30/04/2008 by nicola.

What will mobile web be about?

Very nice overview from ‘Kodel’ in Belgium, if you really don’t have time to look through - slide 34 will give you the answer - but not the why - so go look at the rest too

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29/04/2008 by nicola.

Anol Bhattacharya who writes the brilliant SoulSoup blog has shared a link to this Social Networking Wars video

On a related note, am unplugged at home from this Friday for at least a month (or so) going to rediscover the offline world - so have a fantastic month (or so) !

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22/04/2008 by nicola.

Billed as the ultimate night guide, there are a variety of N82 users in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam who are using their phones to blog / tell stories of their nocturnal activities whether visiting places of interest, shopping, cafes/bars/clubs, playing sports etc, just choose a country then take a ‘tour’ through their photos and videos.

I haven’t visited any of these countries yet, is fascinating to see it all.

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20/04/2008 by nicola.

Some interesting points on a TED talk by Yochai Benkler - Open Source Economics

Information produced traditionally - market based or government owned. Enter 2002, lots of publicity surrounding commercial supercomputing e.g. IBM - but lesser known, 4.5 million users contributing to sharing resources to power a supercomputer for NASA to analyse data coming from radio telescopes. Information not less capital intensive or even less expensive but difference in way capital is distributed. With a computer information production, knowledge and exchange is in the hands of up to a billion users, (how about phones with 3 billion ?)

Free or opensource software (e.g. LAMP - Linux (operating system), Apache (webserver), MySQL (Database), PHP (server-side script), visible because its measurable - many examples now across the web. How is relevance as well as content produced - e.g. Open Directory project has 60,000 volunteers - no one owns, free to use, output of sociological & psychological motivations to do something good, Wikipedia another example.

Wireless - traditionally owned by one person, had to be licensed or based on property, now people can own wifi devices with sharing protocol to allow people to build their own network, when they are not using, resources can be used across the network.

So no longer just market based or centralised or decentralised production, emergence of social sharing and exchange but now is having major economic impact - no centralised authority, open to everyone to innovate, now takes less time because tasks are spread amongst larger user/contributor base. Acting as a new form of competition - making inroads into or taking traditional market shares, new opportunities for people to create tools and software, building platforms as a model.

BUT - it is threatened by current commercial infrastructure with IP issues etc. I am interested in this, because I was about to launch a personal project creating an open source mobile application - a week ago, now I’m still no further on in answering questions from a previous post about mobile phones, application development as a way out of poverty. So I guess, the only answer for now is to go ahead - try and create the app and see what distribution issues I run into along the way.

Based on everything I understand about open source models - via some great info from Harold Jarche’s blog and Ajit’s models from Open Gardens, which have referred to in a previous post. Is it producing an economic shift or revolution and if so, what are current market competitors doing about it ? Another question to add to the ever growing pile - if anyone has an answers, would love to hear from you?

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20/04/2008 by nicola.

From Pocketnet - an article explaining Samsung’s mobile phone that is powered by a fuel cell that uses water. Interesting alternative to solar power, but no indication on pricing as yet. Great idea though.

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19/04/2008 by nicola.

This is great news that Andy has started a blog, I’ve been following many great comments and posts he has made on Internet Time Ning community; and been able to apply some of it in my own practices.

3 reasons to read his blog if you haven’t already discovered it:

a) Keeping it real - he does !
b) He gives you advance warning so you can choose whether to read on or not
c) Pigeons give it a nice London feel

On a separate and vaguely related note, I don’t have many blogs listed on the so-called blog roll, but I read tons of them via some pagecasts I have set up on Pageflakes (general, mobile, 3D) and about another 10 learning & business pages also on PageFlakes. I am currently using an internal 1&1 template which does not allow me to add or amend widgets or amend anything on the sidebar of my blog so there are only a few on there. If I ever get round to setting up my own blog from scratch, will change then.

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15/04/2008 by nicola.

George Siemens post & Stephen Downes comment made me think - they both refer to the need for a shift in thinking and that coverage - e.g. the article in NY Times about Jan Chipchase’s research, is distracting wider issue of this need. I think I have missed or misunderstood what both George and Stephen are referring to in terms of shift in thinking because I feel depressed now.

