After two days of meetings, networking and participating in learning tracks, I spent most of day three walking the floor to see what was new and exciting in the mobile ecosystem. 

There were a few things that really stood out:

• Two voice related services that allow you to receive text messages as voice or the other way around. Services from GotVoice and Voiceonthego.com could have some very interesting applications - especially if your client or brand services the hearing impaired, the elderly… or as a safe hands-free or eyes-free access to email while driving

• Universal remote control- turn your blackberry bold into a universal remote control that is bluetooth enabled and allows you to manage up to 16 AV components per room. The interface is beautiful, simple, and a breeze to setup. Check out their site at unify4life.com.

• Walking hot spot- this demo blew me away.  Turn your Symbian or windows mobile device into a wifi hotspot in seconds! No cables or bluetooth required.  Leveraging 3G or wifi capabilities of your phone, you can instantly setup a hot spot and make your mobile device discoverable to anybody within 300 feet of you. 
  • You can allow up to 5 connections / devices to your mobile hot spot at a time. 
  • I’m spending around $60 / month currently for my Rogers network card - but apparently pricing for this software is about $25 / year!  
  • It’s not yet available for Blackberry or iphone devices - but they are working on versions for both

Overall it was another great week at CTIA. Look for more articles & perspective next week as I work through all the notes I’ve been taking

The highlight for me yesterday at CTIA was the keynote address from Yahoo executive Vice President Marco Boerries where he announced the introduction of Yahoo! oneConnect for the iphone.

The live demo demonstrated how this new application (optimized for the iphone) takes your address book and makes it social by aggregating all your mobile messaging via IM and SMS and all your lifestream feeds into one amazing interface.

Like friendfeed and Social Thing, you can add myspace, last.fm,dopplr,twitter, friendster, bebo,flickr,youtube and facebook feeds to oneConnect under their Pulse feature. You can now scan what is happening across all networks from one mobile interface.  This also means you can update your status in one place and have all your other streams automatically updated.

Users will also be able to track their contacts on a single screen, with information on their status and the ability to quickly call or send an IM or email.

The application is available for free in the app store - although it wasn’t indexing yet on their search tool. If you are having problems finding it, go to mobile.yahoo.com/oneconnect/iphone and click on the app link. This will bring you into the app store for immediate download.

I’ve spent some time on it so far, but I’m afraid of the roaming charges associated with customizing it right now, so look for additional perspective later.

Yahoo plans on releasing versions for other platforms, but it’s hard to imagine how they’ll be able to create a comparable experience on other platforms.

CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment is dubbed the largest technology event in the mobile industry covering all aspects of wireless data. It’s actually a smaller event than their annual wireless conference in Las Vegas every spring, but the focus at this show is actually more relevant to the mobile marketer. 

The show officially starts today; however, I arrived Monday night in order to participate in a pre-show event called exploring mobile web strategies. The event was organized and moderated by Ajit Jaoker from futuretext.com who did a fantastic job of pulling in some heavy hitters in the mobile space for presentations and panels. 

I took 9 pages of notes - much of which I’ll share on this blog over the coming week as seperate entries…although if you’ve been following me on Twitter you’ve already gotten a preview of what is to come.  Topics that really caught my attention were: 

• Understanding and enticing the mobile user by Carol Taylor (Director of User Experience at Motricity)
• Mobile personas and segmentation by Pankaj Asundi (VP Media and content at Ericsson)
• Panel discussion around mobile social networks with senior representation from myGamma, mocospace, itsmy, mig33 and intercasting corp. This was probably the highlight of the day for me and will warrant it’s own entry with perspective
• Monetizing digital communities by Jouko Ahvenainen (Chief Strategy Officer of Xtract)
• Panel discussion around driving mobile web adoption with representation from Openware, Vantrix, Skyfire, Greystripe and Admob
• Panel discussion around mobile advertising - today and tomorrow with representation from Ericsson, Yahoo!, Admob and Nokia
• Designing for mobile by Barbara Ballard (CEO Little Springs Design)
• Mobile search - present and future by Bena Roberts (President, Visibility mobile) and Michael “Luni” Libes (Chief Architect of Medio Systems) - who I ended meeting later that night at the Moco mixer party

Overall it was a great start to the week. I’ve got a full day of meetings and sessions planned today and will likely be taking more notes for future posts. I’ve also brought along my video camera - so you can expect to see some video blog entries similar to what I posted at GSM and CTIA in Mach. 

I’m also still adjusting to left coast time. Speaking of which, it’s time for another coffee

Globalive Wireless Management Corp. has launched a new website that invites Canadian cellphone customers to identify the characteristics of the ideal wireless company.

