www.josschuurmans.com

Mobile Internet sucks (= conclusion of 3 wks without ADSL)

I've been without broadband Internet at home for about three weeks - I was "between providers", so to speak.

Must say that, while I was still able to consume some of my daily Internet fix - browsing RSS feeds on my mobile phone -, it was at the same time a sobering experience of how embarrassingly ill adapted the applications on my Nokia N95 are to mobile Web 2.0 participation.

I'll probably remember this period best as the time when Doc Searls went in and out of hospital and blogged  it all. Good health and happiness to you, Doc!

Data speed is not the bottle neck. It's the lack of mobile client-side participatory software.

With my Nseries device and 3G coverage I could browse and email, but that was about it. No tagging, no digging, no blogging with any level of convenience.

So what I ended up doing was to bookmark the URLs I would have liked to tag, digg or blog and thus collect them in my mobile phone's browser for future reference.

I hope to catch up blogging some of those bookmarks over the coming days.

Dugg: Reuters' "mojo" experiments with Nokia | Jemima Kiss

"(...) Reuters' journalists are experimenting with the potential of mobile journalism through a project with Nokia's research centre. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nseries PC Suite Graduates, I Agree It’s Ready | Symbian-Guru.com

"(...) The best new feature is the inclusion of Nokia Photos, which replaces the old ‘Image Store’ application, as well as Lifeblog, so it seems. The best part of this is that now, when you sync pictures and videos from your phone to your desktop, they’re no longer both stored lumped together in a folder in your My Photos folder! Videos are appropriately placed in their own folder within your My Videos folder in Windows XP, and pictures in their own folders within My Photos. I really love that, as it makes it so much easier to keep track of where things are at when it comes time to edit. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Nokia Nseries PC Suite graduates from Beta Labs | IntoMobile

"(...) The 300+ MB heavy suite is actually a collection of applications (Nokia Lifeblog, Content Copier, Nokia Application Installer, Nokia Multimedia Player, Nokia Music Manager, One Touch Access, PC Sync, Nokia Photos, Nokia Map Loader) that "seamlessly link your Nokia Nseries multimedia device and your PC."

read more | digg story

Lifeblog is a blogging application!

Yes it is, Ivan! :-)

Granted, Nokia Lifeblog is foremost an attempt at a memory prosthesis, as Christian Lindholm explained in that interview before the launch of the beta version in 2004.

Gordon Bell is making a more thorough attempt, albeit one that would be unpractical for the Nokia Multimedia Business Group's target customers at this stage. But don't worry, we'll get there. (See also Wikipedia: "lifelog")

The content you consciously capture (photos, video, sound, text) is part of that extended memory, as is the context information which mobile devices will be able to capture for you in the background. Both consciously created or selected content and less consciously captured context are part of our human memory, so the metaphor still applies.

As you mention, Ivan, content and contextual information is not all that valuable unless it can be searched. True, or, to put it in somewhat broader terms: real value is derived from all that information only when you start using it.

Now, this is where the onions come in.

Huh?

Trust your life to a piece of Nokia

The following text is a condensed version of an article published on Nokia's intranet (restricted access) on March 11, 2004. I've omitted part of the original text for reasons of company confidentiality and the confidentiality of interviewees.

[STARTS]

Trust your life to a piece of Nokia

By Jos Schuurmans March 11, 2004, 16:00

HELSINKI, Finland. -- A dozen brains at NVO Multimedia Applications in Ruoholahti have combined their visions of mobility, their entrepreneurial spirit, technological expertise and marketing skill to work on... the "memory prosthesis".

Well, sure, there you have an exaggerated metaphor. No external device is likely to replace the human brain any time soon. But the larger idea certainly holds water and the first tangible result of their efforts will be version 1.0 of Lifeblog, a preview of which will be shown at the CeBIT fair in Hanover, Germany, next week.

NVO Multimedia Applications team's Director Christian Lindholm has been pushing the case for usability within Nokia for a long time. He invented the Navi-key and has, more recently, been standing at the crib of the Series 60 platform, which he is now actively promoting and developing.

