The Facebook Phone

SUN VALLEY, ID - JULY 11: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Laura Arrillaga Andreesen, chairwoman of the Silicon Valley Venture Fund, attend the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 11, 2011 in Sun Valley, Idaho. The conference has been hosted annually by the investment firm Allen & Company since 1983 and is typically attended by many of the world's most powerful media executives. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Facebook coming into the smartphone space is a big deal. I mean, this is hardware. But it perhaps makes a ton of sense. Facebook is likely the top app on all mobile platforms. So might as well.

If Robert Scoble is to be believed, it will be a contextual phone.

The coming automatic, freaky, contextual world and why we’re writing a book about it

Google Now tells you to leave early for your next appointment because traffic is bad. Automatically..... new kinds of apps that will, in real time, hook up to all sorts of databases about us and the businesses we buy from or work for, and bring us back interesting smart alerts and more.

Facebook Is Said To Work With HTC On Mobile Phone For Mid-2013

Asked in an interview at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, about his greatest challenge right now, Zuckerberg said it was “the shift to mobile.” .... Facebook could use a modified version of Android for its smartphone.

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TechMeme Beats South By

Image via CrunchBaseSocial Media Week was a fulfilling experience for me. I did the LiveStream plus Twitter thing. I ended up going to only two events overall, I think. But I was otherwise immersed.

I had no desire to become the top global influencer of SXSW, but I did want the LiveStream experience. And I was going to tweet sum, populate the SXSW hashtag.

The first day was disappointing. SXSW does not seem to allow LiveStream. That is so short sighted. The thinking obviously is you pay close to a thousand bucks to show up for the panels and events and parties. You can't watch for free online. That is cable TV thinking, and we all know where cable TVs are headed.

I already knew from before the Kumbha Mela of tech started that hyperlocal connecting was going to be the winning theme. And as for celebrities, Robert Scoble goes everywhere, why only SXSW?

SXSW has not hit me so far. Granted I am holed up in NYC. But something tells me I am going to be in Austin for the first time next year, and, well, we will see.

If the idea is to get the pulse of the tech industry, TechMeme does a better job on a daily basis.

SXSW Live
GroupOn Did Not Launch At South By South West
South By South West
This South By South West Thing
SXSW: Not Going

TechMeme

Robert Scoble Favorited My Tweet

Robert Scoble on the red couch (Photo credit: niallkennedy)

Robert Scoble Now Following Me On FoodSpotting
Robert Scoble Retweeted Me
PlanCast Failed For Not Catering To Its Power Users

Robert Scoble favorited my tweet. That is news in my world. I am surprised I am on the guy's radar. I am an admirer of Robert Scoble. I don't know anyone else who does social media quite like Scoble. Kudos.

Pinterest Competes With Twitter, Instagram With FourSquare

PlanCast Failed For Not Catering To Its Power Users

Image via CrunchBaseMark Hendrickson, CEO, PlanCast: The Uphill Battle Of Social Event Sharing: A Post-Mortem for Plancast

PlanCast is a liked service. And it is still going down. Why?

Robert Scoble's comments to the post are enlightening. Scoble is a power user. PlanCast needed to cater to his needs to take off.

PlanCast needed to engage people who create events, promote events.

PlanCast's Facebook, Twitter, EventBrite, MeetUp Integrations

Robert Scoble's Comment

Image via CrunchBaseI'm really sad that you are killing this. Unfortunately there were several other things you did wrong:

1. You didn't have ways to share a calendar of things for my readers that's SEPARATE of those that I'm actually attending.

2. You never improved it and you didn't listen to users.

3. It wasn't integrated with Facebook events. I would hear about things on Facebook and adding them to Plancast was a real pain.

4. Whenever I heard about events almost always I would be mobile. But the mobile version of Plancast sucked.

5. Searching for things or adding them was difficult.

6. You never really got to the business model. That should have set off red flags for me. Yet no one else knew about my travels. I'm in Europe right now, which meant I spent more than $4,000 on travel and you couldn't monetize that at all? Nope. Why? Because you never made deals with AirBNB or Kayak or Hipmunk or other travel sites.

