Written on May 9, 2008 – 4:04 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
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Since the iPhone was announced Blackberry users suddenly felt less special. Weren’t THEY the ones that were always connected, always on and always in sync? Flashing a Blackberry Curve or Pearl just didn’t make an impression anymore. But there was just no way we could switch from our trusted Blackberrys and get used to that innovative onscreen keyboard that the iPhone made such headlines with. As a RIM executive said
“I could just never get the feel for it because, well, there is nothing to feel.”
Fortunately you can now get a preview of Research in Motions iPhone killer. Will it kill the iPhone? Definitely not. But it will get us Blackberry users back some self esteem:
Written on May 7, 2008 – 7:41 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
When the iPod was becoming popular a few years ago and other manufacturers started to realize they were missing out on a huge opportunity there were frequent (daily!) reports of the next ‘iPod Killer’. Eager to find out what innovations were being made we checked them all out. Generally it didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize that the moniker ‘iPod killer’ was born more out of wishful thinking than true product innovation. The Zune, and countless other iPod rippoffs, came and went. But as we know now, nothing could kill or replace the iPod.
Then came the iPhone. And yes, again there are several companies announcing their own ‘iPhone killer’. Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, is secretly (but not TOO secretly) working on something they call their iPhone Killer. The Verizon Voyager is another example of a phone branded as the iPhone killer. But one look is enough to know it isn’t. And HTC was rumored to be working on their own ‘iPhone killer’.
Yesterday HTC unveiled their HTC Diamond. And I must admit: it looks pretty cool.
You might even say that the interface looks slightly cooler and more futuristic than what the iPhone currently offers. The interface is completely dynamic and fluid. Screens blend into each other with great effects. The weather screen doesn’t just display a static image of the sun or a few clouds but actual moving images of clouds or even a thunderstorm.
I’m not claiming that this will be an iPhone killer but I can image a lot of Windows users who don’t want to switch to Apple products being very happy with this gadget. Check it out yourself:
Written on May 5, 2008 – 5:12 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The Associated Press - one of world’s largest news wires - will launch a service on Monday that brings local news stories to your phone. AP teamed up with 100 newspapers to update readers about the latest developments in their local area by using ZIP/ postal codes. The PR circus is focused on the iPhone, as AP and Apple also took care of an iPhone-optimized widget (see iphone.com/webapps).
“We are excited to offer the first comprehensive mobile news web app and to have been selected by Apple as a Staff Pick. With a new generation of mobile devices on the market, like the iPhone, the time is right for AP to introduce a product that brings together our members’ local news brands with AP’s unrivaled coverage of international and national events,” said Jane Seagrave, AP’s senior vice president of global product development in a statement.
At first you might think, “what else is new?”. Yet existing services like Google Mobile News don’t offer you local stories in such a sophisticated way. And they weren’t smart enough to jump on the iPhone-means-free-publicity train.
Earlier today I wrote a story about the rise of mobile TV. I noted that other news services make 100-second news broadcasts on a phone quite useless. Well… AP just announced another one.
Written on May 3, 2008 – 11:24 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
It’s difficult for us developers, with tags such as ‘OCD’, ‘aspergers’ and ‘nerds’ to detach the word Macromedia away from Flash. But Flash has been playing Frogger for many years. Formally known as Splash, it has been jumping logs for a long time and with each new release and throughout its management changes, this single star has jumped itself into becoming one of the most dominant and integral players on the Internet today.
With each jump there has been thousands of dedicated and obsessive devotees simultaneously having ejaculations (metaphorically speaking) as the gravity settles to the new possibilities that the latest incarnation makes possible. These would not be apparent to a ‘normal’ person, for only those with the above mentioned tags have the capacity to really grasp the essence of the bifurcation immediately.
Flash has explored every area of the landscape, looking for acceptance, adoption and for an audience that truly appreciates their quests. I say quests because the team behind this baby are ruthlessly exploring new worlds, as and when they find a new feeding ground, they evolve with the terrain leaving little resemblance of their previous incarnation intact. This is one team that is highly interested in natural selection and breeding with aliens!