Google buys Jaiku

As a Jaiku user, I received this email message today:

[STARTS]

SendDate: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:25:39 +0300 Subject: Announcement from Jaiku

Wonderful Jaiku users, Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google! While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at http://jaiku.com/help/google Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

[ENDS]

Posting this from the Lifeblog app on my PC

A Nokia N95 arrived to my pigeon hole today (September 4, that is). Fun toy! Checking out the over-the-air podcast download. A link to Adam Curry's Daily Source Code comes pre-set, so that's as good a place to start as any. Decent sound quality!

It's not just a fun toy, though. This is the first time since I started working for Nokia five years ago, that I decided not to upgrade to the next QWERTY-equipped Communicator (from the Enterprise Solutions business group), but to a one-hand operated device from the Multimedia business group.

Rather than being evidence in support of The Register's thought provoking Andrew Orlowski, I guess my choice reflects that the whole multimedia Internet experience is becoming more relevant in my line of work.

I must have been one of the first people to write about Nokia Lifeblog, an interview story with Christian Lindholm in March 2004, published on Nokia's intranet (restricted access).

[UPDATE, October 24, 2007: I posted a condensed version of the article: 'Trust your life to a piece of Nokia'.]

It has bugged me ever since that ES-devices never got around to support Lifeblog. And, frankly, now I have run out of patience - even though I know that the new Communicator runs on Series60.

To me, (a) QWERTY and (b) the nice big screen were the main selling points of the Communicator. So, it's been a trade-off: what I now gain instead is (1) more compact hardware and (2) a richer multimedia / Web2.0 / life recording experience.

22:45 04 September, 2007 Text note

P.S. 1: This is the "text note" I wrote on my PC after synchronizing the contents of the Lifeblog apps on both the PC and the N95. It was too big to be sync'ed to my phone, so I couldn't blog it from the phone. Short-story-long: this text was intended to go with the photo I posted just before :)

P.S. 2: Rich-text formatting, links, categories, excerpt, keywords, Technorati tags added later via Typepad's interface.

"If you were to start blogging today..."

Once in a while I get this question:

"If you were to start blogging today, which blogging platform, software and/or hosting service would you use?"

The answer isn't necessarily straightforward. In general, it depends on:

1. Which features are most important to you as a blogger;
2. How design-savvy and how tech-savvy you are, and how much you want to tweak by yourself.

I drew up an Excel sheet to compare some of the blogging services that I've used, on some of the criteria that I personally find most relevant.

The solutions in the comparison are:

• Vox, SixApart's third-party branded, community blogging service that allows you to publish different content to different groups of people: public, friends, family, and just yourself.
• Blogger, the inventors of blogging, now part of Google.
• Blogsome, a hosted service running on WordPress, an open source blogging platform.
• WordPress, open source blogging platform which you can download and run on your own or hosted server.
• Moveable Type, by SixApart, blogging solution which you can download and run on your own or hosted server.
• Three service levels of Typepad, by SixApart.

The criteria for comparison which I looked at are:

• Branding
  • domain mapping
  • third-party branding
• Access control
  • distributed access
  • multiple authors
• Design
  • easy layout templates and customization
  • advanced, CSS editing
• Features
  • easy-to-use backend interface
  • moblogging
  • widgets
• Application control
  • running the blogging solution on you own or hosted server
• Pricing

In some cases, where I haven't got the latest information about specific features, I have insert a question mark ("?"). I'd love to receive feedback and will be happy to turn those question marks into plusses ("+") or minuses ("-"). Please do correct me if I'm wrong about any of the inserted values.

Sometimes it's easy to choose

By way of illustration, I think there are a few "easy" use cases (or ways to narrow down your selection):

a) If you are rather tech-savvy, i.e. if you know how to install and maintain software on your own or hosted server, you can probably narrow down your selection to WordPress and Moveable Type  (- or even Blogsome in case you don't care about domain mapping). If you're not tech-savvy, you can count WordPress and Moveable Type out.

b) If domain mapping is important to you, and you don't have the technical skill to run blogging software on your own or hosted server, you should probably consider TypePad Plus.

c) If you want advanced control over your blog's design (and you don't want to run your own server), you should probably consider Blogsome (without domain mapping) or TypePad Pro (with domain mapping).

d) If you don't mind third-party branding, you don't care too much about domain mapping, and you are looking to share different blog content with different groups of people (i.e. public, friends, family, or just yourself) in an online community setup, have a look at Vox.

e) If you don't care too much about domain mapping, and you are looking for a free blogging service, try Blogger or Blogsome. Both are very straightforward and user friendly. Blogsome has a slightly richer feature set, including multiple authors and different access levels.

f) One reason to use TypePad basic, which is a paid service, rather than Blogger or Blogsome, is TypePad's customer service: the help ticketing system inside the blogging platform can be very useful.

