MIMA Blog Carnival: Q & A

A link to the MIMA “Blog Carnival” was forwarded to me by a friend of mine, and there are some really interesting questions being posed there (link in image below). Here’s my take on one of the issues raised in the Carnival Q&A:

2) Will Facebook, MySpace, and SMS marginalize the role of email in communication between friends, family, and peers?

For those of us who use the above tools (and particularly the techno-savvy generation enjoying the majority of their user base), it’s hard to imagine that Facebook and other social networking sites won’t have some impact on email communication. It’s very simple to login to your page, see what your friends and family are up to, and chat back and forth to each other (or “write on their walls,” “tweet,” etc.). Likewise it’s really nice to have the ability to share photos online and play interactive games, or even get a text when someone you’ve subscribed to makes a post.

However, I don’t think that email will be “marginalized” in any real way until the devices we use can more fully support and interact with these tools in a seamless way. The closest we’ve come thus far is the iPhone, which has applications for Facebook, Twitter, Loopt, etc. built in, all in a compact device that also takes calls, shoots photos and handles SMS. And now with the 3g iPhone, the additional layer of location-awareness (GPS) and context has been layered onto existing networks and interactions. It’s even possible (although not really practicable yet) to connect with friends based on where they are.

The key point to remember is that devices like the iPhone are nowhere near ubiquitous yet. To reach critical mass on any technology that would usurp email, we need prices to drop on enabling technology, and there needs to be a massive rush on new hardware. Email remains the consistent/constant technology that everyone from your boss to your grandmother has access to. Messages via email are easy, quick, and allow you to check messages on your schedule. And there’s nothing that will move the status quo on the horizon just yet — not until you can keep everything with you, and until these technologies can convice the mass population that being “always on” is a good thing.

So, will social networking tools marginalize the role of email? Not anytime soon — but we’re moving in that direction.

WordPress for iPhone rocks

Just installed WordPress for the iPhone and am trying it out for the first time. Works just fine, although I’d love to be able to type sideways for bigger buttons.

You can even add images from your phone! From yesterday:

Very sweet.

I’m a finalist “do it yourself allstar”!

I’m a finalist in the True Value “Do it Yourself Allstar” competition. My wife was nice enough to submit an entry for me. I made it to the top 20, and now it’s up to voters to get me in the top 4, and then I’ll be judged by a panel for the final decision. Winner gets $1,000 to use toward a project (I’ll use it to finish the inside of Max and Sally’s play-house), and gets a 2-hour consultation with Steve Watson, the guy from “Monster House” and who has a new show on HGTV called “Don’t Sweat It.”

Here’s the entry Jen sent in (click the link to vote!):

My husband took a couple months last summer and built the ultimate backyard playground and park for our kids! He had a treehouse as a child, and wanted to recapture the magic for our then-three year old son and newborn daughter. After collecting ideas and remembering his childhood club-house, he sat down in front of the computer with a mini CAD program, and laid out the components. The “house” sits 5 feet off the ground, and is designed with the same materials as our real house. It features a 7’ x 7’ play area with a sleeping nook above the porch. There is a 7’ tall deck (with a tube slide for getting down quickly) off the back of the house overlooking the pond in our backyard, and other “amenities” include another slide over a clatter-bridge, two swings, a tire swing, and a rock-climbing wall. Though the project took a full two months, our son helped swing the hammer a bit, and they both had a grand time building a place for the kids to retreat. His next project is to finish the inside of the house and build an “interctive” sandbox underneath so the kids can flex their imaginations in the shade. The pictures speak for themselves – and the kids love it! We now have the “neighborhood park” right in our back yard.

http://www.startrightstarthere.com/displayEntry.aspx?entrantId=82

Check it out and vote if you want!

Distortion Reality Field: Fully intact

Wow. Love that iPhone.Opportunity: Someone to optimize web sites so that they display in iPhone’s interface (at least three columns = ideal, from the NYTimes.com preview in Jobs’ keynote). Few things have blown me away like this… not even so much the product itself, but the seamless integration of it all in a new and fantastic way. I have a Treo that can do most of what the iPhone can do and that’s more expandable, but the thing is just full of kludges and workarounds, especially to sync with my Mac.

Come June I’m putting in my order.