contentious.com

Audio podcast. Intriguing energy-related resource, map-based:

"Andre Parris is the global manager for energy and commodity trading at Bloomberg, the financial news publishing conglomerate. Parris is responsible for developing the BMAP application, a business and location intelligence dashboard that displays a plethora of location-based information related to energy commodities. In this interview with Directions Media's editor in chief, Joe Francica, Parris explains how the application was developed and the types of analyses that can be performed by commodity traders to get the latest, real-time information about various factors that might impact commodity prices from around the world."

Jive recently acquired Filtrbox. It's the kind of service that can help you monitor social media conversations and extract metrics that related directly to business goals or other actions that you specify. it's not free, but a range of pricing options.

Key findings of the MocoSpace Mobile Social Graph:

• Android phone traffic increased 39.9% in Q1
• 30% of traditional feature phone users plan to purchase a smartphone in 2010
• iPhone is 2 times more attractive than Android for potential smartphone buyers
• Traditional feature phone usage decreased by 22%
• iPhone/Android sessions are 27.8% longer than feature phone sessions
• Mobile users log-in almost twice as often as PC users
• iPhone/Android users are 72% more likely to buy virtual currency than feature phone users

“Our Mobile Social Graph report demonstrates the rise of Android and iPhone as central social-networking devices,” says Justin Siegel, MocoSpace CEO. “Our data confirms that smartphones encourage longer sessions and also increased purchasing of virtual currency.”

This has potential applications beyond gaming.

“Taking advantage of the passion consumers have for these games (or apps) requires that developers allow them to tap into game play, even when they’re not in a browser,” Ms. McMullen said. “The obvious solution is the mobile phone.

“Apps are the hot trend of the moment, but only 17 percent of phones are smartphones,” she said. “How do you reach the other 83 percent of cell-phone owning, passionate game players?

“You can reach everybody through SMS.”

Presentation by Beth Kanter.

"Gilt and Groupon have built that inefficiency, and it’s serving them beautifully. They won’t be the last Google has made other product and service segments incredibly efficient, and there’s opportunities to re-obfuscate other portions of their index."

"Online, good search engine optimization is a priority for many businesses. Except for those that don’t want search engines to find them. And when it comes to e-commerce, there are plenty of companies that are working against Google’s efforts to make online shopping an efficient experience.

"For companies that trade in deeply discounted merchandise — like Gilt, Groupon and Living Social — avoiding the crawl of search engines is part of the business model. Their discount deals don't last long enough for effective SEO. Furthermore, smart marketers are training consumers to be on the lookout for deals, often outside of search."

Discussing the topic of how "information inefficiency" is necessary for anyone to get enough profit from sales to run a business, and how this relates to private sales and group buying. I don't quite understand all this, but it feels important and I'll try to puzzle it out. Might media have a role to play here?

tutorial on how to use Google Analytics to do A/B web page testing.

"Last week I talked to Kolja Reiss, managing director of Mopay U.S. Mopay has been in this business, so to speak, since 2000, but mobile payments were tiny until 2007, Reiss said. He said the next big thing in mobile payments will be a major reduction in carrier fees. Right now mobile carriers take an exorbitant 40-50 percent portion of transactions. That’s the convenience fee for tacking on a receipt to a customer’s phone bill, payable at the end of the month (and that delay can be a problem on its own). But carriers are coming to their senses, Reiss claimed. They realize that growing the market for mobile payments will help them more than wiping it out with huge fees. Reiss said to expect major reductions in carrier fees around the world within the next 18 months."

Hmmmm… this podcast makes me wonder if a mobile phone-based transaction system in US could help subvert usurious check-cashing outlets…

"The idea of a bustling mobile phone based economy is nothing new if you’ve paid attention to how day to day transactions are handled in Africa. In several developing nations there, people who don’t have access to checks or credit cards have evolved a robust and versatile economy built around simple cell phones."

Interview with Ethan Zuckerman of Berkman Center

Time-tracking took that Lisa Williams & susan Mernit strongly recommend.

