Henrik Werdelin

Many years ago when I was doing product development at MTV, I got obsessed with the idea of allowing users to create their own interactive tv applications in flash and get them on our channels. The idea was to allow the best apps to be overlayed on top of the MTV channel and in a sense make MTVs graphical layer open source (with added SMS functionality). I think Nick Rockwell, being the upper smart tech dude he is, actually managed to get MTVs broadcast system to accept flash files - but at that time I had left.

Its therefore great to witness an slightly different execution of that project. This time, its the Allan and the player boys at Joost who have made it happen. The concept basically the same,  to allow any users to create any cool interactive active tv application on top of any of the shows on Joost via flash and an API.*

While the current twitter test app is pretty basic, its really only developers fantasy that is the limit of what can be done. I have worked on all sorts of interactive tv platforms from open tv, over liberate to MPH and it has always been the technology that was the limitation of that could be done. Now is our creativity.

Have a look at Joost Labs.

* Clarification: Interactive tv applications are in their core form all created with a mixture of a number of tech features; text/graphic overlays and animations, the ability to stop, start, forward, jump to, pause, change audio/volume track and the option for integration/mash up with other services.  On traditional TV, MTV and BBC seems to have been the ones who have managed to create to most advanced and innovative applications on e.g. Sky’s digital platform in the UK. However, no one has until now been able to create a smash hit interactive format - so its intriguing to see if making these interactive tv formats easier to do (by allowing developers to do them in flash) will spark some new thinking is this area. That said, maybe TV is just a passive storytelling method by nature - and all the interactivity and innovation will be around making communication and social interaction around the video more seamless.

I was reading Fred Wilsons blog the other day where he argued that twitter and facebook traffic would surpass google referral traffic in the future. The interesting part of that discussion is for me less about which of these companies that will win or loose out. The core question is really about how people will discover stuff in the future. How will people find stuff online.
The very first method of discovery was editorial. The web only had a few websites where people went to find ‘good stuff’. The web have since been very much centered about using search as its primary discovery methods. The web has essentially been spinning around Mother Google making business that was well disposed for this kind of discovery the first to prosper. We are now moving towards a time where new social discovery tools are being created. The initial wave of these tools were around one to one sharing, (e.g. send this to a friend) but are now becoming more sophisticated (e.g behavior generated content). Together the three ways of discovery matches the ones we have offline:

- editorial. you are browsing around in a magazine or a site and someone suggest you to read/try/do something
- search. you are looking for something in a shop or you ask google to find it for you
- social. you get a ping from a friend, a social trigger, that prompts you to do something.

These three categories can be divided into sub categories. For example, editorial can be either be done by a blogger or by a computer (like amazon) - but at the end of the day its a form of expert who recommend something. So while social discovery online is growing, its hardly a new concept and we can probably expect the split between them to follow the offline world - which is probably editorial 30%, search 35%, social 35%.

The new questions then become - how will the online tools look like that make people explore ’stuff they didnt know they were looking for’ and what new formats will be effective in influencing those three discovery methods. In a video world, social discovery mean new content discovery methods like; personalized subscriptions, facebook connected notifications, auto twitter viewing reports, co-watching in realtime (join what your friends are watching), content exploration via friends viewing data visulazations - but all that is probably a worth a post of its own :)

A friend of mine just converted from PC to a Mac and asked me what  smart programs he should install. As I was writing the list, I thought, I might as well share it here on the blog. So here goes in no specific order:

