I Link You

MobileSphere Announces Emergency SMS Service

2007-04-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

MobileSphere has announced its Emergency SMS service in light of the Virginia Tech Shootings. As more and more college students use text messaging as a mode of communication, many colleges and universities are looking to use SMS as a first line of emergency communication.

This makes some sense in light of the recent attacks. Sure I check my email everyday, but I didn't even get an email about the shootings until the day after from my university while some other students got the email hours after the shooting. I don't even check my email that often to begin with. It is a good idea, but the colleges and universities will have to work with carriers to make these messages free. At this point, I get charged 10 cents per message received and/or sent. The last thing I want to be charged for is a text message sent by my school.

Rumble Pak for Mobile TV??

2007-04-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

According to Engadget, LG gets ready to "rumble live mobile TV." In other words, broadcasters can rattle your phone or flash LEDs in sync to what you're watching. It is not limited to South Korea, but it's also patented in 20 other countries.

Now, I don't know whether I would feel comfortable about my phone rumbling while I'm watching TV. As bad as this may sound, what if a college student watches mobile TV during class just to fight boredom and/or keep from falling asleep. A rumbling mobile phone would make it pretty obvious that one is not paying any attention. This also concerns any other scenario where being discreet is necessary. I'm just thinking about the aggregate noise if everyone's phone on the "El" rumbles because of a Cubs/Sox home run. Although I doubt everyone in Chicago (let alone America which is about two years behind E. Asia in terms of adoption of mobile technology) will have this feature on the phone, it would be nice to know whether one can turn off this feature.

Also, mobile TV does require people to have fast networks and big screen phones. Unfortunately, the average American user does not have access to fast 3G networks yet, and they are not willing to pay for a QVGA or higher display. In addition, it would be better if my mobile TV was in the wide-screen format rather than 3:4. As much as I ranted about Helio's initial launch, I actually like their new phones that were released by Samsung (Heat and Drift) and the dual-slider Ocean. Call me a sucker for pretty phones, but one of the few ways you can get someone to shell out lots of money is to have a phone that stands out from the rest. As America is full of RAZRs and flip phones, having a "slider" is another way to separate us from the masses. Sliders are super popular in Europe, so maybe I'm writing with some bias. I also saw the new NTT DoCoMo phones that were announced. Those are the kind of flip phones that I want to see in the North American market. Check out those gigantic screens which are perfect for viewing videos and photos.

Blackberry shutdown in North America

2007-04-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, my boyriend informed that he couldn't see the link to the apartments I've been looking at because his Blackberry was having problems sending/receiving email. It turns out that he was not alone in this problem, as all of North America had to do without their lovable "Crackberries."

I guess this is how important Blackberries are to some people.

I now appreciate the phone calls from my boyfriend despite the fact that he's working almost 12-13 hours per day. I guess that's better than being in financial services.

I wonder how much productivity was lost as I'm sure the network effects of having a downed Blackberry system in the North America must've been gigantic.

facebook's new look

2007-04-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

After all the new ways for someone to stalk you on Facebook, the folks at Facebook decides to reorganize the layout of Facebook profiles to make it somewhat easier to find the information (both practical and impractical) that a user wants. There are now four categories listed as Profile, Friends, Networks, and Inbox. Under each category, there are various subcategories that relate to the heading. For example, you can browse through friends who have recently updated their profiles or who are online right now in the "Friends" category.

This change in layout has been coming. Facebook that was heralded for its simplicity and ease of browsing has fallen into the the depth of over-cluttered and confusion of too much information. As Facebook moves toward increasing its presence in the mobile space, it had to make some changes in order for viewers to have similar desktop browsing experiences on a smaller screen of a mobile phone.

I was thinking about this too. The screens are getting bigger, and the U.S. is finally getting 3G networks. I have been setting my eyes on the Nokia N95 for quite some time (not only because it's jam-packed with all the features that I want but it's designed quite nicely). I realized that I am spending most of my time in front of a screen (whether it'd be a computer screen or TV screen). Lately, I've been staring at my mobile phone screen a lot because I text people so much. Once I actually start myself in the real world, I am browsing through all of my options as I would like to take my online life with me wherever I go (excuse the cliche). I find myself carrying my laptop everywhere these days even when I don't really need it (i.e. my week long trek through Berlin, Prague, and Vienna). I just realized how much more convenient (physically and mentally) it could've been if I could just use my phone to access my email and word documents. If I could watch TV (like my cousins in Korea do) on my mobile phone, that could pass time on the subways very quickly. Sharp just released a high-contrast LCD for mobile devices. I'm half-tempted to go to Asia to buy my phone.

Finally an MP3 player that could actually connect to Wi-Fi

2007-04-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

SanDisk has just launched its new Wi-Fi enabled MP3 player, Sansa Connect. With your Sansa Connect, you can use any Wi-Fi spot to stream Internet radio from Yahoo! Launchcast or browse through Flickr photos.

If you register with Yahoo! Music Unlimited, you'll be able to download any tracks or albums that you like over Wi-Fi.

Check out the pics at PCWorld. The player looks pretty good. I still haven't decided whether it's worth the $249 for only 4 gigabytes worth of storage space. It does have an expandable micro SD slot. In addition, I was never a fan of carrying around 30 gigs of music anyway. This device will especially be useful on campus where most colleges and universities have wireless access on their entire campuses.

how do you "doo" your job search?

2007-04-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

Several days ago, my friend has invited me to a job searching network called Doostang. As 70% of jobs are filled through referrals, Doostang's network allows you immediate access to people and opportunities that are relevant and from your trusted network.

Although this network depends on user-driven content, there are other features as well. Doostang has internal people that try to bring users the most sought after career opportunities. Users can create group and forums with members from your specific network. There is a "Job Matcher" function that allows you to search for relevant career opportunities. In addition, you can store an unlimited number of resumes in your account. (This is actually a big plus because our school's career network allows us to store a limited amount.) Doostang membership is free so that you can keep in touch with your network.

There are currently 102,000+ members with 21,000+ members that are affiliated with the University of Chicago. Why is that number so huge? This network was started by students from MIT and Stanford, so I'm not surprised that the top schools got first taste of this network. (Remember Facebook's initial launch.) As the network is relatively new (some of the first forum posts are in early march), there has not been much activity in the forums.

Nonetheless, the number of job posts are incredible. Although the list is dominated by finance and consulting industries, there is a significant presence by other industries (i.e. consumer products, technology, etc) with some international positions as well. I wish it was a little easier to search for users as searching for "university of chicago" does not give you the most relevant results.

more interactive marketing through web 2.0

2007-04-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

It was coming. With all these new summer blockbuster movies coming out and the ability to reach a wide range of users on social networking sites, Sony Pictures seemed to devise a clever plan to build hype for the upcoming release of Spider-Man 3.

Photobucket has announced the launch of Spider-Man 3 slideshows allowing users to create a slideshow of their own Spider-Man themed photos. A demo is up on the website, but it's nothing too fancy.

I won't be surprised if there is a YouTube marketing campaign for Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Better yet, fans are making parodies and fan mini-movies of their favorite movies and TV shows without any company having to pay them to do it.

facebook diaries

2007-04-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's funny how a video site like YouTube could start influencing Web 2.0 in such a short period of time. While watching the Champions League match between AS Roma and Manchester United, I just saw a TV trailer for Facebook Diaries. Facebook and Ziddio are hosting a contest to allow users to create video autobiographies and to subsequently rate other people's entries. Facebook Diaries is supposed to be an online TV series about users like you.

Every two weeks until late summer, Facebook and Ziddio will post a theme for users to consider in their video diaries. The eventual winner ill have a chance to have their online video diary be aired on national TV. The comments have been mixed. Judging from the wall, there has been a very lukewarm reception. Someone had no idea what was going on. Another user commented that this was lame. The producer's blog was pretty cheesy. Here is an excerpt from that blog.

"If a diary is a portrait of the self, then declarations are the brushstrokes. As you ask yourself questions, you are beginning to choose the colors that tell the story of who you are. The debut topic of Facebook Diaries is, 'Who am I?' A deceptively simple question with an endless scatter of possible answers. We begin this series with an essential question, because unlike like many questions, 'Who am I?' is not only the core of who we are, but the echo of who we were and the bud of who we will someday be. In your video diary, as long as you tell the truth about yourself, any direction you take is the right one. Who are you to your closest friends? To the stranger in the elevator? Who are you compared to who you thought you'd be by now? Compared to who you hope you'll become?"

These are some pretty lame questions and marketing. Why would anyone tell their true story "in the quiet of their own solitude when no on is looking"? The group does have 288 members, but I'm surprised that there are not more. Then again, it seems like they're attracting sob stories and the worst of reality TV. There have been 21 entries so far. There was two or maybe three videos that were somewhat entertaining. The other videos were pretty terrible. At least the ratings reflected that.

I will give Facebook and Ziddio the benefit of doubt. This contest has just started on March 29th, so I'm guessing it will take at least one more week or two weeks for users to start embracing it. The chance to get on national TV is always enticing to the average person in America. I can see the creation of a Facebook group mocking this contest. I wouldn't be surprised if this was mocked on YouTube as well.

German YouTube

2007-04-03T15:14:00.000-07:00

Although it's hard to beat YouTube's behemoth user base and popularity, there are many foreign sites trying to use the advantage of language and culture to build a niche market. Oddly enough, I used Dailymotion while in France because I couldn't access NBC's TV page to keep up with one of my favorite TV shows, Heroes. The French subtitles served as a positive externality as I actually learned to associate French words with English words.

I'm now taking German this quarter, and I thought it would be a good idea to watch American or Korean TV with German subtitles or at least find entertaining German videos. I did find a German YouTube called Sevenload. Not only you can share videos, but you can also share photos as well. Functionality remains nearly the same as YouTube with the option of switching to your desired language. You can integrate your own media into the embedded player and like YouTube be able to put them up on your own websites or blogs to share with friends, families, and strangers. It supports the usual API such as Ajax, ATOM, and RSS. There are limits to your upload. You can only upload 200 mb at a time. Also, you're only allowed 250 files at once in an account or archives, but apparently there is a maximum of 100 files for each archive. Maybe something got lost in translation as that seems like it won't add up. Most media file types are accepted, but your file will be converted and saved as the "sevenload"-compatible file on the server.

With YouTube getting all the lawsuits slapped all over them, I'm just waiting for the EU to take similar steps in slapping intellectual property lawsuits on Sevenload and Dailymotion. Then again, I guess they are more interested in watching the American products fail and their homegrown products succeed. Regardless, at least I found my site where I can view German videos and improve my German (hopefully).

mobile avatar communities

2007-03-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

Last summer, I remember having a conversation with a UChicago alum about having a mobile community based on avatars as an upcoming trend. Now it is March 28th, and NextGreatThing basically echoes that sentiment. With the huge popularity of avatar-driven social networking sites such as Second Life and Cyworld, it has only been a waiting game until mobile handset technology enables us to view and care for our avatars on our mobile screens.

CBS has just created an avatar-based game for the show, "America's Next Top Model." In partnership with Cyworld, NBC is launching an avatar-based game called Fancy, who is a character on the popular soap drama, Passions.

Avatars do create a more entertaining way to communicate and interact with others in a virtual world. People's vanity does tend to get them to care more about their avatars. One could leave a MySpace or Facebook profile as is for a long time; however, people do tend to change the look of their avatars just as frequently as they change their clothes everyday. With companies moving to Second Life as a way to reach the young tech-savvy consumers, bringing such capabilities to mobile phones is a natural step in the development of social networking communities.

As much as I said I would never bring Facebook, Myspace, or Cyworld with me through mobile, I must admit (and some of my other friends as well) that I would probably check these sites if I had a phone with an internet package. This was the case when I was in Europe. I had 10 minutes of internet time with my pay-per-use phone plan. I used all of it on the first day, and went back to get more credit to view online later.

vanity searching on serph

2007-03-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

As another blogger on the web, I am always flattered when the rare website or fellow blogger mentions something related to me on that site. I'm sure many bloggers are aware of vanity searching as they try to claim their blogs on sites such as Technorati or Google Blog search. With Serph, you can find out what others are saying about you or anything that you care about. Serph "surfs" (haha) through online social media such as blog search engines, social media websites, social news websites, and social bookmarking websites. It's almost like a Dogpile that searches through these specific sites.

With user-created content driving marketing this days, Serph serves as a pretty effective way to get the information I want about everything that I care about. What's the buzz about Google and rumored phone (which is apparently not happening)? When will Nokia's N95 come out to the United States? How about Sony Ericsson's new Walkman series phone? How is YouTube dealing with those copyright suits? Although the query for "social networking" got pretty mediocre results, search queries for specific companies and other names received good results. I guess like any search engine, you have to be pretty specific on what you are looking for. Otherwise, you're going to get a random and irrelevant website as a top result.

back in chicago

2007-03-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

It's strange being back in America after spending 11 weeks in Europe. Although the fantastically warm weather helped me ease back into American campus life, I can already see some changes in the way I communicate with others. As I am now back on my plan with "minutes that I would somehow never be able to use," I find myself calling a lot more people again. Although I check Facebook just as often as I did back in Paris, I usually check it more out of boredom rather than trying to keep in touch with people. I am now incredibly active on Google Calendar as I feel that's the best way for me to keep track of all of my appointments, classes, and meals/drinks with friends. The option to send reminders via SMS was great until I realized that I got charged for receiving messages as well.

I must admit though. I do miss text messaging on my phone. Too bad I would have to pay a lot just to get an SMS package added to the family plan. I don't even know if I would even get the SMS package after college as many of my friends do prefer calling over texting especially with long distances. Many of my friends are relocating to New York due to jobs, and they will probably use email and/or Facebook to stay in contact rather than use SMS. I'm sure if I had a lot of friends staying in Chicago, texting would be a good alternative to staying in touch.

We'll see how this trimester/quarter goes. I do have a lot of friends who are taking leaves of absences and not taking classes, so I may never see them on campus. As I cannot call every friend who is taking leave, texting or email would be much easier.

social networking for social beverages

2007-03-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

In a post long time ago, I wrote about how the Russians figured out how to integrate alcohol with online social networking. Thisjustbrewed.com expands upon this concept by serving as a forum about your favorite beverages like coffee, tea, wine, and beer. It's almost like a Digg for favorite drinks where users submit stories and vote them up or down.

It's a very simple social news site, and it's still in beta. Whether this will succeed depends on whether the niche for social beverages is strong enough to build critical mass for a network. Otherwise, we will see this site in the forgotten piles in the back.

Utlimate Domain Name?

2007-03-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the domain Social.com is for sale according to Mashable, a social networking blog.

