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Living With The Sprint HTC Evo

Posted by tomwiles at 7:46 PM on July 3, 2010

I’ve been living with my HTC Evo now for a few weeks, long enough where I can make a few informed observations about the device.

The Evo’s 4.3 inch multi-touch screen is superb. I’ve been surprised by the brightness and readability of the Evo’s screen even in a vehicle or outdoors in sunlight. The screen is big enough to be useful, yet the device still fits into a regular shirt pocket.

The Evo is fast and responsive. It seems that no matter what programs are open, the Evo remains just as responsive — there’s no wait for programs or configuration screens to pop open. The other smart phones I’ve owned in the past are dog-slow and sluggish by comparison.

The HTC’s “Sense” user interface that sits on top of Android is a winner. Popular social networking sites are slickly integrated right into every aspect of the phone’s functionality, making it possible to share most everything you can think of with a couple of taps.

The WiFi hotspot feature is also a tremendous convenience. It does have its quirks though. I’ve found that if I have opened up a bunch of different applications in the course of using the phone, if I then open up the WiFi hotspot feature, something will go wrong after a few hours and turn off the battery’s charging circuit. Something I have installed and am running may be causing this to happen. If I reboot the phone and then run the WiFi hotspot feature, this problem doesn’t occur and the battery keeps charging when it’s plugged in to AC power.

The integrated GPS is able to quickly find a signal. There are two GPS navigation choices that are included – Google Navigation and Sprint Navigation. Both work exactly as expected. I find myself making the most use of Google Navigation and Google Maps. The ability to search for businesses in a local area based on the phone’s own GPS location is extremely useful and I typically find I use that feature several times a day.

4G is currently not a good reason to buy an Evo because 4G coverage is currently extremely limited. This situation is in the process of changing. In the meantime, I’m happy with Sprint’s 3G coverage. I knew about this 4G limitation going in to getting this phone, so it’s not a problem for me. In reality, it’s likely going to take two or three years before 4G is widely deployed. I’ve been a Sprint data customer for more than 5 years, so I’ve witnessed (and lived with) the process firsthand of them going from 1XRT service that was limited to the eastern half of the country to widely-deployed EVDO Rev “A” 3G service.

Android is light years better than Windows Mobile 5, 6 or 6.5. When Android needs to pull data from the Internet it quickly pulls it without fuss or muss. All the versions of Windows Mobile I’ve dealt with have a “Dial-up Networking” routine they have to go through just as if it was a desktop computer connecting via a modem, which is slow and sometimes prone to fail. Windows Mobile data connections must be manually closed when not in use or they can drain the battery. Android just does what you expect it to without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

The Evo’s main 8 megapixel camera is very good, and the interface allows instant uploading of photos to services such as Flickr and Facebook. The front-facing camera will work with a free program called “Fring” that will allow two-way video conferencing, but I’ve found Fring’s interface confused and somewhat unreliable.

Sprint appears to be blocking the uploading of videos recorded on the phone even through the phone’s integrated browser when signed in to YouTube. However, I was able to email a video as an attachment to my YouTube account.

The Evo’s “HD video” recording capability is not anywhere close to HD standards. Furthermore, the sound quality of recorded video and audio is quite poor. The Evo is not a replacement for a real video camera. It is only fair to note here that all iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads have superior audio recording capabilities. Also the iPhone 4’s HD video recording capabilities are obviously quite superior to the Evo’s.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the HTC Evo. That being said, keep in mind that it requires expensive voice/data plans if you wish to take advantage of all its capabilities. Furthermore as a two and one half year plus Sprint customer I’m satisfied with the quality and speed of the Sprint network.

Tags: 3G, 4G, evdo, EVO 4G, Facebook, Flickr, Google Navigation, GPS, HD Video, HTC, HTC Sense UI, IPhone 4, social networking, sprint, Sprint 4G, Tethering, wifi hotspot, WiMAX, Windows Mobile

Posted in Android, Apple, ev-do, evdo, google, GPS, HTC, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, Operating Systems, smartphone, Social Media, sprint, wifi

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The Tech of Social Networking

Posted by tomwiles at 8:41 PM on June 26, 2010

Modern Internet-based social networking seems like a relatively recent phenomena. Yet, its roots can be traced back to basic human behavior.