• Numbu - for a simple twitter client
• Evernote - for taking notes and have a backup of them online and on my iphone
• Cocktail - for cleaning of the mac on a weekly basis
• FormulatePro - to sign pdf files with my scanned signature
• Freemind - for making quick mindmaps
• Skitch - for taking screen shots and sharing them quickly
• Firefox - for browsing
• Firefox plugins:
  • - Drop.io - for quick big file sharing
  • - GreaseMonkey - for installing all sort of geeky scripts
  • - FireBug - for doing quick changes to websites to explain changes or see how cool stuff is done
  • - Delicious - for quick bookmapping
  • - FireFtp - for easy and quick ftp tasks inside firefox
  • - Google Redesigned - for a nicer design of gmail and google apps
• Skype - for video and video calls
• Adium - for being online with msn/aim/jabber/gchat
• Google Quick Search Box - for general quick search across my computers and the web
• Dropbox - for quick/easy file sharing with girlfriend and freelancers
• Logmein - for quick remote controlling my mac when I am away from it
• TimeMachine - for doing local backups of my pc
• JungleDisk for remote backup of my archive and my weekly backup
• MobileMe - for sync of my settings across multiple macs and calendar sync to Iphone
• CardScan - for keeping digital copies of all the business cards I get and having an online backup of them
• 1Password - for keeping track of all my passwords (and sync’ing it with my Iphone)
• Iphoto - for general handling of my pictures
• Imovie - for editing of my videos
• ITunes - to listen to call podcasts and buy tvshows for long haul travel (as well as music of cause)
• Smultron - for the few times where I wanna read code - or hack up some html/css
• Balsamiq Mockups - for doing quick prototypes and mockups
• FacebookSync - for getting my friends pictures into “Address Book”
• GrandPerspective - for cleaning up my harddrive and figure out where all the harddisk went
• Opera 10 - for when I am on a super flacky wifi or gprs connection and still want to browse
• Seashore - for free very basic picture editing
• VLC - for when people send me a odd video format that nothing else will play
• ScreenFlow - for when I need to do screencapture to explain something. (think there is a cheaper version out there)
• Ical connected to Google Calendar - for getting a calendar for work, private and a shared one with my GF

Online services (I use many online services almost like apps, so they are included here)

• Gmail - for all my emails
• MotionBox - for cloud storage of all my videos
• Picassa - for cloud storage of all my pictures
• Facebook - for getting in touch with friends
• Twitter - for getting in touch with friends I dont know yet
• Delicious - for getting track of all the websites I find and like
• Wordpress - for writing random thoughts and keeping some info about myself online
• Google reader - for reading RSS feeds and subscribing to blogs
• Last.fm - for listening to music I didnt know I would like
• Jigsaw - for when I want an 1-click music video channel
• Joost - for when I watch great TV

Think thats about it.

First and foremost congratulation to Dave Morin from Facebook. His place on Fast Company’ss Top 100 Most Creative list is totally desevered. Creativity is in my world way more than just design - and I salute Fast Company for celebrating that. Also a big thanks to the mag for including me on the list. While I am not so sure I deserve being listed most so many of the people I idolize - I am non the less incredible proud and thankful for being on it too.

Top 100 most creative in business: http://origin-www.fastcompany.com/100/

The last year or so, I have been obsessing over what I call ‘flow over feature’. Its is the maybe somewhat obvious idea, that you can not think of individual features or products in isolation, you have to think about how you solve problems in the context of the users ‘flow’. Now while that thinking is somewhat already embedded into the notion of user cases, I find that use cases themselves are often to specific and overlook emotional flow-based-insights that are important. We focus to much about solving the specific problem, rather than understand the mental space the user is in - and thus we might solve the problem but the experience is not fluid. Let me give you an example. The other day, I stayed at the W hotel in San Francisco. As I was stepping into the shower I noticed that the bath mat towel used when stepping out on the floor after showing was rolled instead of folded. This meant that I could tap it with my foot just before stepping into the shower instead of bending down and un-folding it. I then turned on the shower and noticed that the shower head had been pointed towards the wall, making the first bit of cold water that is always in the pipes go onto the wall instead of me. Finally, as I went out of the shower, I found the bathrobe next to the shower with the string tied in a way so I could just pull the string and the bathrobe would open instead of having to untie the knot. Future more the string was secured to the side of the bathrobe so it didnt fall down on the floor. Overall the W hotel had managed to identify my user flow and optimize each elements of the features instead of just seeing them as independent ones. The W have realized that a user is in a flow when using the bathroom features - making my experience much better as the features was adaptive to the flow.

