Category Archives: News

30 Days and Counting…

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While most people seem to have stopped blogging due to vacations, i’ve simply been horribly busy. Summer is the time of the year when one of my old Toronto clients makes a bunch of ‘back to school’ educational content so i’ve been busy drawing collared lemmings and putting together an Iditarod-themed Chu Chu rocket lookalike (with Bryan’s help of course.) We’ve also been embroiled in a silly amount of unexpected web programming and CSS. But enough of that. As of tomorrow, I have another task—packing!

We’re heading back to Asia at the end of September. Not sure yet when we’ll be back. We’ll be based in Bangkok but plan to intermittently move around the region. During that time we’re hoping to attend some Mobile Monday meetings in KL, Singapore and maybe even Mumbai or Bangalore (apparently a chapter in Delhi has also just started up. Anyone know if there’s a Jakarta chapter in the works?)

We’ll also be blogging about all the interesting mobile stuff in the region and working on a long overdue internal project which seems to finally have the possiblity of coming together. Every secret project needs a code name. I think ours will be Avocado :-)

[Regional food tip. When in Indonesia, be sure to try an avocado-chocolate milkshake. Sounds weird but trust me....it's yummy.]

Carnival of the Mobilists #42

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This installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#42) is hosted by Mobile Active and includes my mobile literacy checklist.

Carnival of the MobilistsA great linelup includng a very interesting ‘post of the week’ from Scott Shaffer about Google’s creation of QR codes for the masses (a great idea in my opinion. One of the simplest and most elegant ways to solve the mobile content discovery issue.) Enjoy!

Carnival of the Mobilists #41

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This installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#41) is hosted by Justin Oberman at MoPocket and includes my ‘Mobile Learning Reading List’ (which has grown since its original posting and will likely grow some more in the coming days.)

Carnival of the MobilistsAs always, Justin has provided a great lineup of posts and also reminds us that this is a good time to register for the upcoming Mobilists event at CTIA. Visit Rudy’s blog for registration details.

Canada Finally Dumping CDMA?

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I was a bit surprised to find this article in Canada’s Financial Post today:

“(regarding Bell Mobility)…Last week, Scotia Capital Markets analyst John Henderson wrote in a research note that he thinks BCE may be forced spend as much as $800-million more over the next two years to install GSM technology on top of its existing CDMA network and buy spectrum….

…”We believe the cost of not converting, particularly after phone numbers become portable in March, 2007, is a gradual erosion of their best customers (global roamers) to Rogers, not to mention growing disadvantages in handset costs and selection,” he said….

…Brian Sharwood, an analyst with Seaboard Group, said if a CDMA carrier is thinking about migrating to GSM, a good time to make a move will be when it starts to invest in high-speed, or 3G, networks. He said Telus is apparently further along in its review of GSM than Bell.”

It’s very encouraging to finally see someone publicly discussing this. More on the nuances of the Canadian mobile scene in this older post of mine.

[via Mark Evans]

Carnival of the Mobilists #40

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This installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#40) is hosted by Anders Borg of Abiro.

Carnival of the MobilistsNice work Anders, and congrats to Daniel Taylor for winning best post of the week with a fun post called “Who Designs this Stuff” and one of the best lines i’ve heard in a while about useless content services.
“I was going to get rid of Verizon’s VCast service, but if you have a three year old, it’s a great way to distract him when you’re waiting to get a haircut.”

Bet the Verizon focus groups never listed “occasionally useful to entertain small children” as a reason they’d keep the service :-)

Carnival of the Mobilists #39

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This installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#39) is hosted by Daniel Taylor’s Mobile Enterprise Weblog. Don’t miss the ‘Browsing’ section with a great post from WAP Review on the future of the mobile web via Opera Mini.

Carnival of the Mobilists

Thanks a bunch to Daniel for including my tardy post on mobile handset literacy. If I can get my act together this week—still super busy right now—I’ll be following it up with a list of interesting mobile learning links as well as some thoughts on what skills-sets might be needed to attain handset literacy.

Yiibu Presentation PDF Now Online

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If you’re looking for a copy of the Mobile Monday Boston, OZMAD, Boston Adobe Mobile User Group or New Media BC/UBC Magic presentation “Creating ‘Casual’ Games, Content and Applications for the (Mobile) Long Tail”—look no further. We finally have a PDF version available for download (500k)!

Thanks for being patient. We’ve been absolutely swamped lately :-) Thanks as well to Rodger from the Magic Lab and Dale from OZMAD/Moket for the recent opportunity to share our thoughts with their respective groups.

Carnival #38 and Post of the Month :-)

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Another week, another Carnival. Don’t miss this installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#38), hosted by Judy Breck at SmartMobs.

Carnival of the Mobilists

The Carnival has also announced the winner of last month’s ‘Post of the Month’ and ‘Host of the Month.’ Congratulations to Rudy who wins host of the month. And it seems, I beat out C. Enrique Ortiz’ ‘Mobile Perimiter‘ post (by a hair) to win the June post of the month with “Casual Mobile Snacks for Everyone“. :-) Many thanks to everyone who voted and to Khosla Ventures for sponsoring the competition.

Carnival of the Mobilists #37

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This installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#37) is hosted by Michael Mace of Mobile Opportunity.

Carnival of the Mobilists

This week’s issue has a great blend of technology and product news as well as industry research and commentary. Michael has also kindly included my recent post on Murdock’s ‘universals of culture’ and why they don’t quite seem to be well represented (yet) in the mobile content realm. As usual, it’s not an issue to miss and if you feel like lingering a bit longer on Michael’s site, don’t miss two of my favourite posts “Why are mobile application sales dropping” and “We need a new platform. Sort of.”

Thanks to everyone in Boston!

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A note of thanks once again to Alessandro and the whole gang at Mobile Monday Boston for the opportunity to present to the Boston mobile community last week. The MIT venue was lovely and the questions from the audience challenging enough to keep me pondering a few things on my flight home.

Thanks as well to James Talbot of Adobe for his patience throughout our technical difficulties during Tuesday’s Adobe Flash Mobile User Group presentation.

Both presentation are online. The Mobile Monday version includes some great questions from the audience, while the Adobe User Group version provides a better look at my slides (and the added bonus of some well timed snorts from James’ dog in the background.) :-)