Early humans organized themselves into social tribes. As technical knowledge and know-how got better, and written communication emerged, human social interaction also became more sophisticated. The printing press and postal systems supplemented the local tavern and other forms of in-person socialization. This was the beginning of a more sophisticated type of companionship. These early technologies marked the beginning stages of releasing the bonds of people only being able to interact, conduct business, and socialize with those they could be physically present with.

The telegraph machine could be looked upon as an early form of text messaging. People could conduct business at a distance, as well as send short personal notes to friends or family across great distances.

Then Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Early telephones were not that easy to use compared to what they evolved into, but they did mark a turning point that would profoundly change human interaction and ultimately cause the acquisition of knowledge to accelerate. The wired telephone enabled new, more efficient forms of social networking and interaction. It was a business device, yet it was also a pleasure device, that enabled people to socialize in much more sophisticated ways.

In the later decades of the 20^th century, phone lines began to be used for more than simply voice communications. “POTS” or “plain old telephone lines” initially enabled the early stages of Internet growth. Looking back, those early websites had a social networking component built in all along. Business and pleasure were the driving forces.

The Internet quickly became much more sophisticated. High-speed Internet access and ever-cheaper data storage converged, leading to yet another turning point, enabling technologies such as podcasting, the reliable delivery of audio and video, etc. Social interaction among people was profoundly affected yet again.

The proliferation of the modern cell phone was another turning point that developed in parallel with the proliferation of the Internet. Being able to carry around a phone in one’s pocket was a terrific convenience, and has enabled profound efficiencies in the ways people interact. Since most of us alive today lived through that profound change, we cannot fully see what a significant turning point it is, or fully know how the efficiency will impact future generations.

Today we are living through yet another profound change – a type of convergence. The cell phone is morphing into the super smart phone that puts the Internet right in our pockets. Business and pleasure are still right there, driving the need for interaction.

In a way it’s fitting that these nifty, Internet-enabled, touch screen pocket computers many of us now carry around with us everywhere we go also happen to function as telephones.

Tags: Bell, convergence, pocket computer, POTS lines, Smartphones, social networking, Technology, telegraph, telephone, text messaging

Posted in connect, Information, internet, smartphone, Social Media, Technology

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Venturing Into Unknown Territory

Posted by tomwiles at 11:42 PM on June 20, 2010

If you are looking for an interesting listen, check out the Steve Jobs interview at the 2010 D8 Conference. If you would rather watch the video, here’s that version.

One of the interesting things Mr. Jobs said is that this phenomena of mobile apps that has really exploded in the past three years is something new, something we haven’t seen before. I must say, I agree with him. To be honest, there were a few albeit limited mobile apps before the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but they were few and far between. The iPhone and iPod touch really gave this market a truly usable platform for the first time, and that’s what caused it to ignite. Truly usable pocket/portable Internet-enabled devices have facilitated brand new types of activities.

In the realm of desktop computers, there are probably hundreds of thousands or millions of applications available. However, we cannot carry a running desktop or laptop computer around in our pockets. Full-blown computer applications are designed for a different platform with different purposes in mind. For years there have been people that have carried laptops around in their cars and briefcases with them, but full-blown computers don’t lend themselves to the types of consumer behaviors we see emerging from the use of capable smart phones.

On a desktop computer, if we want to look something up such as a restaurant or a sports score we typically go to Google or Bing, and such a search will likely point us to web pages to get the information we seek. However, as Mr. Jobs pointed out, the statistics indicate that the majority of people doing a search on smart phones tend to use specialized apps to perform these searches. Specialized smart phone apps do tend to provide much more specific, concentrated, GPS-enabled search results. Also, the GPS-enabled smart phone takes social networking itself to new heights.

