Reactions to story from A VC

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  Context of text in the next generation

  http://splashjumanji.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/context-of-tex...
  3 days ago in Wide Open Spaces · Authority: 20

  I read two unrelated posts this morning which both said the same thing; the generation of children who aren’t yet teenagers have an interesting relationship with and approach to communication. The first was from Fred Wilson who was after a new phone for his daughter to replace a broken iPhone. Funnily enough, she didn’t want it replaced with an iPhone, 2007’s must have toy. She wants the new crimson red Blackberry Curve. Fortunately, it looks like I can get an unlocked one on eBay for between $100 and $200. I wonder what this says? I realize it’s a sample size of one, but I’ve heard that a bunch of her friends have also given up their iPhones in search of a better texting device which seems to be the one feature they value most. The second was from Simon Chen who said exactly the same thing: Ask a teenager to give up their mobile phone and see what happens. Actually, I bet if you told any kid today that the new rule of the house is their phones would be restricted to voice calls only (and that the text or SMS function would be disabled), there would be a global revolt. Parents would be locked in cars and basements and all manner of threats would be shouted from every rooftop. Kids don’t talk on phones anymore. They grunt. But the little f@#ckers can text. Man, can they text. I am loathe to carry out a conversation via text, I flat out refuse and don’t respond, or else I call if it is really important*. But I’ve seen this behaviour in my younger cousins, and being somewhat pedantic about grammar and punctuation, have certainly seen it carried out in the way sentences are constructed - or rather abbreviated into forms that begin to border on unrecognisable. With this in mind, I’ve begun thinking aloud (and with no real clarity yet) about what this means for the way the next generation will communicate, particularly how they will expected to be communicated to and how this will impact their interactions with the rest of the world. For example, is it reasonable to expect “correct” grammar to be taught if it ceases to apply to their daily lives the way it does to mine? Will an essay in SMS or l33t speak be admissable in new communications courses once they at university? More applicable to me, how does that change the nature of text in ads? How do you affect the tone of a piece if not just punctuation but vowels themselves cease to play a part? Srlsy? I’d dismiss the above as nonsense, except I already see my own generation with hard and fast mind sets on certain things nobody had to teach us, we just knew. The notion of respecting someone because of their title never even entered our minds; what do I take for granted that the next batch won’t bat an eyelid at? The changing nature of communication is something I find endlessly interesting, even if there are no easy answers. – *Things that are important: A guitar I simply must have The girl I’m seeing accidentally meeting the girl I’m seeing Confusion over which bar we will begin the evening’s festivities in A Springsteen tour being announced More as I think of them…
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  In my Reader - Interesting ? - 13 May 2008

  http://myblogposts.com/in-my-reader-interesting-13-may-2008/...
  3 days ago in My Blog Posts · Authority: 14

  In my Reader - Interesting ? - 13 May 2008 Gandhi on Ubicomp Remember Gandhi’s steps of a revolution? “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” For as long as I’ve known the term, ubiquitous computing has been largely ignored, written off as a scifi pipedream from the people who promised you AI and cars that would run on water. That’s beginning to change, as hardware such as the Arduino and programmable mobile phone handsets enabling artists, researchers, and makers like Eric Paulos, Elizabeth Goodman, and Julian Bleecker to join the digital and physical worlds in new and interesting ways. Now that it’s harder to ignore ubicomp we’re seeing laughter. Free (As In Speech) Beer, V2.0 “Three years ago we discussed an open source brewing project in which a Danish brewer made his beer recipes available for public consumption and alteration. The concept has taken off, first with the ‘Free Beer Project’ in Denmark and now with Flying Dog’s ‘Collaborator’ Doppelbock in the US, which was created via input from home brewers across the world. iPhone vs Blackberry - Survey Sample Size of One My daughter Emily was passed down the iPhone I bought when it first came out. It didn’t work for me so I gave it to her. That phone developed a small crack in the screen last fall but she kept using it. The crack got worse, propagated, and yesterday she dropped it again. RunMyProcess Integrates with Zoho Last week, we announced Huddle-Zoho Integration. Now, Business Process Management (BPM) software maker, RunMyProcess has become our latest API partner…Here’s a brief demo of how integration with Zoho helps RunMyProcess connect the dots. This is another great example of an API partner integration as well as the expansion of an ecosystem, with Zoho Creator as the catalyst for easy workflow and functionality. Mozilla Stealth Data Project Could Be Just What The Internet Needs One of the most frustrating tasks about my job is finding reliable traffic and other usage data about websites. But today, Mozilla CEO John Lilly and VP Engineering Mike Schroepfer said they may fix that problem in the future, via the massive installed base of Firefox users. ShareThis
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  Cellulitis