7. I couldn't create calendars for specific kinds of events. For instance, I could never create a calendar of just Barcamps around the world.
It bums me out a service I actually liked using won't be improved and, even, will disappear. So sad.

Robert Scoble And The Windows Phone

Image via WikipediaBusiness Insider: Here's Why Robert Scoble And The Rest Of The Pundits Are Wrong: Windows Phone Will Be A Success

Robert Scoble, for example, dismisses any study that predicts the success of Windows Phone and its eventual triumph over iOS in market share. "It is missing 450,000 apps" is Scoble’s primary argument. That and, "None of my friends are talking about it." ..... the majority of the tech press is already rooting for Windows Phone, especially after CES..... Windows Phone has 50,000 compared to iOS’ 500,000 and Android’s 400,000...... Windows Phone Marketplace was the fastest growing app store with over 400% growth. ...... the development tools/environment of Windows Phone is easier and more efficient than Android by leaps and bounds...... Nokia is busy selling a million devices a day in places people have never even heard of the iPhone ..... Oh, and that very same model of selling mobile phones in volume at a small margin? Yeah, Nokia and Microsoft are bringing that model to the U.S market now...... no one makes a phone like Nokia does. The Lumia 900 and its siblings just set the bar for mobile hardware extremely high. Good luck, Samsung....... the most unique UI of any mobile OS since the first iPhone was introduced. The live tiles give you quick access to your information, and the whole Metro UI just works....... We like to think of this tech and mobile industry as a “Game over” situation with Android and iOS as the clear winners but the truth is, this space is in its diapers and what the market looks like now will in no way resemble the mobile market of 2015

Robert Scoble: What +Hillel Fuld doesn't know about Windows Phone and its chances in the market

I had dinner with Skype's CEO on Thursday night. He told me that Skype won't support the current version of Windows Phone. This gets to the heart of my "apps matter."

I happen to think the Windows Phone has a shot at emerging the third player in the smartphone space. But it might take longer than Microsoft thinks. We will likely have a better picture by the end of the year.

Microsoft Finally Cracked The Phone

Paris Action

Robert Scoble Now Following Me On FoodSpotting

54 Followers On Angel List

Should I follow him back? I thought for about five seconds. And followed him back!

My FoodSpotting Photos Are Being Viewed
FoodSpotting Follows Me On Twitter

Facebook Beats Google Plus On Design

Image via WikipediaI Am On Google Plus Now
Facebook Videocalling: I Am On Now

Google Plus is not a threat to Facebook just like Facebook Messages, touted by the media as the Gmail killer, has been no threat to Gmail.

Facebook has its advantages. It has mapped the social graph. Google Plus is not even trying to. Plus has a Google Buzz like awkwardness to it in terms of who all end up in your circles. Apparently you don't need people's permission before you add them to some circle. So it is a little diffuse.

Facebook has a sleek design. One of my very favorite parts of Facebook for years has been that font. How did they do that!

The starting point for Google is search, not social. The starting point with the Facebook experience is social. Just like FourSquare will beat Facebook in the check in space, Facebook will keep the lead in the social space.

But I see me using both services. There is a place for Google Plus.

My Google Plus stream seems to be dominated by the two social media stars Robert Scoble and Anthony De Rosa, the Ashton Kutcher of Tumblr. I like both fine, and I personally know Anthony. But my Facebook stream is different, although there too another social media star - Baratunde Thurston, another person I happen to know - shows up quite often. But Facebook is much more likely to throw up people I know.

Android's Tablet Share

Image via CrunchBaseAndroid used to be in sorry shape while the iPhone was raging, but there were people, myself included, who thought it was only a matter of time. And now the two platforms are neck and neck, Android might even have a lead, a growing lead.