Globalive will be one of the new pseudo national wireless carriers that will go live next spring in Canada.

They won enough spectrum to be in all major markets - with the exception of Quebec where Videotron paid a handsome ransom to keep any other newcomers out.

The website encourages Canadians to provide feedback on what they are looking for in a wireless carrier.

Canadians can vote for the favourite suggestions, look at the most viewed suggestions and read Globalive CEO Tony Lacavera’s thoughts and impressions on the entire process.

I’ve posted my suggestion - now it’s your turn.

Go to http://www.wirelesssoapbox.com/ to have your say.

Here’s a really interesting concept and tool for those looking to build a mobile website that will be compatible across all devices - for free. Including hosting.

mobiSiteGalore has introduced a desktop and mobile based publishing platform that allows anybody to build their own mobile website within minutes using a templated system that walks you through 6 steps that ends with your own mobile site published on their sub-domain.

The entire process is mobile web driven - so you don’t need to download any widgets, applications, or peform complex downloading sequences.  The templates are pretty restrictive (unless you’re a code geek), but it needs to be to keep it simple.

Having said that, you can add feedback pages, upload images, format content, restore to previous versions, add hit counters, send email and SMS invitations, optimize for SEO and include auto-redirect to your desktop website if someone attempts to access your mobile site on a laptop or desktop.

You can even do all that from your mobile device - a first in the industry.

Check out their online demo of building a site through a non-smartphone mobile device here.  

What surprised me was that the “free” user generated websites on their sub-domain did not include mobile banner ads or other forms of mobile advertising…. which begs the question - why do this if they aren’t generating revenue?

If you don’t like the idea of promoting a sub-domain, you can always setup a redirect from your dotmobi or mobile enabled domain to their sub-domain.

Now what’s your excuse for not having a mobile website for your company, service, or brand?

Yesterday Google followed up on earlier statements that the browser is now the platform by releasing their own browser dubbed “Chrome.” Click here for full details from Google.

This is not Netscape vs. IE all over again. It’s not even Windows vs Mac. 

It’s more like cold war Russia vs. USA where instead of fighting in proxy countries such as Korea or Vietnam, they’ve chosen the browser as their proxy for world interweb domination.

The browser is the gateway to everything else - from desktop to mobile and everything in between that connects technology to people.  Check out Sachendra’s article here as he goes deeper into some of the other implications to other browser and mobile players in the ecosystem.   

I downloaded the browser last night on my home system and was impressed with the overall experience.

Here are a few things I really liked:

1. URL window is ALSO a search window. Now type in what you are looking for if you don’t know the exact URL without having to open a separate search window
2. When you open a new tab - it shows you large thumbnails of sites you’ve recently visited. 
3. Beautiful & simple interface that optimizes screen space
4. Bookmarks and cached sites were pulled in from firefox
5. Download window appears nicely at the bottom
6. Multi-threaded - meaning your browser will no longer crash or get hung up while waiting for wonky javascript

Things I didn’t like? Like firefox, my web Outlook mail does not render correctly. There doesn’t appear to be the equivalent to the Firefox IETab pluggin - but i’m sure this is coming soon.

Ironically, I had just finished pimping my firefox browser on the advice of co-workers with coComment, IETab, Delicious, Faviconize, Firebug, FireFTP, Linkwad, Live HTTP Headers, PDF Download, PicLens, ScrapBook, ScreenGrab!, SeoQuake, SnapLinks, StumbleUpon, Twitterbar, WebDeveloper, and Window Resizer. 

How soon will it be before Chrome has their own list of custom plugins? Chrome is open source - so it shouldn’t be too long before we start seeing them.

Will there be a mobile equivalent too?

Until there is a declared winner or somebody beats everybody else into submission, I’ll continue to run with Opera, Safari, Firefox, IE and Chrome for all my daily browsing needs

Earlier this week I managed to secure one of the first corporate issued blackberry BOLDs that were sent to us by Rogers.

After about 20 minutes I had successfully swapped my SIM card, loaded the new desktop software on to my laptop and had fully synchronized my email and other data to my new device.

First impressions? The Bold  is the best and most complete Blackberry ever put to market.

It comes with: A super fast processor, wicked resolution, an improved design, Wifi, Bluetooth, and keys that don’t feel like cheap plastic (a la curve).  The web browser does a pretty good job at rendering desktop websites, and finally there is a way to manage your media files. It’s a bit wider than the 8800 - but it’s a bit thinner too.