It is of little surprise that when Adobe Flash announces that they will now explore the mobile market further (code name: Open Screen Project) that when the fruits of this initiative are ripe, we will no doubt have strange new gadgets not even predicted by Philip K Dick, that we will use to navigate the new world around us, with unprecedented access to information and communication, but in an international timezone that has no on/off switch.
So what is it that Adobe’s crystal ball is saying this time about the future. Here are some predictions of scenarios that come to mind when I dare let my imagination go wild with the inevitable consequences of the Open Screen Project.
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Written on April 20, 2008 – 11:00 am
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post by mobile marketeer Peter Evers
After Russell Beattie’s post about the end of Mowser, a mobile transcoder, last Monday, a lot of bloggers reacted fiercely on his controversial viewpoints about the end of the mobile web. As a mobile marketing professional I feel kind of obliged to write about my view on the future of the mobile web.
Let’s start with a short recap about what happened this week. On Monday Russell Beattie, founder of Mowser, an application that transcodes normal websites to mobile websites, announced that Mowser has stopped. In this very personal article Russell came up with different reasons for the end of Mowser, such as lack of funding and personal debts but mostly Russell’s lack of confidence in the future of the mobile web. Russell states:
…I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I’m talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn’t happened, and now I’m sure it isn’t going to. In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time…
With this kind of powerful expressions, the commotion he caused in the blogosphere doesn’t come as a surprise. Almost every mobile blog I’m subscribed to wrote about it. Especially the articles at MobHappy, MobileMarketingWatch and mocoNews.net were worth reading, But what is Russell actually saying? If you read his text carefully you might have understood that the thing he isn’t confident about is browsing mobile-only websites on two-inch screens.
I can say that I don’t believe in mobile-only websites with no or little PC presence too. If a website is only visible on a phone and not or hardly available on a PC, people probably will not know about its presence.
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Written on January 26, 2008 – 3:21 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
On December 18, Dutch social media expert Polle de Maagt claimed in a guest post on this blog that mobile barcode concept ShotCode was soon-to-be history.
The future is in GPS/bluetooth/triangulated services. And although I really really liked ShotCode: exit ShotCode
Yet, when I visited his blog (Dutch) today, I noticed this really interesting concept that could save ShotCode from its predicted death:
What’s the story here? Multimedia designer Phil Lu came up with the idea, and presented it as a mock-up on Geneco. This ordering system makes sure you won’t have to stand in the ordering line, which is always there. It will make the life of many personal assistants way easier. And here comes the ShotCode-saving element: Lu suggests a ’swipe transaction system using semacode technology’ as a payment method. That’s where the cool-looking ShotCode comes in:
Just imagine that Apple and Starbucks are digging the idea and will start to implement it. They’re both cool brands, so it’s not really out-there. Wouldn’t that make ShotCode übercool as well?
Written on January 15, 2008 – 1:04 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, yet in Holland the wireless Internet coverage still isn’t very good. It even seems like that when you’re in desperate need of some entertainment - in the train or bus stop in the middle of nowhere -, the feeling of disappointment is stronger than the satisfied feeling when it IS available. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
So it’s not too surprising that developers world-wide work on applications that make the off line live just a little bit easier. Tooble is a recent result of those ambitions: ‘YouTube comes to iPod’.
Tooble automatically downloads, converts and imports any YouTube video to play on your video iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, or even on your computer with iTunes. Of course you could already watch videos on the iPhone and iPod Touch using GPRS/EDGE, but the only joy that comes from that is making up original ways of swearing about the damn lack of speed.
Google won’t be amused about this service. They’re probably working behind the scenes on some sort of YouTube function for off line applications service Google Gears. And now this small start-up called Gridlock LLC came up with it first.
Thank you guys, for entertaining me during those awful hours of no Internet connection. Want to meet these heroes from Gridlock/ Tooble? You can shake their hands at stand S-1338 at the Macworld Conference in San Fransisco this week.
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