Take aways:

1. Providing Technology Services to Low-Vision Populations Requires Flexibility and Listening Skills

2. Assistive Technology Without Training for Staff and End-Users Is Pointless

3. Pay Attention to Accessibility Guidelines When Developing or Redesiging Websites

Recommended resource for finding qualified wordpress developers.

"Granted, they are clear about the Android Market website serving as a showcase of apps only right at the top of the new website, but that doesn’t explain why they choose not to make it more useful.

"Good thing there are sites like Cyrket and AndroLib (update: and AppBrain) to do what Google apparently can’t or won’t: make a decent website for people who’d like to peruse the Android marketplace."

highly useful step-by-step decision tree for choosing a mobile ad network to work with.

Three facts you need to know about mobile ad networks:

1. No ad network is dominant. This is still a very fragmented market. There are at least 10 mobile ad networks in the US alone.
2. No one really knows what ad network is biggest. The only way to tell is by revenue and no network reveals revenue data (except maybe to the FTC?). Any figures you read about market share or revenue are estimates, if not pure guesswork. And as we all know, size isn’t everything…
3. Mobile ad networks are not created alike. In fact you are unlikely to find two networks alike. Choose a partner (or a number of partners) that suits your requirements, target market, geography and budget.

MobiThinking divides networks into three categories, based on the business model. At one end: blind networks (see definitions below), which mostly work on cost-per-click (CPC) basis; at the other: networks that focus on premium publishers, which mostly work on cost-per-thousand impressions. Many in between.

Audio produced by mobile voices project, Los Angeles. (in Spanish)

"Amanda Garcés: “As an organizer, it was extremely helpful that I could envision the role of this new technology in our daily work. I see now how important it is to be able to show our own stories. Because even though we do this at IDEPSCA, we do it on a very small scale, and these technologies are letting us grow. If the anti-immigrant movement is using technology to detect our day laborers or our immigrant community, how are we contrasting that? Looking at it from the political context that we’re living, that’s why it was powerful. It was so empowering for the workers to be able to just have the digital recorder at GWC, and I think that’s one of the things we showed: these are people who don’t know how to read and write, some of them, who are empowered in using these technologies.”

"Mobile Voices is an academic-community partnership to research and design a platform for low-wage immigrants in LA to publish stories about their lives and their communities directly from their mobile phones. This low-cost, open source, customizable, and easy to deploy multimedia mobile storytelling platform will be designed in collaboration with its users, and will help recent immigrants who lack computer access gain greater participation in the digital public sphere."

Detailed review of a phone I might get when my iPhone contract is up in July. But first I need to check how good Verizon is in the Bay Area

"Last week, for example, a single checkin on Foursquare by The Wall Street Journal pushed notifications to approximately 2,600 phones during the Times Square evacuation scare. Clearly, Foursquare can no longer be considered just a game.

With all the recent hype, journalists and media companies are itching to find their own ways to use location-sharing apps to bolster their trade. You can get started with the following seven tips, then share your own ideas in the comments."

"Desiring a mongamous relationship doesn't need justification, but neither does a desire for any other type of relationship (including not being in a relationship at all, as Bella DePaulo emphasizes on her Living Single blog). But it seems hard to defend a essentially monogamous nature to love itself without first assuming that lovers want monogamy, which is circular reasoning."

"Utilities across the country are announcing plans to develop tens or hundreds of megawatts of solar generating capacity in partnership with building owners. It has the markings of a national trend that could be very good for the solar industry — and for companies with certain kinds of commercial real estate."

Ushahidi-based crowdsource reporting systems for the Gulf oil spill

"Reports can be made and viewed at http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org. Mobile phone users can text or call in reports to (504) 27 27 OIL. Reports can also be sent to bpspillmap@gmail.com and through Twitter with the hashtag #BPspillmap. Eyewitness reports for the map require a description, and location information such as address, city and state, zip-code or coordinates. Citizen reporters can remain anonymous or disclose their contact information. Photos and video can be uploaded via the web."

