Invitation to Beta of Private Video Messaging App

I am working with a new client that is building a very cool video messaging app.

They are asking people to join the beta review process, so sign up now for an invite to test the beta version of Priveo - private video messaging reimagined bit.ly/14j6OhR

The invitations will be sent out shortly, so sign up now. bit.ly/14j6OhR

Whoah...New Blogger Look and Feel

You can't tell by reading this but there is a new management interface here on Blogger. Apparently, Blogger has been at work on this new system for a while. Frankly, it is going to take some getting used to.

Read the explanation here on the Blogger Buzz Blog:

It’s been a few years since we made major updates to Blogger’s look and feel, and there’s a lot more to these changes than just shiny new graphics. We’ve rewritten the entire editing and management experience from scratch so it’s faster and more efficient for you—and easier for us to update and improve over time.

I'll let you know how it goes...I'm still getting used to my iPhone.

What's going on in the Wireless industry?

The times they are a'changing. The structure of the mobile industry has been fairly static for a long time. The last big earth shattering events- the Sprint/Nextel merger and the rollout of 3G networks. There have been fad phones that have been super popular for a time, and there has been a definite shift in preference to smartphones, like the iPhone. But the basic structure has remained the same- big wireless companies offering limited phone choice, long term contracts and maximizing ARPU.

However, I'm now starting to see some datapoints that don't support this historical norm. Most of these are driven by customers that want more options and less costs, but some are being driven by technological change. And now rides in our friendly government regulators. Here is the story from Amol Sharma at the WSJ:

The Department of Justice has begun looking into whether large U.S. telecommunications companies such as AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) are abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.

The review, while in its early stages, is an indication of the Obama administration's aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has said she wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies.

The law that covers such behavior, the Sherman Antitrust Act, has been used in the past against giants ranging from Standard Oil to Microsoft Corp. It lay essentially dormant during the Bush years, with the agency bringing no major case. The telecom industry is among several sectors now coming under scrutiny. Others include health care and agriculture.

The Justice Department is already cracking down on certain agreements. It recently filed an objection to plans by airlines in the global Star Alliance to cooperate more closely on international routes and fares. It has targeted payments large pharmaceutical producers sometimes make to generic-drug makers to delay cheap copies of medicines. In addition, Ms. Varney is investigating Google Inc.'s settlement with authors and publishers over its Book Search product.

The telecom review isn't a formal investigation of any specific company, and it isn't clear it will ever become one. The review is expected to cover all areas from land-line voice and broadband service to wireless.

One area that might be explored is whether big wireless carriers are hurting smaller rivals by locking up popular phones through exclusive agreements with handset makers. Lawmakers and regulators have raised questions about deals such as AT&T's exclusive right to provide service for Apple Inc.'s iPhone in the U.S. Big carriers say limiting exclusive deals would hurt innovation.

The department also may review whether telecom carriers are unduly restricting the types of services other companies can offer on their networks, one person familiar with the situation said. Public-interest groups have complained when carriers limit access to Internet calling services such as Skype.

Second, Apple is talks with Verizon about creating a CDMA iPhone. Verizon turned down the iPhone a couple of years ago. There is lots of speculation as to why. Now,

It cannot have escaped Verizon's notice that AT&T proclaimed in a widely circulated memo that the recent launch of the iPhone 3GS was the "largest order day in att.com history" and the "best ever sales day in our retail stores." AT&T sold a million of the new iPhones in 3 days. It took 74 days to sell a million iPhones when they were first launched in 2007.

With AT&T's exclusivity agreement due to expire in the next year, pressure is mounting amongst Verizon customers and shareholders for Verizon to come to some sort of agreement with Apple to offer the iPhone on their network.

Pressure is also coming from current AT&T iPhone users for Verizon to offer the device, as dissatisfaction with AT&T's coverage, and especially their DaVinci Code-ish billing practices continues to grow.

Third, the DC Metro is going offer wireless service to more than one carrier? I missed this news when it first came out in March, but I think it's so significant that I'm going to list it here anyway. As many of you know, the one mobile service that operated inside the Metro is Verizon, working off of a Bell Atlantic contract they first won back in 1993. Sprint was allowed to roam there recently, but a lot of DC people wouldn't switch away from Verizon because of the lack of service in the Metro (where a lot of suits spend a lot of time). As Rob Pergoraro says in a WaPo Faster Forward blog post:

I'm pleased and amazed by the news... although I'm not exactly an unbiased observer of this situation. I take Metro to work and to many non-work occasions, and being able to use my phone at those times -- to let my wife know that I'm on my way home, to answer a quick call from the copy desk, to scan through the latest updates on Twitter or Facebook, to check my e-mail, to look up the score of the Nats game -- is a major convenience.