Steve Jobs and Apple deserve credit for facilitating this new emerging portable device app market. The iPhone, the world’s first truly highly-desirable smart phone platform, was the right move at the right time. In the absence of the iPhone, given the emergence of high-speed wireless Internet, it’s likely that an app market of some sort would have emerged anyway. What Mr. Jobs and Apple really did was give the smart phone market a kick in the pants, spurring a quantum leap forward in what is essentially wireless broadband pocket computing that also happens to have a phone function.

Now that Android phones are on the scene offering the first serious competition with the Apple iPhone, the smart phone and app market is truly becoming interesting.

Tags: Android, competition, D8 Conference, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, mobile apps, steve jobs

Posted in Android, Apple, internet, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, Microsoft, smartphone, Social Media

1 Comment

Better Apps and Better Data Needed

Posted by tomwiles at 7:20 PM on June 19, 2010

When it comes to certain types of software or social networking sites, I have tended to hold back and let others to be the first to jump on the bandwagon. For example, Twitter was around a year or two before I decided to sign up and see what all the fuss was about. I did the same thing with Facebook. After all, it seems in the initial stages there are dozens and dozens of similar types of sites that are trying to compete for the big prize, and I refuse to sign up for any or all of them until it becomes clear that they are doing something to set themselves apart to garner real interest. In the past I’ve signed up for plenty of sites and it seems like I’m the only one present. The formula is easy – the more people that sign up and actually use a site, the more useful it becomes.

In the smart phone realm I’ve been hearing people talk a lot about Foursquare. I kept hearing it mentioned, but really had little clue what functionality it offered. I kept hearing about Starbucks discounts and Mayors in conjunction with Foursquare and wondered what on earth that was about and what that had to do with a smart phone app.

Since I’m the proud owner of the Sprint Evo 4G smart phone, I’ve been checking out all sorts of interesting Android apps. The Foursquare name kept periodically coming up, so I decided I would check it out.

Once I loaded Foursquare on my Evo and opened the app up for the first time I was presented with a Foursquare login screen and realized I had to go to their site in a browser to create an account, which I did. As part of the Foursquare account generation process, they present you with options of connecting your new account to Facebook and Twitter – very smart on their part, because it helps to connect with friends that are already Foursquare members.

After I logged in on my phone, it was cool to be able to see where those friends had been when they “checked in” from various restaurants and businesses around the country and the world. That’s cool. However, the “Location” tab makes the app EXTREMELY useful for me. I’m an over-the-road truck driver, constantly driving up and down freeways across the country. I happened to be at Gas City, Indiana when I installed Foursquare, so I was a bit surprised to see listed all the restaurants and convenience stores at the exit I was at along I-69, and the distance in meters they were away from where my truck was parked. It uses the phone’s built-in GPS chip so that it knows exactly where it’s at and what businesses are around – within “four square miles” perhaps?

All of these GPS-enabled smart phone apps are great, but they don’t solve all of my problems. I’m constantly looking for truck washes (refrigerated trailers constantly need washed out before reloading) as well as truck stops and truck parking. Even Google’s database has been gamed – try typing “truck stop” or “truck wash” along with the city name of your choice into Google and see if the search results aren’t misleading. “Truck wash” and a city name will often result in car wash business listings, useless for my purposes.

The bottom line is there’s still plenty of room for future smart phone app development. More specialized apps and better databases are two elements that can result in more useful apps.

Tags: Apps, data, Databases, GPS, smartphone

Posted in Android, application, Facebook, Foursquare, google, GPS, HTC, smartphone, Social Media, sprint, Twitter

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NING Cuts Staff, Turns Off Free Model

Posted by J Powers at 1:24 PM on April 15, 2010

Last month, Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by Jason Rosenthal – which made me wonder if some big changes were afoot. I guess I was right as it turns out Ning is changing their business model. Let’s look at what happened and what that means to you.

This letter was posted over on TechCrunch:

Team,

When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success.

My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services business. Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators need and will pay for many more services and features from us.

So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity. We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. We will judge ourselves by our ability to enable and power Premium Ning Networks at huge scale. And all of our product development capability will be devoted to making paying Network Creators extremely happy.