"When I went to Hopedale, a fishing community in St. Bernard Parish, as I spoke with fishermen and shrimpers, I repeatedly heard comments such as “What am I going to do? I have no education, I have no way to support my family,” or “I’ve been fishing for 70 years, this is all I know, and all I can do now is sit and wait.” It is critical that there is a platform that engages people and provides a place where they can share their experiences and stories.

"We are using the visual reports generated on the Oil Spill Crisis Map to document and create public transparency to the way that the Gulf Coast is being affected by the oil spill. This map also facilitates accountability of the response as this must be watched and documented in any man-made disaster. As the oil continues to spill and we find that there is limited access to the official clean-up efforts, we also use this map as a way for the public to give visible testimony to how they are being affected and what they are seeing."

"Google (NSDQ: GOOG) clarified today that it wasn’t the phone that people didn’t like, it was the way they were trying to sell them direct to consumers from Google.com/phone. In a blog post today, Google’s Andy Rubin, wrote: “While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not…it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.” Google will try and sell the Nexus One through various stores, and once it does, they’ll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally."

I dunno — sounds kinds of clunky and inefficient, but I'd have to see a video to really understand.

"what I have found to be even more accurate is touch typing with one hand (usually my right hand) and then pecking out one letter at a time with the other. It takes a bit of getting used to but in most cases it ends up being a pretty efficient way to type."

Complete video and other content from a conference I spoke at in April 2010

test how your site performs, looks, and functions on a low-end featurephone interface

Resource list of various mobile phone emulators: smartphone and featurephones

"Keller’s new plan takes a different angle from both TimesSelect and the Journal. It’s a different version of freemium than TimesSelect. The old plan gave away news and charged for analysis. The new plan will give away some of everything, but charge you if you want more of it.

"Chances are Keller and company are still trying to calculate exactly how much to give away, and how much to charge for greater access. Without those numbers, the only safe prediction is that they won’t start with a high bar to access. Better to start with a lenient setting that blocks few readers, then ratchet it up to see what the market will bear.

"Will it work? Probably. The Wall Street Journal has proven it’s possible to get a large number of people to pay more than $100 a year for online news. WSJ.com reached one million subscribers in 2007. And much like the Journal’s model, the Times won’t split content into two tiers. It’ll give away the Times’ hottest content, then charge you when you crave more.

Intriguing, almost polyamory-ish approach to meeting with your former partner's current partner. Plus good advice on public transparency about personal matters:

"Justine Musk's position isn't just stated in a disarming and refreshingly open manner; it's stated with real PR savvy, too. She knows her financial demands are going to come out in court papers anyway, given the publicity around the trial. So why not get in front of the story and get the first chance to spin it?

"The lessons here: Laying yourself bare isn't self-defeating or "oversharey" if it's done in a rational manner; being transparent can net you sympathy; and try to call yourself an awful name before your enemies do. Also: Jump into the comments as thoughtfully and carefully as you write your posts."

One of the best examples of audio storytelling I've ever encountered. True story: Writer Patrick E. McLean was the victim of a random shooting in LA in 2000. This is his eloquent, witty, gritty take on what happened and what he took away from that experience.

Definitely must-listen material.

pretty good advice, although I have some twists to add. Like: get speakers twitter IDs in advance, and store them in textexpander (mac app)

"CTIA figures show that over the last two years, the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States has fallen. Still, even the telephone design industry has taken note. Ross Rubin, a telecommunications analyst with the NPD Group, said cellphones outfitted with numerical keyboards — easiest for quickly dialing a phone number — were no longer in vogue. Touch screens, or quick messaging devices with full “qwerty” keyboards, on the other hand, are. On the newest phones, users must press several buttons or swipe through several screens to get to the application that allows them to make calls.

“Handset design has become far less cheek-friendly,” Mr. Rubin said. Mr. Hesse of Sprint said he expected that within the next couple of years, cellphone users would be charged by the data they used, not by their voice minutes.

"The average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009, compared with 2.27 minutes in 2008, according to CTIA.

Great example of using social media for grassroots event promotion, to get butts in seats.

I'm from the Philly area, so I'm registered on Philly.com. Today I got the 1st e-mail I can recall from them — and it's horrid. Check out this way spammy ad. Granted its from a government agency, but it's like a bad late-night commercial.