I have been following Jan’s research and blog for some time, he has been touring various parts of the world, taking loads of photos, meeting loads of people and looking at their behaviour, wishes and use of mobile phone devices. He mentions many ideas that he has discovered in Asia and some of Middle East, that are familiar to me from living in Turkey and mobile phone usage from my in-laws (2000+) who are scattered around various bits of Turkey. They have mixed levels of income, mixed levels of network coverage but a shared fascination with a device that allows them to chat to each other - sometimes without actually talking - for example - they often ring once then ring off - this is a way of saying ‘hello’ and ‘I’m thinking about you’ - but they don’t have to spend any money doing it (i.e. no call charge). This appears to be similar in other parts of Asia mentioned in Jan’s blog. Also anyone who has been to Turkey will know that the concept of ‘fake’ may be viewed differently to how it is viewed e.g. in the UK (am not talking about judgement of the ethical issue - more around economic conditions and issues that mean ‘fake’ products are in existence).

I’m unsure about the shift that is needed in how we interact with developing nations. From what I understand, mobile phones are working well in terms of helping people e.g. start a business, reporting on something good or bad that is happening - because they don’t have / can’t afford another device, bandwidth, connectivity to try anything else. I can see benefits in moving money around using a mobile phone and I can see how useful that it can be to make a Remade phone: in some ways it is similar to FairTrade except that you are ‘growing your phone’ from materials that may or may not have been purchased in traditional (legitimate? depends who is judging / legislating ?) ways, and that the phone can be sold based on the labour and skill involved in creating a phone from these materials.

However mobile phones are primarily helping in terms of improving people’s circumstances including their personal financial ones because they are a portable communication device - they allow people to carry out business using voice and text. Mobile activism is driving changes, mobile citizen journalism is presenting different insights into how people are living, working and the good & bad stuff that is happening around them. For example in Turkey, as mobile phone device ownership increased, there appeared to be a radical shift in thinking - people no longer felt that their problems were unique and isolating - by finally being able to chat with others for extended periods of time (a luxury not previously granted due to telephone landlines). So there is already a shift in thinking.

I seem to have more questions than I have answers e.g

With ownership of devices, finding out local information that can improve a business locally, perhaps transferring money using phones and potentially selling ‘green’ phones to the developed nations - does that help people find a way out of poverty ?

Is the focus on mobile phones just presenting opportunities for healthy, developed, multinational companies to invest in businesses in developing nations and increase their billion dollar profits further ?

Is the huge growth of mobile device ownership and mobile services allowing network operators in developing nations to become small empires and form partnerships with other mobile network operator or manufacturing multinational ‘giants’ and therefore benefitting the shareholders but perhaps not the overall users to share the same amount of personal ‘wealth’ ?

Does the implementation of the web accessible via mobile phones - put a stranglehold on local innovation and development in order to sell their services or applications - i.e. we are replicating current commercial, copyright & IP issues but on a smaller device ?

Are the advantages of using mobile phones for communication including voice calls, text/SMS, VOIP and a variety of mobile social networks and social media benefitting the richer inhabitants of this planet as much as the others - so actually not changing anything at all ?

Up until this moment I really believed that mobile phones are the best way that I have come across for helping inhabitants of developing nations find ways of improving their circumstances - as opposed to other technology tools (although sites like AfriGadget are also highlighting fantastic examples of innovation from a range of both original and recycled materials); because I do not see another solution such as pc internet connectivity for all being implemented in the short term - although again web usage in developing nations is increasing hugely. I also thought that mobile learning was a way of promoting wider access to learning that could be implemented now, but maybe doing that does just allow circumstances to stay as they are.

I don’t have answers and I don’t get it.

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10/04/2008 by nicola.

Incredible podcast and photos (you feel like you are standing a few metres away, how great it would be there to see that view in person !) from the Baraza blog hearing about the issues caused by the decline in tourism in the area.

More podcasts

I’m saving up for a trip now !

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09/04/2008 by nicola.

Its great to see they are an official honoree in the mobile web news category, with only 15% selected from over 8000 entries !

The Voices of Africa project where hundreds of news reports / interviews have been uploaded to the site by mobile reporters across Africa. You can view the complete series and get an insight into the reporters who are sending articles and images using a mobile phone and GPRS, without the need for a pc and internet connection.

Their February update reports on the range of topics covered including foreign investments, views on political, economic change in various parts of Africa and extensive coverage of the election in Kenya and the African Cup of Nations in Ghana.

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07/04/2008 by nicola.

Some of it has been filed, a lot in recycle bin - some bits still to sort, but not too bad start - keeping it like this going to be the issue…

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