The Mobile Perspective » Uncategorized

Netflix’s Reed Hastings at D9

Jeb Brilliant — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 03:09:36 +0000

I was listening to an interview of Reed Hastingsthe co-founder and CEO of Netflix at the D9 conference by Kara Swisher and during the Q & A with the audience (about 38:15 in) someone asked a question, basically saying the students at the university where he works are bringing fewer TV’s to school each year and the interest in real time content declining.Does this mean that fewer students are interested in keeping up in real time with sports and news? Those are the 2 big categories it’s hard to find LIVE and in real time on the web. Yes it’s getting more and more popular with live streaming of many major league baseball games now and I’m seeing more of this in other sports as well but in general it seems like students which translates to young adults about 22 when they graduate won’t be watching live TV and won’t have real time news and sports.If these kids really aren’t interested in current news how will that effect our future? I’m a news junkie and could read it all day, but there’s nothing better to me then to watch news live on TV with at least 1 ticker across the bottom and sometimes 2. I think keeping up with news is very important for people to have a well rounded life, but will this cease to be the case in a few years?

Nokia UnFenced My Little ReCap And Those Poor Abused Phones

Jeb Brilliant — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:41:13 +0000

Now that I’ve been home for a week and had a chance to digest everything that went on last weekend I want to write about it. I won’t go into to extensive detail of the entire weekend, you can read Dennis Bournique’s post if you’re interested but I’ll hit the highlights.

First off we (20 of us bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, photographers and so on) were all flown in on Friday afternoon to lovely Las Vegas, Nevada. We were picked up by our perspective drivers and whisked away to Green Valley Ranch resort. After check in and doing a little work up in my room I headed down to the private pool and enjoyed a refreshing adult beverage or 3. Then hit up dinner at a lovely restaurant where there was a bull to ride. I have to admit, the heat mixed with the beverages poolside and then a heavy dinner made me forget the name and hotel we were at, but I do vividly remember the mechanical bull that a few of us were brave enough to ride. After that it was back to the hotel and some people went out but I headed back to my room to work and get some sleep. Let’s say the work didn’t get done as I woke up 2-3 hours later face down in my bed fully clothed and thinking, “oye fewer drinks from New Jersey next time”. I didn’t sleep well and at 6am or so I was having a muffin and juice with some blogger friends from the east coast that were wide awake and ready to go (it was 9am for them). After that I tried sleeping again and got a good solid hour or 2 more.

Finally we had a hearty breakfast at the buffet (first world living I tell ya) and got ready to head out to the ranch to spend the rest of our day.

On arrival at the ranch we got a lot of really nice S.W.A.G. from WOMWorld/Nokia including a personalized plaid shirt with our names sewn into them. A really nice cowboy had and reusable aluminum water bottles. Then we broke into 2 groups, 1 to go on an ATV ride and the other to head out on the trail in horse back. I went horse back riding first and got a beautiful stallion named Cinnamon. We headed off on a really enjoyable hour or so ride. For some it was their first experience on horse back but I’ve been riding a few times so I just relaxed and enjoyed my self as much as I could while straddling a horse for an hour and using muscles I haven’t used since the last time rode a horse. I had a really great time but let’s just say I was a little sore in some unmentionable regions.

Next it was back to the ranch and switch it up, now my group was going ATV riding and the other group going on the horse trail. I volunteered to take video of the ATVing and got to ride in a Ranger. This thing is a ridiculously souped up golf cart on steroids. It was fast, loud and a ball to be in. I got a whole new perspective of what it’s like to lead a bunch of city dwelling bloggers out on an ATVing excursion. It was really fun time except for when Eduardo launched his ATV off the side of a mountain, luckily he jumped off at the very last second and was only mildly bruised and scratched. Our expert guide (I feel horrible that I’ve forgotten her name) was able to get the ATV our of the ditch/valley where it landed. Anyways all was ok for the most part and we finished our ride back at the ranch.