Facebook Comments: First Impressions

Image via CrunchBaseI got excited about Facebook Comments right away, long before it got rolled out. I am very much for using real names with comments. When you leave a comment at my blog, I want the option to be able to click over to your Facebook profile if I want to. I want you to stand by what you have to say. I want to meet real people. To me that's the whole point behind the internet, that geography is irrelevant. The blogosphere's appeal is that it allows for a meeting of minds. Facebook Comments takes that to a whole new level. It is more than meeting of minds, it is also meeting real people.

Scoble, Get Out Of Town

The Top Quora User Scoble Agrees With Me, But I Disagree With Him

The Top Quora User Scoble Agrees With Me, But I Disagree With Him

Image via WikipediaRobert Scoble - someone I admire and like - has put out a blog post on January 30 - Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service … - that closely mirrors a blog post I put out on January 7 - As For Quora: Blogging Still Rules - only my blog post's title is better. In his blog post Scoble comes to the same conclusion. Blogging still beats Quora.

But then blogging for me has beat all other social media experiences: Facebook, Twitter included. Blogging has been my favorite social media platform. I guess I am really interested in people I don't know. But it is more the ideas thing. The blogosphere allows for a meeting of minds in ways not possible elsewhere. And I have a thing for the long form of blogging.

Amit Kapur Might Be Upto Something

Scobleizer: First look: Gravity is making interest graphs of your social content

Zuckerberg Interview: Scoble's Recording

(Source: Robert Scoble)

Does Robert Scoble Know Me?

Image via WikipediaMaybe he does. Likely he does not. I have left a few comments at his blog. I have retweeted a few of his tweets. I have a Direct Message from him on Twitter, and I know enough about him to know that does not make me special. I mean, that guy has thousands of "friends" on FourSquare. He asks to be stalked. I don't think he has self esteem issues. I think he is a social media guinea pig to himself. He wants to go out there and try it out. He once retweeted one of my tweets. He has replied to one or more of my comments at his blog.

Smart Cars Should Talk To Each Other

Image via WikipediaRobert Scoble's Not Google Car
Self Driving Google Car

Never mind that this might materialize towards the end of the decade and not any time soon, but I had an idea. Cars that drive themselves are not good enough. They should be able to talk to each other. You should be able to set your journey and have your car talk to other cars to form trains along the highway. So if you are programming your car to take you on a 10 hour ride on the freeway, other cars also going the same length and your car should be able to form a train in the middle lane, perhaps 10 cars per train. And of course this would be an intelligent train. It would be seeing the non train cars and keeping watch on them. The train will do what it takes to avoid accidents, up to and including breaking up. And if only all those cars are 100% electric, we will have solved a major, major problem. 100% electric cars by the end of the decade is not that ambitious.

Software just got wheels. Or perhaps it is the other way round.

You know what would be even better? 100% electric bullet trains that move at perhaps 500 miles per hour. Or even 300. Trains are way more efficient than cars. If you could have such train service that connect all major cities, and have metro trains inside all cities, that still leaves room for 100% electric taxi cabs. And rental cars. And even cars. But I think the heavy lifting should be for trains.

How about people work to design smart trains? What would be your idea of a smart train?

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Robert Scoble's Not Google Car

This video above is not of the Google car. This is Scoble being Scoble.

Robert Scoble: State of the art of self-driving cars on road today (Google, Ford, and Toyota): Turns out I actually caught one of these cars driving on Freeway 280 in January, reports Techcrunch and, back in 2007, I interviewed one of the guys, Mike Montemerlo, who now works on the Google Car ...... Google’s car goes a lot further because it has digital images and 3D maps of the road ahead and even more sensors and algorithms that let it even drive through intersections..... already they have helped me avoid accidents ...... I use my car’s computer more than my TV or nearly any other computer in my life. ....... my sons will be driving fully automated cars ...... The computers inside are safer than most adults.

