Tag Archives: Technology

Tweeting With The Stars

It isn’t as exciting as it sounds, but @britneyspears and @THE_REAL_SHAQ have made their respective ways to the twitter stream.  Shaq seems to be doing his own tweeting, while Britney occasionally chimes-in between those tweets entered by her PR team.  Which is to say that Shaq seems to be enjoying the Twitterverse , while Team Britney is working a piece of her marketing campaign .  Shaq is more entertaining.

My bigger interest with their twitter presence is who they choose to follow.  Is it just fans?  Is there any interest in the tech world?  Are there other folks from their industries jumping on the twitter wagon?  (Managers, Agents, PR Firms, etc.) Are they following and reading my tweets?  Should I let Shaq know I’m a Kings fan and still upset about the 2002 Western Conference Finals?

Currently @britneyspears has a follow/following of 1,555/9,010 and @THE_REAL_SHAQ is showing 270/10,108.  (Should note that Britney appeared about a month and a half earlier, yet she trails in followers.)  And while these are relatively impressive numbers, they are nowhere near the likes of @ijustine 1,562/27,066, @Scobleizer 20,978/39,808, or @JasonCalacanis 48,114/40,983. (I was surprised to see his numbers.  Where did he find an additional 7,000+ people to follow?)  All their numbers are ridiculous when I consider my own 171/182 ratio.  I can barely keep up with reading them, let alone find time to reply.

Perhaps more Hollywood celebrities will pop into the world of Tweeting.  It’ll be interesting to see the potential number of followers they’ll bring with them.  Can TwitterLand survive another growth spurt or are we looking at a bunch more fail whales in 2009 as the service tries to go mainstream?

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AT&T Buys Free WiFi Hot Spots

This morning, AT&T announced that it will buy Waypoint, Inc . to the tune of $275 million (all cash, baby) thereby expanding AT&T’s network of free WiFi hot spots across the US.  A response to the increased number of WiFi enabled smart phones hitting the market and the continued cost burden to the 3G network, which is losing AT&T money

AT&T’s 3G network has been hit hard with loads of people using iPhones, Blackberries, and other smart phones for data and voice, as opposed to just voice.  This inundation of data use (to browse Facebook, check email, Twitter, or upload photos and stream video) has forced AT&T to realize the value of opening a free WiFi networked infrastructure.  AT&T customers carrying a WiFi enabled hand held can jump onto one of AT&T’s hot spots, which they just expanded by 10,000 locations by agreeing to purchase Waypoint, Inc., and surf the web at WiFi speeds which are much faster than 3G speeds.  Hopefully, this will reduce the burden to the 3G network and save AT&T some money.

The major hindrance being that WiFi has a relatively limited range, so unless you’re sitting in the coffee house, at the McDonald’s, or near enough to any of the other now 20,000 US locations, you’re probably not going to offload too much of the 3G burden.  Although, maybe a little less burden is just enough to keep 3G working for now.  At least until 4G comes along.

The added Waypoint locations also benefit AT&T’s DSL subscribers, who can use their WiFi enabled laptops at any of these hot spots.

AT&T Buys Free WiFi Hot Spots

This morning, AT&T announced that it will buy Waypoint, Inc . to the tune of $275 million (all cash, baby) thereby expanding AT&T’s network of free WiFi hot spots across the US.  A response to the increased number of WiFi enabled smart phones hitting the market and the continued cost burden to the 3G network, which is losing AT&T money

AT&T’s 3G network has been hit hard with loads of people using iPhones, Blackberries, and other smart phones for data and voice, as opposed to just voice.  This inundation of data use (to browse Facebook, check email, Twitter, or upload photos and stream video) has forced AT&T to realize the value of opening a free WiFi networked infrastructure.  AT&T customers carrying a WiFi enabled hand held can jump onto one of AT&T’s hot spots, which they just expanded by 10,000 locations by agreeing to purchase Waypoint, Inc., and surf the web at WiFi speeds which are much faster than 3G speeds.  Hopefully, this will reduce the burden to the 3G network and save AT&T some money.

The major hindrance being that WiFi has a relatively limited range, so unless you’re sitting in the coffee house, at the McDonald’s, or near enough to any of the other now 20,000 US locations, you’re probably not going to offload too much of the 3G burden.  Although, maybe a little less burden is just enough to keep 3G working for now.  At least until 4G comes along.

The added Waypoint locations also benefit AT&T’s DSL subscribers, who can use their WiFi enabled laptops at any of these hot spots.