I think when we develop sites and products, we often forget to fully understand the physical or mental flow properly of a user, e.g. where was the mouse pointed at last, what are a user  thinking about as they use a feature  or do they hit a page from the side door (e.g. google) or our frontdoor of our site. In order to make successful products, we need to increase this understanding - so we can wrap our technology more invisible around human behavior.

Made this twitter the other day in celebration of an excellent experience with ZipCar.  “Really impressed by zipcar. Their signup process is really slick - and its perfect for ‘living in a big city like london’ usage.” Now today, I recieved the email below thanking for that twit. Now, in a world where there are many options for consumers, I really love the way that ZipCar make me feel special.

I relelize that there are compeditors out there (even some that are cheaper I think), but its really consumer dialog like the email below that creates loyalty and, not to forget, vocal viral promoters. Even renting a car, is for me not only about getting some wheels in a given time period - its about the totally end to end experience; From booking easy online, to getting a nice working car, to feeling some what part of a cool brand. So again and for the last time (otherwise people will think I work for them ;-). Well done ZipCar.

————-

Hi Henrik,

Laura from Zipcar UK here. I noticed your enthusiastic post on Twitter/May 3^rd about your Zipcar drive in Mini Minaret. Hope it did the biz for you!  As a little gesture of thanks I am adding £15 in free driving credit to your account today, lasting for 30 days (we love our happy Zipsters!)  Hope you enjoy it however you choose to use it.

And yes, to your post point, we think we are helping people to overcome traditional private car usage and reduce car usage making London a better place to live and travel in.

Just to add: if you’re in Hammersmith, Southwark or in Tower Hamlets watch out for a slew of new Zipcars coming your way this spring/summer, making Zipcar an even more simple personal and business lifestyle choice.

Thanks again, and happy Zipping.

Kind regards,

Laura

Communications manager

Its really fascinating how the ‘real’ world and the virtual world is mashing more and more. Wrote earlier this year about how we are interfacing increasing with non keyboard interfaces and how I see that as a step towards the singularity. However, when I saw this trick the other day I realized that its the second cool augmented reality project I have seen recently and properly a sign of more to come. Marco is for sure always a step a head of everyone (and for that I salute you) but check his latest magic trick out in the video below, and I am sure you will agree that its really fascinating.

The second project I saw recently was from GE. You can find the project here and a nice video demonstration below:

There are two online movements that are really get me excited these days (especially when they are used together). The first thing is ‘behavior generated content’ - the art of making personalized content based not on a users active creativity  but on logging a users behavior and create a structured format.  Wrote a blog post about it some time ago - check it here (personal note: it needs updating…).  The second thing is data visualization. The art of taking data and structuring it in a way that makes the data entertaining or informational. There are an increasing amount of sites, shows and companies that make excellent use of this.  Here are a few:

• Mint.com (amazing company that slurps the data from your bank transactions and make interesting and informative graphs for you to enjoy - or improve your financial decision making with.
• CNN (cant help put think they made great use of their electoral board. They managed to take boring election data interesting and informative - see picture here:
• 
• Jonathan Harris. (Visualization artist. Amazing guy who did some really cool data visuals for the Moma Exhibition Creativity and the elastic mind. His talks on Ted are also really cool. Watch them here.
• Mashable’s cool collection of datavisual projects: http://mashable.com/2008/11/24/data-visualizations/
• Doplr did an super cool behavior generated content meets data visuals project at the end of the year. They are slupring my travel data from my google calender and send me this rapport. Note that I had not done anything else than giving them access to my travels. A great example of things to go. Click here for full image
• My two favorite blogs about the subject is infosthetics.com and visualcomplexity.com
• And…. since everyone seems to be heading to South by SouthWest.. Here is a cool twitter data visualization project - much respect to slash7.com who did this:  http://pepsicozeitgeist.com/

Expect to see great things in this field - I for one is looking forward.

I read the Singularity is near a few years ago and thought it was really mind provoking. In this book Kurzweil argues two main things (or at least mine major takeways):

a) development of tech is exponential and thus we cant really imagine what is just around the corner

b) the natural next step of human development is the convergence between man and machine.