It almost reminds me of an over-hyped IPO. I don't think it's that big of a deal, but the auction could give anyone an idea of how valuable social networking really is. In all honesty, I think clever domain names such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter are just more fun and original pseudonyms for social networking domains versus Social.com (how mundane). Young and tech-savvy people (like me for example) are suckers for fashionable and original trends. We like new and perceptive words to describe our social networking sites rather than overused common words like social and network. Besides, if someone said "Social me" vs "Facebook me," I probably would think the person can't speak English.

playstation's answer to xbox live

2007-03-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, Sony has just announced their online capabilities of the Playstation 3 called "Playstation Home." It will be available in Fall 2007 at no cost (whatever that means...). Essentially it will be a hybrid of XBOX Live achievements, Nintendo's Mii's, and Second Life/Sims.

PS Home allows you to communicate with other people online with text or voice via USB keyboard or bluetooth headset. Similar to Cyworld, you can also customize your own little home with digital furniture and wallpaper. It isn't clear whether there will be some cost to this downloadable content; however, I'm sure the Sony folks saw the success (and huge profit potential) from social networking sites like Cyworld. Gamers do like accessories, and they do like to brag about their achievements. I can definitely see some gamers' homes as hallmarks to their "1,000,000th kill" on Halo multiplayer.

Let's think about this. It's been general knowledge that the console game industry is becoming a behemoth comparable to the movie industry. With all this hype about user-generated content, social networking is definitely coming to the console game. The target demographic for social networking and console gaming is similar. Users on both markets are young and net-centric. They also demand connectivity nearly 24/7. I can attest to this. When I was traveling through Europe for a week, I brought my laptop so that I can "borrow" other people's wi-fi networks if I didn't have access to the internet at my hostel.

Regardless, Europe was an interesting market to look at because social networking is not as pervasive as the United States. Although there is a significant social networking presence in the U.K courtesy of bebo, the rest of Europe has been slow to embrace social networking. It is starting to gain steam due to rising popularity and usage of sites such as SkyBlog and tillate.com. MySpace is also rolling out native language versions of its websites in various European countries, and they are already being extensively used by users in Czech Republic and France.

Another thing to note is that online gaming is very popular in Europe, especially for XBOX live. In every major electronics store I've been to in Paris, there are prominent displays of the XBOX 360 and its online capabilities in their console gaming sections. Even when my brothers and I meet up through XBOX live, it is very common for us to play with/against European players (as you can recognize them from various phrases of German and French).

Nonetheless, the popularity of online gaming may be due to the proliferation of broadband internet access in these markets. Let's face it, there is no way I would play Halo or Second Life on a dial-up connection. In high school, I accessed the internet through dial-up. I usually ended up going to my dad's office at RIT and using their broadband lines. Now that I went to college, my digital lifestyle has made me dependent on broadband internet, and I will happily pay $50 per month for this privilege after I graduate. Not only will social networking websites allow me to keep in touch with my friends who will move due to their post-graduation plans, but console gaming will allow me to stay in touch with my brothers as well.

Would I pay to "pimp" my home on PS3? Well, it is a cheap Blu-ray player after all. Given Sony's performance thus far (*cough* hardware issues and lack of suppy during launch *cough*), I will happily wait until fall 2007 and see for myself what Sony has come up with.

parisians could be a little cold.. but maybe Peuplade will help

2007-03-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

It was really hard to meet Parisians while I was in Paris for the past 3 months. In fact, I technically have not met an actual Parisian. Most French people that I have met or have talked to were students who did not live in Paris since childhood. Unless you count the random French male that I met in Dublin who happened to live an hour's drive away from Paris, then I really did not meet any Parisians at all.

I've observed this for awhile too. Parisians are wary of outsiders. I do not accuse them of being discriminatory as I do understand the fear of being exposed to foreign ideas and cultures. Parisians are in their own worlds and seem to be very involved with themselves and their immediate social circles. They tend to be perceived as cold people; however, they are warm and friendly to the people that they do care about.

Of course, if every Parisian was mistrustful like that, it could be very hard to meet your neighbors next door. This is where Peuplade comes in. This allows one to meet a person that you would otherwise never meet due to different ages and social backgrounds. The profile page does not include age, sex, or occupation. In fact, the profile page asks you questions in order to show the world what kind of personality you have. Your profile picture is not your photo but a reflection of you. Users are able to meet each other in cyber cafes and to discuss common interests. If they are comfortable with each other, they can arrange to meet in person.

It's a pretty simple idea for a social network; however, this social network iterates the significance of user-created content. People only flock to networks because there is useful information on these networks. To Peuplade users, the important information is about personality rather than demographics.

Another mobile social network I ran across...

2007-03-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Then again, it's probably about time that the U.S. market has some mobile social networks to sample. Frengo is another mobile social network aiming to bring various forms of entertainment (i.e. games and other amusing forms of mobile content) directly to your mobile phone and get you connected with your friends through this network.

The website itself is very colorful, and I'm not totally surprise in the direction of this network. Games and other features from Frengo focus on what the targeted demographic cares about: sports (tourney pick-em), music and pop culture, as well as useful planning tools and easy integrated widgets for your pages on MySpace, hi5, Piczo and other sites. Frengo will be partnering with Boost Mobile to further enhance its features.

The challenge is two fold. One will be gaining the critical mass needed for the potential user to see this mobile social network as beneficial rather than a waste of time. The other challenge is based on the functionality and technology of current mobile phones. There is only so much you can use with SMS rather than the web. Frengo is based on SMS commands. Although this helps users bypass the exorbitantly high fees associated with internet access on mobile phones, there is only so much you can do with text. Although Frengo comes with free games, each Frengo game costs $2. There is also a loyalty program that allow users to win points and exchange them for items in the Frengo store.

Frengo is compatible with most U.S. mobile networks (besides Verizon for obvious reasons).

as my time in paris comes to an end...

2007-03-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to see how people can change the way they communicate if put into a different setting and culture. It's also fascinating to see how I personally changed the way I communicate with my peers and environment.

For one thing, I was living here for less than 3 months. Like everyone who knows me, I really can't live without a mobile phone nowadays. It serves as my watch, my planner, my "rape whistle," and my contact to the outside world. Without my phone, I always felt like I was not in the group (and this was the case for many people in my program that decided to forego the mobile phone). I had to choose the prepaid option which was in retrospect incredibly expensive. Despite the fact I can receive calls and texts for free, it was pretty expensive to make calls (0.55 Euros/min). Since most Europeans choose to text anyway, I found myself sending more texts (0.10 Euros/text).

Here is the breakdown for my mobile expenses:

30 Euros for the sim card
50 Euros for calling credit
25 Euros for text credit

For a grand total of 100 Euros in 11 weeks, so around 40 Euros per month.

As 200 texts are a lot for 2.5 months, I would like to say that I used all of them and spend a significant amount of time texting people rather than calling them. Not because texting on a LCD phone is efficient (in which case.. not efficient at all), but for the fact it was much cheaper and effective (especially when you're trying to contact people in clubs).

Another thing, if I tried this entire prepaid plan again, I would've gone to a different provider rather than Orange. It was annoying to buy credit for SMS and talk time separately. Some providers just let you use your credit for both SMS, talk time, and internet access. This would've been a lot easier for me to keep track of as Orange's SMS account management is never up-to-date.

In terms of styling for mobile phone, I have to say that I have a taste for sliders now. It must be super-convenient to be able to receive calls and text with one hand. On the other hand, I am using my music player and camera on my phone a lot more for different reasons. Being on the metro for at least an hour every day required me to listen to music in order to keep myself from being bored. Everyone (Parisians and foreigners) listen to their IPODs or MP3 players in order to distract themselves from the loud trains.

As for social networking, it doesn't seem like French teens are as rabid as American teens on MySpace and Facebook. Then again, I just met a girl from the UK who is on Facebook and uses it extensively. The France network on Facebook is slowly growing, so maybe in another year, it will be a rage like it is in the United States right now.

facebook could really get you in touch with long lost friends

2007-03-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

This is totally unrelated to my experiences with social networking in foreign countries outside the United States; however, it is funny when people tell me they get reconnected with long-lost friends over Facebook.

Basically, I thought it was silly and the probability of it happening to me is very small. But lo and behold, I get a message from someone I have not spoken to since high school. As a matter of fact, I met him at a high school Model UN conference, so we didn't even go to the same high school. Anyway, the heading of the facebook message was "surprise." (Note: For those who do not know what Model UN is, it's like academic debate but you represent countries instead of a particular position.)

At first, I didn't recognize the name (as the photo that was attached was not really a photo of him). Then I realized upon reading the first paragraph that it was this guy that I met randomly at the Model UN conference while sitting in the back of the conference room.

So yeah, small world. I actually emailed him back and hopefully we can catch up. I have some renewed appreciation for Facebook.

GotZapp - Mobile Social Network Launch

2007-03-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

A new mobile social networking site launched today called GotZapp. It basically lets users create mobile content with the "Ziranda" content creator. These profiles are called "Zapps", and they include images, animations, text and music. This content can then downloaded by other users and be rated, commented on and downloaded by other users. Users can send Zapp via mobile or through the computer.

What are the technical requirements?
Zapps will run on most phones released within the last few years. It must be Java-enabled (MIDP 1.0 or MIDP 2.0), data Connection and or data Service Plan (internet access), and be on a network that allows downloading of independent third party applications. (Sorry Verizon customers...)

You can also copy your profile content from many social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Cyworld, and TagWorld.

As last year was the year of social networking, this year social networking may try to extend its grasp on mobile users as well. With all the new 3G networking being installed and hopefully will run in the U.S. (and better handsets to go with it), I hope that I can start taking my social networking stuff mobile. The only problem is that data plans are so expensive in the United States (and along with actual phone plans... it may come up to at least $70 per month). On a student budget, this is definitely not a necessary cost. Unless the handsets come with Wi-Fi capability, then I guess this barrier will be non-existent. (Just don't be like the Sony Mylo with its terrible keyboard.)

results of "what to do when your camera gets lost/stolen"

2007-03-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

After taking a total of 100 photos using my camera on my Motorola A1200, I do have the results.

50% came out okay (especially in the daylight)
50% came out really bad. Almost to the point where it's blurry and people look like ghosts.

What I learned from this:

1) Take multiple shots of the same scene. I took 8 of Gustav Klimt's paintings in Vienna. 1 came out good.. the rest were really blurry.
2) You really do need to hold still after the shot.
3) Daylight shots are the best.
4)LCD screen in direct sunlight is not best time to judge whether a photo is blurry or dark. I definitely made some photos too bright.

What was fun:
1) Playing with the settings. Taking black and white photos in Prague and Vienna was fun since the architecture called for it.
2) Watching people react to me taking photos with my phone. The Japanese people weren't too impressed (as they were taking photos with their cameras too..) Watching the locals look at my phone while they look at their flimsy flip phones and sliders was fun to watch.
3)After taking many bad photos, you finally figure out how to use a camera on your phone. I guess trying to figure things out is fun, but it would be nice if the camera had an auto-focus feature.
4) Although it cost a lot of SMS credit, sending photo mail was fun... too bad it cost money for people who received them as well.

interesting entry that i ran into

2007-03-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

My friend has written an entry about a web 2.0 idea that deals with dynamic bookmarks and customized web pages.

This brings an interesting point to the matter. There are so many social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and digg, but I could never get all the content that I would like to read or care about in a single web page. Browsing is fun and all, but I barely have enough time to read through all of my RSS/Atom feeds for both France, Germany, UK, Korea, US, and many other countries on the latest in social networking and web 2.0. In addition, it takes a long time for me to summarize and hit the key points for my blog and make relevant comments.

It's almost like when Facebook introduced the Feeds into the network. At first, people found it intrusive but then slowly realized that it makes one's time spent on Facebook more efficient and productive. (Of course, being on Facebook = productive depends on the person.) Although some customizing does exist on sites such as Yahoo! and MSN, you cannot really control the specific sources that goes on your page except for the themes you show interest for.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has (or can direct me) to product/page that has these features. I am definitely behind in all of my RSS feeds (as I have very intermittent access to internet while traveling).

myspace in prague

2007-02-28T12:57:00.001-08:00

Last week, I was figuring out where the true nightlife is around prague. I tried asking around and got many suggestions, but I never really got a feel for the demographics or the type of music that would be played at these clubs, bars, and lounges. I know that I'm in Europe, and that usually means house will be played no matter what. Nonetheless, I would like to have some control over what kind of house music I will hear if I pay 5-10 euros to enter the club.

I picked up a lot of cards and flyers for nightlife events. Usually the starring DJs have their websites listed on these cards. Instead of homepages, I was directed straight to their MySpace profiles on the web. This was not the first time that DJs put the addresses to their MySpace profiles on these cards. I saw them while in Paris and Berlin as well. I sensed that social networking was not too big among the German youth; but MySpace's core draw is for musicians and DJs. Being able to broadcast your music to thousands of potential listeners at little cost is a very big draw to musicians and DJs.

what to do when your camera gets lost/stolen... and my time in prague

2007-02-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I have been a victim of theft or utter carelessness as my camera got lost/stolen between my train ride to Prague and my walk to the hostel. To be honest, I have no idea what happened except I sadly see all of my photos from my last day in Berlin disappear.

I thought about doing complicated schemes and getting a new camera shipped from America to France. Given the amount of time I have left (less than 2.5 weeks) and the amount of trouble that it may cause to get the camera here (customs, turnaround time, etc), I decided to give the camera function on my Motorola A1200 a good test run to see whether I want to use my phone as both a camera and mode of communication. The last time I sneaked a few photos inside a basilica in Paris, 50% of the photos came out okay while the rest were pretty blurry and terrible.

I took most of my photos during the day in various settings. Weather ranged from rainy to sunny weather. I also took photos indoors and outdoors. I took some pictures with people and without people.

There were some limitations with my camera. First of all, 2 megapixels do not compare to 5 megapixels. Also, a tiny mobile phone screen (although it is an LCD screen) does not compare to my 3.1 inch LCD screen of my former camera. It's always nice to be able to quickly judge the quality of the photo on a large screen rather than the miniscule screen of my mobile phone. Some of the settings were really nice such as the low-light setting and zoom. However, the picture becomes very grainy if you zoom really far in. I think this may be fault of the tiny lens. Since there was no flash on my camera phone, I couldn't take many photos in low-light settings.

The good things were that it was nice to be able to set these photos as wallpaper in my phone or a screen saver. In addition, I can instantly send it to my friends back in Paris or in Chicago. As one MMS = 5 SMS, it does not cost that much to send photos via Orange Mobicarte. However, I still prefer to view my photos on a larger computer screen back home and edit them before I emailed them out. It is very convenient that I had a decent camera on my phone with a 1 gig mini SD card. I wish I had image stabilization on my camera thought as I think most photos came out really blurry; however, I can't tell due to the small screen size of my phone.