Time for a quick trip into an old mine across the road where we were dazzled and then appalled at the almost scientific drop tests performed by one of our fearless WOMWorld/Nokia leaders Adam outside the mine. Adam dropped 3 phones, a Nokia Astound and 2 others manufactured by other companies. All 3 phones survived the 15+ foot drop some better then others but I must say, the Astound came out shining when the other 2 were a bit more dinged and less well off after multiple drops. Then it was back across the giant highway (it was really just 1 lane in each direction and we didn’t see cars for hours at a time on it) for dinner of what looked like an amazing BBQ. Toward the end of dinner we were again mortified at the atrocities performed on those 3 poor test subjects, the phones. From up in the rafters of the adjacent barn we were again shown the strength of the Astound. Both non Nokia phones were dropped screen up and one survived the other exploded into pieces that were quickly reassembeled. Same test for the Nokia Astound and again it was a champ. The final test was being dropped screen down and keep in mind this is from a heigth of over 30 feet. This time one of the non Nokias shattered and was completely ruined. The other non Nokia burst apart but was again reassembled but didn’t’ work as well or as fast as it previously had after that final drop. Lastly the Astound was dropped from over 30 feet up and when it landed it had come apart but sadly when it was reassembled it the screen got power but there was 1 long crack accross it and it didn’t work. I have to say though living through a 15+ foot drop as well as a 30+ foot drop I am pretty sure I could do anything to most Nokia’s and they’d survive.

After our highly scientific display we got a performance/lesson of some rope tricks from our fearless cowboy patriarch. Finally we settled in for some guitar playing by the amazing George Kelly and great conversation around the campfire. Finally it was time to head back to Green Valley Ranch Hotel for our last evening together.

Back at GVR a handful of us met back up downstairs to reminisce about our day and talk phone. A little later a few bloggers decided to hit the club at the hotel but I had a 5:15am wake up call to make my flight so I headed back up to my room. Flew home in the morning and that was the end of Nokia UnFenced. It was an absolutely wild weekend and one I won’t forget for a very long time. Thank you again to Nokia, WOMWorld and specifically Kathy, Donna, Adam and Mindy! Shall we ski the Alps next???

Sprint’s Samsung Transform Review

Jeb Brilliant — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:19:21 +0000

A few weeks ago at CTIA in San Francisco my good friend Chuong Nguyen was nice enough to introduce me to the Sprint Community Relations team. After sitting in a briefing about User ID’s and 3 handsets they were nice enough to give me a Samsung Transform to take home and review. I’ve been using it on and off for the last few weeks and have to say, it has really surprised me in a good way.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and I tried not to think to much about it when I got started looking it over. The Transform is like a mini version of the Epic 4G but without the 4G and $10 more per month. It has some really nice aspects that shouldn’t be overlooked. The slide out QWERTY keyboard is fantastic. It’s actually the best I’ve ever used on a side slide phone. Additionally I’m really excited about the forward facing camera. With this I can make Fring video calls.

My only negatives I found were that the battery charging was a tiny bit funky but I think after few charge and discharge cycles it was fixed. It doesn’t have a flash which was an annoyance because I’ve gotten very used to using it as a flashlight on all my phones lately. But my biggest complaint is that it’s not super fast. I think to many people have come to expect instant everything and the Transform sometimes takes a second or two to catch up to itself. Not a big deal for most people I don’t think.

Ok so basically the Transform is a pretty good mid range Android device. The screen is fine for watching streaming TV and the keyboard is stellar, I was able to write out some long emails with it. Battery life was standard, it can make it through a day. My wife and a few other people really like the look of it and thought it was “cute”. I’ve enjoyed using it for the most part and with the new Sprint ID’s I think this device is right up the alley of many new and existing smart phone users.

All in all I say give it a try if you’re stepping up to it from another mid range device or a dumb phone. But if you’re using an EVO 4G now you might be slightly disappointed with how snappy it can be.

Tecca By Benjamin Feinman

Jeb Brilliant — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:02:56 +0000

Tecca is an interesting app that helps it’s user get all the info needed for purchasing tech stuff. I’ll let Benjamin Feinman explain it a little better.

Benjamin my apologies for taking so long to get this video up.

Interview Aisle411 With Nathan Pettyjohn

Jeb Brilliant — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:30:31 +0000

I’ve known about these guys for a while now and love what they are doing. In a nut shell they’re giving you the ability to find what you’re looking for at stores including directions to get to that product. I’ll let Nathan Pettyjohn’s describe Aisle411 in a little more detail.

BTW Nathan, my apologies for taking so long to get this up.

BlackBerry UMA Works Without The T-Mobile Network

Jeb Brilliant — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 04:59:43 +0000

So I’m still an uber newb to this conservative new world of BlackBerry. But I learned something tonight that is very exciting to me. It makes the BB an even more appealing device and a money saver for me and anybody who doesn’t want to pay for roaming. I am on T-Mobile in the US who runs something called UMA which stands for Universal Mobile Access and allows the user to make calls and send/receive text messages over WiFi. This is a great benefit for someone like me who makes business calls on my cell phone and expects them to sound impecable. I don’t have the best T-Mobile reception in my home so this replaces it. On top of this UMA can be used anywhere in the world where you can get on a WiFi network and it acts as if you are at home on your WiFi. So I can be relaxing in a hotel room in Tel Aviv and if I’m on the WiFi I can make calls and send/receive SMS as if I’m in a hotel room in the US.