Do you agree with my assessment? Can you help me fill in the gaps? Let me know!

"(...) It seems very simple when you see that you can have a web host and your name registered simultaneously. Numerous web hosting providers offer you to register your domain name with them at the time you do business with their company. It might sound great like registering cheapest domain name idea because of the convenience of getting everything done at once. But it is better to do domain name registration by your-self because this shows clearly who owns the name. There are many companies like godaddy which give domain buy service to their clients along with web design services. These services are also provided by wireless internet service providers. But to connect the internet they need to install wireless internet booster and give free wifi hotspot through which people can access the internet. (...)"

Nokia Lifeblog 2.0 for NSeries introduced at CeBIT

From Nokia's press release, titled 'New Nokia Lifeblog - the photo diary that writes itself':

"(...) Nokia today introduced Nokia Lifeblog 2.0, (...) Designed exclusively for Nokia Nseries multimedia computers.

"(...) The new version of Nokia Lifeblog builds on the previous versions by adding audio notes as well as other valuable context information, such as calendar entries and location information, to the diary. This means that images and video clips are surrounded with the context in which they were taken, rendering them as part of the rich tapestry of items that make up your personal Nokia Lifeblog timeline.

"(...) With the push of a button, all your content can conveniently be transferred to a compatible PC, offering permanent storage as well as freeing up memory space on your Nokia Nseries device.

"(...) Available now for compatible PCs, the new Nokia Lifeblog PC software can be downloaded for free from www.nokia.com/lifeblog. The new mobile software, which is compatible with all Nokia Nseries devices, is expected to become available for free download from the end of April 2006.

"(...) Photos of Nokia Lifeblog 2.0 are available at: http://europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,73864,00.html?name=n70(...)"

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Sony Ericsson's moblogging with Google: not quite there yet (March 6, 2006)
  As to the comparison between Sony Ericsson's moblogging app. with Google versus Nokia Lifeblog: It is actually a disadvantage not to have PC software to support mobile blogging. With Nokia Lifeblog, you don't have to use the PC application, but it does offer powerful features for managing, filtering and sharing parts of your recorded content on your PC and some of it online.
• "FLICKR TAG: LINDHOLMFEST" (September 9, 2005)
  A note, written in black and pink marker ink, on "Nokia Company Confidential" stationary, halfway the staircase to the second floor in restaurant Mecca reads: "FLICKR TAG: LINDHOLMFEST". And then, in printed font: "Please print your pictures and glue them in the scrapbook below. Thank you! Christian."
• Moblogging requires QWERTY (November 9, 2004)
  The single most restrictive usability issue with Nokia Lifeblog is clearly that it doesn't yet run on any QWERTY handsets.

Technorati Tags: Nokia Lifeblog, NSeries, CeBIT, moblogging, blogging, photo sharing, mobility

Sony Ericsson's moblogging with Google: not quite there yet

Quick and dirty impressions re Sony Ericsson's K800 and K790 devices with Google-supported blogging. It's interesting that the media coverage seems to focus on three things:

• The significance of Sony Ericsson's team-up with Google, i.e. the business & finance angle. - Soi.
• The (whatever) camera technology. - Very, very temporary.
• The blogging app. - Now, that woke me up!

What strikes me as relevant with a view to moblogging is this:

1. Great that the blogging application comes pre-installed, with integration to Google's Blogger service;
2. 3.2 megapixels seems just about sufficient to do a decent mobile image blogging job;
3. Too bad the devices don't have QWERTY keyboards;
4. As to the comparison with Nokia Lifeblog: It is actually a disadvantage not to have PC software to support mobile blogging. With Nokia Lifeblog, you don't have to use the PC application, but it does offer powerful features for managing, filtering and sharing parts of your recorded content on your PC and some of it online.