  http://mattmaroon.com/?p=369
  4 days ago in Matt’s Homepage · Authority: 49

  I’ve said a few times in various places that I don’t think the iPhone will ever make serious inroads in the corporate world without a dedicated keypad (and a few other things, like making it not suck as a phone, that I’m sure they’ll fix soon) and also that I didn’t think the BlackBerry would make much headway in the consumer space due to Apple. I might be wrong on the latter. An interesting post by Fred Wilson yesterday made me also realize that the needs of the corporate world are strikingly similar to the desires of the teenage girl demographic. SMS is the young person’s email + Exchange Server. Then RIM today announced the BlackBerry Bold, which looks so good that I wish I weren’t locked into a contract with Verizon. It’s got the BlackBerry keypad that everyone who gets paid more than $50,000 a year has come to know and love. It’s got a high-res screen (for a phone), Wi-Fi, GPS and a few other goodies for the consumer set. And call quality will probably be 5x better than Apple’s. So we’ll see. It will be an interesting battle. Is the keypad as important to people as I think it is? (And can’t Apple just make a keypad/case combination that gives people that?) Is RIM brilliant for not making the touchscreen only model everyone thought they would, and fighting a war they can’t win? Or are they missing out on the next wave?
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  BlackBerry vs. the iPhone

  http://blog.tickerhound.com/2008/05/12/blackberry-vs-the-iph...
  4 days ago in TickerHound · Authority: 16

  BlackBerry vs. the iPhone So I see this member’s question on TickerHound yesterday: “BlackBerry or the iPhone?” In the details of the question he goes on to reference a blog post by the New York based venture capitalist, Fred Wilson, where he openly asks for feedback on what people think of the iPhone versus the BlackBerry. There’s some great insight in Fred’s post (and the comments to it) so I recommend you read it. But I thought I’d share some of my own thoughts on the iPhone vs. BalckBerry issue here: The iPhone is unequivocally the most beautifully designed mobile phone I’ve ever seen. The web browsing experience is like nothing I’ve ever used on a handheld device and through the flawless marketing effort on the part of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and AT&T (NYSE: T) it has already become somewhat of a status symbol in the geek-chic crowd. But for those of you who have used one for any period of time, you’ve obviously noticed some of the flaws in this “flawless” product. Sending a text message or an email becomes an exercise in finger tip precision and dexterity. Basically, you must have the most narrow and most accurate thumbs in the world to try and type a message longer than 2 words on this phone. For business users or active text’rs (read: teenagers), this is certainly NOT the phone to have. I’ve dropped my BrickBerry more times than I can count and it’s still tickin’ – it’s like the little energizer bunny. The same can NOT be said of the iPhone. From what I’ve seen, heard and personally witnessed a strong breeze causes this phone’s screen to shatter. In fact if you check out Fred Wilson’s blog post, you’ll see what his daughter’s phone looked like, post-drop. Even though there are “hacks” out there, you’re still locked into using AT&T/Cingular as a carrier. While the service is good, I’m always one for having more options. The fact that I can use my BlackBerry with my T-mobile account, and be able to keep the phone if I decide to switch carriers (or if my company switches carriers) makes me very comfortable. And I’m obviously not the only one who feels this way – it’s a sentiment I’ve heard from many of my peers for quite some time now. The most reliable text and e-mail friendly phone on the market today is the BlackBerry from RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM)…no contest! But the story isn’t that quite cut and dry… There’s a rumor going around that Apple has a new version of the iPhone coming out on June 9th. Apple’s a popular company in tech circles, and therefore the rumor-mill is usually in full effect whenever Mr. Jobs gets up to speak. Most of the time the hype falls far short of the real announcement, but this time I think the rumors are going to turn out to be true. I think on June 9th we’ll get the announcement that Apple is launching a 3G enabled iPhone. Essentially what that means is that the iPhone will now let its subscribers download data faster than ever before. However, given the serious flaws the company has with the phone design, I’m not sure what impact (if any) this will have on subscriber numbers. Especially when we take RIM’s announcement into account… Last week, RIM announced the upcoming BlackBerry Bold phone – the first 3G phone from the CrackBerry maker. I’m personally looking forward to this one and it seems like the rest of the market’s feeling the same – the stock is up 6.35% as I write this article. But that isn’t to say Apple won’t see some serious benefits via its 3G initiatives. I just don’t think those benefits will be solely in the form of an increase in iPhone subscribers. I think Apple could see a serious increase in iTunes sales as well. Picture this: when you hear a good song and want it on your iPod immediately, all you’ll have to do is login to iTunes with your 3G phone and you’ll be listening to the song in seconds. So if Apple’s strategy is to secure more iTunes purchases, I think they’re still executing their marketing efforts flawlessly. If the company really wants to compete with RIM, however, they’ll really need to do something about the phone’s design. Touch screens are “cool”, but certainly not functional. Regardless of who gets the most subscribers, I think both announcements will be great for RIM’s and Apple’s stock prices.
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  BLACKBERRY VS. IPHONE

  http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/blackberry...
  5 days ago in scott goodson's writings · Authority: 53

  I owned a Blackberry. When iPhone came out. I switched. I love the iPhone, except for it's horrible texting feature. So today I Googled to see if there was anyone else out there who felt the same way. Turns out there are a lot. Jim Cramer is holding a poll online. In a survey of almost 250,000 people, 51% are leaning towards BB. In FW's blog, FW's blog, he's leaning away from iPhone too. So is his daughter. Seems her iPhone developed a crack in the front cover. Funny, mine did too. It's a little fissure, about an inch long. I'll keep you posted on how the crack progresses. In sum, I miss my BB's email and txting ability enough to go back to it, but LOVE the feel, look and many other features of the iPhone. So, if the crack on my iPhone progresses too far, I'll switch back.

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