White Space Use Changes Everything — Thanks, FCC

On Novemember 4, 2008, while most folks in America were celebrating the conclusion of an historical election, some of us (name call how you like) were busy celebrating the FCC’s unanimous "yes" vote to open White Spaces to unlicensed or lightly licensed personal devices.  While this is not exactly the same band of frequencies as those included in the 19.6 billion-dollar auction of the 700MHZ band that took place earlier this year, it does stem from the same place — the February 2009 mandated digital conversion of broadcast TV, resulting in the release of the non-contiguous spectrum from 54mhz to 806MHZ. This recent FCC vote and news has to do with the sub-700MHZ portion that has not been auctioned.

White Space is what?

It’s fast, long-range, wireless broadband within an existing and established infrastructure.  Without getting into too many technical specifics, the White Space in question is the unused portion of the spectrum between the channels from 54MHZ to 698MHZ (everything below what was auctioned).  Each white space being about 1MHZ wide, capable of transmitting voice and data at speeds between 10mbs to 20mb per channel.  (Probably faster.)  Has a range measured in miles, and goes through most physical objects with little signal loss or degradation.

Interesting Interested Conglomerates

The major proponent, of course, being Google, who provided its White Space proposal to the FCC shortly after the 700MHZ auction closed in March. Thinking they’d already secured one open access avenue for their then upcoming mobile G1 cellphone, they smartly figured it would be a good idea to secure a second open access avenue with equal capabilities.  Google partnered with a variety of companies to move their plan forward, including tech giants Dell, Motorola, and Microsoft.  Mr. Gates himself made a lobbying appearance late in October to fight for their cause.

Not surprisingly, the major opponents of the FCC’s decision are content creators like ABC, CBS, and NBC, and those groups who provide distribution conduits for existing content, like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.  None of these groups want more competition getting into your living room or with providing wireless, mobile service.  They have control and, reasonably so, they want to keep it.  So they’re going to fight this FCC decision as best they can at whatever cost.

Problems For a Crowded Spectrum

Because this is the space between licensed spaces already in use, opponents argue that an unlimited, or uncountable, amount of unlicensed devices will generate too much interference with their already licensed devices, resulting in disruption to their existing services. (For example, Radio or TV microphones and cameras at live sporting events could be disrupted by too many personal portable devices at the event causing havoc on the spectrum.)

Except this is a weak argument because the FCC outlined in their standards that personal devices are required to sense nearby licensed streams and then shutdown if they are too close.  So, in theory, portable device could turn off while you’re at the game.  Although, it would seem this is unlikely to happen, as devices could easily switch to an alternate channel in the lower band, or potentially switch to a channel in the open upper band, much like devices can do now between Edge or 3G.  Not to mention the FCC also dictates that devices will not be released that have any risk of interfering with other signals.

End User Impacts

Big players with Big stacks of cash are fighting to maintain, or gain, control of how we all speed into the next era of information exchange and interactivity.  It will move across the Internet to your hand held devices where ever you are, or across the Internet into each room of your house.  You’ll no longer be dependent on Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T to get you voice and data connections.  You’ll no longer be dependent on ABC, CBS, and NBC to provide you content.  You’ll no longer be limited to crippled devices with limited function because of bad multi-year contracts.

Why This Must Happen

High-speed.  Long-range.  Existing infrastructure.  Accessibility.  Cost.  Open standards.  Wireless!  The white space currently goes unused, which is a waste of a valuable resource.  With an open, high-speed, wireless network, any user with a piece of hardware running compliant software can access the network and use the Internet.  The user’s cost to access the world wide web will diminish as hardware costs decrease, software is freely given away, and advertisers adapt.  Much like network television, the costs are covered by funds earmarked for marketing.  Everyone will have equal access to the same information at an amazing rate.

The best content (TV, movies, music, multi-media), the best services (video chat, phone chat, instant messaging, email, to do lists, content management, word processing, etc.), the best of everything else I can’t think of, will be on the Internet available to everyone at exactly the same time in exactly the same way, and so it will be for everyone to decide what’s good and what works.

The power is shifting, and I need more space!

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Web 2.0 Ridiculousness And A Dopey Spat

I’m sure, on some level, that’s in deemed inappropriate for me to be seen laughing at the situation.  I don’t know whether to throw my hands up or hang my head.  Sure, they’re the same thing, but one requires more energy, and I’m in too much pain to do either.  So let’s to a quick low down on what’s been going down.

Calacanis sends out one of his emails saying it’s over for start ups everywhere.  Leaves me jumping for joy.  Ever since that Yammer debacle from TC50(2), the start up world has been a disappointment.  Not having money to throw at every new idea that pops into someone’s head, is probably an okay thing.  Which leads (by correlation, not causation) the VCs to start crying “the sky is falling, don’t throw money at every lamebrain idea.”  Can it be, our wishes are granted.  No more online banking sites for people under the age of double-digits.

