Contagious magazine just released it’s ‘most contagious’ overview for 2007 which you can get here (in PDF), and which is “a round-up of the most intriguing, effective, and downright exciting happenings of the past year from landmarks to gaming, from design to social media”. In the report you’ll find Facebook, the iPhone but also Photosynth, Halo3 and ‘The Bomchickawahwahs’ and much more. Enjoy the read.
Just about a year ago I wrote a post about the Samsung Blackjack. I saw it first up on Crunchgear and it looked “like the perfect answer to what I want” as I mentioned back then. A couple of months later I received one at MIX07 in Vegas and I’ve been using the Blackjack until about a month ago. I think it’s the best phone I ever had, but there were a few good reasons for switching to something else again. The Blackjack was an unlocked Cingular mobile, and although it was a 3G phone it didn’t work on the European 3G networks. It also didn’t have WIFI and it’s a Windows Mobile 5 phone whereas I need WM6 for some of the demos I do on mobile. That said, I miss the darn phone.
Today I run around with a HTC TyTNII, which is a pretty powerful mobile phone… but it’s a brick. And battery life is pathetic. Especially that last point is a bit of a dilemma. The phone has great capabilities to get work done while on the road (and I’m on the road quite a lot) so doing email, reading RSS feeds, surfing the web, checking word and powerpoint docs, … the TyTNII is quite good at it…. for a few hours. If you use your phone actively for all this it doesn’t survive the day. And that’s bad. During the weekends I mostly use my Nokia N95. I got lucky to get one from Nokia so I could use it to demo the Windows Live for Nokia and I’m especially astonished by the photo/video quality of the phone. I’m having way too much fun filming the kids having fun during the weekend. I could use it for work as well as I can use it with Exchange but I don’t like the whole emailing feature on the Nokia.
And then I saw this, the Samsung i780 or the next generation Blackjack. And I want it. It’s like my original Blackjack with all the functions I had to miss and adding even some more. So Samsung, you can send one my way right now ;)
One thing you can learn from the latest HTC models though, they do a very good job on the home screen (quite a bit better than what is shown here).
It’s already been a few days – weeks even – since the agency Duval Guillaume sent an email on one of their new campaigns but I didn’t have time to check it out until a few days ago. A blind call is a very nice example of a case where technology really brings value… real value, even if it’s not always on purpose ;)
So what is this about? Haven’t you ever experienced that your cell phone just called one of your friends without you knowing just because the keypad wasn’t locked when putting the phone in your pocket? And who did you call in that case? In many cases that is the first person in your address book. And this is exactly what A blind call is trying to benefit from. The agency created a special number that donates money to the charity organization for blind people for every call that is made to that number and it build a campaign where you (if you live in Belgium) are asked to put this number as the first name in your address book ‘a blind call’ so whenever you make another call without knowing, you might be donating money for a good cause.
I like it a lot. Simple, smart and very efficient.
Related to the press release of tonight (it was announced at 1AM my time) I wanted to post some more pictures of the Windows Live Client for Nokia but unfortunately my internet connection died right after I posted the ‘Microsoft and Nokia join forces‘ post. Read that first in case you missed that.
Anyway, here are the pictures that I wanted to show you as well:
You can see your online/offline Messenger buddy list, a chat conversation (and some other ones open in the tabs as well) and your contact list. More images can be found here.
I think this is some very exciting news for both Nokia and Microsoft, more specifically for Windows Live. From the press release:
“Starting today Nokia customers in eleven countries with compatible S60 devices can download the new suite enabling access to Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Contacts and Windows Live Spaces. Starting next year, customers who purchase compatible Nokia Series 40 handsets will also have access to these popular Windows Live services.”
Here are some screens of the application:
Not only will Nokia add new devices that will get access to these services, more countries will be launching over time as well. For more information on which devices exactly as which 11 countries are included in this release:
“Nokia customers who own the Nokia N73, N80 Internet Edition, N95, N76 and the N93i can get the Windows Live services via the Download! application in the following countries; Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, UK , Sweden, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Customers can visit http://www.nokia.com/windowslive to learn more, and check if their country is on the availability list. Initially the service will be available as a free trail and then customers in select markets wishing to continue using the service may be asked to pay a monthly fee”
I’ve played a little with the Windows Live client on the Nokia and it’s a very nice experience. Especially the Live Messenger part is a very rich application that allows multiple chats, voice clips (very handy on mobile) and instant photo sharing over IM. And it’s nice to remember that you could already get Live Search on your Nokia for a while.
I’ve been a Hotmail user for quite a long time already, long time before I started working at Microsoft. I always found it easy to have this email address that was not linked to your internet provider (remember de ‘free’ dial-up services etc) and later on it became even easier when I got to use Messenger.