Self Driving Google Car
Image via Wikipedia

The Official Google Blog: Sebastian Thrun: What we’re driving at: who also built a modified Prius that delivered pizza without a person inside ..... more than 1.2 million lives are lost every year in road traffic accidents. ..... self-driving cars will transform car sharing, significantly reducing car usage, as well as help create the new “highway trains of tomorrow." .... people spend on average 52 minutes each working day commuting ..... a glimpse of what transportation might look like in the future thanks to advanced computer science
Robert Scoble: State of the art of self-driving cars on road today (Google, Ford, and Toyota)

If Google was going to put out a TV, it was going to be software heavy, that was a foregone conclusion. If Google was going to put out a car, that was going to be software heavy. That was a foregone conclusion. Driving a car is not the best use of the human mind. This country lost it when it came to trains a long time ago. But now with software there might be a window to turn cars into trains. Too bad this whole thing seems to be a decade away. I already don't drive. I live in New York City. I wish the goodness upon the rest of the country. Not having to drive is a good feeling.

One small step for a company, one big step for public transportation.

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Scoble Chimes In On Angelgate

Image via Wikipedia

Robert Scoble: The secret hell of tech industry angel investors: when the story broke, I thought it was just Mike being bombastic and trying to make something out of a dinner that he wasn’t invited to..... Mike stumbled into a story that has a ton of undercurrents. ..... The angel investor world is getting HYPER competitive .... Entrepreneurs are seeing access to lots of capital. ..... 10 people just are not going to have enough market power to do anything really naughty although it’s good to nip this problem in the bud, which is why I now support Arrington’s stance.

The early stage investment world is seeing major churn, but I would like a much larger geographical spread, not just on the continent, but globally. It will happen.

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Direct Messages From Ann Curry, Steve Case, Robert Scoble

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@anncurry
@stevecase
@scobleizer





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If The Tweet Is The Atom, What Is Location?

The tweet is to the web what the atom is to the universe. Twitter was hot for the first half of last year. This year the heat/buzz seems to be with the location space people, FourSquare leading. What is location? Location is one of the sub atomic particles: electron, proton, neutron. Begs the question, what are the other sub atomic particles? And where are they? Are they in the works?

The mobile web is growing faster than the regular web, and location is so very fundamental in that space. It is so much easier to check in than to tweet out. When you are on the move, even 140 characters can feel long.

Maybe location is in a league of its own, maybe there are no other sub-atomic particles. Or maybe the tweet is the atom of the regular web and location in the atom of the mobile web. The atom metaphor can only be taken so far.

Check in is a basic feature. FourSquare has to try to own it, it has to extend that feature to other web properties. Google took over the web with Google ads. My blog and your blog could run Google ads. Facebook took over with Facebook Connect. FourSquare needs to do something similar. There is a much lesser incentive for my check in to exist on the FourSquare website than it is for my social graph to primarily reside on Facebook.com. You want to be able to take your check in with you to many other places.

I made this point in a comment I left at the official FourSquare blog when the Please Rob Me controversy was raging. (Location! Location! Location!)

More recently I came across a blog post by Robert Scoble that was another aha moment for me as far as FourSquare is concerned.

Only a few days before that Robert had put out a blog post that was rather hostile to FourSquare and the location space in general: Malleable Social Graphs And Mini-Mobs: Why Facebook Could Destroy Foursquare And Gowalla With One Check In.

Basically what he was saying was Facebook was going to offer location, and that was going to kill FourSquare. I left a comment saying Robert, dude, you are so missing out. A few days later he put out a blog post that blew my mind: Are Location Geeks At Where 2.0 Off The Path To Real Money?

In this post he was saying he wanted to check in into future locations. He wanted to be able to say where he was going to check in a week or a month from now, and that that check in was more monetizable. I agree. I wonder how FourSquare will respond to that.

Craig Newmark, Dennis Crowley, Jennifer 8 Lee: Koreatown

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