04.26.07
Posted in General at 10:51 am by Paloma Cruz
I have the lowest-end phone you can find. No camera, no playing tunes of any kind, and it barely sends and receives text messages. I know that it will allow me to access the Web, but the phone freezes if you try. It’s a flip phone and blue. Oh, yeah, and it lets me set it on vibrate.
I can make and receive phone calls. I have voice mail. Really, what else do I need?… or at least that’s what I thought.
I want an iPhone, as soon as they become available for conspicuous consumption. If I have the money, I am going to buy myself one when they go on the market. (Money is always a factor)
I’ve been lusting after an iPod for a few years, but haven’t been able to justify the expense to myself. I will never fill it up. In fact, if I have a couple hundred songs to put on it, I’d be shocked. Yes, I do like the idea of buying shows like Battlestar so I can view them at my leisure. And, yes, I do want to take my podcasts with me. But still… I can’t bring myself to make the expense.
And for those of you rolling your eyes, let me tell you that the Houston Chronicle’s Ken Hoffman found out that it’s not so easy to fill up your iPod. There’s real commitment involved in that.
The iPhone is supposed to run OS X, have a full touch-screen, mobile access to the internet and email, and all the neat phone access as well.
I want it.
Sources:
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04.25.07
Posted in General at 8:31 am by Paloma Cruz
Do you twitter? I’m trying to figure out the application this tool can have in business communication and crisis response.
Any thoughts?
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04.24.07
Posted in General at 4:50 pm by Paloma Cruz
I signed up my RSS feeds for my blogs onto my Twitter account (using rss2twitter). Just testing to see if it workd.
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04.22.07
Posted in News at 8:41 pm by Paloma Cruz
I’m always interested in how companies and people use new technology to communicate and connect with customers (and each other).
Don’t know what Second Life is?
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 3,031,536 people from around the globe.
- From the moment you enter the World you’ll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you’ve explored a bit, perhaps you’ll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.
- You’ll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents.
- The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online currency exchanges.
Welcome to Second Life. We look forward to seeing you in-world.
So how are people using Second Life? Harvard Law School has begun the CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion, a Second Life course that’s unlike anything I’ve heard of:
Throughout the course we will be studying many different media technologies to understand how their inherent characteristics and modes of distribution affect the arguments that are made using them. Students will be immersed in this study through project-based assignments in which they will be using these technologies to make their own arguments. For a good introduction to the class, watch this video of a discussion with Charlie and Rebecca hosted by the Berkman Center.
Shel Holtz reports that Coca-Cola has entered Second Life, taking a different approach:
Coca-Cola has entered Second Life by taking an approach other than buying an island, building an edifice, and hoping residents will stop by for a visit. Working with crayon (yes, I’m part of the team, along with several other crayonistas led by C.C. Chapman), Coca-Cola opted to break into the 3D metaverse by getting out amongst the population.
The effort is a competition, labeled “Virtual Thirst.” The idea is for residents (and, in fact, anybody else) to design a Coca-Cola vending machine that dispenses an experience rather than a can or bottle of Coke.
Sprint Nextel is using Second Life to target the Hispanic community:
Sprint Nextel continues its innovative marketing efforts towards the Hispanic community by opening the virtual doors of the first-ever Sprint Center in the 3D, online digital world of Second Life. Exclusively for Latin music fans, the virtual Sprint Center will stream pre-recorded one-of-a-kind performances from the Sprint-sponsored reality TV series, Concierto Clandestino, broadcast on the Spanish-language programming network, Telemundo. The concert series will include performances from an internationally renowned line-up of Latin artists including Paulina Rubio, Obie Bermudez, Tego Calderon, Fonseca and Belinda.
Related posts:
Also in the discussion:
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Posted in News at 8:39 pm by Paloma Cruz
I haven’t tried it myself, but online dating sites are now an accepted way to meet potential dates. Here are two stories about how online tools have changed the dating scene.
Dating sites are full of smart, kind ‘hopeless romantics’
With online personals, folks don’t buy generic
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
[snip]
Katz is also CEO of E-Cyrano.com, which provides personal-ad makeovers (starting at $49). He sees so many sorry online ads, he can recite a typical one in a single breath: “I’m nice, smart, kind, warm, funny, honest, successful, ambitious and family-oriented. I like hiking, biking, movies, music, travel. I’m looking for my best friend and lover and partner in crime for a lifetime of love and laughter,” Katz said as if he were reading a radio-ad car-lease disclaimer. “There. It’s an online dating profile that anybody could use. And it’s worthless.”
