User First Web

Sometimes you can’t find the words to describe what you’re seeing. Watch this video about Dean Kamen’s latest invention.

Want to the find the first post you wrote or that someone else wrote? It’s easy.

• Go to the Twitter page of the person whose first post you want to see. Take note of their Twitter username.
• Look for the number of updates in the Stats section in the right column.
• Take the number of updates and divide it by 20. (There are 20 updates per page).
• If you have a remainder after the division, add 1 to your result. This is the page number you need.
• Construct a url using the following syntax:

  http://twitter.com/[username]?page=[pagenumber]

• Load that url in your browser.

That’s it. Enjoy!

I’ve been introducing a lot of people to Twitter lately. The conversation when I introduce it to someone has a very familiar pattern:

Me:

Do you use twitter?

Them:

No, but I’ve thought about it. But I don’t think I would get much out of it.

Me:

I had the same thoughts when I started, but I’ve gotten a few business leads, connections to the community, and speaking engagements through Twitter. So I get tremendous value out of it, and it’s fun.

This reminded me of the way that Scott Kveton talked about Twitter during his intro at Ignite Portland. He said:

By the way, when I tell you about this, you are going to think this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of—because everyone who Twitters thought it was stupid too.

That’s absolutely true. Many of the most prolific people on Twitter had the same thoughts as people who look at Twitter now and think it won’t work for them. I thought it might be interesting to go back in time and see if they tweeted about their impressions.

This sparked a series of re-tweeting people’s early tweets. Some of my favorites:

@marshallk “now if I can just figure this service out quickly :)”

@davewiner “eat ideas flying around”

@betsywhim “figuring out how to use this thing”

1st tweet from @jowyang: “Surfing the web” 2nd tweet: “sitting at home”

@ravenzachary “Is this more than a fad?”

@kveton “I’m sitting here trying to figure out why I’m using this … haha … :-)”

There are a lot of funny early tweets to look at. But the main reason I wanted to expose this was to say to people who are new that you’re not alone in wondering whether or not Twitter will be worth it to you. The most experienced Twitter users started out with the same questions, wondering if they had anything worthwhile to say, and if anyone would bother to follow them.

So give Twitter a shot and be sure to stick with it for awhile until you find your voice. Sometimes things that are valuable aren’t apparent until you give them a try.

The second post in my mobile series before Wednesday’s presentation is now up at Cloud Four’s blog.

I’m enamored with the lines that are blurring between the desktop and the web. Adobe’s AIR application is a great example of this mixture of desktop code and web code. Now both Safari and Firefox are supporting Simple DB as a way to provide offline access to web applications and then later syncing them back to the web.

Another example of this trend is the creation of application specific browsers. This doesn’t mean you have a browser that will only run one web site. Instead, it means that if you use a web site on a regular basis, it may make sense to have that web site running in a browser that isn’t your primary browser so that it is isolated from your other browsing.

Why would it make sense to have it isolated? Say you’re a web developer who spends a lot of time using Basecamp. You have Basecamp in a tab while you’re working in another tab. If the content of one of the other tabs crashes your browser, you lose your work. In addition, you have to dig through the tabs to find the tab that matters to you.

If Basecamp were in a separate application, you could simply switch to that application and have that application isolated from your other web browsing.

Here are two programs designed to allow you to create web site specific applications quickly:

• Mozilla Prism
• Fluid (Mac only)

Both beta applications and neither require you to know anything about creating a web site to use them.

It’s been only three weeks since I got my iPhone. There are many things that I wish it did better, but despite those items, I couldn’t be happier.

The iPhone is a mobile device in the truest sense of the word. It is a joy to use. The iPhone truly lets you see what is possible with an Internet connection that is available to you 24/7 no matter where you are.

I follow the news about the iPhone not simply because I own one, but also because I believe the usage patterns of the iPhone are much more typical of what we are going to see in the future of the mobile web than if we look at the past usage of mobile devices. Trying to draw conclusions about the future of mobile devices by looking at statistics before the iPhone is like trying to draw conclusions about the future of web browsers by looking at the usage of gopher after Mosiac had been released.

Here are some recent updates on the iPhone that are of interest:

• iPhone browsing marketshare closes in on .1% — This doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is amazing for only being available for five months. In addition, Windows Mobile which has several times the number of devices in the world, but only represents 66% of the browser share of the iPhone. This is the difference between the web done well on a mobile device (iPhone) and done poorly (Windows Mobile). Too often people draw conclusions from the poor implementations that people don’t really use the Internet on their mobile devices. In truth, people don’t use them because they don’t measure up.
• iPhone Q3 US sales top all Windows Mobile smartphones — More iPhones were sold in Q3 than any other smart phone than the blackberry.
• iPhone Tops Google’s List of Fastest Growing Search Terms in 2007 — This shows the interest in the iPhone is wide spread. It truly has mass market appeal. People have taken notice.