Now, most people I speak to about this subject are pretty skeptical. Either they dont believe that the technology will develop that quickly - or they dont believe that people will adapt and feel confetable with such a close relationship with non organic enhancements to the body. What I dont think they notice is how quickly this new form of interaction between man and computer is happing. Just over the last two years a few core product developments has made me think that Kurzweil vision will happen.

It started with the fingerprint scanner on laptops. Little notice did it get, but it was really the first step in reinventing interfacing with computers for the mass market. Via the fingerprint, a user could  communicate their identity quicker than via keyboard and mouse. It was easy and convenient and most users found it quite intuitive. Since then several of the airports I fly to now offers eye scans as a quick way to make sure that you are allowed in the country. It makes my life easier and so I and many others do it. Next step in the consumer segment was the iPhone, that educated the mass market that touching your phone, tapping pictures and turning it around to see a picture differnetly format was really much more intuative. What is really happening is that the computer is adapting to humas. Its the art of warpping technology around human behavior and interaction.

In the meantime the military is already flying planes and doing operations with robotic arms 1000s of miles away from where the human are controlling these. Security companies are operating ‘biochips‘ into the body of their employees and the always clever people at MIT are taking mobile computing and user interfaces to the next level. (this video of what MIT is up to is a must see: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/481 )

So, for me at least, its clear that the path to a much closer relationship between technology and users have already begun. While I understand that people get concerned about the concept, I think steps mentioned above shows that its actually not that scary and makes our life easier, safer and more enjoyable.

1. Virgin America is an amazing company. Not only is flying with them a pretty unique experience - but one cant help loving the way they use technology to create a dialog with their (potential) users. Just noticed that they have a dedicated Twitter team. Impressive.

http://twitter.com/virginamerica

2. Balsamiq is another cool company. Besides being a really nice small software company and I love how a 2 man company mashed with all the latest web 2.0 support services can run a healthy business.  On their blog Peldi explains how he cleverly uses Twitter search as a lead generation tool. In short, he monitors any reference to what his product does - and then sends a twitter with an introduction to his product. Clever - and a sign of things to come.

Link to blog post

Been helping a few friends on a small little pet project the last few month called MobileMagic. The idea was to create a social app on the iPhone, but where the social interaction was ‘around’ the phone not ‘on’ the phone. The result is an cute magic trick that you can show you friends/date/kids. You dont need any special skills but it will for sure amaze whoever you try it on. So please try it out and let me know what you think.

For the the link to the app in Itunes - press here.

I am getting increasingly convinced that will see a lot of smart people starting companies that are build to be small. The ‘build to be bought’ mentality by some start ups of past years seems to have been exchanged with a ‘build to be lived’ mentality. More and more of the people I met who have interesting business concepts are looking to build business that can be maintained virtually (sitting on the beach) with a small amount of staff. This can now be done because of the new amazing amount of services that allow you to build a proper business using web 2.0 services to do what normally required a lot of staff and thus investment.  A few worth mentioning are:

• Amazon S3  for hosting your servers. Allowing you to scale your expenses with your revenue
• Get Satisfaction for doing clever product/service support
• Google Apps for email, document sharing and creation
• ScreenFlow for easy making support and introduction videos
• Balsamiq MockUps for easy making wireframes and proto types
• Jungledisk for backup of all your stuff on a secure cloud server
• Basecamp for product management and communication with external partners/staff
• Odesk/Rentacoder for staff and ad hoc resource needs
• Tumblr for having a blog what is easy to use
• Issuu for good looking manuals and brochures

… and the list goes on.

With the virtulization of the different areas needed to run a business - I look forward to many more small clever start ups that make a good living powered by the power of the web. H

Random personal tip: Did a small change to my work routine this week. Instead of keeping my email software open at all time, I have started to only open it every 2-3 hours. It might be obvious to most people but I am amazed on how much more work I get done. I also find the day much less stressful - so if you are not doing it - try it out.