As a consequence of this change, I have also made the very tough decision to reduce the size of our team from 167 people to 98 people. As hard as this is to do, I am confident that this is the right decision for our company, our business, and our customers. Marc and I will work diligently with everyone affected by this to help them find great opportunities at other companies.

I’ve never seen a more talented and devoted team, and it has been my privilege to get to know and work with each and every one of you over the last 18 months.

We’ll use today to say goodbye to our friends and teammates who will be leaving the company. Tomorrow, I will take you through, in detail, our plans for the next three months and our new focus.

Thanks,
Jason Rosenthal

Workforce Cuts:

In a nutshell, Jason came in and took 30 days to evaluate the company, now he is cutting the fat. 70 people – 40% of the staff has been laid off. That is a big number when you have a company that houses over 1 million total networks. So now 98 employees will have to continue on.

No More Free Ride:

When I first was introduced to Ning, I had to wonder if this free model was going to work. Now I know the answer – no, it didn’t. They are cutting their free service to focus on the paid services. And looking at the A-la cart prices on Ning, I would guess that is all going to change in the next couple weeks.

For example, extra storage to your account costs $9.95 / month. Add your own domain, Support, Run your ads and your bill is $45 / Month. Pretty pricey there.

I am not sure what is going to happen to popular social networks already on there. David Hasselhoff site is hosted there. Chris Pirillo has Geeks.pirillo.com on there. I would guess they are already paying the premium prices due to higher bandwidth.

But what about the sites I use that are not that high profile? Several Geek and computer pages I visit, a local non-profit hosts their site on Ning, too. I would guess that they have to pay or go seperate ways.

What We Learned from this:

Free is nice, but not trustworthy. I know that whatever I have out there on a free model might be gone tomorrow. Bandwidth and other overhead are big factors in giving something away. Sometimes it works, other times; Well, you make a lot of people unhappy.

I am not sure how many sites will decide to move over, but I would guess the 1 million mark might have to be reached again. On the other hand, Ning has really built up an easy to use interface for anyone that wants to build a social site without having to do much coding. It’s really about the cost of ownership.

Do you have a Ning website? Are you going to stay on Ning, or move to another hosting provider?

Tags: chris Pirillo, david hasselhoff, ning, Social Media, Website

Posted in Social Media

6 Comments

Yelp Makes Some Changes

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 6:09 PM on April 13, 2010

This is a follow-up post to an earlier entry I wrote back in on March 21, 2010, titled Trouble with Yelp. It was about Yelp being sued for manipulating reviews and pressuring businesses into buying advertisements with them.

Last week, Yelp announced some changes in its policies. The first change they made was to start showing all reviews, even those they believe are spam or have inappropriate language. The regular reviews are shown at the top. Those reviews that would not have made it through the previous review process are shown in a separate area. There is a link at the bottom of the page you have to click on to get to them. I suspect that unless someone has been following this story, they will never see this link or if they do know what its for. Its on the right path, but I doubt Yelps critics will think it is enough. Yelp also got rid of most favorite review option. Under the old policies, businesses who paid for advertisements had the option to pick their favorite review and have it highlighted. This has also led to complaints from the business community that they are being pressured to advertise through Yelp. Those that didn’t were only not having favorable reviews highlighted, but according to the critics they were actually being removed.

Yelp insisted they did nothing wrong and that much of the problem was a misunderstanding on how they dealt with reviews. That no one was being favored by the process, they were simply weeding out spam and false reviews. This maybe true, however critics will point out that Yelp could have made these changes at anytime, but didn’t until they were faced with a law suit. As a user do think the changes will make a difference on how you see Yelp reviews. If you’re a business do feel better about Yelp now or has it made no difference.

Tags: Consumer, local, review, Social Media

Posted in review, Social Media

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Trouble with Yelp

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 9:56 AM on March 21, 2010

Yelp is a social media review site. User of Yelp write reviews on business that they use and go to. It is an application that I use occasionally myself especially if I go to a new business. This can be a win for both businesses and the consumer. However, I have seen several articles about businesses “who are suing Yelp for unfair and unethical conduct in promoting, marketing and advertising its website as maintaining unbiased reviews” is unlawful.” .