Here are some things I really liked:

1. Copy and paste - so simple… but so necessary. Still can’t believe this isn’t a feature on the iphone
2. Flash with the camera - again something the iphone lacks
3. Video capture
4. New media capabilities for music and video - you can even sync with itunes… but it’s still not as easy to use or figure out as the iphone
5. Crystal clear screen with incredible resolution -  the best so far from Blackberry.
6. Like the iphone, the Bold is 3G - meaning it runs on Canada’s fastest wireless network. Download speeds here in Toronto are similar to broadband at home
7. Improved icons and operating system make for an improved overall user / device experience
8. Battery life seems pretty good. I went a full day of normal usage and still had half the bars left
9. Micro-SD card slot - that is accessible without having to remove the battery. NICE.
10. Overall aesthetics of the device.
11. Keyboard - the keys actually feel bigger than my 8800. There’s a certain comfort to tactile typing

Things I didn’t like:

1. SMS is now a separate icon… and doesn’t come as one of the default icons on the main screen. I figured out how to reorder the icons, but it took me a few minutes. I understand why this is separate as that’s how most other platforms deal with it, but I wonder how many existing blackberry users who are used to seeing SMS in their email inbox will be confused or lost by this subtle change.
2. There is no intuitive way to download other widgets directly from the device. This probably wouldn’t have been a complaint before Apple introduced the App store… but it’s something that is really missing now.  4 widgets came pre-loaded in the download folder (yahoo, facebook, Google talk and bb help), but what about the rest? Missing the App store here…
3. Speaking of widgets, I still really dislike the blackberry facebook widget. It’s completely out of sync with the iphone version… even the generic mobile web version is more intuitive and functional.  I was hoping that with the new device there’d be a newer version…

Other oddities / observations

1. Love the auto-correct feature - although some of the interpretations are funny. I sent an SMS to my girlfriend with “xoxoxoxoxo” and when I accepted the auto-correct it replaced it with “zigzag”
2. When you download widgets you often have to click to accept terms and conditions. It’s not intuitive to see that “decline” is pre-selected and once you do accept, you aren’t brought back to the main screen. I had to back out of the terms screens to see my new icon
3. A proper craddle is missing from the box. The Bold comes with a neat retro-looking clock that activates when you are charging - so wouldn’t it be nice to have a cradle so that it actually acts as a clock on your desk?  

Should you buy a Blackberry Bold?

If you love your current blackberry, you will absolutely love the Bold. It’s by far the best device created to date. 

By improving on the best mobile device for professionals (by adding in some features found previously only on consumer devices), you’ve got a great device that should sell really well.

If you’re still unsure and you are still coveting the iphone… wait a few months for the Blackberry Thunder (now rumored to be called the Javelin) which will be a full touch screen version of the Bold.

It’s been a while since i’m posted one of these… but that’s partly because it’s been a bit more difficult to maintain the same publishing schedule over the summer when there are other things I’d rather be doing than banging away at my keyboard

Here are three articles you may have missed that were published on either onedegree.ca or the canadianmarketingblog.com recently:

1. Don’t focus on mobile, focus on the customer
2. The mobile phone book goes social
3. Status is “Online” for mobile instant messaging

Last summer when the iphone went on sale in the U.S. consumers were loving the visual voice mail feature that allowed people to see who called and what was said as an email or SMS message from their device.

This also means you can check your vmail as text in noisy places, or if you are out of country and don’t want to check your messages and incur hundreds or $$$ in fees.

What I didn’t realize is that Telus also offers this service and was the first one to do so in Canada. Check out their press release here.  The Telus service also allows you to get an audio recording of the message as an attachment to your email.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any rate information on their website- but this is a feature worth investigating if you want the benefits of visual voice mail without having to switch to Rogers to get it on the iphone.

As promoted on this blog previously, I’ve been given the opportunity to present the impact of social media on meetings & events at this year’s Incentive Works conference - Canada’s largest meeting & event show.

I really enjoyed pulling together this presentation as it builds on last year’s topic of “meetings 2.0” and really shows how far we’ve come in one year in terms of leveraging and incorporating technology in our lives - and in our work place.

Here is an outline of what is being presented over 90 minutes on August 19th:

1. Creative opening (thanks to Michael Ofarrell for some of the visuals!)
2. Introduction to Social Media
3. Defining & introducing the tools
4. Impact on meetings & event planning
   • Before the event
   • During the event
   • After the event
5. Measuring Social Media’s impact
6. Pitfalls of Social Media
7. Top 6 things to remember
8. Questions and Answers
9. Obligatory self-promotion of the company I work for, my blog, and the other blogs I contribute to (onedegree.ca & canadianmarketingblog.com)

Specials thanks to Craig Ritchie for providing some of the foundational content and context.

I’ll post a link to the presentation on slide share sometime next week. PDF version also available upon request.