Life blog

Pause for station identification

Wow. I haven't done one of these in a long time.

Molecules on the mind
My name is Charlie Schick, I am currently Editor-in-Chief of Nokia Conversations (but not for much longer).

For the past few years I have used this site mostly to philosophize on the fusion of Internet and mobile devices. But I've seemed to have made a definite shift back towards my first life - biology, science, and such similar geekery. Hence the name change of the site and its new de facto direction (or is that a meander).

My bio says that I have thoughts and actions ranging from biomedicine, molecular manipulations, indiscriminate writing, the long now and a post-electronic age, various forms of performances thespian and corporate, and philosophizing on the fusion of Internet and mobile devices. I am not sure what will transpire over the next 6 months and after, but my thoughts will be still roughly in those areas, just with a different emphasis and priority than before.

And a word from our sponsors ... you.
As I've said before, thanks for reading my stuff. I am not sure how things have changed between us, what with long breaks between writing and a total topic shift from what originally brought us together. That so many keep coming back to this site, suggest that I do have something of value to you all. View me as one of those sites that is outside your usual comfort zone and that will stretch your mind.

Heh.

Standard Disclaimer (riffing off of Cringley)
Everything I write here on this site is an expression of my own opinions, NOT of my employer, Nokia. If these were the opinions of Nokia, the site would be called 'Nokia something' and, for sure, the writing and design would be much more professional. Likewise, I am an intensely trained professional writer (heh), so don't expect to find any confidential secret corporate mumbo-jumbo being revealed here. Everything I write here is public info or readily found via any decent search engine or easily deduced by someone who has an understanding of the industry. On the flip side, this is my personal site. Please don’t flood me with ideas that you think Nokia might be interested in. There are other channels for such biz dev, and this site is not part of them.

Leaving Nokia

I was going to wait a few months to let folks know, but the communicative department I work in has spread the news quickly inside the company. So, it's only fair to blurt it all out.

Yes, after 8 years living and working in Finland with Nokia, I've decided to leave (my last official day is a few months away, though).

Sure, some of you who know me well know that I have been toying with the idea for a long time, but this time we're committed to a move and have put things in motion that will make this happen. We realized that if we didn't commit and "just do it," then we would be toying with the idea for many more years.

Of course, I am publicly discussing this, since this might open up opportunities for me, ones that I might not have been given had everyone thought I was a Nokia lifer.

Areas that most interest me now are continuing my PR and marketing work, but in different areas other than consumer electronics; doing something around molecular biology or biochemistry, such as synthbio or personal genomics; or building Web services (that might sound random, but it crops up everywhere my mind wanders).

I have a bunch of threads I am following, all very interesting. And I have a long list of things I can do if any of those threads die out. I have been very excited in the past 6 months about things that are happening around me and feel that it's a great time to start something new - a new company, a new project, a new direction.

Geography and new adventures are also big motivators in the change. We're looking to move to the US, preferably Boston or San Francisco areas, or London (three hot-spots for the the things I want to do).

Am I nuts? Nah. I know that the world is in its biggest slump in since the Depression. I know a ton of folks who have lost their jobs. But I have made an assessment of the folks I know, the opportunities I currently am chasing, and the skills and experience I have and concluded that I can weather this storm and be ready for the big growth times that are sure to follow.

Image from C.P.Storm

Changing names

As you can tell, I've been writing more and more about science, biochemistry, medicine, and the like. I've moved most of my mobile industry writing to Nokia Conversations, the corporate blog I run for Nokia (for now; more on that later).

Suspecting that I will be writing less things related to what I've been writing about in the past 5 years, I decided to change the name of this site to Molecularist, a name I came up with to describe a person who fiddles with molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, much as I did before I jumped into the world of wireless, and much like I've been hanckering to do for the past year or so (and more on that later, too, I hope).

So update your bookmarks and feeds. If you want to. I would hope you'd keep reading me, just to stretch your mind (or to get it off the usual mobile stuff you have normaly read hear).

BTW, there will still be talk of Web services, since lots of the science I've been thinking of intersects with the future of the Web and social networking and other interesting stuff. Also, by finally getting my own domain name, if I ever get tired of TypePad (upon which this site runs) it'll be easier to move (but, after a persuasive talk with Sippey, I'm sticking for another year at least).

Ta.

Image from EraPhernaliaVintage

(of course, I'll be changing other things around here to reflect all this)

All set for Le Web 08

Le Web '08

All booked to be there and have fun.

