The MoPR Blog

There Really is an App for That

Consumers know that their smartphones can do just about anything. Shopping lists, sports scores, weather, videos, Facebook… There are thousands of consumer apps. But weren’t smartphones originally intended to be business devices? The cover story of this week’s “InformationWeek” magazine is all about the business applications of smartphones, and the innovative way corporate IT departments are putting them to use. In “What Goes Mobile” Mary Hayes Weier has written one the most comprehensive looks yet at the potential mobile apps will have in various business environments, from auto sales to health care.

In a companion piece in the same edition, Peter Rysavy writes about using the Mobile Web as an alternative to developing mobile applications. This theme is one that MoPR has hit on before with our own clients, such as Bitstream, the makers of the BOLT Mobile Browser. In “The Mobile Web Imperative” Rysavy speaks directly to IT departments and the developers building tools for businesses.

It’s the Year 2010: Still No Flying Cars

We’ve entered the season where writers and publications prognosticate about the trends of the coming year. You’ll see many articles with titles such as “2010: The Year of the _____.” “PC World” magazine has an interesting article which asks the question “2010: The Year of the Table PC?” Table PCs aren’t new. They just aren’t popular. Yet. But a lot of new features, such as touch screens, are reinvigorating the category. With pictures and videos along the way, writer Ian Paul walks us through the new landscape of tablet computers and makes a compelling case for why 2010 may be for tablet PCs what 2007 was for smartphones.

A Map You Can Step Into

I know, I know, the title of this column is “Weekend Reading” not “Weekend Viewing.” But one of our favorite writers, Jon Fortt at “Fortune” magazine has a video that showcases some of the cooler developments in location based technologies. Not coupons for the coffee shop around the corner from where you’re standing, but interactive maps unlike anything you’ve yet seen. Take a look:

In Case You Missed It: Cell Phones Cause Cancer… or Do They?

Throughout 2009 there were several stories about studies that showed a link between cell phone use and cancer. Not good news for those of us who not only are power users of our mobile phones, but also work in the mobility industry. In “Mobile Enterprise” magazine, Michael D. Cole looks at the results of a study released last week, an exhaustive 30 year study conducted in Scandinavia which concludes that there is no such link between cell phone use and cancer. Wait, don’t breath a sigh of relief just yet. Read “Study Refutes Cancer-Cell Phone Connection — But Rancorous Debate Persists” and judge for yourself.

As always, we invite you to share your comments.

#Vanish

“I’m driving East out of San Francisco on I-80, fleeing my life under the cover of dusk. Having come to the interstate by a circuitous route, full of quick turns and double backs, I’m reasonably sure that no one is following me.” So begins “Wired” magazine’s fascinating article, “Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened,” an article by writer Evan Ratliff.

Ratliff details how difficult it is for a person to disappear off the grid, as he tried to do for a “Wired” magazine experiment/contest in which readers were offered a $5000 bounty to find the writer during a month long period in which he worked very hard not to be found. How hard is it for a person to completely disappear during the age of social communication, picture phones and GPS? Find out in this very compelling article which reads more like a classic whodunit than a technology exposé.

http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

For extra detail, read the now defunct Twitter stream from the account Ratliff created during this adventure: http://twitter.com/evan_ratliff.

Beware Social Media Snake Oil

As you are probably aware, BusinessWeek has become part of the Bloomberg family, leading to many changes to their newsroom. We at MoPR were sad to learn that one of our favorite tech writers, Stephen Baker, was leaving. His last story was filed today, separating the hype from the potential among the onslaught of new social media tools, trends and advice. Per his M.O., Baker, gives us an insightful examinations of the facts, mini case studies and even a good measure of intrigue. Baker cites an exchange between a “little-known” social media player and one of its “towering chieftains,” Chris Brogan. Brogan is quoted saying of social media marketing and the ability to measure its results, “Is it an exacting marketing science? Not at all.” To what, exactly, was Brogan referring? You’ll have to read the article to find out.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm

A Painful Social Media Foray for Seattle Journalists

It was stunning news here in the Pacific Northwest: four police officers murdered in a Tacoma, Wash.-area coffee shop. When news this big breaks, local media rush to cover it. Who would have thought that a tragic event such as this could form the foundation for an excellent case study in the use of social media. “TechNewsWorld” writer Renay San Miguel walks us through the role social media played in getting up-to-the-minute and accurate news out to the public.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/68805.html

In Case You Missed It: Black Friday

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the name given to the first “official” in-store shopping day of the Holiday season. Black Friday, unlike other “Black” days, does not signify a crash or some terrible cataclism. Probably named by retail salespeople who must work extra early, extra late and extra hard, Black Friday is the day when hoards of people rush into stores to take advantage of seasonal offers, sales and specials. But as Jonathan Spalter (of Mobile Future) writes in “The Huffington Post,” Black Friday was also a mobile milestone.

As Spalter notes, shoppers armed with smartphones (and some phones that are not so smart) were searching, paying and even receiving coupons. PayPal noted mobile online payments surged 650 percent, and mobile searches grew to 200,000 this year from 5,000 on the same day in 2008. Is Spalter correct, will 2009 be regarded the “tipping point for the mobile web”? Read his article and see if you agree.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-spalter/black-fridays-mobile-mile_b_377309.html

As always, we invite you to share your comments.

Something ELSE in The Smartphone Market

We rarely lead our Weekend Reading Feature with a blog post, but it’s hard to get past this intriguing opening by Richard Lai in “Engadget“: “Folks, today might be the day when you start to notice how ancient our smartphones have become, even if they only came out in last few months.”

Lai details debut in London this week of a new smartphone and smartphone platform bearing the name “ELSE.” This Linux based smartphone from Israel’s Emblaze Mobile was “built from scratch” and features a sleek design and, by all accounts, an amazing user Interface. Read about, look at and watch why ELSE may be a game changer in the smartphone market in this Engadget post.

Future of the PC

Speaking of game changers, Jon Fortt writes in “Forbes” about the competing trends driving development of personal computers. Fortt asks, “Will tomorrow’s PC be a nimble netbook or a high-def laptop?” then details an explanation of opposing views offered by Google and AMD.

A Life Beyond Twitter?

One of the genius aspects of Twitter is how it engendered and surrounded itself with a vibrant devepoer ecosystem. Many of you reading this post are using third party apps and services built for and around Twitter. But could Twitter eventually walk away from this ecosystem? A “Portfolio” magazine article by Anthony Duignan-Cabrera examines how Twitter’s business interests are evolving and how developers are prepaparing for life after TWitter no longer needs them.

In a sometimes amusing companion piece by Jacqui Cheng of “Ars Technica,” Portfolio looks at the social networking behavior of young people. Is the generation of people under 35 taking social networking too far? One stat from the article: 36 percent of under-35 users admitted to checking Twitter/Facebook/texts immediately after getting it on.

In Case You Missed It: Search Engine Minimization

Traditional media is evolving so it can thrive in the New Media era. As part of that evolution, some online news resources are switching from free to subscription based distribution models. News Corp. chief Rupport Murdoch has concerns about news from his company’s various media brands being indexed in the Google search engine. With Google readers can find snippets of News Corp. articles, not only threatening his revenue model, but also be mislead by lack of context. So Murdoch is taking steps to block News Corp. news content from appearing in Google search results. As Bloomberg’s Greg Bensinger and Brian Womack point out in this story, News Corp. is not the only media outlet taking this dramatic step.