I walked into a lot of electronics stores in Prague today. The prices here made me appreciate the United States a lot more in terms of affordability and features. I saw the Motorola RIZR retailing for at least 8000 krony ($400) with a contract. Usually most U.S. mobile phone contracts make the phone very inexpensive (besides the upcoming IPhone) in order for the phone to become a hot seller (and more customers as well). I looked at displays of phones, and I see Samsung and Nokia phones prominently displayed right in my eyesight in dead center. Meanwhile, Motorola phones were definitely below my eyesight. Samsung advertising is also plastered everywhere in Prague from the subway stations to media.

As I don't have a USB cable with me, I won't be able to make the final verdict on the image quality of camera phones. I will do this when I get back and upload photos, but I'm sure the quality is inferior. In all likeliness, I will probably buy a new digital camera (sadly on my own money) when I get back to the United States.

Ethnic social networks

2007-02-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

Today, I've paid my respects to the Jewish Holocaust victims at the memorial in Berlin. Sure this probably has little relevance to what I will comment about today, but it is interesting to note. Koolanoo is a Jewish social network that recently got about $3 million in capital from a venture capital group. The company that owns Koolanoo also plans to launch other social networking sites geared towards other religious and ethnic groups. It currently owns 360Quan.com, a Chinese social network and video site.

It's funny how so many social networking websites based around the most far-out of themes and ideas are popping up these days. These niche social networking sites hope to differentiate themselves from the thousands or more other sites and gain the precious capital and lucrative marketing revenue enjoyed by behemoths such as MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. The popularity of Web 2.0 seems to mirror blockbuster movies right now as investors and companies are trying to find the next "it" site and make lots of money. As the critical mass of members are needed to make a social networking website useful to the member, many social networking websites are gearing themselves towards niches in order to get that 2% of the population on their sites 24/7. Facebook started out as a social networking site among college students in elite universities. Now, it's a public site open to all members based on region.

Koolanoo looks to have some promise as Jewish people tend to stick together on a lot of things. The same goes for any ethnic or religious group such as Koreans, Chinese, African-Americans, Hispanics, Quakers, and Catholics. People tend to flock towards what's familiar, and I won't be surprised if this company rolls out with sites for every single major ethnicity. The only concern I have is that others already exist. For example, Google's Orkut is a hub for Indians and Brazilians. MySpace is the hub for Americans. Cyworld is the hub for Koreans. It would be very hard to battle with such incumbents who've been around the space for at least several years.

being in berlin

2007-02-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

It is my second day in Berlin, and a lot has happened over the last few days. I found out that my German is pretty terrible, but I can understand the people which is probably a good thing. (Prague will be interesting in that I will have no idea how to read or communicate with the natives.) After wandering and talking with the locals, here is what I learned about Germans so far.

1) Not all are created equal. Although Germans and French considered themselves European, they are completely different. As far as I can tell, Germans are more laid-back and less concerned with "spectacle" than the French. The French are definitely more chic and concerned about their outer appearances than the Germans. This rings true with their perceptions of the cell phone. French youth view their cellphones as a status statement and accessory. The Germans view their cellphones much more practically as a tool of communication.

2) However, French and Germans are equal in that they both text heavily. Although more Germans seem to use cars as modes of transport relative to French, the German youth still use the U-Bahn and S-Bahn frequently. I always see them flurrying away on their mobile phones talking to friends. Another thing is that nightlife in Berlin is much cheaper than nightlife in France. German youth seem more comfortable hopping one club after another because cover is so cheap. This also creates a situation in which German youth need to stay in touch with friends because they will end up hopping from one club to another instead of staying in one club. This led to some interesting situations as I was the only one with any mobile phone out of our group while friends who live in Berlin tried to meet up with us at several places.

3) Just like in France, the choice for mobile phone design for the German youth is definitely the slider. I did see a fair amount of flip mobiles in the hands of various German teenagers.

4) Their favorite brands for mobile phones seem to be similar with other European youths. Samsung and Nokia were frequently mentioned. Sony Ericcson came up very strong. Motorola was definitely recognized a bit more than in France though. A lot of people are talking about the release of the N95. Too bad I'm going to be gone before it comes out in continental Europe. I may have to make a day trip to London in order to get my hands on it and play with it.

5) Germans spend a lot of time on the internet. There are internet cafes everywhere in Berlin. StudiVZ is a very popular site for German college students to connect. MySpace was heavily mentioned as site of choice for looking up nightlife events. MyVideo is YouTube equivalent in Germany. Wikipedia is a very popular site among Germans for information and random facts.

you can really do nearly everything together...

2007-02-22T03:14:00.001-08:00

Nowadays, you can do a lot of things online. You can play poker, share photos, watch videos, and write blogs. Leave it to the Russians to figure out how to bring alcoholics and social drinkers together online. Basically you take your shots through the USB cable (whatever that means...).

This is just too funny. I can't even type anymore. I'm going to make fun of my friend from Russia about this.

valentine's day aftermath

2007-02-21T03:44:00.000-08:00

My friend ran into a blog entry about how the Princeton student government set up a website that allows students to list up to five people they have crushes on. If two people list each other, the website puts the two potentials together. The site went online on Valentine's Day and tons of people signed up for the service.

Many other schools offered similar services using the Facebook engine. Google Orkut also offers a similar feature called the Crushlist. Craigslist even offers an online classified section listed as "missed connections" that helps connect people who had crushes with each other.

It's interesting because I know tons of boy-girl "platonic" friendships that had the potential to be more than friendships. However, they are always afraid of being rejected and creating awkwardness with the friendship they have. I can name so many examples but that's beyond the point of this blog. The internet has definitely transformed the way people communicate. People get asked out on dates through email or IM. When did IM become an acceptable mode of communication to talk about serious issues?

valentine's day was not a big deal in paris... but

2007-02-15T04:05:00.001-08:00

As being a citizen in Paris means that you relive romance every day, it's definitely apparent that Valentine's Day is not a big deal. I don't see the random hearts of red and cupids everywhere like in the United States (or in Belgium), but it was cute to see couples share their love discreetly last Wednesday.

It's cute to see couples texting each other, playing games with each other on mobile phones, and listening to their favorite music with the same earphones through their mobile phones. It actually makes me really jealous and wish I have my own significant other with me listening to music on the metro.

You see a lot of texting in Europe even on St. Valentine's Day. People setting up dates and get-togethers through texting. I even found myself in the texting group as I buy 50 new text messages every week instead of call time.

I wish I can read a cute message on my phone. :P

have a digital flower for valentine's day

2007-02-14T04:37:00.000-08:00

Several days ago, I noticed that I had the ability to give a digital gift to a friend on Facebook. This digital gift range from the traditional rose to the suggestive thongs or to the outrageous toilet paper. Your first gift is free, but subsequent gifts will cost you a $1 each. Net proceeds will support the charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Almost everyone on Facebook has at least one gift, but I'm not too sure if someone would be willing to pay $1 for each gift he or she sends. After all, most Facebook users have hundreds of friends. Once you start paying for gifts for some friends, you feel guilty and end up buying more. This gets pretty expensive especially if you're a college student. Granted, I have a suspicion that this may turn into another popularity contest, and people will start buying and sending digital gifts to show off their social statuses.

Hopefully Facebook will announce the results of this fundraiser. I can see this as a pilot for Facebook to see the feasibility of making revenue from digital items like Cyworld. After all, advertising revenue and marketing research fees can only make you so much money.

youtube + nokia = love

2007-02-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

YouTube is definitely trying to be legitimate as it is working out its copyright issues by creating partnerships with major media firms and tech companies. It was funny how someone mentioned that it would be difficult to port YouTube video to a mobile phone 6 months ago. It looks like it's turning into a reality as Nokia jumped to create a partnership with the mother-of-all video sharing sites on the web. Then again, if you have millions upon millions of users on the YouTube site at any given moment, that is lucrative marketing and advertising space.

From the looks of it, YouTube videos can be accessed (via Nokia phones) through an RSS feed, so you can keep up with all the updated content. Unfortunately, you can't browse or search for any specific video as you will have to subscribe to YouTube channels.

As an avid YouTube user (especially overseas when I need American TV), I'm actually tempted to get a Nokia phone. As the Nokia n95 looks to launch in Europe while I'm here, I hope to pick up one before I come back home. I wish I can play with all those new toys and features, but alas, I would have to pay a lot for any media/internet packages when I get back to the U.S.

political campaigning... social networking style

2007-02-12T05:59:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many of you (like me) has watched Barack Obama confirmed his presidential bid for the 2008 U.S. election. After perusing a bit through MySpace, I noticed that Obama's site has turned into a social network in order to drum up more support for his bid as the Democratic nomination for president.

Barack Obama turned his site into a social network this past weekend, hoping to create a venue for his supporters to connect. Obama is already leveraging social media using Facebook, MySpace and Flickr, but the addition of “My Barack Obama” seems smart: Obama is one brand that already has masses of offline support across a wide spectrum (i.e. University of Chicago, NASCAR, etc). This will just complement his campaign to effectively reach more people.

After wandering through the site, it's actually pretty cool: you can organize fundraising opportunities, create events, find Obama events near you, build a network of friends (that email invite system is crucial), send messages, join groups and write a blog about how you’re helping Obama, or how you feel about Obama's campaign. Groups are the way to connect to strangers on the network, since I couldn't find a browse feature. In many regards, it’s more like Facebook than MySpace or YouTube - simple interface and text-based content for connecting with people you know or those around you. But it also lacks the openness of hi5 or Piczo: self expression tools like embedding your own video clips from other sites, adding online slideshows and uploading lots of photos aren't available at all. I guess Obama would like to keep tabs on his site after all.

I am certain that the Democrats will benefit most from political campaigning on the web as the younger demographic on social networks tends to learn to the left as far as I can tell. Barack’s social site isn’t perfect - it lacks the ability to browse content and users freely. This may be intentional as I wouldn't want some crazy person spreading weird messages across my political campaign site, but this lack of openness does limit the site's usefulness. BUT, it's so much better than anything by Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. Barack is also more suited to the age of celebrity, wall-to-wall TV news and YouTube addiction (remember his clip supporting the Bears' run to the Superbowl): he’s more charismatic than the other candidates, and comes across better in video clips.

Lots of new advertising

2007-02-12T05:58:00.001-08:00

After several weeks of seeing advertising for Sony Ericsson Walkman series phones, apparently Nokia has won the battle for ad space and put up ads for its 5200 music phone. By placing words such as "emotion", "connect", "life", and "music," Nokia is definitely trying to market its phones as way for their consumers to connect with their lives and their favorite music.

I'm not too surprised because people in France do have a love affair with their personal MP3 players and listening to music. Considering that they spend a lot of time in the often-crowded Metro, I actually am jealous that I don't have one either.

Walking around Paris

2007-02-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to be blessed with the first sunshine I have seen in two weeks. I decided it was time for me to go on another walk around outside Paris and experience more of the city. As my work is starting to pile up as it is halfway through the quarter, I realized that I need to get back into exploring the many colorful neighborhoods of Paris.

All Sunday I was wandering through parks and neighborhoods with another student in my program with my digital camera in hand. I took many photos of the green parks, the views on top of hills, and random streets and sights. While I was on my photo-taking journey, I noticed that a lot of Europeans who were in their late twenties and thirties were using the digital camera features on their phones to record their memories with their loved ones. Phones from Sony Ericcson and Nokia were popular choices. Phones from these companies usually emulate the shape and feel of digital cameras and have features that are usually found on high-end digital cameras. For example, many of the multimedia phones from Nokia have Carl Zeiss lens and at least a resolution of 2.0 megapixels or higher. It also help that these phones look really cool and trendy as these people are increasingly viewing their cell phones as accessories.

From seeing this, I wonder what these people do with their photos upon taking them. After seeing multiple people taking photos on top of the hill, my curiosity won out, and I attempted to talk to these people in my non-existent French. To my surprise, some people were happy to talk to me (in English…lol) about the photos they take with their cell phones.

One cited convenience. One European male who was in his late twenties mentions that he never knows when he will take a photo with or without his girlfriend. Carrying out a digital camera is just a hassle as he never wants to take a bag with him, and using a digital camera as opposed to a phone takes away the “spirit of the candid moment.” As another person puts it, “it’s more fun to take random pictures at the spur of the moment.”

I’ve also talked to a group of girls who were taking silly pictures with their camera phones in the Metro. One girl mentioned fashion and convenience. She just didn’t like carrying too much stuff in her purse. Another girl mentioned that with all the pickpockets, having a digital camera makes you more of a target. They agreed that it’s convenient that their phones have MP3 playback and camera features.

What about social networking? What do these people do with their phones to connect with other people? The European males mentioned that they always Bluetooth or MMS their photos if it’s something their friends or families need to see. More often, they would upload them to their computers (via Bluetooth or USB cable) and email them that way because it’s cheaper. It also allows them to edit the photos on their computers in case it's a bad photo.

Where online can you find out about nightlife besides MySpace

2007-02-04T13:29:00.001-08:00

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while. A lot has happened. I've been travelling within Belgium and the Netherlands since Thursday, and I've been taking tons of notes on recent developments within Europe in the social networking world (especially in music-sharing.) I will also be in Dublin this weekend. In two weeks, I will be in Berlin, Prague, and Vienna during my one-week holiday. I'll have lots of fun recording all my observations in the coming weeks.

Anyway, a lot of French (and other Europeans) do frequent MySpace in order to find the next clubbing event. Nonetheless, it seems like the most popular sites for finding clubbing events are sites that concentrate on providing this information and placing the social networking aspect as a fringe feature.

After coming out of a club late one night, someone passed me a card for a future clubbing event. On the bottom, it turns out that this club has a profile for Tilllate.com. I checked it out the next day and signed up for a profile. The site layout is very clean unlike MySpace and much easier to find clubbing and nightlife events once you decipher the language. Many basic social networking features have been implemented into this site. Members have profiles , and there is a rating system in place to rank clubs and events. You can even see how many members will be going to certain events to get a feel for what's popular. The site also offers many discounts and offers for being a member.

I will testing the site's credibility this week for my thursday night entertainment.

our difficulty finding a taxi cab

2007-02-02T18:39:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, we were on our way back to the dorm from a bar. Then, we realized that we didn't have a phone number to get a cab. There are taxi stands all over Paris, but apparently everyone was going home when we were going home. This is usually never a good proposition as four girls are never really safe at 3 am in the middle of Paris.

After numerous failed attempts to procure a number, I realized that if only I had access to a list of important phone numbers in Paris at my disposal, I would never had this problem. It was times like these that I wish I had a GPS system or access to the internet on my phone so that I can find the fastest (and safest) way back home. Nowadays, it's so important to stay connected just so you're not a target. Although having a GPS tag is like having an eye forever watching you, I don't know if my privacy is more valuable than me being safe and in constant contact with a friend. As more municipal wi-fi systems are being put up in cities across the U.S. (and in Europe), it is becoming easier for one to stay connected. However, imagine how much easier it is for the governments to start watching you. It doesn't sound like the safe and peaceful utopia one would hope for.

amusing video

2007-02-01T03:56:00.000-08:00

Has social networking gone a little too far? Here is an amusing parody about the phenomenon.

using video sites to stay on top of my favorite TV shows

2007-02-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

This past monday, I was unfortunate to find out that I could not watch one of my favorite TV series, "Heroes", on NBC's website because I'm not viewing it in America.