The 'Quiet' post

Every so often a site has the 'oh, sorry for being so quiet' post. This is sort-of one of them.

Stream of bookmark consciousness
I used to have the delicious auto-posting feature set up to share bookmarks right here, but as you can tell, it seemed to stop long ago (maybe around their big change?) and I can't get it going again. So, if you want to know what I've been thinking, you can get a glimpse from my delicious stream (also see in left side-bar).

<http://del.icio.us/cschick>

Work writing
I think most of you know that I have been running Nokia Conversations.

<http://conversations.nokia.com>

Yeah, lots of my writing energy is going there. It's been interesting and we're trying to see how far we can go before getting fired. So far, there have been a few hand-taps, but we haven't had to change or take anything down. My boss' boss keeps telling me to try harder. As my wife says, 'If you aren't falling down, you aren't trying hard enough.'

Visual contrails
The other place I have been quiet has been my Flickr stream (and my folks are upset).

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/schickr/>

The main reason is that my phone got munged by a car door and I stopped taking photos. I did get another camera phone, but it was a lower resolution and I was too snobby to use it (though it was more than enough a few years ago).

Well, I started taking photos again recently and will upload a few.

Another thing that has been affecting my online life is me toying with various aspects of my 1100 Club thought - moving over to a text-voice phone for a while. By removing some of the habits I have gained with a net-connected phone, I wanted to see what would be affected. And it's been interesting.

<http://conversations.nokia.com/home/2008/09/announcing-the.html>

Internal machinations
I've been holding onto the thoughts that remain once I dump them into Nokia Conversations, partly because I am not feeling the urge to share them here (sorry). Oh, I have been sharing them in real-life with folks I meet up with, so, if you are interested, please seek me out. :-) And maybe get me a beer. Heh.

Alex bopped me with a baton - lifestreams, semantics, and tapping the next person

Henriette Weber Kristiansen and Duarte Velez Grilo have a little show called Geek Army Knife. I see it as a wander through the collective mind, talking to interesting people. One interesting feature of the show is that each interviewee needs to come up with who might be the next person to interview, sort of like passing the baton.

Alex de Carvalho was the previous person interviewed, and spoke about social objects. I was absolutely flattered when he passed the baton to me.

So, yeah, I got interviewed last night and it's already up. I spoke about lifestreaming and how it led me to thinking about semantics. I mentioned a bunch of folks along the way, including Friendfeed, Socialthing, Socialbrain, Lovelysystems, and Tagcrowd.

I've also names a few potential folks to pass the baton to, but pressed for my first choice, Stephanie Rieger.

Let's hope she accepts. If she doesn't, you might want to listen to the podcast to see if you made the list of alternates (and no offense if you did, I could only pick one and I like so many of you, heh).

Image from Philo.

Plug: Design event coverage on Nokia Conversations

Just wanted to say that, even though I could not attend, Nokia Conversations is covering the Open Studio event in London today (29apr).

We have two writers there, posting things as the day progresses. We're also hoping to get some cool photos and footage to share with everyone.

So, if you're into Design, come check us out.

Just wanted to say that Nokia Conversations is live

It's been a long slog, but the site is now as tweaked as it can get, so we removed the password protection and we're off on a new journey.

As with any site, we'll be adding and removing things as folks give us feedback. And I know you all will have plenty to say.

I want to thank everyone involved and those who laid the ground work for me.

Now I need to get dinner ready.

Link: Nokia Conversations: Welcome to the conversation

ESPOO, Finland - Welcome to the Conversation. This one, though, is unlike any you'll have seen before. It's being written, presented and hosted by people in and around Nokia and pulls together all the conversations going on around the Nokia neighbourhood.

UPDATE: Oh, I meant to say that 21apr is the traditional day observed for the founding of Rome. And while Rome wasn't built in one day, it sure had to start somewhere, by Jupiter.

Craig Venter giving a Long Now seminar today (25feb08)

Dang, I was not able to finagle a trip to SFO to see this talk. But, if you live in the Bay Area, don't miss this!

Link: Long Now Seminars

Craig Venter is on a roll these days.  He has revolutionized science twice already---with the human genome project and with metagenomic analysis of whole microbial populations.  He is about to do it again by creating a new life form with a wholly synthesized genome.  His memoir, A LIFE DECODED, is a thrilling read.  He has shocking new perspectives to report every time he speaks in public.