Technorati Tags: Sony Ericsson, Google, Blogger, K800, K790, Nokia Lifeblog, moblogging

WINKsite's David Harper invites me to "dig deeper"

Following my entry 'This blog was mobilized by WINKsite.com' the other day, I received a swift email from founder David Harper, submitting that WINKsite is much more than just a tool to create mobile portals and inviting me to "dig deeper".

(David, thank you very much for your response - I trust you don't mind my copying it here:)

[STARTS]

Hi Jos,

I read with interest your post on us. Re: "This blog was mobilized by WINKsite.com"

I think WINKsite provides benefits to people beyond the notion of merely creating mobile portals as defined in your post.

If you inclined to learn more please see us through the eyes and posts of your colleague - Charlie Schick.

Charlie Schick's Lifeblog
David Harper, of WINKsite, certainly gets it
http://cognections.typepad.com/lifeblog/2005/10/david_harper_of.html

Other posts you might find of interest from my blog:

Politics To Go: WINKsite Mobile Case Studies
http://winksite.com/site/help_bl_view.cfm?blog_id=5687

Direct-To-Consumer Mobile Portals & WINKsite
http://winksite.com/site/help_bl_view.cfm?blog_id=568

Hopefully I could then discuss our service further with you.

Your perspective both before and after my request for you to "dig deeper" would provide helpful insight.

"…the conversations we want to have. The conversations start from the content because we want to communicate, not consume.” - Charlie Schick, Nokia

This couldn’t be more true or more important to remember.

For tens of millions worldwide their mobile phone is their one and only daily pipeline onto the Internet, to the knowledge it contains, and to each other.

It is more than just creating and consuming content - it is about the individuals it engages, the people it connects, the dialogue that develops, the community that forms and the collective action that can result.

Cheers,
Dave Harper
Founder, WINKsite

[ENDS]

Now, I've read the references that David provides, and some more.

This blog was mobilized by WINKsite.com

Via the speakers list of Les Blogs 2.0 (see also my earlier entry: 'A slice of blogging's who-is-who is set to speak in Paris'), I happened to bump into WINKsite, a service that lets you set up a mobile online presence.

Interestingly, colleague Charlie Schick features at the top of a list of what seem to be mobile blogs or somesuch. (and what not can one do with Photoshop  ;-))

Anywho, I decided to look into it.

First thing I wondered was, do we still need personal mobile portals in addition to the regular Web? Not sure, since mobile browsers are increasingly capable of handling regular Web content.

Will I, for example, start browsing mobile portals on my Series 80 device, in addition to regular weblogs? Okay, the Nokia Communicator 9500 has a very convenient interface indeed, but also Series 60 devices and other mobile device platforms are increasingly fitted for Web surfing.

Get my drift?

Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try.

We read: "In minutes, you can set-up a free mobile site that's available worldwide on any web-enabled phone, PDA or desktop PC. (...) The site you create at WINKsite is simultaneously available on any web-enabled mobile phone or PDA running a WML v1.x, xHTML Mobile Profile(WML v2.0) or i-mode compatible HTML (cHTML) browser."

I think I managed to have WINK convert my blog into a mobile-device-readible blog at http://winksite.com/jos/schuurmans. Let's see if this flies, and then see if we can change the URL into something more memorable...

Brilliant hacks on Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion

Playing around on del.icio.us the other day, I ran into a blog entry by Steve Rubel on his blog 'Micro Persuasion': 'Ten Technorati Hacks'. Absolutely brilliant. Start right here to get the best out of Technorati.

So I bookmarked Steve's blog and before posting this entry I went back to see his latest. I don't know how he does it, but I gotta tell ya, this is the best resource to blogging I've found so far. For example, check out his entry 'Ten Blogging Hacks' from Sunday.

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Reading about del.icio.us (October 19, 2005)
• Technorati tracks the books conversation (August 4, 2005)
• 10 answers to "Why blog?" (June 5, 2005)

"FLICKR TAG: LINDHOLMFEST"

A note, written in black and pink marker ink, on "Nokia Company Confidential" stationary, halfway the staircase to the second floor in restaurant Mecca reads: "FLICKR TAG: LINDHOLMFEST".

And then, in printed font: "Please print your pictures and glue them in the scrapbook below. Thank you! Christian."

