Posted by Larry Wallace on September 22, 2009 under Mobile | 
You are woken up before the time you have set by a pleasant voice recorded on your mobile phone. What is happening?
You had set the alarm time at 8 am, but the mobile phone alarm has woken you up at 7 am. Even as you try to grasp what is happening, and cut the alarm, you get a detailed report about the weather, pulled in by your mobile phone, by interfacing with different websites –all this while you were asleep.
Glancing through the report, you realize that due to heavy rain, there is major traffic congestion on the route you normally take to office. Your intelligent mobile phone, by combining and interpreting information received on the weather, your location coordinates, and traffic congestion as exhibited on Google Maps, has realized that if you take the normal route, you will be late for the important meeting that’s on your PC calendar, which has been synchronized with the calendar on your phone.
By matching the time you have set as your alarm, and the intended delay that is likely to be caused by the traffic congestion, the mobile phone automatically realizes that you will be late for your meeting, and automatically advances your time by one hour.
You then get out of bed and turn on you TV, which auto starts at you personal dashboard. You are then able to see the storm that your mobile alerted you to, as well as the best route to take to the office so you make it on time. You dress based on the forecast for the rest of the day.
You grin and smile as you think to yourself — technology has truly advanced!
Posted by Larry Wallace on August 5, 2009 under Mobile, Social |
“What apps do you have on your phone?” Seems to be a question that I am asked most often when people find out about what I do for a living. So, I thought I would take a moment and use one of the apps on my phone, WordPress for Blackberry, and write my response!
So let’s start with this one that I’m using:
WordPress for Blackberry – the application is very useful for the blogger on the go. While I will be the first to admit that writing using a qwerty keyboard isn’t the most ideal way to write. It does come in handy while I’m away from my laptop. You can download this application from blackberry.wordpress.org. The application allows you to create and edit posts and pages, as well as monitor comments.
Evernote – Evernote is a free service that allows you to easily capture information and saves it on their servers so that you can access it anytime, from any device or platform. You can jot down notes, take pictures, capture screenshots, voice recording and anything else that you can think of. You then can tag the information, place it in a category and access it whenever you want from whatever you may be using at the time. The cost? Nothing… Awesome! I run their app on my phone as well as their desktop app on my laptop. Though you don’t need to run their apps to use their service, it just makes it more convenient.
Google Maps – You’ll see that I also have a GPS app called AT&T Navigator. I use both for different reasons. Google Maps offers a satellite view that comes in handy at times. It also interacts with another app on my phone called Poynt. I rarely ever use Google Maps for directions. I rely on my Navigator for that.
Google Voice – This app is actually a dialer that enables you to easily use their service from you mobile phone.
Google Voice is an Internet based phone forwarding and call management service. It’s free service except for international calls. But even the international calls are at a discounted rate.
Google Voice gives you a separate phone number which you can give out as if it is your regular phone number. You can then change your settings to have calls forward to any of your phones.
The service has so many features that you really need to check it out for yourself.
Youmail – Youmail is an application that allows me to listen to voice mails that people leave me through their system. I have used Youmail prior to Google Voice.
AT&T’s voicemail is very limited and other than VERY basic features (like call forwarding), they offer no call management. I wanted certain people in my address book who call me to be handled differently than others. And I also wanted a phone management system to handle spammers. Youmail was my answer.
But, it’s worth noting, I am in the process of transitioning away from Youmail to Google Voice.
Youmail is an application that allows me to listen to voicemails that people leave me through their system. I have used Youmail prior to Google Voice.
AT&T’s voicemail is very limited and other than VERY basic features (like call fowarding), they offer no call management. I wanted certain people in my address book who call me to be handled differently than others. And I a phone management system to handle spammers. Youmail was my answer.
But, I am in the process of transitioning away from Youmail to Google Voice.
Bloomberg – This app is strictly used to give me a snap shot of what’s going on in the markets as well as track the stocks that I own. It provides a great visual presentation of the information that I want.
Poynt – Poynt is a free (starting to see a trend here?), all-in-one local search application for BlackBerry.
It allows you to get information on your local area and begin connecting with the local businesses, retailers and events that are important to you. After you complete the search Poynt connects you to Google Maps to get driving directions. You can also look up movies that are showing in your area, see show times, watch movie trailers and buy tickets. Very useful.
You can either enter your zip code, allow the phone to triangulate your position from the use of cell towers, or allow the app to access your GPS chip to discover your location.
Viigo – Viigo is one of the most used apps on my phone. It’s a very an easy to use interface, that serves up content and services from a wide range of leading content providers and publishers. I am able to access news, my favorite blogs, sports scores, weather, and financial information.