I'm a big believer in intellectual property rights, but how am I supposed to view my favorite TV show legally over the web, if NBC denies me the right to see it on their website. I perused through YouTube to find the new episodes; however, due to YouTube's attempt to be accepted into mainstream media, YouTube has been constantly taking down videos of copyrighted content. (Nonetheless, copyrighted content is being put up by others who haven't been blocked from the site yet.)

After talking to a fellow French fan of "Heroes," I have rediscovered my love for DailyMotion. Not only are the videos of much higher quality, but users are not hindered by the 10 minute length limit imposed by YouTube. I can watch whole episodes of "Heroes" complete with French subtitles (to help me learn French) in the comfort of my room with friends and cookies.

looking for good places to eat

2007-01-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

So I've been trying to find a website that offers good recommendations for restaurants. Alas, all the restaurants I found online on such websites were either terrible or not "French" enough. Up until now, I've been depending on hours of perusing through foodie blogs to find restaurants that I want to dine at or through friends who force me to go to these restaurants.

I did find a semi-useful site for eating out in Paris especially on a budget. Chowhound is a general board about eating, and I did find one person named "mnaughton" who writes excellent reviews on the restaurants he visits (and cheap ones too). It's fascinating to see how many people are blogging about their food.

Recently, my friend and I went to La Grande Ourse, a tiny restaurant in Montparnasse. My friend got this recommendation from a friend who also blogs about food. It had an intimate atmosphere and great food to match.

Who knows? Maybe I'll start my own foodie blog when I get back to Chicago. Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy high quality French cuisine (while attempting to be on a student budget).

crank call over VOIP

2007-01-30T02:22:00.000-08:00

Funkycall is a way for me to have a little fun over Valentine's Day (or any other holiday for that matter). I can use funny pre-recorded voices such as Yoda or George Bush to make amusing calls to my friend (or I can be less fun and use my real voice). There is also a lot of interaction on the site as users can upload and share their own pre-recorded messages and other users can rate each other.

You can also embed these clips into most social networking sites (i.e. Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, etc) using Flash player.

what would a chicago student in london do?

2007-01-30T02:12:00.000-08:00

I did a lot of catching up with my friend at LSE this past weekend. We compared our experiences as "international" students in our respective countries. There were definitely some differences especially given the time lengths of our programs (and the vast difference in day-to-day expenses).

Currently, I've been writing from the experience of an "international student" only staying for a quarter. My friend is participating in the year-long program at LSE. While I worry that I don't have enough time to visit every European country for my 10-week stay, my friend worries about whether she will have enough money to last her the entire year. Thus, our lifestyles are very different. Although UK and US use the same language, the two have vastly different cultures. My friend could try to assimilate into her temporary home for the year while my relatively short time (and associated language barrier) prevents me from fully appreciating my temporary home.

We do have similarities at the same time. It's really hard to meet actual people who are British or French. Most of the people that my friend hangs out with are American students as well. Many British people who are in my friend's dorm are first years who have just gotten out of high school or master's students who can't afford to live in a flat for a year. Many British upperclassmen either live at home or off-campus with their friends from high school. That seems to be the case for my dorm as well as it is called the "Foundation of the United States." I meet my fair share of American students in the dorm, and I got really lucky meeting French students (unless it's at a bar and they're clearly tipsy).

British and French people do take their relationships very seriously and definitely demand to be connected constantly either via phone or in person. Not many of them actually use online social networking tools because they see these relationships as very casual. If they do participate in social networking, it's often among people who know each other very well. This is very similar to Americans as well. Many American students here see Facebook as a way to complement their relationships with people they know very well. They spend a lot of time with the people they care about. Everything from meals, coffee, work, conversation, "short" run-ins on the street. It was actually a pleasant break from the bustle and "efficiency" of American life. (However, I do appreciate functional and fast internet. I can't find that in my dorm.)

I think we are picking up some European mannerisms though. I am texting a lot more than making a phone call. I take my time in everything. I make sure that I interact with 110% attention to one person. I do get a lot of new phone numbers to text every week. It's nice to get all these restaurant and club recommendations too. I wish I can keep track of who recommended what places, so that I can check them off or find out more information about them.

wandering about london

2007-01-29T03:15:00.000-08:00

I just got back from my trip to London this past weekend. I had a blast, and it was great to see one of my friends again after such a long time without seeing her. (In fact, it has been at least 6 months since I've seen her face.)

Of course, while I was out and about, I figured I should write about a few observations in the way in which British people communicate and network in their everyday lives. These observations range from the Tube, in the dorms, in Borough Market, and other random places in London.

First thing I noticed, the British people of London have similar communication characteristics as the French people (and most other Europeans). They text a lot more than they talk on the phone. As discussed with my friend at LSE, this can be attributed to the lifestyle of people in London. They spend significant proportions of their time riding on the Tube, walking from point A to point B to point C.. then maybe back again to point A, doing errands, shopping on the bustling areas of Carnaby and Bond streets, cheering on their favorite football teams in pubs or live, going out and having a drink, and making fun of tourists (just kidding). In summary, British people lead very busy lives and need quick and discreet means of communication in order to stay connected all the time.

Second thing, British people like their slider phones. In fact, all the advertising that I saw had slider phones in the spotlight. In the Tube, I see many colorful ads of Sony Ericcson's Walkman mobiles for the music lovers. Many young people are texting away with their Samsung sliders with giant posters from Orange promoting the same product in the background. Nokia had a huge presence too. I forgot how many people (both young and old) passed by with a Nokia mobile phone (either a candybar or slider). Like France, the trendsetters and fashionable elite are definitely toting their sleek sliders. I actually found it amusing when some British people asked about my Motorola mobile phone asking if it's the new handset from Nokia or Samsung. After saying Motorola, they were pretty surprised. Motorola definitely weren't high on mobile phone makers with fashionable sensibilities.

Third thing, only American people are into Facebook. British people have Bebo. The British are definitely proud of their social networking site, Bebo, and are very territorial about it. Maybe it has to do with the whole thing about how much British people hate uncivilized Americans.

Next entry will be dedicated to how foreign students try to cope in the new environment. Everything from finding new restaurants, finding each other, and making your pound stretch due to unfavorable exchange rates.

Bebo launches Minicards

2007-01-26T02:18:00.001-08:00

In conjunction with printing startup Moo, Bebo (a popular social networking site in the UK) launched Minicards for its members. For around US$19.99, members can convert 100 photos from their social networking profiles into 100 minicards with text and other add-ons.

Moo has its own Bebo profile. In order to promote its service, Moo is giving away 10 free cards for members who want to give it a try.

Will this work? It's hit-or-miss. Flickr became wildly popular as family and friends could view and share photos among themselves and print out their favorite pics. Meanwhile, Facebook has a similar photo-sharing service in which members could choose to order prints of their favorite photos that they see online. However, in my personal experience, most of my friends on campus use Facebook as means to share and view each other's photos rather than using it as a print service. (In most cases, we would just use photo paper and our own color printers to print them out.)

social networking for pet lovers

2007-01-25T03:26:00.000-08:00

Pawspot is apparently where local pets and people meet. Currently in the beta stage, this site offers a place for people and their darling pets to arrange play dates, exchange pet-sitting, and discuss pet-friendly stuff with your neighbors.

Considering that Parisians are pretty obsessed with their dogs, this seems to be the perfect spot for them to exchange caring and training tips with other dog-lovers. Dogs are even allowed in all sorts of public places ranging from restaurants to in the subway. This was completely different from the U.S. where dogs (and other animals) are only allowed inside if it's an assistant for people with disabilities. Unless I'm completely blind and ignorant, I have a feeling that dogs are welcome everywhere in France.

Funny thing is that I've never seen a Parisian with a cat. Maybe all the cats stay indoors.

return to attempts to sync my pda and smartphone to the web

2007-01-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

So I find this interesting post/thread on Ask Lifehacker inquiring about how to sync one's PDA/smartphone to the web. My friend Varun has attempted for a long time to sync his many toys to Google Calendar, but he only managed one-way link rather than two-way link.

Reading the comments to the thread is the most interesting part of this post. Many users have suggested using programs such as Airset, Goosync, Gmobilesync, and SyncMyCal. Obviously, the multitude of standards for both calendars and operating systems of the PDA/Smartphones is causing compatibility issues across the spectrum.

Companies use facebook to recruit employees

2007-01-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

According to Wired News, the CIA has been using Facebook since December 2006 to recruit potential employees into its clandestine service. It marks the first time that the CIA used social networking to hire new employees. The CIA's Facebook page requires a log-in and provides an overview of the position with a YouTube promotional video. College students can inquire through the page for applications.

As the CIA is an "exempted agency," so it has more freedom than the normal government agency in its operations. This is an interesting experiment as the government is seeking more ways to attract qualified college students into public service. Ernst and Young also has its own profile page (log-in required) that is similar to the CIA page. It offers resume advice, interaction with actual employers, and videos of interns.

Recruiting through Facebook is nothing new. Many of my friends who were former interns at large companies like Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs use Facebook to market recruiting events on campus. However, this is one of the first instances where the company itself chooses to use social networking as a marketing tools for prospective employees.

There is definitely some concern for privacy online as more recruiters use Facebook to peruse through prospective employees. If you haven't noticed, there are many embarrassing photos of students on this site. Many students are even modifying their names to make it more difficult for strangers to find them. Facebook's privacy policy asserts that outside companies sponsoring groups cannot access personal information or profiles of Facebook users. Nonetheless, it states that information may be shared with "other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies," in order to comply with the law. These vague statements would definitely raise red flags for those concerned about privacy.

As the internship recruiting season is in full swing, I'm seeing a flurry of recruiting events popping up every time I log into Facebook. Fortunately, I am employed after I graduate, but it's always fascinating to see more people embrace social networking as a productivity tool.

No more 411

2007-01-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

TellMe is a new (and free!) Java mobile application. You can use this to find 411 information via voice activated menu. All you have to do is say the location you are searching in and the name of the business. Voila! You get phone and address information instantly. From this app, you can call the business, get driving directions, or send this business to a friend via SMS. There is also a SMS version of this service.

It looks really cool. Too bad it only works in America. It would be very useful to have in Paris as I never know where to eat or drink.

UPDATE: Apparently, my friend tried this application with his n80. The voice recognition is apparently too slow. So slow that my friend thought his phone crashed... This doesn't sound too good. Maybe I don't want to try it. I haven't heard anything about the SMS version. If any of you have tried the SMS version, let me know.

how the french converse (as opposed to the loud americans )

2007-01-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

I ride the RER and Metro trains to class every day. With the carte orange, I actually have unlimited use of the trains. Instead of reading and minding my own business, I took the liberty to observe the French locals on the train.

1. French people converse softer with each other. It's a little louder than a whisper, but I can never hear them clearly. All the conversation seem very intimate. French people really seemed engaged with each other and will look directly at each other during their conversations. A conversation is never nonchalant but seem significant for every second. They like to take their time and absorb as much information as possible.

2. LOTS of French people have mobile phones. (In French, they would be called "portables.") However, I have never seen a French person chat on his or her mobile phone in the trains despite the prevalence of the mobile phone. Many do text or check their voicemail. So on the other hand, French love to text. I find myself that I'm forced to buy lots of text messages in order to keep up with all my contacts.

3. The young French like their sliders. These sliders which come from Samsung, Nokia, and Sony Ericcson. I see Sony Ericcson phone ads everywhere for their Walkman phones. The young French love their music, so being able to share their music seems incredibly important. On the metro, most of the young French people have music players of some sort and are listening to them to pass the time on the train.

Hopefully I will be meeting some French students this week in a more informal (and engaging) setting. The language barrier is definitely becoming an issue in meeting more people. At least there is a House of Germany on this campus, and they host a bar night every Wednesday. I may go out and try to meet some Germans as I do know German.

funny thing that i found out today from my french conversation assistant

2007-01-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

So I asked my french conversation assistant straight out what the French people use for social networking online. He told me, "Facebook, what else?"

Interesting. Then again, Facebook did open up to regional networks. I will need to investigate this a bit further. I wish the internet at my dorm actually works.

UPDATE: So I decided to make a search for people in the France network. My search returned the vague "over 500" results. I decided to narrow it down to on search criteria, and I get numbers much smaller than 500. I wonder if only a little over 500 people are in the France network. Another theory is that people just like their privacy more and modified their settings such that only their friends would see their profiles.

I need more text messages

2007-01-20T02:22:00.000-08:00

They were not kidding when they say that Europeans text a lot more than they make phone calls. As most phone plans in Europe cater towards giving lots of free SMS messages in mobile phone packages, many young Europeans prefer to be texted rather than get a call.

Why is this so? Well, many European students (including many of my friends in the program) are using prepaid mobile services. As texting only costs about 0.10 Euros per message versus the 0.55 Euros per call, the average student's elasticity of demand was at play. I would rather be able to text five times than make a one-minute phone call.

In addition, many young Europeans text due to convenience. They don't have to make a phone call. It takes a matter of seconds to write a SMS. It is more discreet than a phone call as you don't need to inform people around you that you are making a phone call. You can text nearly everywhere because it's discreet. In addition, you don't need to be able to hear the person on the other side in order to communicate. Lots of young people use SMS to communicate at loud venues such as concerts, jazz clubs, and nightclubs. Every time my friends and I would go clubbing, I see many young Europeans with their phones in hand ready to read/send/receive SMS at any point.

Is there any way social networking could go on mobile? Can a facebook or myspace mobile ever be successful on the small screen? The main concern from my friends is price. As they don't pay for facebook or myspace online, many of them are hesitant to pay for mobile social networking services. In addition, many are hesitant to use social networking services on mobile phone because it would be way too much information to digest on small screen. Unless social networking applications are cheaper than sending SMS messages, many young Europeans are comfortable with using SMS as means to stay connected. Nonetheless, there is still another contingent of young Europeans that would love to access their Skyblog on their mobile phones. One guy showed me his Skyblog account on mobile, and I was surprised by the rich content crammed into a tiny screen.

Where do the French network online?

2007-01-18T00:25:00.000-08:00

Although MySpace has recently opened its French language site, one social networking site still dominates in the French social networking world. Part of the Skyrock network, Skyblog is the site to be on if you’re a young French male or female getting in on the social networking scene. There is a counter on the top of the page that constantly updates its usage statistics. Since its inception, there have been more than 6.7 million accounts, more than 337 million articles, and more than 668 million comments. Today, more than 1500 Skyblogs have been created and 90,000 articles have been published.

