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PDF Text Ads?

I think I will have to see this in action before passing final judgment, but I don’t like the way this sounds at all. Feels like we are moving backwards.

Now, publishers will be able to show ads alongside their PDFs without selling and inserting the ads themselves, by uploading the PDF content to Adobe’s Web site to ad-enable it, then distributing the PDFs as they previously did — an easier and less costly option. Advertisers, meanwhile, can use Yahoo’s existing self-service ad system to buy text ads that will run in a panel to the right of the PDF, when it is viewed in Acrobat or Reader. Yahoo will use the text of the PDF to place contextual ads that are relevant to the subject matter of the PDF — similar to the text ads that run in blogs, for instance. For example, the editor of a newsletter for car enthusiasts could send out the newsletter at no charge and make money through the ad system, which might display ads for car accessories. [WSJ.com

Why not just PDF the site page which may already have an ad on it and create a special print option for the ad instead of a separate whole process. It’s not surprising that traditional publishers are the first people signing up instead of straight online players. No mention of any actual advertisers… wonder if this will be positioned as “value ad” rather than something people are initially looking to buy. I wonder actually if this is more of a way to justify offering more “free” content from from an inside the publisher view — even though more people would prefer web access — of course outside of printed periodicals or books. They don’t say what content will be used here…

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Chase – Why would you design an HTML email like this?

In general this email is fine but with two glaring errors in my view that kill any chance for the recipient to appreciate what’s here.

Chase email - WTF?

As you can see from my callouts, the blue text in the paragraph highlighting the “what’s new” feature is NOT a link. Why? Why make it different and not provide a way for me to learn what the heck you are even talking about?

(I’m pretty sure that blink is the RFID / NFC system that lets you tap and pay with the card instead of swiping and signing… guess I’ll have to wait and see.)

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Verizon opening their network…

Just caught this interesting snippet on the VZ…

Verizon “will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company.” This could be seen as a reaction to upcoming Android phones but probably won’t be accessible to the average hobbyist, as devices will need to be “tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab” before being activated on the network. [CrunchGear ]

The CrunchGear post actually says it won’t be happening until the end of next year, but it’s still a very cool piece of news. Sprint was the first to announce this but it’s unfortunately for their Wimax network which may be DOA at this point. I hope more carriers get it that as we mature in our interests and use scenarios, we just want the network like we get broadband at home. Nokia does not have any interesting CDMA devices (currently anyway) which is a shame for S60 fans, but there are plenty of cool toys out there that take advantage of EVDO.

I’m willing to pay to play … but want my choice of what devices I get to have.

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All Nokia Media

I decided last week that I wanted to simplify my mobile media experience and ordered a 6GB microSD card so i could my N95-3 and N810 for evrything instead of also carrying my iPhone just for a few albums and podcasts. I’ve had an iPod since it was first released and have had my computer media experiece live inside iTunes. The full Apple ecosystem is strong and I’m a firm advocate of sync and go … Or at least I was.

For the most part the songs and albums stay the same on my ipod and it’s really podcasts that change with any real frequency – daily to weekly as things update. I thouht the 6GB card would be mainly in the tablet vs the phone as I started planning this but thus far (day 3) my plan has shifted a bit back to the phone. I’ve actually ordered a second 6GB card to use in the tablet so I don’t have to share and so each device can focus on some key pieces of the experience. A surprise arrived on Friday as well in the form of the Nokia N81 8GB which is designed to optimize the mobile music experience and I’ve been playing with that along with the N95.

Music and Video

Right now I have music on both phones and a limited amount of converted video on the tablet. The phones serve as really nice music players – quality seems solid on both. I have yet to do an A/B test as my recently updated iPhone (1.1.2) has not been reactivated… I’ve yet to swap its sim back from the N95 to complete the activation process!

The Nokia podcasting application does a great job importing my opml from iTunes and is able to update on a schedule or manually with a wifi connection or via cellular data. I’ve been manually switching things between wifi at home and cell on the go so I can get the latest stuff for my commute. Since I am unable to install anything on the work machine and do not have an itunes there’s no way to get an updated set of podcasts … Or even a quick download during the day on the iPhone. The Nokia phones however easily take care of business without the assistance of a computer which has really been quite awesome.

The N81 integrates podcasts directly into the music player which is something I’m hoping makes it back upstream to the N95 with a firmware update. In either case you can access podcasts as a genre and using the keypad you can live search through your collection of both music and podcasts. The Nokia Podcasting app also supports video which works nicely too though I’ve gone into the app to playback rather than use the music player which does not show video. When there’s an update to the Nokia Video Center application for the latest tablet OS2008, I will also subscribe there and predict my viewing preference will be the tablet’s larger screen.