Ok so what I learned tonight after playing with this BlackBerry 8520 is that I can turn off the access to the T-Mobile network and leave on the WiFi so I can still use the UMA. This means when I travel abroad which I do at least once a year and usually 2-3 times every year I can still use the BlackBerry over UMA without being concerned that I’ll roam and get charged a bundle from T-Mobile because I won’t allow the phone to access their network over a cellular connection but only via WiFi. I’m not in a corporate job where the company picks up my mobile bill so I do have to watch my pennies and this will help. It will allow me to call and SMS home to my wife without racking of the big roaming bill.

This entire BlackBerry experience has been 85% great. My only qualm is the Gmail email sync problem but it may just be my specific device. I’m hoping to get my hands on a 9700 or 9780 in the very near future so I can test it against the 8520 I’m using now. So if you travel outside the US and are on the T-Mobile network using a BB I suggest checking out this option for yourself and maybe save a little money.

RIM’s BlackBerry Is Doing “It” Right

Jeb Brilliant — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:13:39 +0000

I’ve been noticing for many months now, maybe even years that BlackBerrys are everywhere. I used to think they were intentionally going after the young crowd like the teens and early 20′s but now I know they are. I’ve been seeing kids, yes 12 year olds with BlackBerrys. I’ve also been seeing many many more 20 somethings with BB’s. I was at a night club last week in Santa Monica, California (first time in a LONG time) and my gosh, everyone had a BlackBerry. My wife actually noticed herself. I’m not really even sure what advertising RIM had been doing for the last few years but they’ve been doing something really right. Somehow BB are sexy and hip (yes it’s been this way for a while now) but I think it’s gone up a notch in the last year. Over the summer I took the pic above pimping BlackBerrys to really little ones. Is this RIM’s doing? Are they secretly running a covert subconscious advertising campaign aimed at the youngest mobile users, trying to hook them young and make them lifetime BB users???

Even I have succumb to Berry Fever. I’ve been using a BlackBerry for the last 3 weeks or so and I’ve been loving it. They’re not perfect, the email sync with Gmail is ridiculous as well as the browser. But I like getting my email FAST as well as be able to reply to it and this little old BB 8520 allows me to do that. I’m astonished at how much I’ve been enjoying this device and disappointed I haven’t been using it for more then just the last 3 weeks. I’ve been told for years that I should give BB a try and never thought I’d like it but low and behold, I’ve gone Berry.

Have you noticed that RIM is advertising like crazy? Currently there are so many Torch commercials I want to get my hands on one to play with. Their ads are working and working well. A close family friend is trying to decide what to upgrade her old BB with, a Torch or an Android device and I’m telling her go Torch. What do you think? Are you a BB user? Have you moved on past BB? What are your thoughts?

Google Docs Weakest Aspect

Jeb Brilliant — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:25:32 +0000

So I work with Phone.com a virtual phone system, like a PBX in the cloud, anyways one of my responsibilities is to create their newsletter. Well I wrote out my first draft of all the content in Google Docs. I do nearly all my work in Google Docs these days or in some sort of cloud. Well I think Google Docs has a HUGE weakness, a reason for people to not use it. This is a make or break issue for Google Docs and I hope they don’t break. Their level of incorporation into the corporate world is dismal. I sent a draft of the newsletter to the CEO as a .doc file because he’s never given me any indication that he uses Google Docs. No fault of the CEO’s of course (I didn’t ask so really my fault) but a huge fault of Googles for not getting every business to start using Google Docs for their word processing.

Recently I was producing an event, I am an event planner as well, and the PR firm that we were using for this event was doing some work on the guest list as well as staff list and I asked them to just do all the work in Google Docs so I could see it in real time and edit it as necessary. Well the 20 something year old woman I was working with didn’t know what Google Docs was let alone how to use it (she didn’t even have a Gmail email). She and I had to use an Excel spread sheet for the lists and can I tell you how painful that was for me. It was a bloody guest list, not a spread sheet with even 1 formula in it. Just a list. This was the perfect example of when to use Google Docs. Plus when we had to print the list at the venue we had to plug her laptop into their network versus just logging in to Google Docs from any computer in the venues office. I call this utter ridiculousness in 2010.