“Design is rapidly moving from posters and toasters to include processes, systems, and organizations. Design is the accelerator for the company car, the power train for sustainable profits. Design drives innovation, innovation powers brand, brand builds loyalty, and loyalty sustains profits. If you want long-term profits, don’t start with technology—start with design.”
~Marty Neumeier
(found it on: http://darmano.typepad.com)

One of the interesting dilemmas you have on a website; is the balance between making stuff very simple and easy to use versus having a lot of new features. Its often hard to make those calls, espcially for more advance feaures that the ’standard’ user might not care that much about. Many sites, start out really strong but end in an interesting struggle between making their exsisting userbase happy by giving them more stuff to do on the site (and then reduce chun and increase time on site) and by keeping the site nice and easy to use for new users. (increase month uniques). At Joost we have the same challange. We want to allow users to find content really easy. However, we also want to introduce users to new features that add value to their video viewing or allow them to find content they didnt know they wanted to watch. So one way we will be trying to solve that problem is by introducing new features in our advertising space. Not only can we make feaures easy to understand - we can also messure and improve our advertising units. (the video below is displayed with an campanion ad on Joost - allowing users to connect with facebook via one click…)

TV is one of the most universal social machines. Not only is it great center when hanging at home watching TV with friends or family - its also one of those things that you can always start a conversation
around. In fact almost as important as the shows themselves is talking about what might happen in next weeks episode, interacting with a show while its going on (e.g. via shouting or texting) or debating previous
episodes with friends the next day. Previously all these social aspects of video viewing has been going on in the offline world.

However, at Joost we want to give users the tools to do all the social things they do in the offline world, namely tools for finding shows your friends a watching, expressing your point of view while watching
and discussing the shows afterward. We have some of these tools already. While watching a show on Joost
you can ’shout’ and all your friends will be notified what you view was on that certain video, you send new shows you never heard about by watching what your friends are watching and you can both comment or
create groups to host the discussion afterward.

Today is a really good day for online social tv viewing. From now on users can sign in to Joost via their Facebook account (Facebook connect). This amazing new initiative from Facebook allow users to use
all the social tv tools on Joost together with all their friends on Facebook. Think of this, like having a room packed with your best friends and a wide screen plasma TV with access to 46.000 cool music videos, great movies and entertaining films. Now just add popcorn and let the social tv experience begin.

In our first release here are some of our top level features:
- Login to Joost via you Facebook ID
- Post your comments and favorites to your friends facebook feeds
(including an embedded version of the video you were referring to.
This allow you friends to watch that video without leaving their
facebook page)
- Receive notifications and updates via Facebook.

But this is of cause just the beginning, but for now, we are proud to be part of this serious step towards adding social to every day online video viewing. Thanks to Dave Morin and his team over at Facebook for
good ideas and being so easy to work with.

http://www.joost.com/users/henrik

Henrik

For those of you who are in New York you should really go and see Design and the elastic mind at Moma. Its a pretty mindblowing tech art exhibition. For the ones who do not have time and are not around NYC - check out the book that explains all the interesting projects that are on show:

Link to Amazon

“Do you have” vs. “Do you want”

John Moore talks about Borders Reducing its Borders.

It turns out that cutting inventory by 10% and facing books out (instead of just showing spines) increased their sales by 9%. This is counter to Long Tail thinking, which says that more choices and more inventory tend to increase sales.

The distinction is worth noting, because there are two valid strategies.

You can stock everything, so that the answer to the question, “do you have” is yes.

Or, you can market and sell, not just take orders, so instead of answering that question, you’re asking, “do you want?”

Do you want this cool new cookbook about Spain? It’s right next to that amazing new novel about food in Spain…

Bookstores that follow this strategy need to be pickier about what they carry, organized differently (alphabetical order again!) and staffed differently as well. Don’t put all the cookbooks in a little corner. Instead, put books for me (whether they are cookbooks or computer books) together and make me delighted I found you.

This kind of bookstore needs to sell and merchandise and promote and tickle and promise and tantalize and thrill.

Hey, that might work for your business, too.