Last month in Germany he said, "In one milliliter of sea water, there's a million bacteria and ten million viruses.  In the air in this room---we've been doing the air genome project---all of you just during the course of this hour will be breathing in at least 10,000 different bacteria, and maybe 100,000 viruses....  This is the world of biology that we live in, that we don't see, where evolution takes place on a minute-to-minute basis.... The air that we breathe comes from these organisms. The future of the planet rests with these organisms.  And the question is: If we take over the design of these organisms, does that really shift the balance in any way?  Or is it such a small portion of what's out there that we'll only affect industrial processes, not the living planet?"

"Joining 3.5 Billion Years of Microbial Invention," Craig Venter, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, 7pm, MONDAY, February 25.  The lecture starts promptly at 7:30pm.  Admission is free (a $10 donation is always welcome, not required).

The Herbst Theater is downtown at the Civic Center on Van Ness at McAllister (inside the War Memorial Veterans Building).

Putting stuff on YouTube - Nokia Conversations' Channel

For the past year or so, Nokia has been posting product and other videos (and other media) onto the Web, albeit, here and there. Now, as part of my new role, I'll be posting a lot of things to the Web, too.

Indeed, even though we are building a site to put up some of our own content, we're going to make use of tools out there to provide multiple channels for folks to find and recombine the material we produce. We will also, of course, scour the Web for cool things produced by others and link to them from our site.

We don't have a name for the site, but you can guess what we're thinking. We also don't have a site, though we are in the process of getting it up and running.

In the mean time, we are still making and finding and pointing to stuff already out there.

Today we put up our first videos from the team (one of them embedded below), showcasing two phones that were launched today. As we produce more, I expect things to look better, feel better, sound better, and smell better.

Enjoy.

Link: YouTube - NokiaConversations's Channel:

This is the YouTube channel for the Social Media Communications team at Nokia. We'll be posting as many videos on Nokia stories, products, services, and people as we can get our hands on or produce ourselves.

Fjord designing sweet things for Barcelona World Mobile Congress

I was over at Fjord's Helsinki office, visiting Christian, who was in town. He pointed out that Fjord is going to have a booth at MWC and that they will be having a chef, David Royer, from Chef à Domicile in Helsinki, on hand making some cool sweet things specifically designed by Royer and Fjord for this event.

Ha! This is _so_ something Christian and gang would think up. Food and design and mobile and user experience in one place.

Someone please get a picture or video and send me the link.

(image from email invitation from Fjord)

Ah, a new conference schedule

It's a new year and I am looking at my Spring 2008 conference schedule.

This year I had no interest in CES or Macworld. I did want to go to Digital Lifestyle Day. But, again, I could not make it due to conflict and running out of travel days (watching myself).

I did find out today that I am more likely to hit other conferences, though now my _wife's_ schedule is conflicting. Bugger.

I do think I can make LIFT and will bug Laurent as soon as I know. And I thought I could make World Mobile Congress, but may have to pass. Ugh.

Not the same shutout as last year, but not so different yet. Hm.

Link [from last year's whining]: Lifeblog: There goes the conference schedule:

I wanted to go to CES.

I wanted to go to Macworld.

I wanted to go to DLD.

I wanted to go to LIFT.

But I can't.

Long story.

A few changes from my side

I'm leaving the Ovi team and shifting to the new Social Media relations group in Markets, Communications. The official start date has not been set since I have a few things I need to wrap up here on Oviland, but, barring any wild lightning strikes out of the blue, it will happen in January or February.

Just to be clear, I am not leaving because of any disappointment with the way Ovi.com has been developing. Indeed, the Ovi team is amazing, and I have done and learned quite a bit with them and have no problem working with them. Also, the direction of Ovi, and Ovi.com in particular (which I strongly influenced), is on the right track.

But, Ovi.com is a demanding mistress and she's worn me down. I just need a little life-work balance and this next gig, hopefully, is of a different scale and scope that should give me some more control over what and where and how I do things.

This is a good time to shift, too. Ovi.com has hit its first iteration (we're in internal beta). We've been well received by analysts and press and are looking to go before the real critics - the users. Also, the Ovi team is going through some new arrangements and some fresh blood is joining.

As for this new gig, this is very much in line with things I did before starting Ovi. I will be leading external social media activities, engaging with social media leaders and commentators. I will also be building and driving (as Editor-in-Chief, as it were) Nokia's social media 'hub' (for want of a better term).