Be unusual, said image consultant Kristen Kaleal, who helps make over local singles and their personal ads. “Let a little quirkiness come out, so that you’re not the same person they see 10 times,” she said.
But truth is, no matter how wonderfully enticing your description, most people won’t even get that far if your picture looks like it belongs on the post office wall.
“If you have either no photo or a crappy photo, your chances of landing a date online are pretty slim,” said Dave Coy, co-founder of LookBetterOnline.com, a site that connects online daters with a network of about 500 photographers who are experts at taking great personal-ad photos. “If you have a good recent photo of yourself, your odds go up enormously, regardless of how attractive you are.”
[snip]
Digging up dirt on your date — made easy
The Internet era means it’s simpler to find more about whom you’re seeing
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
ting used to be largely a matter of spending time with a love interest, discovering the good, the bad and the ugly in a person. If you were lucky, friends helped fill in some of the blanks.
These days, the Internet — and the ability to check people out before meeting up — has forever changed the rules.
For better or worse, “googling” your date has become standard practice.
[snip]
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Posted in News at 8:38 pm by Paloma Cruz
HIGH-TECH HELP FOR GENEALOGISTS
Online sites help family trees branch out
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
[snip]
For amateur genealogists, cyberspace has added a new dimension, one that helps them accomplish more in less time. As the number of online genealogy Web sites grows, so does the community that practices the hobby and so do the family trees they uncover.
[snip]
Researching a family tree used to be painfully slow and tedious. Amateurs could dig for months for paper records that promised to offer crucial facts about a relative’s life, sometimes finding nothing at all.
But with Web sites dedicated to genealogy, some free and others for a fee, novices can share techniques and connect with distant relatives they likely wouldn’t have found otherwise.
[snip]
Houstonians have great local resources to help in this search, the Houston Public Library’s Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research has “resources for Texas, other states and around the world.” Find them online at www.houstonlibrary.org/clayton.
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04.21.07
Posted in General at 4:16 am by Paloma Cruz
A list of links & articles from Lifehacker:
That’s all for now.
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04.20.07
Posted in News at 12:40 am by Paloma Cruz
Reuters is reporting that MySpace will launch MySpace news, which will allow users to “collects stories and arranges them based on thematic similarities and
Digg.com, which displays stories suggested by its readers and displays
them according to their popularity ranking.”
Sources:
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Posted in News at 12:40 am by Paloma Cruz
(forgive me, nice people at Gizmodo, for borrowing your headline — I just couldn’t improve upon it)
This is actually posted at PassablyNews.com:
A fifteen-year old boy in America was incarcerated for twelve days, wrongly accused of making a hoax bomb threat - because his school had forgotten that the clocks had gone forward.
Cody Webb was arrested last month, after Hempfield Area High School received a bomb threat on their student hotline – which provides a range of information to students about the school - at 3.17am on March 11th. They believed they’d found the culprit when they traced the phone number they thought was responsible to Webb.
Unfortunately, the school forgot that the clocks had switched to Daylight Saving Time that morning. The time stamps left on the hotline were adjusted by an hour after Day Light Savings causing Webb’s call to logged as the same time the bomb threat was placed. Webb, who’s never even had a detention in his life, had actually made his call an hour before the bomb threat was placed.
[snip]
All charges against Webb have now been dropped.
Of course, as the writers at Gizmodo point out, “Webb will never get those 12 days of his life back.”
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Posted in General at 12:37 am by Paloma Cruz
I admit that I’ve been behind in my reading. That’s the only reason I can come up with for missing this post by Kathy Sierra: “My Favorite Graphs… and the future.”
In it she writes:
As for the future of this blog, I know I cannot just return to business as usual — whatever absurd reasons have led to this much hatred for me (and for what I write here) will continue, so there is no reason to think the same things wouldn’t happen again… and probably soon. That includes anything that raises (or maintains) my visibility, so I will not be doing speaking engagements–especially at public events. (And of course it’s not just me, it’s anyone with a lot of visibility. Think: Scoble. He can take it, I can’t.)
It is incredibly sad that someone who has influenced and inspired so many people has been driven to doing something so drastic.
Related posts:
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