(Cross-posted at http://www.cloudfour.com/21/33-billion-mobile-devices-half-the-planet/)

I wrote recently about how the number of mobile devices dwarfs all other media and how this staggering this statistic is. A recent study puts the number of mobile devices at 3.3 billion, up from the previous number of 2.7 billion. That is one mobile device for half of the world’s population.

Tomi T Ahonen provides some context on these new numbers:

• Growth is accelerating, not slowing down as many predicted
• 3.3 billion is the number of devices, not the number of people. Many people have more than one phone. Italy has a 140% subscriber rate. The number of people using mobile devices is 2.55 billion which means there is still room to grow.

Much like Tomi’s previous article, the real perspective comes from his comparison of the number of mobile devices (3.3 billion) to things we take for granted. For example. there are only 1.5 billion people in the world who have credit cards.

Some significant mobile updates over the past few weeks:

• Verizon opens up their network — In response to Google Android and the iPhone, Verizon has promised to open their network to any device that meets their minimum compatibility guidelines. The pressure on mobile carriers to loosen their stranglehold on the industry has never been more intense.
• Verizon Joins the Android Party — A little while after opening their network, they decide to join the list of carriers supporting Google’s Android OS for mobile devices
• Google Maps Adds Location via Cell Towers — Now you can determine your location based on your the strength of the signal from the nearest cell towers.
• Google to bid on the 700Mhz Spectrum — “Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today’s wireless world.” If Google were to become a mobile carrier, it would completely change the mobile landscape.
• Over an eighth of US households are totally mobile — One of my coworkers commented recently that she couldn’t remember the last time she used a land line.
• In Japan Half The Top Selling Books Are Written On Mobile Phones — Yes, that headline is true. Read on to learn more.
• Is Dell readying a new mobile device? — Another mobile device coming to compete as well?
• SVG & Mobile — More for developers than the other articles. This talks about how to use SVG on mobile devices.

I got very excited today over the news via Truemors that Google is going to start offering location-based services using cell towers to determine the location.

According to the news reports, you press zero on your mobile phone while using Google Maps to find your approximate location using cell towers. The iPhone lacks GPS so this new service sounds like a winner.

Except you can’t press zero on your iPhone. There is no zero key to press. There are no keys at all on the iPhone.

Here is where my foolishness comes in. I decided to use Google Maps on my iPhone and search for zero. Amazingly, it worked. It put a dot on the map just a few blocks from my house.

I couldn’t wait to share my discovery with my coworkers. It was only when one of them said searching for zero returned a location in South Carolina that I realized the error.

Turns out there is a business near our house with the name “0 1 All Day 24 Hour 1 Locksmith.” Searching for zero didn’t find my current location. My current location just happens to be near the top result starting with a zero.

And that’s how I ended up being today’s zero.

Everywhere I turn lately, there has been a discussion about brands and our relationship to them. One of the co-founders of Cloud Four, Lyza, wrote about Brand Affinity recently. My ex-coworker Chris Higgins picked up the theme on Mental Floss. Finally, Facebook’s recently unveiled its big advertising push with an emphasis on “Brand Fans” and “Fan-sumers.”

When Lyza and Chris write about their brand preferences, I find myself thinking that, yes, I indeed follow brands and buy brands. However, when I first read about Facebook’s new advertising plan relying on me declaring myself a fan of a brand, I laughed aloud. Yeah right, how many people are going to take the time to sign up to become a fan of Coke.

But if you read Jeremiah’s article on Facebook, he provides some convincing supporting data in support of Facebook’s brand pages. In particular, he points out that people trust the recommendations of friends and acquaintances more than any other source of information. Because of this fact, having your friends endorse a brand on Facebook would make a big difference in your decision-making.

The data is right. The conclusion is wrong.

Few people have blind loyalty when it comes to brands. I generally like Apple products (as do both Chris and Lyza), but I would never buy nor recommend that anyone buy an iTV. Because I generally like Apple products, I will look at their new products, but I don’t purchase them blindly.

And when I like something, I evangelize specific products, not the brand itself. I think this is true of most people whether we talk about Apple or Coca-Cola. People like specific products created by companies, not everything the company has ever done.

This is why I think Facebook is on the right track, but misguided in a fundamental way. They have taken a marketer’s approach to creating a relationship with brands when the real value comes from recommendations at the product or service level.