Skyblog is a nice relief from the frivolous and annoying site layout of MySpace. Skyblog seems to be more focused on user-created content then who's MySpace profile has the most "bling." The site layout for Skyblog is very basic and organized. You have your basic profile on the left of the page with your blog entries dominating on the the right. Members can comment on articles written by other Skyblog members. Skyblog also has a ranking system according to categories such as music, video, and most hits.

Many of Skyblog's members are very passionate about their interests and hobbies. One Skyblog chronicles a member's love for skateboarding. Everyday he posts action photos of the moves he learned and writes about how he wants to improve himself the very next day. Another member is obsessed with her pet cats, so she posts daily entries about what she did with her cats that day. Some people comment on world affairs and local news while others make fan pages about their favorite pop culture icons. There are many small record labels and local DJs (like MySpace's humble beginnings) trying to make their names known in the French world. Skyblog also has a sizable mobile presence through SFR and i-mode. There is even a ranking for most popular mobile Skyblogs on the homepage which can only be accessed if you have a Skyblog mobile account.

Granted, some of Skyblog's most popular members often display soft-core porn which was an issue with MySpace in America. One must also keep in mind that cultures are much different between the United States and France. France, and Europeans in general, are more open to alternative means of expression and communication. I often see several magazine covers with nude women prominently on display at local newstands. Many people never take care to notice and walk right by while my American friends and I gawk for several seconds before moving on. In the Metro, advertising is definitely a lot more open than in America. A new French movie called "Cashback" displays a topless women in a store of some sort. Raunchy? Maybe to the Americans, but to the French, it's just another ad.

IPhone, next it-item?

2007-01-16T00:11:00.000-08:00

I give mad props to Apple’s design department. They know how to design appealing and fashionable products wanted by consumers everywhere. For example, I found no practicality in carrying 60 gigs worth of music and video files along with me in an IPod, when I can carry a smaller 1 gig player for a workout that will last an hour. Nonetheless, I happen to like the IPod’s sleekness and clean design (and still mourn over the loss of my IPod due to theft). 11.6 millimeter device that includes a 3.5" 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor. It also has a 2 megapixel camera, 4 or 8 gb of storage, bluetooth, wi-fi, quad-band GSM radio with EDGE. This tiny thing somehow runs OS X with Widgets, Google Maps, Safari, and ITunes. Apple also has a partnership with Yahoo! for push IMAP email. It will come out a bit pricey. 4 gig for $499 and 8 gig for $599. Both require a two-year Cingular contract. Is it worth it?

First, as an owner of a touchscreen phone, there are some things I love about it and some general things I hate about touchscreen phones.

Things I love about it:
1) It looks cool. As a young twenty-something, I am a victim to fashion trends and looking good. I know I sound very superficial, but it's true for the average twenty-something. People stare when I take out my phone because they have never seen it before.
2) The big screen is a plus when I read/write SMS or browse the Internet.
3) Never really had a problem with the touchscreen sensitivity when I'm talking on the phone. I never screw up and type the wrong button.

Things I hate about it:
1) I'm a target for thieves. Cool unique phone (+ Asian) = higher % of becoming a victim of theft
2) Sometimes the touchscreen does not respond as fast as you like it. Tactile keypad beats out touchscreen in terms of feel. It's easier to quickly and discreetly SMS someone on a phone with a keypad vs. a touchscreen.
3) Battery dies more quickly because there is a huge screen.

What about the IPhone?

As much as I would like the jack-of-all-trades phone with my media player and ability to get on the internet, it is still a bit pricey for me to fork over at least $500 and a two-year commitment. Although it does have Wi-Fi, the ability to run actual PC software (which was lacking before), and enough storage space for my music, I'm still skeptical about the battery life and the need for me to be even a bigger target for getting mugged. It is a gorgeous-looking phone, and I'm sure that this will be the next it-item that fashionistas will get to up their social status. With the increasing integration between fashion and technology (i.e. Motorola and D&G, Prada and LG), consumers are embracing viewing technology as a complementary fashion accessory for their wardrobes.

All in all, a mobile phone allows one to be constantly in touch with your group. If IPhone can't deliver on voice quality that is comparable or better than its much cheaper peers on the market, I don't see this product flying off the shelves. Then again, I said that about the IPod and the impracticality of carrying a huge amount of music with you everywhere. Now the IPods are everywhere...

Need for visual voicemail (especially if you don’t understand French commands)

2007-01-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

I got my first voicemail messages while on my trip to Reims this past weekend. I have already figured out how to set up my greetings and my four-digit code. Here is the hard part. How do I actually check my voicemail? After several haphazard attempts to decipher French commands and code, I thought about whether there would be a better way to check voicemail. Knowing who called and when they left the message would help immensely as I sift through my voicemail. This would even help if I'm in the United States where checking voicemail counts towards your minutes if you call during the day time.

Apparently such applications exist. Citrix has a program called Visual Voicemail that allows you to view the phone numbers and names (if available) of people who left voicemail in a screen. Apple's IPhone seems to have a similar application as well. I would love to test such an application on my phone here in France.

Tomorrow when my bandwidth is better, I will check it out. Stay tuned.

Using Google Calendar to organize group travel destinations

2007-01-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

Due to the short time allotted to the Paris Social Sciences Program, many students felt inclined to make use of their free weekends to travel to other European countries or other regions of France. This past weekend, three of my friends and I headed out to the Champagne region of France for a short two-day trip. Before leaving for the trip, we used email, word-of-mouth, and email mailing lists. We did not receive any response, but we’ve gotten many questions about our trip upon our return.

One friend (who I will call AK) suggested using Google Calendar as a way to organize when and where other students are going during the weekends and the free week. AK often uses Google calendar to coordinate plans with her roommate. They would share a calendar marked with their course schedules, club meetings, appointments, etc. One could definitely find this useful within groups of college roommates or apartment mates when scheduling group clean-up days or grocery shopping.

The use of a shared calendar is being used more and more. Since my registration for the Google calendar account, I’ve noticed an increase in my use of an interactive online calendar versus my paper-based academic planner. I still use my academic planner to keep track of assignments and last-minute things-to-do. (Besides, I like to color-coordinate my tasks by importance and to cross out tasks upon completion. It makes me feel productive.) However, I found that my planner could only hold so much information in its tiny pages. My planner is the perfect size for mobility, and I did not want to buy a bigger planner due to inconvenience. I found that I moved more established parts of my schedule (i.e. courses, long-term project due dates, work schedule, appointments, etc.) to Google Calendar. At first, I kept my Google Calendar private. Just last quarter, I started a shared calendar among my friends to figure out when to get together for coffee or a meal due to my hectic full-time employment recruiting schedule. Now, our group will soon experiment with a shared calendar to coordinate outings and trips. Interesting enough, I will probably be one of the coordinators of the shared calendar experiment.

I’m just thinking through all the possibilities that our shared calendar can evolve into. The initial purpose is to give a place (as Facebook lacks a shared calendar feature) to organize and coordinate group trips. For example, I can post on Google Calendar that I am going to London on January 25^th at 8 pm. I edit the details of my post by adding transportation and housing details. I can also post what I plan to do on certain days. If anyone wants to come along, all they would have to do is send me an email to coordinate. This could be helpful for people who have no idea what they want to do. As traveling by group is usually much cheaper than traveling solo, more students look to travel to the same place if other students already planned it. We could invite more people to come along on the trip. In addition, it’s useful for friends of the program participants who want to visit Paris as they could avoid visiting their friends while they are away.

As of yet, there is no way to color-coordinate on Google. It would be nice to separate all the travel groups by color to keep them organized. In addition, it could be lucrative if students had a way to directly book transportation and hotel through Google calendar. I can always add a hyperlink with my details; however, I, like most students, do not want to make the extra effort. I haven’t attempted it, but I’m sure Google uses its calendar to tailor their advertising to the posts’ content.

onwards to the countryside (or at least a smaller city than paris)

2007-01-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

Today I will be heading with three other girls to Reims, the biggest city in the Champagne region of France. What kind of new adventures (besides the ever-constant language-barrier issue) will await me there? Unfortunately, I can't take my laptop with me, so I will update everyone when I get back on Sunday. Salut!

where is the nightlife in paris?

2007-01-09T15:46:00.000-08:00

According to Reuters, MySpace opened up their French language website which is a little late. Skyblog has 7 million visitors per month in November compared to MySpace's 1.3 million visitors. Like the U.S. counterpart, MySpace France seems to be the hotbed for DJs, clubbers, and nightclubs as they market themselves to the masses through social networking.

In fact, my friends and I discovered our Thursday night plans through MySpace. As the current exchange rate is not in favor of the American dollar, we looked for nice clubs that did not charge 20 Euros for cover. We found the Erasmus Event at Club Mix on MySpace. After viewing several of the posted videos and the numerous "friends" the club had, we decided to give this place a shot. In addition, the videos and friends hinted the young crowd like us. No cover for foreigners (male or female) is always a good deal for any study abroad student. Another plus was that it had maps to give us directions from our dorm, and we found to our liking that this club is not too far.

When we got there, we were definitely pleasantly surprised. Nice big spaces with lots of light, LCD screens, etc. Granted we got there a little early, but the place was crazy 10 minutes before midnight. (Free cover is only before midnight.) We met a lot of international students who are studying in France, and they were around our age. It was interesting to see the kind of phones they had. Most had at least Nokia (not surprised..) handsets equipped with cameras and texting capabilities. As the music inside the club was so loud, many international students used their texting apps to communicate between people at the club. One person we met downloaded a photo of his home flag because he didn't know its English counterpart.

Overall, it was an interesting and fun experience to see how language barriers and sound constraints are overcome among international students.

after going around paris.. i do care about camera quality after all

2007-01-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

After wandering around Paris on foot for hours on end, I appreciated the fact that my point-and-shoot camera is an ultra-compact and weighed the same as two mobile phones. The photo-quality has been good enough so far, but after seeing my friend Appie's gigantic SLR camera and its gorgeous photos, I have to say that I'm a little jealous. However, I am lucky that I do have almost unlimited access to her wonderful photos of Paris.

This brings into the question of mobility and the need to share media with other people. I did appreciate that my phone had a 2 mp camera inside the Sacre Coeur this past Tuesday. As the sign read "No Talking. No Pictures," I thought there was no way to record the majestic mosaics and colorful stained glass windows of the basilica. I did manage to sneak a few photos; however, half of these photos suffered from shaking. As the phone screen is much smaller and less pixelated than most camera LCD displays, it was difficult to tell whether I have taken a good photo or not. Once I came home and loaded them onto my computer screen, these once minor imperfections turned into major problems. Compared to my friend's camera on his Nokia phone, the image quality of my phone is definitely lacking.

It's great to be able to have a camera on your phone, but if the camera can't take crisp and clear photos, there is really no point in having a camera. I would rather lug around a gigantic SLR camera that guarantees great-quality photos than to a mediocre camera phone that decides to give me a good photo half the time. Unless there is some way to guarantee that the preview version is an accurate version of the image on your phone screen, I would definitely prefer to bring both my ultra-compact digital camera and mobile phone wherever I go.

the rising acceptance of VOIP among college students

2007-01-08T15:03:00.001-08:00

I noticed that I am increasingly using other means of communication. Sure I do have an Orange prepaid plan to call my study abroad classmates, but I find that I text a lot more. Part of it is cost. I get 50 text messages for 5 euros while I have 1 hour of talk time for 30-35 euros. That seems to be the case for a lot of European mobile phone plans. Texting is just cheaper than making a phone call despite the fact that receiving a phone call is free. Another part is that we are studying abroad. Sometimes I feel like a pickpocket target whenever I converse in English over the phone. I also get some dirty looks from the French while I’m on the phone in the Metro. Texting allows me to be discreet and blend in with my environment.

There is also the problem of staying in contact with close friends and family back home. I initially bought a international calling card in France because the rates are about 0.10-0.15 Euro per minute for calls to the U.S. This is convenient in the fact that I save a lot more money than using my cell phone to call abroad. However, it’s annoying to put in all those numbers in order to make a phone call. I then realized that I should try to see if Skype works on my personal computer. At first I was worried about voice quality since my internet connection at the dorm is pretty spotty; however, I noticed many students from my study abroad program uses Skype as well. (In my group, around half of the students have Skype accounts.) Considering that it costs less than 0.05 dollars per minute when calling landlines in the U.S., cost seems to be a driving force behind the use of Skype as means to stay in touch. In addition, any call to another Skype user is free.

Even on facebook, people are putting up their Skype IDs and asking in their posts to friends whether he or she has Skype. I did not see this at all last year, but more people are figuring out what Skype is and how VOIP will change their preferences to chat with people live. Of course, this connection is still grounded. They only use Skype when seated at their desks with their laptops, but this is definitely a step towards something new. I suspect that more people are having broadband connections which allows for better connections and voice quality for VOIP. If one has dial-up, it's definitely better to have a mobile phone or a landline for international calls. I'm just waiting for one of my newfound foreign friends to ask me "Do you Skype?"

How Facebook participation has skyrocketed since we are now abroad

2007-01-06T16:28:00.001-08:00

Earlier this year, I did a project for my internship regarding motivations for social networking. One top reason that many young people participate in Facebook is the ability to use Facebook as means to stay connected to old friends and family who are not in your immediate vicinity. Facebook provided an efficient method to keep track of all your high school friends at other colleges and see what they are up to. Since college is a very tumultuous time and I usually never have time to have meaningful conversations with my high school friends over the phone, Facebook provided the necessary tools ranging from photo albums to Wall posts in order for me to stay involved with my friends’ lives despite the distance.

Now that I am studying abroad, the importance for me to keep connected to my friends becomes more important than ever. Truthfully, I usually never have time to actively get involved with Facebook such as creating photo albums or write Wall posts. As many of my friends were just a phone call away, I never felt the need to use Facebook as means of communication. Now that I am in another country, I don’t have the luxury of using my cell phone to communicate with both my college and high school friends unless I want to pay exorbitant per-minute rates. In addition, my desire to share my experiences in Paris through photos coincided with the need to upload photo albums every day to my Facebook profile. Even the students on the program are browsing through Facebook more often and uploading several albums per day.

Does distance play a huge factor when keeping in touch with friends? Due to the need to feel connected on a tight budget, many college students will actively look for other means to stay connected and increase their online presence in applications with social networking aspects such as Facebook, MySpace, and Blogger.

Having a GPS app would've been useful for my first friday night in Paris

2007-01-06T15:04:00.000-08:00

Considering that it was my first Friday night as an international student in Paris, I thought it was appropriate to experience Parisian nightlife. As we were coming out of a wine and cheese tasting that afternoon, we all ordered street food for dinner before heading to a bar.

Here are some things that I started to notice on this adventure.

1. Arranging meeting times is sometimes confusing. This situation is complicated as the wi-fi in our dorm is very slow and restricting. I can't even get on AIM in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes we have to send two people to knock on people's doors to update meeting and departure times.

2.Most of us have no idea how to converse in French. Only three to four people out of eleven had some command of the language. This language barrier was a little difficult for us when we asked for directions. However, most French people knew some English (especially the twenty-somethings in the area).