Although I don’t use these features, it also gives you access to audio and podcasts, entertainment news, and shopping information.
One of my favorite features of the application is that it allows you to email the article that you are reading to someone else directly from the application. It also allows you post the article, with comments, to my favorite social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and others.
UberTwitter – This is my twitter app of choice for my BlackBerry. I’ve tried several other applications to tweet with. But, none of them have the feature or performs as well as UberTwitter.
AT&T Navigator – This application is created by Telenav. I use it for all my GPS needs. I am able to store my favorite address for easy access, but I’m also able look up addresses to local businesses, points of interest, and anyone in my address book. And of course, I can manually type the address that I’m looking for or speak the address into my phone and then it will translate my speech to text. A nice feature when I’m driving.
Their maps are not perfect. There have been times when I have been driving down a new section of highway and my GPS shows that I am in a field. The little lady who speaks the directions freaks out and doesn’t know what to do. So, I just turn the volume down and let her work it out. (smile)
Gmail App – I run all of my personal email addresses through Google Mail. This application allows me to access and manage my email from my phone.
Skydeck – This application from Skydeck backs up all my contacts, calls, and texts that are made from my BlackBerry. The application runs in the background and all your cell phone data is synced to Skydeck.com. From their website, I can manage my contacts and it will sync back to my device. Very seamless.
What about voicemail? Well, with Skydeck, you have to pay extra for them to manage your voicemail. So, that’s why I have been using Youmail for all of my voicemail and call management.
You can also search, read, and reply to all of your calls and texts directly from Skydeck.com.
Finally, at the end of each day, I receive a summary email of my phone usage for the day which includes, who I called, text messaged, etc. It also lets me know who I haven’t contacted for a long period time.
Google Sync – This application synchronizes contacts in the address book as well as the calendar to your Google Contacts and Calendar. However, I don’t let the app sync my address book. I use Skydeck to sync my contacts. But I use Google Sync to synchronize my calendar.
For some reason the sync feature doesn’t work well with my address book on my phone or online. It creates duplicate entries that you have to manually delete both on you phone and in Google Contacts.
Tags: Application, Apps, BlackBerry, Evernote, Gmail, Google, Larry Wallace, Map, Media, Mobile, Phone, Poynt, Skydeck, Social, Sync, Twitter, Viigo, Voice, Wordpress, Youmail
Posted by Larry Wallace on November 8, 2008 under Mobile, Social |
This afternoon, I sat on a bench at the neighborhood playground. While my kids played, I was thinking about a recent conversation I had about location services and social-mapping. Companies such as Whrrl, Loopt and others provide the ability to write reviews for businesses and restaurants that you frequent in addition to keeping track of where your friends are located.
While I love the idea of being able to read reviews to help persuade me as I look to find a particular product or a good restaurant to visit in my city, the benefits are so much greater than even a personal benefit.
Imagine how social mapping can aid in the goal of improving customer service. For example: If I have a bad experience at a store or restaurant, I may go home and tell my wife and probably a few friends. Those people, however, will probably not tell anyone else. However, if I write a review about my experience with a social-mapping service, I have then told hundreds, if not thousands of people, that the service at that establishment needs improvement. And chances are, they will tell a few people as well, without ever experiencing the bad service first hand.
The goal, of course is not to shut businesses down, although without reform, they may need to do so. Instead, the objective is to create a checks and balances service of what we as consumers expect from the companies that earn our dollars.
Conversely, those who have excellent service will benefit greatly from the reviews. Think about it. If you experience good service somewhere, do you go tell 10 friends? No. You may tell one or two, but we all know that word of mouth is the best form of publicity for small businesses.
Up until now, we have rewarded good service by returning to the establishment in the future. Now, however, with social-mapping, we can support local businesses by telling the world they exist and they have great service. That type of social marketing is free publicity that most small business could never afford to pay for on their own.
Or could they?!?! This led me to another thought. What if an entrepreneurial minded person, created a company that provided a service for these businesses that monitored these reviews written by patrons? That entrepreneur could charge these businesses to provide weekly reports about what their customers are saying. That type of information and reports would be priceless. What business gets that kind of feedback every week from its customers? The entrepreneur could even charge extra from cleaning up some of the negative feedback from the establishment’s customers through follow-up, incentives, and customer relations.
So business and restaurant owners, you better get on the ball. No longer will patrons be willing to take second rate customer service as an acceptable behavior. Your patrons will expect excellence and quality from the moment they walk in the door. Make sure your business is thriving on a spirit of excellence. Your future may depend on it!