Movies and TV shows are pretty easy to convert for the N810. Unfortunately video does have to be converted which takes time, but is relatively straight forward with the right tools. MediaConverter is probably the simplest to use and with the promise of making a file the tablet can play it’s hard to pass on it. Handbrake and (if you use Windows) Nokia’s new video conversion application also work well though if Hanbrake is your preference you might want to copy the settings from one of the other apps to make sure you get playable files.

Phone + Media Player

Like you would expect the Nokia phones pause and resume playback for phone calls much like the iPhone… So there’s no magic there, but it works relieably and well. The N81 has a dedicated music button next to the naviwheel and the N95’s multimedia key serves the same purpose. I discorvered today that a press and hold which brings up the music player on the N95, can also bring you right back to your previous application … A nice and I am sure not well known function.

The more I’ve used the phones as media players I can really see the potential benefit to an A2DP headset which would deliver stereo sound and also let me handle calls without switching things around my ear. My Shure E4C earphones are great but if I knew or needed the flexibility daily a wireless single unit would be killer.

What’s missing?

Amazingly the N81 is not supported by Nokia’s recently updated Multimedia Transfer application which would let me take advantage of playlist syncing as well as photos through iPhoto (though I use Aperture). While the N95 is supported, I’ve chosen to maintain a parallel experience and did a bulk copy (~4GB) using mass transfer mode on the N81 and a card reader for the N95. As it happens my mac mini media server crapped out at home so I had the external media drive on my desk and did a hunt and find to then drag over on both devices. This process took considerably longer than it would in iTunes to find what I first wanted and then actually to copy over. The Mac finder estimated over 2hours and after about 30 min I walked away. When I returned both were ready to roll. Sync is a really great thing to have and I hope that the Nokia Multimedia Transfer application (which has also been brutally slow for me) supports the N81 or that Nokia develops an actual plugin for itunes much like they did for iSync.

Copying video to the N810 was also done through a card reader and I will continue to do that as the video files I am using for my mobile needs are not really things I want clogging up iTunes.

Final thoughts

Outside of the initial bulk load, day to day use has been a pleasure. Music and podcasts are easy to access and update and video podcasts as well as converted video on the tablet all play well. Since I am already well converted as a two-piece mobile user, this plan works great for me though there’s no reason why the phone alone would not also do a lot of good. Of course you can’t playback any iTunes Store content as there is no Apple DRM access on anything other than their mobile devices, but that’s far from a deal breaker for me. Most of my content is from my own physical media collection and Amazon’s MP3 has an excellent DRM-free collection for “need it now” moments. I’ll probably dabble with the Nokia Music store when it eventually works in the US, but I’m less of a fan of Windows DRM.

Just as a sidenote, this entire post was written on the N810. That’s definitely not something I ever considered with the iPhone.

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Nokia SportsTracker Community

Nokia Sports Tracker Beta

There’s a pretty cool update from Nokia Beta Labs SportsTracker application which now also includes an online social service. You can make friends, share and download workouts and keep track of your progress all through the site and your phone.

I noticed in my quick scan that there are quite a few additional exercises from the main ones listed on the installed application and you can easily import your gpx file from either your phone or compatible GPS device which makes the SportsTracker Community open to anyone – even if it’s branded Nokia. This looks pretty similar to what Nike has done with their Nike Plus application for iPod, though there’s no playlist connection currently. Seems that would be a pretty easy thing to add given there’s a music player installed on all the phones already.

I’ll have to start tracking my commute walk, which is clearly not a workout, but (ahem is exercise and) will give me a good baseline on how this works initially.

Hat Tip to Eseries

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Sony Reader PRS-505

I was in Borders this morning with the kids and saw they had the new Sony Reader. It’s remarkably thin and the display is gorgeous! Not sure this short video gives enough of an impression on how great the screen looks… The interface seemed a bit on the slow side, but I am not sure that really matters on something like this.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Amazon device as a comparison. Sony Connect is not something I’m looking to deal with and this would make much more sense for my wife than me, based her volume of reading.

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Nokia N82 revealed through a Virtual Live Event!

This morning while on the train, I was able to join the Virtual live event for the Nokia N82 launch via my Nokia N810 tablet connected over DUN to the N95. A pretty cool way to experience something like this and I believe I’m the only one who even attempted this.

Nokia virtual event streaming via 3G to the N810!