And it looks like the rollout of the network will happen reasonably fast, according to WMATA's press release:

Twenty of the busiest underground rail stations will have expanded cell phone service by the end of this year and the entire rail system will be equipped by 2012.

I'm not sure what this all means but it feels like the the glaciers are starting to crack and shift. What do you think?

Some Interesting Links for Today- iPhone, Pre, Twitter...y'know, the usual suspects

A quick roundup of some interesting content:

The Customer Collective- Twitter Hype Punctured By Study; - Tweet All About It

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research. Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found. Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

A great quote: “This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,”

The Social Times- Collecta Launches True Real Time Search Engine

Real time search is becoming all the rage, displacing some of the hype around semantic search and catapulting services like Twitter, FriendFeed and now Facebook into new realms when it comes to accessing its content. Today, search veteran Jerry Campbell is helping to launch Collecta, a service he’s claiming to be a true real time search engine unlike anything the world has seen.

As one of the minds behind the patented process that powered Summize, the Twitter search engine that was acquired by the microblogging platform and is now Twitter search, Campbell has long-standing ideas on how search and discovery should operate on the web. He’s seen the evolution of data-sharing as it pertains to things like news within he financial industry and has learned from organizations’ necessity to reach that “aha” moment as quickly as possible. It’s that “aha” moment Collecta is trying to give you, for any topic, in a very short amount of time.

Instead of focusing on Twitter or FriendFeed, Collecta performs its real time search for the wider web. From Wordpress to Flickr, Collecta searches comments on blog posts, images, and more. When you perform a search, you’ll find your initial results along with a time stamp displaying the time your search was initiated. Watch the page as it adds more results, each of which can be expanded to show the details of your search query.

BTW, the author never included a link to Collecta in the article, which I find odd. Here it is- the site itself is pretty slick: http://www.collecta.com

Ten Hidden iPhone Features from Daniel Ionescu at PC World. Loved his Rhinoceros play.

iPhone Versus Windows Mobile 6.5 Video from PocketNow.com. I've been spending a lot of time and angst researching and thinking about buying a new iPhone 3G S or a Pre or getting a newer version of my current HTC Windows phone. There has been much rending of garments...anyone have a opinion on what's a better purchase?

Here is Gizmodo's review...arrrrggghhhh!!!! What to do?

Apple PR Crisis?

Everyone knows that Apple has been on a tear since 2001 or so. First the iPods sell like gangbusters and now the iPhone is one of the most remarkable product launches in a long while. Apple seems to have dodged a number of bad PR bullets during this time, but due to the strength of their whole brand (products, design, customer interactions, stores, history), nothing has done much damage.

Now, not being green may hurt. Apple's brand has a strong dose of counter-culture, lefty, hipster to it. Getting attacked by Greenpeace cuts the core of how their customers feel about Apple and how they feel when buying Apple's message. It'll be interesting to see how Apple's PR team responds to this...

From StrategyEye:

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace is attacking the iPhone and claims by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that his company is committed to environmentally friendly business practices. Greenpeace has released a video clip showing the deconstruction and analysis of an iPhone, demonstrating that the device contains toxic brominated compounds, possibly including hazardous brominated flame retardant compounds, as well as environmentally harmful PVCs. In addition, Greenpeace says the pthalates found in iPhone headphone cables are banned from all toys in Europe and questioned the environmental commitment of the firm in the lead up to the iPhone's European launch. The report also notes that analysis of other handsets showed that no PVC chemicals were found in Nokia phones and that Sony and Motorola devices showed a commitment to removing brominated flame retardants.

The iPhone is coming! The iPhone is coming!

Well, is the damn thing any good?...according to Walt Mossberg it is...

(I had a video but it's not playing in blogger. Grrr.)

Here is his text review.

I've had a Pocket PC for a number of years and the only complaints I've had are the short battery life and low volume (speaking and ringing). My phone is four years old so I'm do for a new one. Hmmm...perhaps an iPhone might do (eight hours of talk time!!)

Here is what the NY Times has to say about the iPhone.



Lastly, read about USA Today's positive review. Either this phone really is that good, or Apple's PR team deserves a round of applause for a job well done.

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.