketing strategy or tactics? More trade shows? Less? More sales staff? Less? More Lead generation? social media?

Is there anything else you'd like me to ask? Drop me a comment and I'll get the answers you're looking for...

Google Political Video Search

Google is rolling out a new service that should be interesting. It's a video search tool that parses the text of political speeches and makes it searchable. Here is the link to the announcement on Google's blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-their-own-words-political-videos.html

Here is a snippet of what they say:

Our teams have been working to develop tools to make it easier for people to track election-related information. A few months back, YouTube encouraged everyone to participate in the discussion process through the CNN/YouTube debates, Google Checkout offered an easy and fast way for individuals to make contributions to political candidates, and the Geo team created maps and layers to inform voters during elections.

Today, the Google speech team (part of Google Research) is launching the Google Elections Video Search gadget, our modest contribution to the electoral process. With the help of our speech recognition technologies, videos from YouTube's Politicians channels are automatically transcribed from speech to text and indexed. Using the gadget you can search not only the titles and descriptions of the videos, but also their spoken content. Additionally, since speech recognition tells us exactly when words are spoken in the video, you can jump right to the most relevant parts of the videos you find. Here's a look:

Kind of cool, eh? I mean, if you are really big political nerd, that is...

Some Weekend Links

My birthday is on Monday so I have a fun filled weekend ahead of me. Drinks tonight with friends at Cantina Marina (stop by and say hi if you are in the area), dinner tomorrow at my favorite steak restaurant, Ray's the Steaks, and then a wee road trip up to Baltimore for brunch with old friends and the Yankees-Orioles game.

However, before I head out and drink a cold beer in the gorgeous hot sun, let me share some links I found interesting today...

Google isn't dead yet! Profits way up!

Dennis McDonald continues to be a sane voice of reason in the world of social media. His analysis of Dennis Howlett's post on the 'Poverty of Enterprise 2.0' is excellent.

ReadWriteWeb sums up the etiquette and best practices around "Twitpitching"

And MediaBistro has an interesting look at the spin and PR strategy around the Papal visit.

Finally, if you're a depressed Nats fan like me, please visit DC Optimist's blog and get a healthy dose of 'Timism. Today he breaks down how the Wizards will destroy the Cavs this week.

Have a great weekend!

Trade Shows, Part 1 (CTIA)

Well, I've been on the road for the past couple of weeks. I traveled to Las Vegas for the CTIA Wireless trade show then to San Fransisco for the RSA security show. Both shows demonstrated the power and innovation that still drives the larger technology world today. I'd like to recap both shows in two posts.

First, the CTIA show in Las Vegas last week was compelling. There is a building transformation in the wireless from the current 3G level of broadband, features and applications to a newer "4G" model. There is still some uncertainty about which technology platform will power this new generation of wireless businesses: WiMax or cellular or some un-invented technology.

Needless to say, there will be much fighting and scrambling over the next five or more years between the big carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint) as well as other technology players (Microsoft, Google, etc). All these shifting parts made for very interesting conversations...

...and it also made for an enormous trade show. The CTIA filled up two whole halls at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

I'll post some pictures when I get back home...

Yahoo Joins OpenSocial

Breaking news from the WSJ- Yahoo has joined the OpenSocial initiative. It looks like Facebook is on the outside looking in now. I wonder how long it will take them to cave in.

From the article:

Yahoo's announcement Tuesday could also put pressure on Facebook, the closely held social network that so far has not signed on to the effort.

Yahoo called itself a "founding member" of the foundation, which is planned to be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework. Related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1.

The foundation will focus on issues including technology, documentation and intellectual property.

Social applications -- which let users do things such as see the music friends are listening to and share photo slideshows - have emerged as a popular activity for users of social networking sites, and a potentially powerful vehicle for delivering advertisements. Prior to OpenSocial, if a developer built a "favorite photos" application to work on one social network, it would have to be built all over again to work on another site.

Google introduced the initiative to put pressure on Facebook and MySpace, which is owned by News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Facebook offers its own specifications for software developers and the over 7,000 such add-on applications for its site have contributed to Facebook's popularity and usage.

Steve Pearman, MySpace's senior vice president of product strategy, said, "Yahoo is an important addition to the OpenSocial movement, and through this foundation we will work together to provide developers with the tools to make the Internet move faster and to foster more innovation and creativity."

The OpenSocial foundation also launched a website: opensocial.org

Blogging for Dollars?

My colleague Tarun pointed out an article from the Wall Street Journal showing how bloggers are using new services to generate advertising revenue. Personally, I'm not looking to generate any cash flow from this blog. I added Google AdWords to this fine blog mainly to see how it worked. So far, I've managed to "earn" 58 cents. Weeeeee.