3. A GPS program would've been very helpful. I recall so many instances where we happen to lose people from our group, and I would have to call them or text them to locate them. Many times, we would never be able to decipher where these people are as we are very new to the city and there are way too many cafes, street corners, etc. Especially in our small group of 10 people, it would be nice to have a GPS locator on my cell phone to know where my friends are.

4. Along the same lines with the GPS program, we often wandered aimlessly to find a bar or club that is to our taste. There is only so much the internet can tell you on directions and the entertainment venues themselves. (Of course, if one could read through French this becomes much easier on French websites.) Given that Paris is not necessarily like a grid but more of a maze, a GPS program would've been nice just to figure out where we are walking. My travel guide stated that a very lively street for nightlife is Rue de Lappe. Unfortunately, Rue de Lappe is a very small side street behind the Bastille. I was able to find it on Google Maps, but it would be nice to have a program to track our journey and tell us how far it is to the street.

5. The biggest concern was coming home. Metro and trains stop running at 1 am. Some of us were out way past this time. Specifically, two friends and I decided to join another group of students at a Latin dance club. We knew that there were night buses, and I even used the RATP (Paris transportation authority) website to figure out what routes to take. It seemed like it would be easy, but apparently it is very hard to get back to our dorm on the Left Bank from the Right Bank. We ended up walking 20 minutes in the rain to get to a main nighttime bus stop and wait for the only nightline that goes to our dorm. If only we knew about this before, then there would be no problem. We walked around in circles for about two hours until I finally got to my room at 4:30 am. Also, I found out that that the other half of our group had to take cabs back. One cab group got ripped off because they were foreigners. It is most likely that this cab group had a driver who took an extremely long route.

Luckily, my two friends and I had pretty good sense of direction. We were able to get back to our dorm just fine. Next time, I think I will make use of my free 10 minute access to Orange world and figure out where the current nightlife is.

study abroad!

2007-01-04T08:57:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. I was on holiday break, but I came up with tons of unfinished posts that I will eventually finish.

I'm in Paris right now, so for the next 10 weeks I will be looking at social networking in the international student's eyes. Tons of new problems. How do I keep touch with my family and friends back home? How should I keep in touch with my new friends abroad? If I don't have a cell phone, what is the best way to stay connected with my friends abroad? If I'm party of a group of students studying abroad, what is the best way to broadcast and/or organize events? How do you find the most happening places in your new home?

Above are some of the most common questions asked by students of the UChicago Social Sciences Program in Paris. I had to contemplate the same thing. As I refuse to be ripped off by my U.S. carrier for making mobile phone calls in France, I decided to take advantage of my unlocked mobile phone and sign up for a prepaid sim card (Orange Mobicarte) in France. Figuring that 35 Euros would be enough for at least a month (I hope), I now have a way to connect with other students in my program. Some students have opted to get the prepaid sim card or rent a cell phone with sim card through a third party agency. For me, I saw that the price of SMS (50 messages for 5 Euro) is much cheaper than a phone call (.55 Euro/min); thus, I figured I would probably use SMS alot more than phone calls. Then again, all incoming calls are free which makes 1 hour worth of making calls a huge amount of time.

Some students even opted not to get a mobile phone. These students figure that they will probably be around students with mobile phone, so they bought international calling cards to stay in touch with friends and family from home. Another trend I noticed is the number of people with Skype or Google Talk accounts. 100% of the students in our group brought laptops, and we all have wi-fi access in our dorms. Given the incredibly low cost (sometimes zero) cost of making calls over these programs, many students have posted their user IDs of these account types in their facebook profiles in order for their friends and family to stay in touch.

As our program has just started, there is a feeling of camaraderie within the group. As most students in our social sciences program have little or no knowledge of French, it became very apparent that we would be together for most of the trip. The question is what would be the best way to organize and broadcast events or outings to such a large group. Suggestions included creating a facebook group or a email listhost. Others included broadcasting ad hoc SMS messages to announce locations and meeting places. I wished that we had a GPS system, so I hope to experiment with my 10 minutes of internet time to see if "Orange World" allow such a function.

Above all, students are still driven by cost. There is still a number of students that opted out of cell phones together in order to save the 50 Euros in getting activated in France. Some didn't know the difference between GSM and CDMA, or what an "unlocked" phone really is. From my understanding, most just want to have a phone that makes calls and sends/receives text messages from their family and friends. It seems like extra features like GPS positioning and contact statuses were not in the minds of the students. Of course, I could attest to the number of times when we wish we had a virtual guide whenever we try to navigate through Paris, and I've only been here for two days. Ease of use and price are definitely big characteristics I noticed to study-abroad students.

how to make money through social networking... the tedious way

2006-12-16T19:50:00.001-08:00

MyLot uses the interactive aspect of social networking to create a site where users are paid to make posts on discussion boards. As many companies are looking for new ways to connect with their consumers, these companies have established their presence on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The pace has only increased as MySpace claims that it has passed Yahoo! in term of web traffic. This shift makes a lot of sense because advertisers only want to market their products where potential consumers could see them. This is why they like Google and Yahoo! because people often view their pages multiple times per day.

MyLot is a site that wants to jump on this bandwagon. In order to gain the critical amount of participating users such that advertisers would care, MyLot is paying their users per post to participate in discussion forums here. Initially, users will get pennies per post; however, with MyLot's referral scheme, users could potentially earn a lot more. Doesn't this remind you of all the "get paid to be on the internet" schemes from 8 years ago?

Anyway, there seems to be a lot of participation in this scheme despite the enormous time it requires to write meaningful posts. Users also makes money if their discussion topics generate a lot of discussion, so some users are going out of their way to make outrageous topics that clearly scream "I just want to be devil's advocate so I can make lots of money." I even found a post regarding a user's decision in whether she should have sex with her boyfriend even though she is a virgin. If you read further, apparently this user has pictures of her baby in her profile.

As many people look for more ways to make easy money, I feel sorry for all these users who feel obligated to make posts just to make a meager income. Instead of wasting all that time writing posts for pennies, you may as well spend that energy writing about things you care about. There are enough people on Blogger that share their thoughts for free (before the arrival of Ad Sense). Some of the people who cared enough about what they're writing eventually make enough money because they have popular blogs and websites.

Facebook to remain independent

2006-12-15T21:17:00.000-08:00

Despite the $1 billion offer from Yahoo!, Facebook has declined and will walk the independent path unlike YouTube and MySpace. Bloomberg reports that Facebook director, Peter Thiel, stands on Facebook remaining an independent company and looking to expand its offerings. The director claims that Facebook's niche in the college student market makes itself worth at least $8 billion rivalling MTV.

Given the amount of marketing power that Facebook has with its mostly college-aged members, it is entirely possible that Facebook could create a revenue model not only based on advertising but also corporate partnerships, sales commissions, and merchandise. Facebook is even trying to hold onto its members by adding networks for work and location. The results of Facebook's retention attempts are yet to be seen, but Facebook is pretty serious about becoming the direct connection to today's connected generation.

Social networking was definitely the buzzword of 2006. Let's see how it develops in 2007.

change the world... through social networking

2006-12-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

ChangingThePresent launched a social networking site to encourage people to donate what they would otherwise spend during the holidays to non-profit organizations dedicated to saving the world. There are about 400 non-profit organizations with profiles on this page. You can "friend" these non-profit organizations and buy items like "clear landmines" or "fund a scholarship." They also have funny facts about how much people spend money during the holidays on frivolous novelty items.

It's a good cause but a frustrating thing to navigate through. If you want to do good, ChipIn will help raise money by imbedding widgets in your blogs and/or social networking profiles.

paris on the student budget. possible?

2006-12-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

I have two weeks left until I bid a temporary farewell to the United States and head to the other side of the Atlantic. Some friends and I are getting ready for our trip to Paris for a study abroad program sponsored by our university. After two in-person meetings regarding the program, many of us still had numerous questions and concerns regarding the program. Our dorms are located on the "south side" of Paris where most of the cool places are north of the river. There were many questions still floating among us. Are there any cheap eateries available? Where is the nearest bakery? Is the neighborhood relatively safe? Where is the best place to exchange currency without getting ripped off? Where can we shop? We're not talking about the touristy department stores or high-end, super-expensive boutiques. We wanted to know where the "real" Parisians shop. Where are the streets filled with vintage clothing stores and underground shops? Where are the places that the "real" Parisians hang out?

Obligated to be armed with some information to get us started, I began my search online to find the "must-be-seen" spots of Paris.

First, I checked out the forums at the student travellers' site, StudentUniverse. While looking through the Europe posts to find anything related to Paris. However, most content related to people who are staying there for a few days rather than 10 weeks that we will be there for. Then I went to RealTravel to browse through their archives of Paris travel blogs. This is an interesting (I know that I've used this word frequently through my recent posts, but I can't think of any other word that perfectly describes my thought. It's better to be blunt than frivolous... I guess.) archive as the blogs are written by real people who have travelled to Paris recently and recorded their photos and thoughts onto a blog. The people are not only from the United States which brings another perspective into the eclectic French city.

This is only the beginning of the many blogs I found devoted to Paris. Heather Stimmler-Hall has written a great guide on her blog, Secrets of Paris. This alternative look at Paris offers some insightful recommendations (and funny comments) about her experiences in Paris. There are definitely some eateries under 15 Euro that I want to try. I've heard the ethnic cuisine is also fantastic in Paris, and many of them are very inexpensive. There are other sections on Parisian nightlife, culture, the arts, hotel, and essentials that all travelers should be aware of. This blog will definitely be bookmarked as I'm sure we'll refer to it often while in Paris.

Another blog entitled "Girl's Guide to City Life" is also chocked full of information especially for the ladies. They have sections for not only Paris but for many other international cities as well. Most content is biased towards shopping and nightlife, but there are other little things for the "active girl" or the "travellin' girl" to see. Speaking of fashion, I've also browsed through many forums showcasing Paris street fashion, so that I don't stick out like an American tourist.

I'm still looking around for a very good restaurant guide, especially for student budgets. If you know of any communities, please share.

MIT finds another way to facilitate stalking on campus

2006-12-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you all knew about this by now (especially if you read Engadget like I do), MIT researchers unveiled a new social networking application called iFIND that allows anyone to locate a person on MIT's campus via WiFi.

As WiFi becomes more ubiquitous, more students and faculty are spending more time away from their workstations and working in areas such as coffee shops, cafes, and the quads. Of course, use of the application is voluntary. People can choose whether or not they would like to be easily located via WiFi access points as the application depends on the device not a central server.

Although this application only had laptop computers in mind, this concept could easily be applied to mobile platforms such as mobile phones and PDAs. Nowadays, the college student could either call their friends or text them to find them on campus. UChicago's campus do not have as many WiFi access points like MIT, but as more students choose to buy laptops rather than desktops for college, I can see this trend changing. There is only so much information about a location that you can convey through spoken or written communcation. Especially on campuses or venues that are very large, it is sometimes just more simple to have a location marked on a map to avoid confusion and/or miscommunication.

In addition, MIT's new application could be applied to personal information management as well. Just imagine, you could even find out the name of the cute girl or guy and where she or he lives... (just kidding). Revolutionary? That verdict is still out. There are already numerous location-based tracking service available for mobile platforms (see earlier entries) and on the web (i.e. dodgeball). Have they been embraced fully? Not that I've seen or experienced. Personally, I don't think companies have fully figured out how to combine these features into a product that a college student would be interested in buying or can even afford. Maybe it would be better if you target the young professionals straight out of college as this group usually upgrades their choice of consumer products given that this group has more disposable income.

cyworld clone

2006-12-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

So it looks like music fashion mogul Damon Dash has created a Cyworld clone called BlockSavvy. Although it is invite-only, it seems like the African American community is embracing the interactive social networking site that allows users to create and decorate their digital avatars and their own rooms with items bought with Savvy dollars.

There are so many social networking sites popping up that I can't even keep track of the ones I've tried and the ones I've heard from off-hand. With YouTube being bought for $1.65 billion and the price of MySpace looking like a bargain, there must be a lot of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs looking for the next big social networking hit. This isn't too surprising as the amount of valuable marketing information and research found within these sites is pretty daunting.

education in web 2.0

2006-12-13T16:55:00.001-08:00

I was browsing through Time magazine today, and I ran across a rather fascinating article entitled "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century." It offers an interesting perspective on what skills the current generation of children need to have in order to succeed in the future. It criticizes Bush's No Child Left Behind Act as more teachers are focused on drilling basic math and reading skills into children instead of fostering creative thinking. In today's global economy, today's children need to know more than basic arithmetic and English. They need to be able to "think through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad, or speak a language other than English." Essentially, today's global economy demands that today's children be global students and ready to locate, sort, and determine relevant information.

How can "Learning 2.0" be achieved? What does it require? Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems, came up with an interesting solution as he attempted to searched the Web for a simple yet dynamic explanation of electricity that his third-grade son could understand. After hours of searching, he ran into a site that explained electricity simply but it was meant for welders. A lightbulb switched on inside McNealy's head as he went on to create an educational website for K-12 students that is browser based and free.

By drawing on the Wikipedia model, he created Curriki that created a collection of online courses that can be updated, improved, modified, and shared by innovative educators. This site made its debut in January 2006 and has experienced tremendous growth. There are currently more than 450 courses in the works, and thousands of people joined as members. Although Curriki is not meant to replace the in-person interaction among students, teachers, and parents, the website is a great way to complement students' eagerness for knowledge and learning to their current education. Personally, my friends and I learn a lot of interesting things via Internet than at school. With UChicago's emphasis on theory, we always looked for ways to apply theory to practice. Whether we peruse through the business and finance sections of the Wall Street Journal or use our critical thinking skills to work through actual business problems, personally it's nice to know that economics can still valuable vs. any knowledge of finance or accounting.

I do like this idea of a collaborative learning environment through the web. What would be more intriguing is how they incorporate media such as video and sound files into these courses. As the Internet encourages user-driven content, companies and NGOs are surely taking notice. Curriki's partners cover a diverse range including but not limited to the UN, Sun Microsystems, Elluminate, and XWiki.com. The Board of Director and Advisors reflect the global commitment by the site as these people came from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds, and countries. Much innovation is coming from the interdisciplinary approaches across fields and people. These online collaborative learning environments would be a great additional tool to learning foreign languages. Although I speak two languages (German and Korean) other than English at varying levels, I would like to have an opportunity to improve my fluency in these languages. Although the Curriki site's search engine suffers from too much traffic, it seems that it is a little difficult to find the relevant courses I need to practice. There should not be too much worry though. Given the high-powered sponsors and partners, Curriki has an excellent support base to lean on and continue its expansion.

where can i find a good deal?