From the always fascinating Seth: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/do-you-have-vs.html

My good friend Cristian Jofre just sent me this link. Its a TV ident that reacts to the voice over of the announcer. Pretty cool with this new trend of mashing up stuff.

http://idents.tv/blog/2007/12/11/the-new-s4c-idents-that-react-to-voice/

Fan posting:

:)

A bit old interview / apple commercial with Jofre. See it here and His blog 

I have for years been fascinated with a concept I call : Freedom from choice. The notion that is not always best to give users the ability to choose between 100s of things, but better to give them a selective few things that is right for them. The original idea came after reading Influences. It claims that sales of jars of jam dramatically increased if you only offered a few selected choices (e.g. 3 versus 40). In the context of TV I think this is one of the elements that makes traditional flow tv so compelling - and why some people still flip between channels filled with shit even if they have their Tivo filled with stuff they know they like. In a online video world I see few online sites that managed to make effective use of this effect. A fear is that we offer the user so much choice that they get overwhelmed. (for a more detailed take on that check out this amazing lecture on TED’s website by Dan Gilbert ).

As we see web 2.0 become more humanised I think we will see sites become better of just presenting the few selected choices that the user might need at that point - not the endless lists of stuff that we see on some sites. The interesting thing is Dan Gilberts lecture is that its touches an interesting paradox; if you ask users “would you rather choose between 3 things or 1000 things” of cause they think they would prefer the more options, however if you then test their happiness or buying behavior it shows that they dont.

Will write more about this later.

Other articles where I have tried to explain Freedom from Choice:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/columnists/chi-1125_webtvnov25,0,6164208.column

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/60459.html

http://technology.wm-loto.com/?cat=64

I know this is not about technology - but then again servers runs poorly under water. Have a look:

Its a bit seldom I see new online ad formats. However, here is a nice attempt to making something new and special 

http://producten.hema.nl/

Thanks Morten N for that link.

When Twitter meets gossip story-telling

A talk by Sir Ken Robinson at 2006 TED conference, making a funny,
erudite and moving case that schools kill creativity.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/66

Thanks Tom for highlighting it..

Some really good points from Tom Loosemore's Blog. BBC have an
amazing ability to gather some really clever people.

1. Build web products that meet audience needs: anticipate needs not
yet fully articulated by audiences, then meet them with products that
set new standards. (nicked from Google)

2. The very best websites do one thing really, really well: do less,
but execute perfectly. (again, nicked from Google, with a tip of the
hat to Jason Fried)

3. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves: link to other high-
quality sites instead. Your users will thank you. Use other people's
content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa.

4. Fall forward, fast: make many small bets, iterate wildly, back
successes, kill failures, fast.

5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don't restrict your
creativity to your own site.

6. The web is a conversation. Join in: Adopt a relaxed,
conversational tone. Admit your mistakes.

7. Any website is only as good as its worst page: Ensure best
practice editorial processes are adopted and adhered to.

8. Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.

9. Remember your granny won't ever use "Second Life": She may come
online soon, with very different needs from early-adopters.

10. Maximise routes to content: Develop as many aggregations of
content about people, places, topics, channels, networks & time as
possible. Optimise your site to rank high in Google.

11. Consistent design and navigation needn't mean one-size-fits-all:
Users should always know they're on one of your websites, even if
they all look very different. Most importantly of all, they know they
won't ever get lost.

12. Accessibility is not an optional extra: Sites designed that way
from the ground up work better for all users

13. Let people paste your content on the walls of their virtual
homes: Encourage users to take nuggets of content away with them,
with links back to your site

14. Link to discussions on the web, don't host them: Only host web-
based discussions where there is a clear rationale

15. Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent:
After all, it's your users' data. Best respect it.

http://www.tomski.com/archive/new_archive/000063.html

Been reading quite a bit about long term projections lately and have
found two interesting books. The first is The Singularity is near
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near which has some
very interesting points on how quickly new technology and artificial
intelligence will emerge in our everyday life. It seems that the
folks over at BT are a bit of the same belief. Have a look at this:
http://www.btplc.com/Innovation/News/timeline.htm