The event has a pretty massive array of streaming content, downloads and a rather active chat. Initially I thought I’d be missing the actual experience as the page took quite a while to load – even once my 3G service activated while heading south to NYC. Anyway – a very cool way to enable a much broader audience to take part in something only a few would have been able to do otherwise.

Now, the N82 is one hot device! It’s basically everything you get from the N95, in a candybar form, like the N73 before it. You get GPS, Wifi with VOIP capabilities, 100MB of dynamic memory for as you need it power! The addition of the Xenon flash is also killer and sure to improve your image capture — and a real hero feature for the device. I hope this is standard for N-Series moving forward. Reading the spec sheet I see that Nokia is also going to pre-load maps for your region on a memory card which is a great way to enhance your out of the box experience. This is exactly what they are doing on the N810 – which matches the N82 very nicely by the way!

The only bummer on the N82 is that it’s not going to support US 3G which makes it impossible for me to consider for the time being. Regardless though, for the rest of the world, (and the vast majority of Nokia’s market share) this is a killer mobile!

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Android Video Demo

Android Demo Video

While there’s no gPhone per se, this demo gives a cool overview of how the platform works and what can be done. Seems like we are just scratching the surface here, but with WebKit, 3D acceleration and 3G data services some very cool stuff will be sure to arrive.

Too bad we have to wait until 2H 2008!

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Nokia, I’m Connecting People

Tonight I gave my Brother-In-Law my Nokia N93 and my Sister-In-Law a Nokia N95-1 which they selected from my collection. To say they were not living on the edge of mobile tech would be an understatement… They were sharing a Nokia 6600 after my Lindsey’s BB Pearl was “washed” by their daughter. I’m not clear what happened to Henry’s phone, but it’s dead and gone.

When I was asked whether I might have any old phones, I did not really have to think for very long …

A Brief Phone History

While I don’t still have all of those devices sitting and waiting, they chose from an array of Palm, and Nokia devices to select their “new” phones. A quick reset and sim swap and they were on the air – thank you open phones!

Neither is a sophisticated user, but a quick demo on S60 and Lindsey and Henry seem to be on their way. Both seem very excited about the image capture options, music features and the ability to connect and share on a TV with the accessory cables.

Having Wifi is also an interesting twist to have since neither have real data plans currently with their carrier TMO… though I showed them how to connect here in the house so they could browse and check email. I even used the Nokia settings configurator to send Henry’s email settings OTA To the N93 so he did not have to tap it in via T9. It will be interesting to track their progress moving forward with much more advanced phones than they have been used to using. I’m hoping they have as positive an experience as I’ve had since making the move into S60.

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SightSpeed calls on SMB

SightSpeed

I had a great conversation this week with SightSpeed CEO, Peter Csarty on the launch of their business conferencing product.

Sightspeed is taking a very unique and aggresive stance in realtime business communications with this update. If you’ve worked in a larger company you may have seen a Polycom (or similar) video conference set-up like I have, though you also probably rarely if ever, used it. Everyone regards these things as unfriendly and expensive and in general they are!

Taking lessons and experience from over a decade of work as well as knowledge gained from the 30,000 business users of the consumer product, Sightspeed has rolled out an enhanced version of their software-only conferencing product specifically geared to the SMB (< 500 people) market. You supply the camera (or bring your existing web cam enabled computer) and you've got a video conferencing ready setup. Since this works with any web cam, you can take your calls on the road and not worry about being restrained to the conference room. Peter assured me that this works on a 256K connection which means mobile 3G users can also get in on calls. Sightspeed has done a lot of work behind the scenes to optimize the video calling quality and general quality of service. The service was developed with video as the priority and in calls you'll see that it shows.

While there’s nothing stopping you from using either the Sightspeed consumer product or even an existing solution like iChat, Sightspeed offers a great deal of features and most importantly support (over video!) for the business customer. As a business product, an IT manager can easily manage the seats, allocate any DID lines and view usage reporting … in other words it’s designed to be simple.

Each account also gets a personal URL which enables participation by parties without a camera for view-only sessions which could be great for an instant sharing session when a phone call or an emailed PDF simply doesn’t cut it. There’s a 30 day trial on the site, why not give it a try!

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Gmail IMAP arrives … sucks the life from my system

I’m not sure what your experience has been but Gmail IMAP is one slow ass system. On my MacBookPro, I left it running overnight to try and sync everything, but even today I am finding my system feels as though it is underwater. I see beach-balls and find navigating even my inbox to be rather torturous.

Gmail IMAP sucking on my MacBookPro

Force Quit seems to be the only way out … Guess I’ll stick to web Gmail for now. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and the 2.0 version will show it soon … yeah right.

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