So there’s no start up VC money for the new guys, but a bunch of the old guys (late twenties, tops) still have a bunch of money and they decide to take a lavish vacation to Cyprus where they stay at Wall Street power broker Bob Lessin’s get away home to do a very low quality lip dub set poolside to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” which is later released online (surprise) and stirs up a flurry of emotion from the have-nots.  Sorry new start-up kids, you’ll have to wait for the next bubble and, maybe, create a _useful_ service.

Rounding out the senselessness from people who have nothing to complain about is TechCrunch’s very own Michael Arrington throwing a tantrum over rival blogger Dare Obasanjo’s post calling Arrington a horrible name.  Not sure what the name was, but it must have been really bad because Arrington was pissing all over the Twitter stream late Sunday night, shouting at Scoble and Barnes.

I’m left to think this is all a joke of a farce, or something similar, that doesn’t mean much to anyone who isn’t living the Web 2.0 Internet.  But be not afraid, regular people, there is some good to come from all of this, and that’s the Mr. Feldman’s video spoofs to make us laugh.  Head on over to his site and check out some of the humor that’s being passed around via his videos.  Or completley ignore all of this.  The Silicon bubble is of very little consequence to most of us.

Link Juice And Other Stuff

Last week, before I disappeared into the real world to deal with things that have nothing to do with my online persona, I changed the site’s commenting policy.  Previously, all comments here were labeled "nofollow", but now after you meet the minimum number of on-topic comments you’ll get the link love you deserve.  Which is also to say, if your comments are completely off topic I will have to remove them.  And while I understand the reasons for leaving the "nofollow" tag, I can’t stand when bloggers don’t share the love for thoughtful and worthwhile comments.  Total bummer.  (Don’t worry, the minimum number here is very low, and the criteria is not terribly strict.)  The policy is retroactive, so some of you may already have the new status.

In other news, while migrating my employer’s web site to a new hosting company as well as switching registrars, I accidentally, and somewhat embarrassingly, created a DNS redirect loop that ultimately resulted in this blog appearing on the presentation screen in our board room while trying to demonstrate the company’s new site layout to a group of colleagues.  Which is to say, my very large face was up on the wall when it shouldn’t have been in front of people who have no idea I keep a blag.  I was shocked, to say the least, but quickly put this site into maintenance mode until I could correct the DNS issue for their company site.  Thankfully propagation times are much faster than they used to be.  Still, hearing a co-worker unexpectedly shout, "Hey, Justin, it’s you!" during the middle of a presentation, is kind of a strange way to start the day.    I chuckled.

Continuing on, I noticed that my writing here is directly related to the amount of journal writing I do with pen and paper in the real world.  (I’m a fan of ink on paper.)  Which isn’t to imply that I outline my ideas before I bring them here, just that if I’m not actively keeping my writing mind working, then all my outlets suffer.  Just ask any of the people I email on a regular routine — last week was quiet across the written board.  But we’re back.  I spent a good portion of the morning putting pen to pad and, not surprisingly, here we are.

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Mobile Mania, Which New Cell Phone To Buy?

There’s a lot going on in the mobile world these days.  Big names want our attention, and they’re hard pressed to keep it for more than the two seconds it takes for the next best mobile thing to arrive.  Well, not quite that quick, but you get the idea.  The latest addition to the group is the much talked about, supposedly highly anticipated,  Android from Google.  Which technically isn’t a cell phone but the software used by the cell phone.  A minor detail.

Research In Motion continues to dominate the enterprise world with its Blackberrys; Apple’s hanging with the cool kids on the corner sporting iPhones; and I think there are a couple others, but their names elude me.  Which is to say, who cares about Nokia and Microsoft?  Although, Nokia does offer a worthy alternative with its N95.  Still, no one is talking about Nokia.

There’s more to it than just a bunch of big hitters stepping up to the plate with new gadgets, we also have to consider what’s tied to these phones when it comes time to get one.  The iPhone is stuck to AT&T at the moment, but has an awesome Apps Store.  Google is stuck to T-Mobile and HTC (for now, at least), but is offering an open platform for cell phones which includes Chrome.  RIM isn’t stuck to any of the carriers, but they’re losing hype and recently decided to partner with Microsoft.  (Microsoft’s way of staying relevant in the mobile world, by offering its services via RIM’s Blackberry.)  All these groups see web use moving to your hand held device and they want in on the action. You definitely see it in the geek world with more and more web services offering mobile apps or SMS connectivity, but so far only the geeks are really using mobile services like Twitter or BrightKite.

Whether or not there’s a real demand for this much competition in the smart phone world remains to be seen, but for those of us fascinated with new tech toys, we’re enjoying the show and anxious to see where all this is going.  What will be the ultimate deciding factor, and is there one?  Applications?  Network speed?  Device performance?  Or really slick design?  If I had to guess, for most people, it’s being able to make a call.

Leave your number after the hash.

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