Social media outreach was what I did in my Lifeblog days (the first team to do such in Nokia) and this is a great evolution from those days, this time with more resources, more support from the company, and from a higher perch. And the field has evolved in those years and I think there is potential for some innovation in this space, something my mix of publishing, social media, and service design might help me bring forth.

I am sure we will have some great discussions around this.

I'll be in SFO next week

Folks, I haven't been to the US since June. Feels like a dog's age.

Unfortunately, my schedule is packed and spread out all over the place.

In any case, let me know if you're around and I'll see if we can met up.

Maybe I should just do a bar meet-up, what.*

See ya!

*When I told my wife about the idea of just setting a place and time and notifying all your friends to meet up there, she's sort of now made it her main way to meet up with all our friends, heh.

Nokia Lifeblog on Wikipedia!

Heh, Hugo vK tipped me off that Lifeblog has a wiki page. And on that page you can find setting to your heart's content.

I think these settings can also be used in the web uploader on some Nseries devices, as well.

Way to go, Hugo!

Pause for station identification

As some of my regular readers might know, I find it useful to 'pause for station identification' so that it's clear who I am and what I do.

We be jammin'
My name is Charlie Schick, I am a product manager for Ovi.com, by Nokia (see details for more).

For the past few years I have used this site mostly to philosophize on the fusion of Internet and mobile devices. Hopelessly peripatetic, my thoughts and actions have lately been wandering farther afield (sorry folks) ranging from biomedicine, molecular manipulations, indiscriminate writing, the long now and a post-electronic age, various forms of performances thespian and corporate, and forcing myself to be more creative and do the story telling I want to do.

In the past, I've tried to not put too much of this other stuff here on this site. But, as I've hinted a few times in the last few months, I expect my writing and links of interest (found in my side bar) to start reflecting these interests.

Thanks
As I've said before, thanks for reading my stuff. That so many keep coming back to this site, suggest that I do have something of value to you all. I hope that does not change as I drift from the topics that originally brought us together.

Standard Disclaimer (riffing off of Cringley)
Everything I write here on this site is an expression of my own opinions, NOT of my employer, Nokia. If these were the opinions of Nokia, the site would be called 'Nokia something' and, for sure, the writing and design would be much more professional. Likewise, I am an intensely trained professional writer (heh), so don't expect to find any confidential secret corporate mumbo-jumbo being revealed here. Everything I write here is public info or readily found via any decent search engine or easily deduced by someone who has an understanding of the industry.

On the flip side, this is my personal site. Please don’t flood me with ideas that you think Nokia might be interested in. Better to leave a comment or trackback relevant to one of my posts (emphasis: relevant). Or go visit one of the Nokia blogs.

Six Apart get a new CEO

For some of you, this might be just another press release for just another Silicon Valley company (see quote and link below). For me, I see and feel a ton of things at once (hey, I won't get sappy on you).

I first met Barak in early 2004,* when Six Apart was a teensy company, before blogging swept the mainstream. We were introduced to him via Marko Ahtisaari, a personal friend of Barak's Neoteny collegue, Joi Ito.

Our little team was building a product called Lifeblog and we were starting to do some partnerships, get a feel for the field (a long story I'm willing to tell for a few beers), and make sure we did things in the proper way (another long story I'm willing to tell for a few beers).

From then on, I worked with Barak and Loïc, his counterpart in Europe, on bringing Nokia and SIx Apart closer together. The two of them were key in introducing me to a whole new world that was booming back then, a world that put individuals in the Web, a world newly-labeled to give meaning to what we were all doing, a world of people I admire for their creativity, sense of fun, and long stream of trend-breaking products.

I can say that I would not be doing what I do today - building Ovi.com - if it weren't for Barak and the people he so expertly led.

Thanks and I wish him the best.

Link: Six Apart - Press:

Six Apart, the world’s leading independent blogging services and software company, today announced that Christopher J. Alden has been appointed Chairman and CEO. Alden succeeds Barak Berkowitz, who has served as Chairman and CEO since January 2004.

Mena, the co-founder of Six Apart, says a few things on this. Also, Chris, the new CEO, looks back on how he got there.