Now when thinking about Hotmail about 3 years ago that wasn’t all that good anymore. With the coming of Gmail it became more clear than ever that Hotmail needed work…. and a lot of it. The old interface, advertising, 25MB storage vs Gmail’s 1GB,…
But today we are 3 years further down the line, Gmail has close to 3GB of inbox (and you can buy more if you want) en is still in beta and Hotmail has been renewed completely. The backend, the interface it’s all new. Drag&drop, rightclick, … are only few of the new things and this week they announced some other new updates and some pretty cool ones as well:
More storage: Hotmail users will get 5GB of inbox for free and 10GB for the paying Hotmail Plus accounts
Contacts de-duplication: This will run each time you try to add a contact but there’s also a wizzard to clean up your existing contacts
Forwarding messages: You can forward your account to another Hotmail account if you have more accounts and want to handle things easily, this also works to non-Hotmail accounts if you’re a Hotmail Plus user
OOF: Hotmail now as an Out of Office as well, to your contacts only if you wish
Turn of the today page: I want to go straight to my inbox so I like that one as well
Remember as well that Hotmail is available on mobile as well for quite a long time (http://mobile.live.com) , and that there’s a desktop client in which you can sync all your Hotmail and other webmail accounts as well, called Windows Live Mail. I use the desktop client and mobile version quite a lot myself.
If you only remember Hotmail from ‘back in the days’ then I think you should check it out again: http://mail.live.com
… Belgium brings you ‘PC bites Man’. Back in 1992 the killer comedy ‘C’est arrivé près de chez vous‘ (US title ‘Man bites Dog’) showed a camera crew that followed a serial killer/thief as he exercises his craft slowly involving the crew into it as it goes. From the comments it looked like people either hated or loved the movie, I found it to be fantastic.
And so today we get ‘PC bites Man’. This time it’s not a movie but an interesting campaign for the N95 that was developed by the Belgian agency These Days. It’s been a while since I saw an interactive campaign that is able to draw attention, is fun and which is still very much in line with the value prop of the product. Many times a viral campaign is fun but you wonder what the link with the product is.
The N95 caries slogans like “What computers have become” (UK) or “The computer re-invented” (BE) so extending that to the idea that ‘regular’ computers are becoming jealous of the N95 is a good one. And, the execution of the idea is brilliant. Just take a look at www.jealouscomputers.com and check out the shocking footage or the medical pictures from the doctor’s office. Here’s one of the videos:
But the site offers you a lot more than just the funny videos around these accidents. It offers a map with ww victims, camouflage ringtones or the N95 disguise mug that you can order. It also has videos with safety tips that learn you how to deal with jealous computers, like the one below:
Last but not least, These Days makes very good use of the power of wom by offering easy links to share the videos on blogs for instance but also safety posters you can download to hang in the office making it more than only an online piece. And of course you can upload your own experience as well. They also created some personalized video warnings for know influencers in the mobile space. Even if the videos were only personalized to include the name of the influencer, it still is quite remarkable.
This was my first thought after I spent a few hours in NYC on Monday. No discussion that the city is big, no it’s huge. The skyscrapers, Central Park, amount of people living in Brooklyn, … it’s all pretty big. But looking down from Rockefeller Center, you see these appartment and office building with ‘only’ 20-30 floors… in Manhattan, that’s like nothing. And talking about small, my room in the Hudson hotel fits in the bathroom of the London hotel I was last week.
On Monday night I went out for dinner and drinks with Kevin Slavin, who runs a pretty exciting company called Area/Code. We met in Paris at LeWeb3 last year, but coming to NY was a good opportunity to meet up again. We had a good night out at a place called Frankies 17 and it was good catching up. Good luck with the business! Remember what I told you on Live Search for Mobile ;)
… or “it’s for my boss”. These were some of the great quotes out of a little video made by Karl Long, a very good marketing blogger that works at Nokia. I know I’m a little bit behind due to my holidays, but I had to post this one. It think it’s a really smart video (and cheap) that shows everything there is to say to it especially since the video is made with the Nokia N95. Great job Karl!
To me it doesn’t seem all that new anymore as I’m on Windows Live Hotmail for many months already, but it has still been an interesting experience to see the service evolve from milestone to milestone, improving speed, features, look&feel, … etc. This has been built from the ground up on a completely new backend and you will see that it doesn’t look at all like the old Hotmail anymore. For now you still have to upgrade to the new version if you want it, but it’s clear that in a couple of months the old Hotmail as we know it will go away completely.
In general people don’t like change and that’s the reason why you’ll get the new Windows Live Hotmail in the classic look when you upgrade from the actual Hotmail. I suggest you change to the new full view in the settings, as the experience will be even better – pretty much like Outlook really. Features I like most: drag&drop, anti-spam and the mobile version of Windows Live Hotmail. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet: http://mail.live.com
December 19, 2007