Interesting times a head…

I’ll admit it.. I love TV. Absolutely. As a storytelling technology
and a method of evoking emotions in the viewer its simply amazing.
However, it takes skills to do it right - being it from 1st class
drama like CSI, over reality shows like Idol to simple spoof shows.
But when its done right - its just works… Here are a few examples:
UK talent show

UK talent show 2
BBC Spoof show

Check out CSI on joost.com

Now with Joost for great long form content (note the mce remote is
working) and Windows media center to record all different stuff -
all on my plasma screen via my media center PC - I am one happy
couch potato :)

<random thoughts>

These years are fascinating as many of the technology dreams and
visions that was created in the very early days of the internet
finally see the light of day. The technology is being developed to a
point where new companies can make services that solve problems for
people in a way that is easy to use. I think that social engineering
and the ability to wrap technology around human behavior will be the
key success drivers for the success internet services over the next
few year. Over the last month four companies has stuck out for me as
being truly great in creating easy to use, well product developed
services:

- Truphone.co.uk is a service that allow users of high end Nokia
phones to connect to the internet via wifi and use VoiceOverIP to
call people rather than their mobile service provider. There are
quite a few companies out there that provide a service a bit like
that. Fring (fring.com) is great if you want to use skype on your
mobile, gizmo.com is pretty advanced as it has both a pc client and a
mobile client - but TruPhone is for me the right balance between good
user experience and solving a problem. The way I use it is at home.
My mobile phone automatically connects to my wifi network at home so
when I need to make a call and I am in range of my wifi network I
route my calls over the internet and get very good rates. The audio
quality is on par with my landline and the connection is quick. In
short, roaming between wifi network and cellar provider is seamless.
You need as mentioned a high end nokia phone - and it seems the ones
to get is either Nokia E61i (thats the one I am using. more
functionality and great if you are using you phone for many other
things than dialing ) or Nokia n95 (great camera, great phone, poor
battery)
http://www.truphone.com/
http://www.gizmoproject.com/learnmore-nokia.html
http://www.fring.com

- Facebook.com is a social networking site like asmallworld,
friendsterm bebo, myspace and the 1000s of other sites that help you
connect to people whom you dont normally speak to (sometime for a
reason :). However, Facebook is quite amazing in the way it does it.
Its a prove for me that the competition over the next few years are
not in new ideas and new technologies but in how well the sites are
executed and the technology is applied. Facebook is from a product
development and easy of you stand point in my view miles ahead of the
other sites. The details are amazing and the functionality are wide
but no too complicated. Really enjoy how they have managed to apply
very simple human touches to the site. Both "poking", instant status
broadcast and their ability of creating content out of behavior is
very well thought out. Well done guys…

- Google never stops to amaze me. I have recently started to migrate
most of my online services to google.
Gmail - left my original provider),
Google news reader - left bloglines
Google docs - left one of 27 signals site
Google notebook - left a text file on my desktop
and so on.
Google are delivering on the promise of server based computing. I can
now reach most of my docs, thoughts and plans from any computer and
share it with people easily. No need for word, excel, or thumbnail
drives. Google manage to make very deep but simple products that are
super easy to use. They have now started to integrate them all and
the result is really working. Microsoft must be worried…
Google personal homepage: http://www.google.com/ig
Google docs (online word type product with sharing functionality:

http://docs.google.com/
Google labs : http://labs.google.com/
Google reader: http://www.google.com/reader

- Schedualeworld is a site that is by no means good for the non geeky
user. Their userbility is not very good at all. They do however
provide a very great free service for people who would like to sync
their contact and calendar with multiple phones and computers (with
different software). However, with a bit of user interface work
Schedualeworld provide a good look into how services in the near
future will seamlessly sync across multiple devices, software and
platforms. For the less nerdy user try the service over at my buddies
at zyb.com which is a great way to backup your contacts on your mobile.
http://www.scheduleworld.com/tg/cal/day.jsp

http://blogs.tvweek.com/daisy-whitney/get-your-joost-invite-here/05.30.2007.html

:)