*Heh heh, I just remembered that Barak and I sort of crossed paths at an earlier time, via his media agency Krause and Taylor. I wrote a few press articles for them, when Barak was running Omnisky, a cutting-edge mobile internet service. For laughs, here's a now quaint article, from 7 years ago or so, in which I mention Omnisky.

Ovi by Nokia

Busy right now, but wanted to let you all know that ovi.com is what's kept me away for all this time. Oh, we're not done yet, won't be for a while, but we hope to start trickling out stuff by the end of the year.

Really exciting, if you want to know.

When I get back to Finland (I'm in London at a workshop) I'll try to tell more.

For now, go read read it here:

Link: Meet Ovi, the Door to Nokia's Internet Services:

Nokia today introduced Ovi, the company's new Internet services brand name. With the introduction of Ovi, Nokia is expanding from a focus on mobile devices to offering a range of Internet services. Ovi, meaning 'door' in Finnish, enables consumers to easily access their existing social network, communities and content, as well as acting as a gateway to Nokia services.

Making an effort to understand the noise

Been spending the day, reconnecting to my internet-plumbed networks - Facebook (new to me, sorry), Twitter, flickr, Google Reader, dopplr, and this very site.

It was interesting to be disconnected. But, I needed a break, sort of like digital rehab.

I just might be back. And it's not because... well, I'll save that for a bit longer, just to tease.

Well, I've had a few brainwaves about noise and radio and what all these services are really trying to provide. I need to make a few notes before I can properly divulge them here (at least in writing). Nonetheless, I need to immerse myself back into the emanations of quanta coursing the internet to be able to better express and create something from this brainwave.

Yeah, I'm a geek. More to come.

Winksite releases new features

Better late than never, I've finally been able to take a peak at some of new things David Harper and gang have added to Winksite (see some stuff below, a follow link below for even more details).

Gotta say, pretty nifty.

Winksite is really good to begin with. I've written about it a lot over the past years (just look here). Winksite makes it really easy to create and manage mobile websites. WIth that as a basic, they have been adding small tweaks without destroying the main goal.

With this last release, they've added:
- Color schemes and backgrounds that work across a great variety of mobile devices and screens.
- Mobile sites with 100% valid XHTML code, fully compliant with W3C Mobile Web Standards (in addition to the usual WAP fare).
- A search engine optimization tool including a Google Mobile Sitemap for each site.
- Sony PSP, Nintendo DS Lite, and Apple iPhone optimized pages (adding to a long list of other supported devices - see link below).

Way to go, guys.

Link: David Harper’s Different Things » Blog Archive » Winksite Releasing Major Upgrade July 6th - Love the Mobile Web.:

Winksite. Love the Mobile Web.
Winksite makes it easy to publish mobile Internet sites and build simple mobile connections via mobile phones. Winksite is the first standards compliant mobile Website builder that also includes RSS-driven content deployment and mobile-tuned community features such as forum, chat, and polls. This approach delivers fresh content, fast-loading screens, and universally accessible community features to you and your audience. The Winksite service is a free and fully hosted solution. No software install on your phone is necessary to view a Winksite powered mobile site. Learn more about how it works.

One platform. Many uses.
Use your mobile site as your personal podium to the world, a convenient mobile dashboard to all you find important or as a space to build and manage a mobile community. Create a mobile edition of your blog, journal or news service. Start a mobile chat room, forum or poll. Glue together your friends, feeds, and favorites into your own mobile personal portal. Organize an event or street team and spread the word on the where, when and why. Link SMS, QR Codes, mobile ads, or Twitter & Jaiku messages to a mobile destination where people can see and do more.

Simple to navigate. Simple to use.
Each Winksite benefits from thousands of hours of fresh research, user testing and community feedback From it’s simple, channel-based structure, to it’s universal “Main Menu” link, Click-to-call dialing options, and easy to use community features - each mobile site you launch comes bundled with a pleasurable mobile experience.

A Nokia Mac app! Hooray! Nokia Media Transfer is now out!

I've been using this for a while and it really is nice. It plugs a gap between my phone and my Mac.

Dare I say Nokia is finally playing properly with Apple? Well, I don't know, but I do know that Nokia phones are no longer second class citizens in the Mac universe. This is indeed a step in the right direction. Together with iSync, you can now transfer contacts, calendar, photos, videos, and music between your dearly paid for Mac and your dearly paid for Nokia phone (alas, only Nseries phones).*

This app makes it easier to transfer music from iTunes to your phone. It also makes it easier to get photos and videos into iPhoto (and back). It doesn't work on DRM'd (hiss, Apple FairPlay) music and videos, but free stuff will be properly converted to play on your device (assuming you have the right device, yada yada). UPDATE [10jun]: It can also transfer iTunes Plus (purchased but not DRMed music). See Nokia Media Transfer FAQ on Music for more info.