I’m writing all of this because last night my MacBook Pro crashed, which is highly unusual for it and somehow lost all the work I’d done on this newsletter for Phone.com. I am actually a bit devistated because I put so much time into it. Luckily, I guess it somehow kept all the changes up to last Friday but that’s almost 5 days worth of work I’ve lost. It was totally complete except for a read through for grammer, spelling, spaces, etc. All the content was there. I know you will say, “but Jeb don’t you back up?” and my answer is yes but I just hadn’t plugged in my MacBook Pro into my Time Machine hard drive for about a week so in this case no it wasn’t backed up.

Anyway, I’m upset that Google Docs hasn’t been more aggressive in getting into businesses everywhere. I take full responsibility for this mistake in not backing up but for pete sake, this should have been in the cloud Google.

Skype Is Now Giving Nimbuzz The Boot

Jeb Brilliant — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:21:24 +0000

Oh great, Skype is flexing it’s little pasty arm again. After this summers ordeal with Skype banning Fring for “breach of its API terms” it’s doing the same again with Nimbuzz now. It was inevitable but still disappointing. Skype is heading toward an IPO so it seems as if it’s tying up any loose ends but truth be told, I believe it’s hurting itself and it’s image. It’s driving users away from it’s service and pushing them toward Google IM/video chat and FaceTime.

Now what are we supposed to do for our Skype usage? How am I supposed to use Skype on my BlackBerry? Last year Skype released a version for the iPhone, then in February released a version for Symbian, then a few weeks ago they released a version for Android, so I’m expecting a BB app very soon but I’m still upset Fring and now Nimbuzz are now banned. I found it much nicer to just run 1 app for all my IMing needs versus multiple apps.

Come on Skype, stop being a pain in the behind and give us a break. Plus you’re really hurting the folks that user your service let alone Fring and Nimbuzz.

Consumers Should Buy Phones From Manufacturers Not Carriers

Jeb Brilliant — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:52:11 +0000

I had an idea while I was driving yesterday. People hate paying full price for a smart phone as well as hate being locked into a contract with a carrier. I was thinking about what a guy a coffee shop told me the day before, “I want a new phone to keep for years but I don’t want to have to stick to a specific carrier”. Then some woman was telling me how mad she was at a cell phone salesman who told her that the carrier was ripping her off by telling her that the MSRP (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price) was not what the manufacturer was charging the carrier, so if she bought a phone at full price to avoid a 2 year carrier contract she would be paying some inflated made up price by the manufacturer.

What I was thinking was how can we (the average consumer) avoid a long term carrier contract but still get the nice phone we may be eyeing. I came up with this idea. Why don’t we purchase the handset from the manufacturer for the MSRP but get it amortized over a period of time like 18-24 months. The customer still signs a contract but it’s with the manufacturer so a consumer can switch to any carrier they want and never be locked to one. The manufacturer get’s a signed contract with the customer who commits to paying for the phone over a certain period of time. And everybody’s happy, right?

I think so. Why not? Consumers have been trained to keep their handsets for 2 years here in the US so why not just offer them the ability to auto bill their credit card or withdraw the money from the bank (auto pay). Many people already do this with other bills they have, what’s one more???

The loser here is the carrier that we all love to hate as it is. So they will have to step up their service and offer better coverage and customer service, they won’t be safe any longer to just sit on their asses and be content telling customers to use wifi instead of their network to surf the web, they’ll be forced to improve or customers will switch.

The big question is will the manufacturers force the hand of the carriers and go for this paradigm shift? Or will the carriers threaten to not carry the manufacturers handsets any longer if they try this?

Apple was the first (as far as I know) to twist a carriers arm and they really gave it to AT&T. But the only company that benefited from this was Apple. Will Nokia, HTC, or Samsung be able to twist carriers arms around the world and make something like this happen? Google and HTC gave it a shot and according to Google the Nexus One was a success, but I don’t see any changes to how phones are sold so I don’t think what they were trying to do was a success.

So my question to you is, would you buy a phone from a manufacturer and go into a contract with them versus a carrier? I imagine there would be a trade in and up program after X number of months and that you could buy insurance on your phone from them. The carrier would get repeat customers and the users would not get the horrible carrier branded bloat wear on the phones they buy usually have plus get to switch carriers and use their phones abroad because they’re unlocked.

So would you buy? Would you consider this paradigm shift? Wouldn’t you prefer a contract with the manufacturer versus the carrier?