For a well known blogger I can see how this might add up to real money. But for most people, ad revenues aren't going to add up to much.

Here is a quote from the WSJ article:

Many of the most widely used programs are adding features to allow users to customize the appearance and placement of ads on their sites. Some also are introducing newer money-making mediums such as audio and video ads.

"There's going to be a lot of new business models in 2008 that are geared toward more monetization," says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Web analysis unit of the Nielsen Co.

Blog publishers could certainly use the help in making money. The vast majority of publishers make less than $10 or $20 a month through advertising, according to Internet-advertising experts. How much money is made through advertising on a site depends much on how much traffic a site gets, the trustworthiness of the content and how relevant the ads are to the visitors.

As for a business to business technology company, blogs are going to be part of the way that it communicates with its employees, customers, prospects, traditional media, analysts, other bloggers and other audiences. It's not going to be a source of revenue.

New Site to Me: Gooruze?

I spent far too much time today reading blogs in Google Reader. I find it endlessly fascinating how this new-ish medium (Social Media- in case you're not following) is impacting traditional PR and how it's not impacting it. During my reading, I saw a link to a site called Gooruze. I went a checked it out and decided to become a member (jmajka.gooruze.com).

Gooruze is a social networking site for marketing and PR professionals where they can interact, share advice and rank news, blogs, and other content. A very cool idea that I've seen executed in number of other verticals. I'm hoping that I'll find it as valuable as I hope.

Overselling Wiki-search?

Wikipedia has launched a new search engine that it hopes will compete with Google. Here is an article about the launch of the alpha version of the service- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed891746-bd8a-11dc-b7e6-0000779fd2ac.html

Normally, I don't pay any attention to the comings and goings of various search engines. Google is the 9,000 pound gorilla and will be for the foreseeable future. But when the founder of one the fastest growing, most transformational, and biggest websites puts his rep on the line for a better mousetrap, you need to at least pay attention.

The Walled Garden Crumbles...a little

Well, here is some interesting news...Google is having an influence already in the mobile industry. Verizon announced today that it will start allowing third party apps and any phones on its network and will reach out and open its network to developers.

Here is the story (WSJ- subscription required): Verizon Wireless to Offer Open Access to Network

Verizon has been known historically as the toughest carrier with regards to protecting its walled garden, so this is some pretty major news. Think Microsoft is excited? Check out their quote:

"Microsoft is very excited to see Verizon Wireless make such a bold move to satisfy the demands of wireless customers," said Peter Knook, head of the company's mobile communications business.

I've had a Microsoft Mobile powered phone (a XV6601) on Verizon for years now and have been a generally pleased costumer. Apple's genius at rolling out a average product with great design and great marketing is well-known. It continues to amaze me how slow Microsoft and its carrier partners are to trumpet the capabilities of its devices.

But Google announces Andriod...and wow, do things start to get moving.

Link to An Interesting Article

I couldn't find a more creative title than that...so you'll just have to bear with me. I've been browsing through my feedreader and want to share an article I found interesting...

Steve Rubel has decided not to drink the Kool-aid. And I quote:

1) Study History - The history books are littered with manias (both financial and otherwise) that followed by reality setting in. The dot-com crash, of course, is only one. There are many others. Study them. Humans created human nature.

2) Diversify Your Sources of Information - God bless Techmeme. It does a fantastic job of tracking what the blogosphere is thinking about. But what if the global brain is dumb? Diversify your sources of information. Seek out those who at first you may disagree with. Nicholas Carr and Robert Cringley are two to start with. Find new blogs, ideally those written outside of SillyCon Valley and consider what they say.

3) Question Conventional Wisdom - Conventional wisdom is always right, right? Not. Read Freakonomics. If a lot of people start saying something is true, look behind the curtain and poke at what's there.

4) Don't Ignore Data - I didn't think it would ever matter, but my lack of love for math makes me wish I spent a little more time in school. Today, data rules. I am reading an awesome book on this subject called Super Crunchers. Skip what pundits are forecasting and look for hard trend data that shows how people are interacting with the Net. I keep a good collection here. Also take a look at Google Trends too. It conveys a lot about our interests. Notice how Second Life searches, for example, plummeted.

5) Talk to Real Humans - One of my favorite bloggers is Dwight Silverman. (I used to pitch Dwight during the Web 1.0 era.) Hailing from Houston, Dwight has seen many technologies come and go over the years. He constantly reminds me in public and private conversations to talk to real people - from Iowa or Planet Houston. When some of my colleagues started telling me to do the same, I got with the program. Do your sister or brother's friends Twitter? Probably not. Now that doesn't make it unimportant. Why? Because they all Google. Talk to both humans and geeks for broader perspective.