Yes, you can have your cake and eat it!

Link: Nokia - Download - Main - Download software - Get support and software:

The Nokia Media Transfer application enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac.

*ah, but I also want to synch my to-dos and notes and bookmarks, too. sigh.

A much needed reboot of the mind

In Copenhagen for the next few days.

Link: reboot 9.0:

reboot is a community event for the practical visionaries who are at the intersection of digital technology and change all around us...

2 days a year. 500 people. A journey into the interconnectedness of creation, participation, values, openness, decentralization, collaboration, complexity, technology, p2p, humanities, connectedness and many more areas.

reboot 9.0 - Invitation to participate

I'm going. Are you?

Link: reboot 9.0 - Invitation to participate:

Calling all practical visionaries of the world!

It's time to reboot our minds once again; reboot9 will take place in Copenhagen Thursday, May 31 and Friday, June 1 2007.
Two days away from implementing, away from the status quo. Two days together with old and new friends in an informal and open festival spirit...

THE CHALLENGE
The theme for reboot9 is "human?". A big word, but a word that saturates what's happening and all ready on a deeper level has been transcending reboot the last couple of years.

Pause for Station Identification

Every so often, I find it useful to 'pause for station identification' so that it's clear who I am and what I do.

Whois
My name is Charlie Schick, I am a product manager at Nokia (see details for more). I use this site mostly to talk and think about the fusion of the mobile and the Internet. Lately, my writing (and Web reading) has suffered on all fronts and backs, mostly due to my project here at Nokia, which I thoroughly enjoy and is exactly what I want to be doing,

Lately, my forward-thoughts have been moving to other interesting areas, such as the long now, how our second life on the 'net can improve our first life in the real world, and forcing myself to be more creative and do the story telling I want to do. I'm not sure how that will affect the nature of my writing here, though I don't expect changes any time soon.

For the hundreds of you on feed readers, my site also has a side bar with a link to my WINKsite (I'm a winkster), my del.icio.us links of note (sporadically showing up here as links of the day), and a link to some of my creative writing that I've put on the Web. I also have a running list of Tired Words, you might find amusing or not (feel free to suggest others).

Thanks
I also want to take the opportunity for all of you who read my site. I try to not repeat what is out there, since so many of you are great writers and in many ways have your thumb on the pulse of the Internet and mobile world much better than I. And, that so many keep coming back to this site, suggest that I do have something of value to you all.

I hope to keep it that way, regardless of what I write about.

Standard Disclaimer (riffing off of Cringley)
Everything I write here on this site is an expression of my own opinions, NOT of my employer, Nokia. If these were the opinions of Nokia, the site would be called 'Nokia something' and, for sure, the writing and design would be much more professional. Likewise, I am an intensely trained professional writer (heh), so don't expect to find any confidential secret corporate mumbo-jumbo being revealed here. Everything I write here is public info or readily found via any decent search engine or easily deduced by someone who has an understanding of the industry.

On the flip side, this is my personal site. Please don’t flood me with ideas that you think Nokia might be interested in. Better to leave a comment or trackback relevant to one of my posts (emphasis: relevant). Or go visit one of the Nokia blogs.

There goes the conference schedule

I wanted to go to CES.

I wanted to go to Macworld.

I wanted to go to DLD.

I wanted to go to LIFT.

But I can't.

Long story.

 

And it looks like TED, SXSW are now also at risk.

Sigh.

 

The story is not all that sad, really. I'm missing all these opportunities to rub elbows with smart folks to do something I am passionate about with some really energetic and smart folk. That counts for something. Nah, that counts for a lot - hence missing all these cool conferences.

 

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I had not planned to go to 3GSM anyway, though I would have loved to gone to Rudy's shin-dig.

Anything else exciting I'm missing?

Mobile Le Web 3 pages - get 'em to your phone from here

I set up a link on my WINKsite to the Le Web 3 feed so that you can read it from your mobile.

On your mobile, type in the URL: http://winksite.com/cschick/mobile.

Or, if you live in the US, send MOBILECHARLIE via SMS to 41411 (courtesy of TextMarks).