I know Phila. Newspapers Inc. just got out of bankruptcy by being bought by their major creditors. Shades of things to come from them under the news ownership? Gah…

Looks like Murdoch is starting to follow through with his "block the aggregators" bluster, starting in the UK. Will je follow through in the US, with Google?

If you ever worry that your best clips may end up disappearing from the web, you can create instant PDFs to save atIf you ever worry that your best clips may end up disappearing from the web, you can create instant PDFs to save

"Chinese pianist Lang Lang has performed Flight of the Bumblebee using just the iPad. There’s speculation that he used the app Magic Piano, but that’s still speculation. Regardless of the app he used, his performance is incredible, as you’ll see in this video."

I MUST SEE THIS!!!! "Pulp Fiction producers Michael Chamberg and Stacey Sher reportedly bought the rights to Alan Goldsher’s novel Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion to develop a film adaptation. In the book, Paul, George, Ringo and John transform into brain-hungry zombies who use their subliminal-message-laced tunes to lure fans back stage where the flesh-eating can commence. All the while, the undead rock stars must escape from Britain’s number one zombie hunter: Mick Jagger. Oh, and Yoko Ono makes an appearance as an Eighth Level Ninja Lord."

"The fact that people disclose so much information about themselves on Facebook shows the online disinhibition effect in action. What this research reveals is that young people and those looking for connections online are likely to disclose the most information.

"Despite these debates often being couched in terms of fear of others and transgressions of privacy, what's often forgotten is the simple fact that self-disclosure is the first step towards intimacy, something we all need. Still, it's a potential vulnerability that relationship seekers might bear in mind."

"American consumers who don’t qualify for a traditional post-paid cell phone plan are driving the growth of the pre-paid wireless marketplace. This segment of the wireless market has grown at higher rates than the post-paid market, in part due to the recent recession.

"However, even in today’s tough economy, this segment of low-credit prospects represents a discrete subset of the overall wireless market. Acknowledging this, pre-paid wireless marketers have expanded their horizons searching for other reasons people choose a pre-paid plan"

"The news media cannot survive only on the well-salaried, college-educated demographic that so far has flocked to iPhones, Blackberries and Droids. But if a timeclock-puncher can choose to pay for Web service just a few times a month to access a newspaper’s food section or just turn on the data plan during the World Series, we have an foot in the door to their information world.

"Consider the possibilities: Offer top-up data minutes in circulation contests. Slap a logo decal on a pre-paid phone and giving it away with a print subscription. Post a daily, quick download news summary that costs the user just a couple of cents."

MUST LISTEN! HILARIOUS! Lewis Lapham recounts his days as a cub reporter in the Oakland bureau of the SF Examiner in the 1950s. Great podcast from The Moth storytelling series

audio podcasts of sessions about mobile development for iphone & windows

It often takes a lot of time and effort to produce programs that extract the information, so this is a specialty. But what if there were a tool that didn't require programming?

Enter OutWit Hub, a downloadable Firefox extension that allows you to point and click your way through different options to extract information from Web pages.

"Local media is a natural fit for group buys—the group-buying phenomenon is largely local. Already we have seen Groupon work with Metromix and LivingSocial partnering with the Washington Post. Group-buying programs can grow much faster by piggybacking the daily or regular habit most consumers already have with various local news properties."

Great blog if you're in need of a laugh. But also a smart community-management stategy: Highlighting the best comments. Journalism could learn something from this.

Groupon going mobile? Hmmmmm….

"The company has purchased Mob.ly, a mobile development firm which has worked on a number of high-profile products, including Yahoo’s Sketch-a-Search iPhone app and OpenTable’s apps for Android and the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre. In a blog post, Groupon—which launched an iPhone app just last month and still doesn’t seem to have an official presence on Android—says the “core” of its mobile team is coming through the deal."