I must be in the right place...

For the occasion of his farewell party in downtown Helsinki, Christian Lindholm had set up a cute little bluetooth enabled HP photo printer.

After all, the bulk of his guests are colleagues from the Nokia Lifeblog team, most of whom transferred from the Nokia Ventures Organization to the Multimedia Business Group this summer. These people are armed with the latest multimedia-capable handsets such as the Nokia N90 series.

Capturables from 'Moving experiences'

I had a closer look at Christian Lindholm's blog, 'Moving experiences'.

"The current look was designed by Sami Koskela, a very talented graphics designer living and working in Finland. He has a keen eye for details I greatly appriciate," Christian wrote when he started feeling comfortable with his new digital identity.

Here's for some snippets of inspiration that I could draw from it at a glance:

1. Style. Page layout, visual brand elements, typography, colors, shades, photo sizes and  formats, use of space. 'Moving experiences' is elegant, fresh, light and delightful. (someone else mentioned this)

2. Structure. Top-level navigation is clear, logical and intuitive. Consistent horizontal page navigation with category symbols. I noticed that Christian uses a very limited number of category tags. While it does keep things simple, I'm not entirely sure if it's the way to go.

3. Branding. 'Moving experiences' is a clear theme that reflects the owner's personality and connects all content. Interestingly, the blog title differs from its domain name. On the one hand, this may seem confusing. On the other, it strikes me as modest and adding to the author's credibility. It's a trade-off, I guess...

4. Content. I caught myself drawn right into Christian's blog, so I decided to compile a list of entries that I find worth capturing for possible future reference. And now that I feel reasonably up-to-date, I'd better code a blogroll in my sidebar to keep in the loop ;-)

So here comes my list of recommended reading on 'Moving experiences' (leaving out most of the family and play stuff):

Christian Lindholm moves to Yahoo!

Christian Lindholm, mobile usability guru, inventor of the Nokia Navi-key, father of the Series 60 user interface, co-author of 'Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone' and driving force behind the "memory prosthesis" aka Nokia Lifeblog, is leaving the company after ten years, for a new position as Vice President of Global Mobile Product at Yahoo! inc.

Something had been in the air for a while...

Upload via NOKIA Lifeblog, says Flickr

Flickr's Uploading Tools page says that, if you use a recent NOKIA phone, you can post your photos to Flickr via Lifeblog. Nice integration, Flickr!

(I'm posting this entry using TypePad's QuickPost feature; by the time you see several links here, I will have added them later.)

Previous related posts on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Savonlinna (September 3, 2005)
• TypePad support ticket: TypeKey profile page not found (September 2, 2005)
• Nokia Lifeblog releases version 1.7 (August 1, 2005)

Nokia Lifeblog releases version 1.7

Found a message in my inbox that the newest version of Nokia Lifeblog, version 1.7, is available for download. The mobile blogging software with PC synchronisation runs on:

• Nokia 3230
• Nokia 6260
• Nokia 6630
• Nokia 6670
• Nokia 6680
• Nokia 6681
• Nokia 7610
• Nokia N70
• Nokia N90

Version 1.7 sports the following improved features:

Moblogging requires QWERTY

Any image supporting moblogging clients for Series 80?
(Photo: November 9, 2004, 23:06 GMT+02:00)

The single most restrictive usability issue with Nokia Lifeblog is clearly that it doesn't yet run on any QWERTY handsets.

Fixing the chronology - done that!

Right, so I fixed the chronology. Bloody tedious job, by the way. But now it's done.

Fixing the chronology

As I happen to post my moblog entries from my Nokia 6600 running a Beta version 1.0 of Nokia Lifeblog on the Series 60 platform, I don't much use the TypePad web interface to manage my blog.

Well, this may change. One inconvenience I've encountered is that when I don't have the time to post my snapshot entries immediately (or the same day, or the same month, for that matter), the date and time stamp will be out-of-date as well. In October I was catching up posting some photos from July, which kinda mixed up the chronology.

So the good news is, I just discovered that in the TypePad interface I can quite easily edit the dates and times and fix the chronology. Me like!

"Hello World"

Wouldn't it be nice if LifeBlog brought moblogging to the masses, the way the Apple Macintosh did with computing? "Hello World"