thoughts: August 2008 Archives

So I launched a little Valentine's experiment on Tuesday the 12th, and it's going very well. The Snoggr is out of the bag. It has been an interesting adventure into the bowels of premium rate numbers, short codes and mobile keywords. It has allowed me to assess how users are interacting with the mobile web across the country as well as the true condition of the blemished Wap push market. There isn't enough kissing in this island.

From an early age, men have striven to possess [own] the image. Today, tribes who are closer to the living habits of the ancient cave dwelling man, still hold image as sacred.
The caveman used to paint the images of the beasts it needed to kill. It was a way of invoking their spirit, making sure the following hunt would be a successful one. It all started with the appropriation of the image.

If you ever see a monkey paint your image, run. It means it has been empowered with the ability to represent its desire. A monkey that paints a human is a monkey that for a reason or another desires a human. If a lion could draw, it would fill entire canvases with impala, and wildebeest and probably you.

Drawing is a primordial reflection of desire. When thinking about new interfaces, we should really be thinking about how to empower the user with better tools for 'drawing', for it is the the equivalent of informing the machine of the user's desire.

A condition of order at the juncture of crowded city thoroughfares implies primarily an absence of collisions between men or vehicles that interfere with one another. Ross, E. A (1901)

'A condition of order', 'A condition of order' -- makes you think. One of my offices is located in the corner between Oxford Street and Regent street and one of the things I do on a regular basis is watch crowds stroll along both avenues. The argument that usually arises is simple: if the physical world implies the necessity of 'A condition of order' that prevents people from bumping against each other, how does that translate to the web?

The economist is running an Oxford-style debase on the following proposition:

"Social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom"

Here's Ewan McIntosh's pro argument and here is Michael Bugeja's con argument.

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Teenagers are very curious beings, they always want to be surprised and stimulated. No matter how many playstations you may give them there is nothing like the prospect of human contact and Wii has understood it. What are others doing? how are they doing it? -- Teenagers don't meet a lot of people, specially in westernized fear cultures, so the physical interpersonal appeal is very prized.

Affordable and user friendly web browsing opens up the most important part of the global mobile service layer. Now web publishers need to convince users there is added value is accessing their websites on the move, in installing their mobile applications. Just like snake, tetris and other casual games have been relegated to the commuting slot, many web services and apps will find their place in users' mobile slots, but not without a fight.

The mobile computer, like any other mobile artifact must add value to the mobile user. Having established that mobile usage is at the same time dependent and independent of place has crystalized one thing: it's really quiet simple, the swiss knife syndrome is not going away, on the contrary it will continue to grow.

Early 2008. We sat down with a visionary and a pragmatic. Among many other things we talked about content distribution models and making money in today's market by leveraging existing user behaviour.