All very sensible stuff...a bid odd coming from the #1 Kool-Aid mixer and promoter, but hey, we'll take common sense wherever we can find it.

Microsoft Buying Yahoo?

I've felt strongly for a number of years that Microsoft has to make some bold strategic acquisitions. My family were all Kodak employees at one point or another. The Kodak Lesson, for me, is that high margin, high market share companies suffer from the same disease: no one wants to kill the the golden goose. Risk adverse, they let the market and more innovative companies (and technologies) pass them by. Kodak is a great example of this- my Dad told me a story that he saw a prototype of a Kodak branded 3 megapixel digital camera in 1982- they shelved it because it was a threat to the film business.

Microsoft has exhibited a lot of these risk adverse, self defeating behaviors. However, along with the rumors that they were going to invest in Facebook, this might be good news...

From StrategyEye this morning:

Microsoft is rumoured to be considering making a public offer for Yahoo! if it isn't successful in its bid for a Facebook stake, according to the New York Post. The Murdoch-owned US paper claims that the software giant has thought about bidding publicly for the search engine for some months, after former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel rebuffed all efforts to buy the company. It was hoped a public offer could stimulate shareholder interest, which would in turn put pressure on the management of the search giant to sell. Microsoft has USD21bn in cash available to spend, and is reportedly in talks with Facebook to acquire a stake in the social network, which Microsoft values at USD10bn. But, the New York newspaper claims, it is not willing to buy into both the social network and the search engine, given that it has already spent USD6bn this year buying aQuantive, and so is currently weighing up the two acquisition options.

On the other hand, the cynical angel on my shoulder asks, "so how long would it take to integrate Microsoft and Yahoo, fifty years or so?"

Google's 20% Policy

Kind of a busy day for a Tuesday in August, here in DC. I did read a very interesting blog I'd like to share about the guy at Google, Chris Wetherell, who had the original idea behind the Google Reader. To me, this is a great example of creativity in action and the kind of innovation that Google's 20% policy is driving.

Widgets

I've been doing a little research on widgets. Yes, you read that right. Widgets are the little pieces of code that can be easily shared among various social media sites, networks, blogs, etc. A widget can be merely a bit of static content, a functionality, a dynamically generated feed, or practically anything else you can think of. Apparently, the widgitized web is going to be the future of the online experience.

So, like I said, I've been doing a little research and a little experimentation. I've added two widgets to this blog on the left hand side: one neatly allows my dear readers to send me a complimentary text message to my cell phone, the other is a non-standard, but Google based search box that allows me dear readers to search for their favorite content on the site. I found both of these widgets at WidgetBox.

Of course, my fear is that too many widgets will lead to too much clutter. I've always been a believer that the key to an enjoyable web experience is a clean, uncluttered, easy to read screen. Mmmmm. So what are your thoughts? Too many widgets, just the right amount, or not enough?

(Next: Jeff Twitters!)

Facebook vs. LinkedIn?

It's amazing how much press, blog posts and chatter Facebook has generated over the last few months. I remember reading an article about Facebook a couple of years ago, but the site seemed like a myspace knock off. It always goes to show the value of clean, usable web design and a well thought out business plan.

But now Facebook has leaped out of the tweeny and college crowd and into the business world. Most business contacts I have use LinkedIn, as I do. Back in May, both Robert Scoble and ValleyWag have sniffed out a coming battle between Facebook and LinkedIn over business networking.

For my money, however, since both companies have opened up their networks to third party API's, it makes waaaay more sense to connect then that way, rather than one company buy the other. Of course, Google and a $5B check might make "the best thing to do" irrelevant.

A couple of interesting tidbits I found interesting. Well, interesting enough to share with my vast readership...

One, apparently Google is setting up a location on the Moon.

Second, the confluence of digital media and the mobile device seems to be reaching a white-hot level of growth. I've been a happy owner of of broadband enabled PocketPC for quite some time now, but with, the rollout of the iPhone and other consumer focused broadband phones, I think the platform is there for both paid and advertising-driven content companies to drive an extraordinary amount of revenue.

Here is the chart from eMarketer, if you don't totally believe everything I write on this blog:

I'll be spending some time this Friday at the Digital Media Conference in lovely Silver Spring, MD. I'm looking forward to hearing from the experts how this exploding market is going to evolve, who the winners will be and when will I be able to just implant an iPhone in my brain and let Steve Jobs control me remotely.

This is a really interesting talk that Seth Godin gave to the folks at Google last year which I just recently discovered on Google Video. Seth is the author of "All Marketers Are Liars". Seth is, of course, a very, very good marketer.