2006-12-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

As Thanksgiving has already passed, there are still a few weeks left until Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever other holiday I missed to be politically correct. Although I am now at home and away from my college friends, I still get the occasional phone call about what I want for Christmas. Most of the time, I say that I don't really want anything as we are college students at a private college destined for years of paying back student loans. Regardless, this is a fun time for me as I am an avid shopper and bargain hunter.

In the old days without Internet, I would look through the advertisements in the Sunday newspaper to get gift idea for my friends and family. Now, I can just sit right here while I type my blog and peruse through many colorful pages full of great "deals" and "sales." Then I would beg my parents to drive me to the nearest mall or retail store to check out the items of interest and judge whether they would be available at a later date. In addition, I would always go through multiple stores to make sure I got the best deal, but I probably have wasted more money from gasoline due to all the driving around.

Anyway, the point of this entry is that sometimes I really can't find the best deal, or I get gifts based on whatever is on sale at the time. In an age where all companies participate in monopolistic competition, they will try any means to differentiate their products to the price-sensitive consumer's eyes. For example, I am personally looking for a digital camera for extensive use while in Paris. I have requirements that most companies can fulfill. These requirements are the following: 1) at least 5 mp resolution; 2) large LCD screen; 3) optical zoom; 4) lithium ion battery; 5) SD memory card; 6) lightweight. Basically, I do not want anything fancy as I am not a professional photographer, and if I ever do want to pursue photography as a hobby, I cannot afford to buy a high-end camera on a student budget. It all comes down to the camera's ability to take the best picture at any given moment. As you probably realize, most companies already have camera(s) that fulfill these requirements. Although I do understand that there are some companies that you just want to stay away from when you buy a digital camera, I basically do not care much for brand.

Thus, I began looking through various websites such as Amazon, Overstock, Newegg.com, and other online retailers and got frustrated with the fact that I can't compare camera prices and accessories all in one page. In addition, I always find consumers' comments helpful on every product, but some retailers have good rating systems while others don't. The ultimate hole in all these online retailers is that there is no way to see when and what cameras are on sale.

I decided that there must be something on the web where people congregate about the deals they found on the web and where I can find this information. I did happen to find something. It's called Shoutback. The site allows users to "shout" (i.e. report) about deals they find locally and online for a wide range of products. You can add and organize these deals on your profile, and you can also share your newfound deals with friends too. You can also earn points for every dollar you spend at participating retailers if you go through this site. Then, you can redeem these points for cash, electronics, apparel, and many other goods. An elite program is available for users who participate the most.

Despite the really simple interface similar to digg, I sometimes find this site useful for browsing for gift ideas online if price is the only factor. Instead of having to visit those sites individually to find out there is free shipping or a limited time discount, I like the fact that I can find out through here using the power of online shoppers all over the globe. A search function is available, but it would be interesting to consolidate this under a more well-known search engine like Yahoo!, MSN, or Google.

Need to know when the next PS3 or Wii is available?

2006-12-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

ITrackr is an interesting web service that allows members to track hot-selling items online. No more calling local stores to ask when (or if ever) your holiday wish-list items will ever get in. All you have to do is set your zipcode (and it will be remembered if you register as a member).

This site is relatively new, but word is travelling fast as more people become lazy (or efficient) and use the internet as a tool to make their lives easier and productive for little effort.

pimp my photo

2006-12-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

Pikipimp is a site that allows you to "pimp" your photo. As I was bored of studying for my final exams last week, I decided to peruse through the net to see if there were any fun things on the internet that I can do and share them at the same time.

It's a pretty easy web application. You just upload your photo from your HD, pimp your image (drag and drop digital add-ons onto your photo), manage your image (rotate, crop, flip, move, etc.), preview your image, then save it on your website. As the "pimp" add-ons include various physical decorations such as beards, chest hair, tattoos, and teeth. There are also seasonal add-ons such as Christmas items (hats, etc.). Basically there was no end to my amusement as I was too lazy to open Photoshop and modify my images professionally with my own creative hand.

Members get some benefits as well. Free membership includes storage space for your "pimped" photos. You can also vote for your favorite "pimped piks" and add comments to other people's "pimped piks." You also get a basic profile to share your "pimped piks" with other members.

This site was a good time-waster for those procrastinating at school and looking for a good laugh after 15 minutes of playing around.

easy way to track shared bills and expenses

2006-12-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

Buxfer is a free online web service that lets you and your roommates keep track of shared expenses and bills. Started by three graduate students who struggled to figure out whose turn it was to pay for food, they wrote this small and simple script to keep track of debts and expenses. Playing on the world "bucks" and "transfer," this online application is meant to simplify the tracking of shared expenses between friends.

This service seems like a godsend as I just finished fall quarter at UChicago only to be reminded that I will be emailed by my roommate about electricity or gas expenses for the past couple of months. Granted, I am responsible, and I will gladly pay my share of all the bills. However, I often feel uncomfortable when I blindly pay without seeing the bill. As I do not spend much time in my apartment except for sleeping and showering relative to my other roommates, I often feel shortchanged when I pay my "share" of the bills. In my current living situation, I have three roommates who share the expenses such as rent, grocery, electricity, cooking gas, and DSL internet in vary degrees of usage. With papers, problem sets, work, and extracurricular activities, it is often hard for me to keep track how much I owe whom without having a sneaking suspicion that I am paying more than my share.

All you need is an email to register for the Buxfer service. Your Buxfer homepage shows "net balance" which is the sum of group balances and contact balances, "news" (aka notifications), and a transaction-line-view of the ten most recent transactions you have participated in. You can report transactions either as a "shared bill," "lend or settle loan," or a "personal expense." After classifying the transaction, the site will ask what "group" it should apply this expense to. Transaction details allow you to see amounts paid, received, or spent by transaction partcipants, the amounts that the transaction participants owe or receive, and previous edits as well as comments posted to the transaction. Your site also has a section for contacts for all your transactions, and you can create groups for your transactions as well. You can also tag your transactions, so you can easily see the transaction history for a particular tag (i.e. apartment rent). There is also another page where you can leave feedback to the masterminds behind this site.

In this day and age where college students and young professionals are becoming increasingly connected with each other, this web service will be a sleeper hit once users find out how easy it is to use the site. You can log into this site using your Facebook or Yahoo! ID as well. The only downside is that there is no way to actively transfer funds through this site as it only keeps tracks of expenses rather than allow the user to directly pay expenses (like PayPal). As the founders are dedicated to keep this site free, they are still trying to figure out a way to enable this feature on their website. As Google just announced a "pay transfer" system similar to PayPal, these founders may have found a way to use advertising revenue as a way to fund a system like PayPal's.

It's pretty impressive that this site already tracks more than $1.7 million dollars in almost 8000 transactions, and these numbers still continue the climb. I believe these three grad students have found a niche. I'm already a convert, and I will surely get my roommates to use this system when I come back from Paris.

convocation observations

2006-12-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

I was participating in the UChicago convocation as Student Marshal making sure everyone actually received their diplomas in a timely fashion. In one sense, Student Marshal is supposedly the "highest honor" the College offers to its students. How do students get chosen? I honestly have no idea.

Regardless, while I was marching down the aisle of Rockefeller Chapel, I decided to observe what students and families are using in terms of technology. I still remember my dad's graduation at UIC when I was little. People had these gigantic 35mm cameras and were trying to be as discrete as possible to sneak a picture with flash of their loved ones. Although, fall convocation is a historically smaller ceremony (only 200 people chose to graduate this quarter), it was interesting to notice how everyone had digital video cameras and slim digital cameras. Lights were flashing everywhere, but instead of a big black lens blocking my view there was a tiny silver camera shuttering away in front of my eyes. I also noticed a wide variety of people using their cell phones to take photos of their friends and families to put them up as wallpaper. Although the school's convocation ceremony did not allow flash photography, this did not stop some graduating students from using their mobile phones to sneak a couple of pictures of the ceremony and their friends during the ceremony.

This got me wondering. Nonetheless, I have many friends who don't believe mobile phones should serve as a jack-of-all-trades media center. They just want a small phone that allows them to communicated with the outside world. Meanwhile, I see plenty of other students using their 3.0 megapixel camera on their mobile phones to take pictures and send to their friends. Digital cameras were few and far between when I was in high school. (I still remember my 2.0 megapixel Canon S100... yes S100.) Now, they are so ubiquitous that many photo-sharing sites are exploding as more people own digital cameras and want to share these photos with friends, family, and sometimes the world.

It's pretty exciting as America is slowly embracing high-speed data networks and expensive yet fully-equipped mobile phones. Although this country is still far behind my home country Korea and the rest of East Asia, it's still a fascinating time to examine for the future. It's interesting when you have many of the giant tech companies such as Google and Yahoo! headquartered in America, but why is America always behind on the latest in consumer electronics and gadgetry! This has always frustrated me for much of my life. At least now America has finally come to its senses and realized that maybe having high-end gadgets is cool.

social networking around fashion

2006-12-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

It seems like the trend in social networking is division of labor. Become as specialized as you can! It's interesting to go through social networking sites devoted to new parents, dog owners, cat owners, food lovers, etc.

Eventually, I ran into this social community called LookSpark that heralds fashion and personal style. As a devoted follower to celebrity fashion and couture (don't be fooled by my lack of inspiration in my other blogs... I do have other things to do besides blogging), I decided to spend an hour and explore to see what the site has to offer. With the somewhat cheesy motto, "Style is a feeling. Express yourself," the site serves for fashionistas to share their takes on the fashion world today.

The buzzword is "spark." Each entry or comment made by you is a "spark." Like any other social networking site, you can vote on different "Sparks" across many categories and tell other users what you think of Paris Hilton's latest fashion bungle/trend. You can discuss with other users on the topic of the "spark." Also, you can share "sparks" with your friends and gain their input.

Some of the more interesting categories include "Deals and Steals" where users can share their finds online or offline with others on the site. Another category is "What am I wearing today?" which calls for lots of sarcastic jokes and obnoxious hilarity. The "Style Term of the Day" is actually one part of the site where I learn a lot about fashion. I never knew what a "heel counter" (def: plastic cup within the upper which cups the heel to reduce excessive rearfoot motion) or "escarion" (def: light shoes worn in the 16th century) until I ran into this site.

The community itself is very easy to use and navigate. There are not that many "wow" functions or anything out of the ordinary. The reason could lie in the audience where they may not be that tech saavy, but it seems to focus more on content and sharing rather than next-gen applications. There seems to be a lot of "sparks" that get put up every day, but not many users reply to them which begs the question on whether this fashion community is targeting a market that is too small.

I guess we'll see what happens. I'm running out of ideas for gifts for my family and friends, and clothes are usually at the top of the wishlist for many of them.

MySpace to expand wireless access to Cingular uses

2006-12-06T18:14:00.000-08:00

The Cinderella dance is over. Helio's exclusive partnership looks like it will expire any time soon as it looks like Newscorp will expand MySpace access to Cingular Wireless users. What fun, I wonder if people will actually buy it. The last time I test-drived Helio's MySpace "service," it was only a web application that took out all the random ads. This should get interesting though as Cingular Wireless has a huge customer base. With network upgrades around the corner, media sharing seems to be a practical possibility.

Google Calendar Saved My Life (at least for finals week and job recruiting)

2006-12-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

As fall quarter has officially ended, I always look back in retrospect to see if I have used my time efficiently and well. Most of the time, everything I plan out months in advance in my written planner seems to change once I actually get to the date. Eventually, I figured out that I truly have way too many things to keep track of, and I don't even have enough room in my notebook-sized academic planner. With job applications, presentations, interviews, and the random extra-curricular activities that I am involve with on campus, I figured it was time to make full use of the Google Calendar account sitting with my Gmail account. Not only do I have lists of things to do, but I have list with times attached to them. In addition, many advanced undergrad courses involved utilizing study groups, so this could be a great way to organize and schedule study sessions without having to be on facebook all the time. (As we all know, Facebook isn't for serious get-togethers.)

Now that the job recruiting season is over, I have much to thank to Google Calendar for helping me to organize my life. The calendar even let me send SMS messages to myself to alert me of appointments and interviews 15 minutes in advance. Although I wished that I could color-code events by category or highlight important appointments on Google Calendar (yes, I'm a little
obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my time). Now someone has even developed a Facebook add-on to help us keep track of our facebook friends' birthdays as an iCalendar file.

Anyway, I decided to talk to a few of my friends with varying levels of tech know-how about their uses of Google Calendar (and other shared calendars in general).

The first friend who went through on-campus recruiting with me said Google Calendar was extremely helpful in helping her keep track of resume drop deadlines, presentations and information sessions, pre-interview dinners, interviews, and office visits through one of the most stressful parts of a college senior's life. She checked it daily during the season, but now that it is over (and she has a job), she only checks it once a week. She now uses Google Calendar to schedule some social events. Her calendar is not public, and she rarely uses the "shared" features on Google Calendar. She states convenience and multiple languages as strengths of Google Calendar. For practical purposes, she even couldn't think of anything negative about the service. She too would like to be able to color-code her scheduled events and would use it on mobile if it was free. (Like any college student who is price elastic.)

Then I talked to another friend who has more tech know-how then I ever will. (I actually thank him for many of the applications I use right now.) He actually tried a variety of shared calendar apps before settling down on Google Calendar, Outlook, and Scheduleworld. (Yes, he does have more than one mobile phone.) He thought 30boxes was a little too "Mac-y" while scheduleworld was pretty decent. Due to the different formats and standards used by the shared calendars, he finds it very difficult to sync his multiple computers, mobile phones, and his Xbox 360. Because truly two-way sharing can only be done with Microsoft Exchange (which costs a lot of money), he is always frustrated that he can't upload his schedules on the spot without having to physically input the change into the application. He even spent countless hours during work to figure out how to sync all of his gadgets in a drawing that I have somewhere in my inbox. Currently, he has Outlook to Scheduleworld to Google Calendar in his sync map.

So I thought about this for awhile as I do want to break away from my written academic planner at some point. I decided to peruse through some social networking sites to see if anyone else had any ideas on the subject. Some people thinks that Google is actually stressing them out more because of all the free "productive" tools that were available to them. Someone even made an application that generates an iCalendar compiling all your Facebook friends' birthdays.
Nonetheless, many students still use the old-school academic planners. Personally, I sometimes feel more satisfied when I physically cross out a task in my academic calendar. You really can't emulate that with a calendar application on your mobile phone.

2006-11-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

So I've received an invitation over Facebook entitled the "UNCOMMON PROTEST." For a little background on this event, the College at the University of Chicago has a notorious (yet amusing) admissions application called the "Uncommon Application." It was meant to be a quirky way for an applicant to get to the know the university. The long essay questions are not the boring ones as seen in the Common Application, but it asks for responses to weird questions such as "What do you think of Wednesday?" or "If you had a party and you can invite anyone you want, describe what would happen and who would be invited?". As weird as these essay questions are, the answers are fun to write if you have a great (yet sarcastic) sense of humor. It's also a way for you, as an applicant, to let the college get to know you through your writing style and sense of being.