"While reporting on both sites is top-notch, I was shocked to discover the lack of interaction from the journalist’s in the sites commenting conversations. The comments I did observe, for the most part, were thoughtful and poignant. Don’t get me wrong, there were a fair share of inappropriate comments, but they did not outshine the good stuff. People in these commenting communities were asking questions about the articles and also coming up with some great solutions to issues some of the articles addressed. But there was no journalist interaction to be found. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

"I was disappointed. Isn’t one of the responsibilities of a quality journalist playing the role of honest broker of information and referee in the community discussion? Places like comments on news sites are quickly becoming the new public forum. Excuses of little time and short staffing are not holding up in this dog-eat-dog state of the newspaper industry."

Pretty good podcast interview discussion how NASA got astronauts to tweet for space, and what that's doing for public outreach.

"NASA isn't just an early adopter of social media, they go BIG. First their astronauts were relaying tweets from space, then they were tweeting live from orbit. NASA has also holds space-themed tweetups for their fans. Tune in for a chat with Beth Beck"

"This report is based on usability studies with real users, reporting how they actually used a broad variety of iPad apps as well as websites accessed on the iPad."

"Trademark-guarded chemicals “The big problem is frac chemicals are a secret and Colorado doesn’t believe in tagging wells, so it takes COGCC staff months, if not years, to shovel through layers of company lawyers, engineers and scientists to finally agree on what happened and what should be the financial settlement – if any.”

Here's one I'd like to see. Dave Taylor gave this dark suspense film a glowing review. I love dark 🙂

Really interesting idea. I'm not sure if it's really good or really bad, but I'd definitely like to see it in action to figure that out.

"Our goal with LA GANG TOURS is to use the profits from the tours to create jobs and provide opportunities for the residents of South Central, Los Angeles. We believe that educating people from around the world about the Los Angeles inner city lifestyle, gang involvement and solutions is a vital step towards a peaceful existence. This project will create opportunities to contribute to the economic health of South Central and the tools needed to access the American market."

Despite Obama's call for more openness in government, EPA refuses to allow reporters to name public officials who speak during a press conference. WTF? Journo groups are protesting this — and anyone in the US should protest this, journo or not. Public officials should be on the record. Government needs accountability.

Intriguing low-priced local govt PR service that includes social media. Helps to not have to depend entrely on whims/resources of local news orgs.

Podcast about how ReadMedia is offering low-cost local PR/social media services for local governments. Emphasis on how to not have to depend on the local paper/tv to get news out locally

"The two different Kin phones, Kin One and Kin Two, will be available online beginning tomorrow, May 6, and will be in stores on May 13. The Kin One will be available for $49.99 and the Kin Two for $99.99, both after a $100 mail-in rebate.

"After the Kin announcement, we discussed its potential as a phone that is less about apps and more about connecting to existing networks. This is an idea that has a lot of promise, but much of that promise is precipitated on the price of the device and corresponding data plans.

"…what concerns us is the pricing on the data plans. “To get the most from KIN, Verizon Wireless customers will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan,” Microsoft explained. “Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access. Email and Web for Smartphone plans start at $29.99 for unlimited monthly access.”"

"Today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month period ending March 2010 compared to the preceding three-month period. The report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and mobile operators in the U.S. according to their share of usage by current mobile subscribers age 13 and older, and reviewed the most popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber’s primary mobile phone. The March report found Samsung, Motorola and LG separated by a mere fraction of a percentage point of market share among handset manufacturers, while Verizon led among mobile operators with 31.1 percent market share."

"Samsung, Motorola and LG are all nearly tied in terms of market share with 21.9% apiece. RIM and Nokia possess 8.3% each and Apple and HTC aren’t even ranked in the top five.

"Keep in mind, this is a profile of phones that are actually in use; it is not a survey of phones being sold (those numbers are dramatically different). Still, comScore’s data indicates that of the top five mobile OEMs, only Motorola and RIM have made significant inroads in the smartphone space in the U.S. — unless you count the Samsung Moment."

Brilliant, Brilliant essay by Scott Rosenberg!

“doing journalism.” What are we talking about here? Here’s my take: You’re doing journalism when you’re delivering an accurate and timely account of some event to some public.

Let’s break it down….