Or, WINKsite can send an SMS to your phone (more countries) - click here.

Oh, and there's a WidSet, too. Use the button below to get it to your phone.

Heh heh, let me know if any of these aren't working.

In Paris 10-13 December

In case you care or in case you didn't know, I'll be attending the Le Web 3 event in Paris next week.

I'm speaking on the second day in the afternoon.

There are a ton of folks I am looking forward to catching up with. I am sure there will be a lot of ideas flowing, laughter, and fun.

One thing I am not so sure about is how the conference will feel like with so many speakers and so many attendees - 1000. The previous two events were indeed like FOL - Friends of Loïc. Oh, he does know a ton of people (and introduced me to so many, too). But, there's no way a party of 1000 can be deemed 'close and intimate'.

I guess I'm not a big crowd person...

WINKsite is going through a major facelift

Wow. Dave told me it was coming and I've been waiting and waiting.

WINKsite's Web site is going through a major overhaul and, while the old is still a bit mixed with the new, I've seen enough of the new to be excited.

I am still interested to see how the channels will be overhauled. I think over the past few years, they've been able to determine which are the most important to provide. I think the original had too many channels.

But, if the things are made easier, then it might not matter how many types of channels they offer.

One cool thing, already, is that, when you are viewing a site in the desktop browser, you can easily bet the code to embed, do QR Code, send link to phone, and so on. Really great.

Go check it out.

Oh, and my WINKsite info is in my right side bar (moved temporarily to make place for the Le Web 3 banner).

Link: David Harper’s Different Things � Blog Archive � Pssst. Winksite Changes Under Way..

Well, now it’s time to respond. We’ll be building upon what we have learned and go deep for a while. Expect regular, iterative releases over the next 90 days. I’ll post our thoughts throughout and be interested in hearing yours.

So, if you are inclined head over to Winksite to see what’s brewing. Some of what we are up to will be immediately clear, while other aspects will be apparent over time.

Audioblogger closing down

Audioblogger, a service from Odeo to post over-the-phone recordings onto a Blogger site, will close at the end of this month.

Basically, they say it was too expensive to run and Odeo wants to concentrate on their thing - podcasts.

Now, I viewed Audioblogger as a mobile to Web bridge. It's a pity to see it go. Either there wasn't much of an uptake or mobile has quietly slipped off the Odeo radar.

It must have been a hard decision, since Odeo and Blogger are historically linked via their founders.

The announcement to Audiobloggers listed other services one could use. I think I'll check them out.

From the email they sent me:

As of November 1, 2006, Audioblogger will no longer accept phone
calls. MP3s made with the service will continue to be hosted and
served but you will no longer be able to use Audioblogger to post
new audio.
...

However, there are several other services that offer similar
functionality. Odeo is not affiliated with any of these services,
we only suggest them only in hopes that one or the other will be
a good alternative for you.

Gabcast.com is a free service for recording by phone
Hipcast.com has a seven day free trial and lots of features
Gcast.com is another free service for phone recording

WidSets adds more stuff

Just got a note in my mailbox that WidSets updated and added a bunch of things (link below).

On paper, it all looks promising. I've just updated everything, did a clean out of my old wids and popped in a few more, like the Manhattan Story Mashup wid.

Get the Story wid:

Let's see how they've been growing. They're young, but if they are on the right path, and if we are patient enough to give them the time, there is hope that they can kick some tusch.

Link: WidSets.

The WidSets service was launched a little over 3 months ago, and now is time for the third release, meaning it's time to reload your mobile client and make the most out of the new improved WidSets.

... After about 30 mins of playing with it:
Yeah, they've added some cool things since I last used WidSets: alerts, being able to send a wid to someone (that's clever), some light management of wids from the phone, and a list of the last 10 wids added (under the system wid). Even the website has added some things, like better management of wids, more ways to create wids, and, of course, a ton more wids.

And I suggest you check out their clever main page (you need to logout). They've highlighted a few ways to use your wids depending on if you're a social butterfly, a blogger, or a news junkie and such.

What I can say, is that there are so many small little things that WidSets has that one might not notice, but that the WidSets team has implemented in very mobile-savvy way. This is not 'just' a widget app. They also have quite a bit of clever infrastructure and usability around such an app.

Keep it up guys. You're still in the right track. Don't let up.

BTW, if anyone manages to build a wid using the dev kit they offer, please let me know.