Here is an interesting story of the power of the wireless transparency available today. Michael Fedor of the Monitor Group writes about how he linked his Treo smart phone to other services to extend Google Maps’ functionality through "Location Aware Services,” adding a new dimension to how he can us his cell phone. He does thorugh the mobile mapping program Kmaps. It allows him “to tag locations on a map, snap photos, edit notes, and upload location-based photo blogs to the web with the click of a couple buttons.” Additionally he can send location-aware emails to friends from his phone. Here is what he did:
“The potential for this kind of technology became apparent to me as I was sitting in the back of a cab one Saturday evening. I was using Kmaps to pull up listings of the closest restaurants. I choose one based on user posted reviews, directed the driver using an attached Google Maps mash-up, and upon arrival, tagged the map with my precise location so my friend could meet me. My friend wanted to know what the restaurant was serving before they decided to come so I snapped a picture of the menu, uploaded a quick picture and note to my blog with my tagged location and was immediately called by a 3rd friend who had seen the blog post and wanted to come as well. Instead of simply consuming available info from the web, I am contributing to that information base in real time from my mobile phone.”
The increasingly easy access, coupled with rising transparency, has driven the increase in content contributed to the web by individuals to over 60% according to figures I have heard from several sources. Go to Michael Fedor's blog for the complete story.
Another take on the same idea:
"Helio, a cellphone venture targeted at affluent young people that is to launch this spring, announced an exclusive partnership Thursday with the popular social-networking site MySpace.com...
Helio users will be able to do such things as use their phones to take a photo of themselves at a club and post it to MySpace with an invitation to join them. Users will be able to use their phones to post blog entries on MySpace or access their MySpace contacts and photos."
http://www.helio.com/headlines/WallStreetJournal_021606.pdf
There is also an article on Helio in this month's Wired - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/helio.html
Posted by: Beth | March 02, 2006 at 03:33 PM