The lawsuits, indicate that businesses who do not agree to pay Yelp to advertise on their websites have had favorable reviews removed from Yelp. If this was just one report, I would toss it off as sour grapes. However there have been a smattering of similar complaints across the country. The story is basically the same, the company in question was getting mostly good reviews on Yelp. They then get a call from Yelp offering them the opportunity to buy monthly advertisement when they decline the offer, their favorable reviews were removed or dropped off greatly.

As a user I hope this is not true. I depend on Yelp to tell me if a business is worth using or going to. If I am getting reviews that are being manipulated by Yelp, then it is useless to me. It also doesn’t make sense as a business decision for Yelp. Review sites like Yelp depend on consumers believing that the reviews are based on all customer feedback to the site, both positive and negative. If it was ever confirm that Yelp was manipulating the data, that would mean the end for them.

Yelp, says its simply a misunderstanding how the process is done. Unfortunately,some businesses try to game the system, creating fake reviews to build up their reputation. Yelp watches the reviews using both a computers and individuals to catch and remove false reviews. However if businesses can prove that Yelp is manipulating reviews against those businesses who do not advertise with them, then Yelp is in trouble. As I said before I hope this lawsuits have no merit, I will definitely be waiting for the results.

Tags: advertising, AT&T, Social Media

Posted in advertising, Social Media

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They Continue to Stomp on Privacy – The Social Experiment

Posted by J Powers at 1:35 PM on March 14, 2010

**Update: The “Who’s been watching my Profile” application (and 25 variants) are a Hoax and a phishing scheme, according to Trend Micro – If you see it, you should not select or accept any offer to see who’s been looking at your profile.

I got another “Who’s checking your profile on Facebook” application. It seems to be the newest annoyance on the Social Network site. We seem to run into new avenues where privacy just seems to continue to be trampled over. You can complain, but the damage has already been done. So why have privacy anyway?

First of all, we have to ask if this Facebook application is stomping on my privacy and how it’s doing so. Well, I have already been in a couple pictures stating I have recently read their profile page. I don’t remember giving the application permission to do so. A friend of mine just mentioned that he felt the app was only pulling random pictures from your friends list, so in that case, it can be a misleading picture altogether.

Nonetheless, it’s a picture. It circumvents other privacy initiatives. Such as “Certain friend see my wall posts”. If you leave your photos open, hey! I can see the picture. I know who you’ve been talking to… well… sort of.

Think about it: You get an email from a “Former friend” saying “Dude. Stop going to my profile”. Worse yet, paranoia might set in and they delete their Facebook profile altogether.

Not to get on a tangent on this one Application. The reality is we seem to continually get bombarded with privacy issues – Some of them are common sense issues – by bigger corporations. It could be Facebook, MySpace, Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel or a number of other companies. Most of the time, it’s the 3rd party applications that cause the issue; in which these companies state that: “We are not held responsible for what these apps do”. Yet they approve them.

Some people have said that privacy is only a figment of your imagination. That may be true, but I like to feel a little safe as to who I share my info with. Kinda like the home with the door that is falling apart and that could be kicked in at any moment: At least I have the one lock, so I feel safer. Nevermind the window I leave unlatched in the living room…

Privacy online is a different story – Of course. We have to continually monitor who has what information. It only takes one company with an idea, and another company employee to blindly approve said idea.

The “Who’s been Watching” application is a small infarction to a much bigger issue. However, we cannot overlook the smaller issues, because they can snowball. With Facebook being under the microscope as of late changing around their privacy issues, any new problem is definitely going to be scrutinized. But sometimes, you just cannot hide behind the 3rd party disclaimer. Yeah, it’s not your program, but it is my data. I can take that ball and go to another place with a beat up door and flimsy lock…

Tags: Facebook, Microsoft, monitor, myspace, online, Privacy

Posted in Social Media

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