Recently, the newly inaugurated College President wanted to make a move to have the University of Chicago be on the Common Application and add the quirky essay questions to the supplemental part of the application starting next year. This caused an outrage among the college community, as many students felt that the application is what makes the University of Chicago unique.

As mentioned in an earlier post, there was a facebook group created to protest the move to the Common application and discussion board abounds filled with comments. Some feel that the move to the Common application will increase the applicant pool, and give the College an opportunity to admit a more diverse student body. Others feel that the UnCommon application is now a U of C institution that cannot be removed.

This now comes to the Facebook event that advertises the actual physical protest which will take place this Friday at noon in front of the administration building. There are only 27 confirmed guests as far which is miniscule to the 5000+ college student population on campus.
Is Facebook the best way to generate advertising to the college body? As far as I know, I know a lot of people who graduated last year that don't even check out Facebook anymore. In addition, it seems like people don't really use Facebook that much.

I guess we'll see what sort of reaction comes up this Friday. It seems like the decision is final.

The irony of securing your ID

2006-11-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

Fall semester (or quarter in my case) is a big time for seniors in college who are looking for full-time employment or applying for grants and grad schools. With the rise of social networking sites and increased sharing of personal information, some employers and/or admissions committee members are checking out the profiles of their candidates to get a closer glimpse or another view that is not represented in their applications or resumes. They are getting more than they bargain for as they see antics of drunken craziness or plain bigotry that is listed in their candidates' profiles. Many of my friends who were going through the recruiting process have even deleted or taken down parts of their profiles because they were afraid that prospective employers may see things that my friends don't want to share. It's pretty ironic that we college students are so worried about security even though we pour our hearts out into these social networking sites and blogs.

ClaimID.com apparently is the panacea to our security woes. This site lets you "track, verify, classify, annotize, prioritize, and share information that is about you online." What the hell does that mean? Upon closer examination, the concept is that using this service you can claim, or tag, the information that is about you online. The information is then associated with your name. If people google your name, that is the information or link that will be most relevant. Basically, you have some influence on what links will come up at the top if anyone (i.e. prospective employer) decides to search your name on the internet.

The service is not verified identity. ClaimID does not require Social Security numbers or a fingerprint. It just enables you to collect the information that is about you online in a personal cache. ClaimID supports microformats, has an expanding API, and easily integrates into your blog or website. The service does not claim any of your information as its own and put Creative Commons licenses on all data feeds.

The service is free for all who join during the public beta phase. It's a novel concept. Not that I'm stupid to put things online that I don't want others to see, but I can see many of my friends who would have loved to have this service during the campus recruitment phase.

funny note that I noticed while on facebook

2006-11-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

Entitled "How to Write a Paper in College"

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lit place in front of your computer. 2. Log onto MSN and AIM (be sure to go on 'away' or 'busy'!). Check your email. 3. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it. 4. Walk down to the vending machines and buy some chocolate to help you concentrate. 5. Check facebook. 6. Call up a friend and ask if he/she wants to go to the caf and grab a hot chocolate. Just to get settled down and ready to work. 7. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lit place. 7a. If your room is not clean, take out the garbage and vacuum first. 8. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it. 9. Check facebook. 10. You know, you haven't written to that kid you met at camp since fourth grade. You'd better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate. 11. Look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror. 12. Grab some mp3z off of kazaa. 13. Check facebook. 14. AIM chat with one of your friends about the future (ie summer plans). 15. Check facebook. 16. Listen to your new mp3z and download some more. 17. Phone your friend on the other floor and ask if she's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory remarks about your prof, the the college, the world at large. 18. Walk to the store and buy a pack of gum. You've probably run out. 19. While you've got the gum you may as well buy a magazine and read it. 20. Check facebook. 21. Check the newspaper listings to make sureyou aren't missing something truly worthwhile on TV. 22. Play some solitare. 23. Check out bored.com. 24. Wash your hands. 25. Call up a friend to see how much they have done, probably haven't started either. 26. Look through your housemate's book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is. 27. Sit down and do some serious thinking aboutyour plans for the future. 28. Check to see if bored.com has been updated yet. 29. Check your email and listen to your new mp3s 30. You should be rebooting by now, assuming that windows is crashing on schedule. 31. Read over the assignment one more time,just for the heck of it. 32. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise. 33. Lie face down on the floor and moan. 34. Punch the wall and break something. 35. Check facebook. 36. Mumble obscenties. 37. 5am - start hacking on the paper without stopping. 6am -paper is finished. 38. Complain to everyone that you didn't getany sleep because you had to write that stupid paper. 39. Go to class, hand in paper, and leave right away so you can take a nap

Notice how "Check Facebook" came up 6 times. Facebook is seriously a necessary evil in the college world.

thanksgiving aftermath

2006-11-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

It's funny to see what people post in their facebook or myspace profiles before, during, and after the holidays. My local friends have been inviting friends who come from far away to their houses for Thanksgiving meals through Facebook's "create event" feature. Others have posted about their exotic vacations (Bermuda and Paris to a name a few). Many have also posted photos of their travels during Thanksgiving holiday, so that people can feel connected to their friends online through photos of Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, and many other cities throughout the United States.

I've noticed some people even documented their Thanksgiving holidays from start to finish. Everything from their wanderings through the airports and their crazy antics upon return to home. Some have even posted their links to their YouTube sites to share videos from their Thanksgiving holidays. Many of my UChicago friends also made the valiant attempts to do schoolwork as the horror of finals looms over everyone after the holiday. (That includes me as well.)

one feature that is lacking in many social networking sites

2006-11-21T15:42:00.000-08:00

I won't be surprised if Facebook or any other social networking site puts up this feature on Black Friday, but I realized (as I was talking to some of my friends on campus) that there is no way to put up your wishlist for the coming holidays and birthdays. I definitely recall way too many times when I was absolutely clueless on what kind of gift that I should get for my parents, siblings, boyfriends, BFFs, old friends, grandma, colleagues, and/or many other people. Although I still do most of my holiday shopping in real life on the shops of Michigan Avenue and Lincoln Park, there are some gifts (mostly movies, video games, books, and consumer electronics) that I buy online.

Now wouldn't this be a great scheme. If every profile has a seasonal feature that allows one to list their top 10 (or more if you are connected to lots of people) most-wanted items for the upcoming holidays and/or their birthdays, then anyone with access to this user's profile can browse through the list and get some ideas for gifts. Another great marketing tool would be to link all of the most-wanted items to third-party retail sites such as Amazon.com, and allow users (or the social networking site) to make commission.

I know many of my friends already put up their wishlists in their "about me" sections anyway. However, as much as I'm not afraid of asking my family and friends bluntly on "What do they want for the holidays?", I always get the most vague answers or I have no idea what to get them after I ask them.

staying connected with old friends

2006-11-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

So despite all the rumors that social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster, and (gasp!) Facebook are facing declining popularity and use by its members.

Of course, one great thing that these social networking sites have to retain its members' participation is their ability to maintain friendships over long distances. As I was browsing through my old high school friends' profiles just to see what they are up to, I've noticed that they all began to join groups reminiscent of high school days.

For example, a group of students started an a cappella group while I was in high school. This a cappella group turned out to be very good and eventually had opportunities to perform all over the United States. Upon graduation, many members went on to join college a cappella groups and still maintained close contact with each other. It turns out that there is now a Facebook group dedicated to this high school a cappella group. Current members, alums, and fans can join this group and communicate with each other on future events and past memories.

There are other groups as well. Some memorializing old friends, and other groups are devoted to high school sports (Brighton Barons) and music groups. Even if social networking sites get untrendy among college campuses, they are still very useful to see what old high school friends are up to without having to make a phone call or write hundreds of emails. (In my case, I had so many friends in high school as I was involved in too many activities and sports teams.) As much as Facebook is the ultimate procrastinator tool of choice, I still enjoy the fact that I can see many photos of my buddies from high school.

i'm confused

2006-11-16T13:50:00.000-08:00

Read this.

So this is an interesting case. A company has announced an unlimited mobile internet service charged a subscription fee. So imagine I have a phone.. but without a line. Instead, I use my internet connection for phone calls (i.e. Skype) and can communicate at the same time.

I'm intrigued.. Too bad I don't live in the UK when this will launch in December.

Dogpile for video searching

2006-11-16T11:47:00.000-08:00

I like saving time especially when it comes to searching for some video clips. As much as YouTube nearly has 99% of what I'm looking for, it is always hard to find that 1% on other sites.

A new search engine dubbed VDoogle! solves this problem by allowing one to search for videos across many different video sites. VDoogle uses the Google search engine and searches through the websites such as but not limited to Daily Motion, Google Video, MySpace videos, YouTube, AOL videos, and iFilm.

This is definitely worth bookmarking just because I like consolidation.

Online video + social networking = Lycos's desperation to gain foothold in web 2.0

2006-11-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Lycos has recently launched the site, "Lycos Cinema," to allow people to connect with friends while watching online video. Although this site has similar features with the immensely popular YouTube, the nice add-on for Lycos Cinema is that it enables users to chat with each other real-time while watching the video. Many of these videos are full length features (often at least an hour or two long), so it's almost watching a movie with your friends only virtually.

This site is still in beta stages, but Lycos may be on to something here.

Social networking sites as forum for political and social issues

2006-11-14T18:57:00.000-08:00

Ranging from small campus issues such as rumors of the discontinued late van service to larger political and social issues such as Darfur and Breast Cancer Awareness month, many social networking sites seem to be the focal point of raising awareness on a wide variety of social, political, and economic issues. It does not come to surprise me. Popular social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook get millions of page views every day. Social networking sites are rising to be a marketing dream as more people spend a majority of their time online rather than watching TV.

Here are some notable issues that have used Facebook as an engine to raise awareness and donations for good causes.

"Join to Support Breast Cancer Awareness Month"

This group was started last month. At the end of October, there were more than 800,000 members which raised about $114,000 in pledges. Even Google partnered up with this site to create the "lookpink" search engine devoted to breast cancer awareness month and 50% of search ad revenue goes to funding breast cancer resesarch.

"For Every 1,000 that joins this group I will donate $1 to Darfur"

Started by Marek Grodzicki from NYU, he has pledged $1 of his own money for every 1000 people who join this group. By January 1, 2007, he will tally the number of members in this group to come up with the final count. So far, there are more than 450,000 members in this group. He is currently taking matching requests from other facebook members and looking for corporate sponsors as well.

My love/hate relationship with Facebook

2006-11-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

I know that I had to stay away from personal things while writing this social networking blog, but something personal came up last night that solidified the fact that I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.

As much as I value Facebook's ability to keep me in touch with old friends from high school, there are points where sometimes I would rather find out about some things from a person rather than a social networking site. As much the site is a great social tool to get friends together for fun gatherings, parties, and events, the last thing I wanted to find out from Facebook is that an old friend from high school passed away from Hodgkin's disease.

I remember seeing photos of him randomly last year. Despite the pale skin and bones, he still had that radiant smile that melt anyone's heart. Honestly, he was one of the nicest people I have ever met and had the pleasure to know. I still remember our short days with the Brighton track team, and our get-togethers in student council meetings. All the times we made fun of each other during the annual homecoming on whose float/mural/school spirit is better.

All I know is that he would not want anyone to dwell on his past memory but to continue to live on. Whenever I think of him, I'll definitely smile in hopes that he is in a better place.

the evolution of music sharing

2006-11-10T13:04:00.000-08:00

So I wanted to say how much I love last.fm. This is by far the best site I've ever used to share my music with friends and get recommendations on music that I would never have known to exist. When I first downloaded the software onto my computer some time ago, I didn't know what to expect. I knew it was a social tagging software for music, but that was about it.

Last.fm records all the songs that I have listened to then presents recommendations based on your tastes. These recommendations includes users who share similar music tastes, artists you may like, personalized radio streams, and top 10 charts to name a few. There is no cost to sign up and use the software, but you do need to contribute a small amount if you want to use the extra goodies.

With all these funny names such as scrobbling and shoutbox, there are tons of social things to do on this site. You can attempt to be a top fan for your favorite artist or band. You can customize your own radio station with your most played tracks or your favorite all-time tracks. You can read and write on the wiki pages of your favorite artists and bands. You can tag as many tracks as you want. You can also create and manage groups to support your favorite artists and bands.

By the way, iLike is a similar program but it's a plug-in for iTunes. I'm just waiting for Mac to make a similar plug-in and make iLike obsolete.

Let the pinging begin (occasionally)!

2006-11-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

So I always appreciate when a reader of my blog emails me with positive comments and makes suggestions of other applications I should check out. Honestly, I love feedback, and if you have any applications that should be noted or checked out... Definitely leave a comment or email me.

Anyway, a reader kindly emailed me about a mobile messaging application called Pinger. It's a pretty interesting application and a novel idea. Pinger is instant voice messaging for your mobile phone. There are no rings, no greetings, no lengthly prompts, and no keypad typing. You can send messages by dialing the pinger number... or on the web. You can import contacts from a wide variety of sources like Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Palm desktop, Thunderbird, AOL, Hotmail, MySpace, and Entourage.

How do you send a message? As I said before, there are two ways. First way is to use your computer. As long as your computer has computer speakers with microphone capabilities, you can use this application. It is a little strange talking to a computer. You can also review your message if you think your voice sounds a little too weird and creepy. The second way is to use your mobile phone like you use your voicemail. The good thing is that you skip through the long prompts and can go straight to your messages.

You can also forward and reply to your pinger messages via phone and computer. You can also broadcast your pinger message to a group or as many people as you want.

Now what is the practicality behind this? Well, it is quite a novel concept except I can't seem to place its position in my arsenal of communication methods. First, the beauty of texting is that it is discreet. I can do it anywhere without attracting attention (especially during class or at work). With Pinger, it's great that I don't have to disturb my friends when they are sleeping or in class; however, I may as well text them to begin with.

Then there is the argument that Pinger is easy because you don't have to type out the text on a keypad. Well, that is what the predictive text option is for on your mobile phone. In addition, heavy texters also have the option of getting phones with QWERTY keypads or touchscreens.

I can see Pinger as a cool alternative to sending email especially to my friends abroad. (I can save a lot of money by not calling them.) Then again, VOIP applications such as Skype is making that dirt cheap too.

My verdict: Pinger is a great novelty, but it does not serve much useful purpose unless your friends prefer your voice to a text.

Stumbled on an interesting plug-in

2006-11-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

"StumbleUpon" lets you channel-surf the best internet sites on the web. It is a social tagging tool for browsing, reviewing, and sharing great sites with people who have similar interests. Signing up is relatively easy. Just download the plug-in (works for Firefox and IE), and click on the Stumble! icon.

When you click on the Stumble! icon on your toolbar, StumbleUpon will send you sites and pages based on the topics you choose. Stumble! as much as you want as there are millions on sites on the database submitted and recommended by fellow Stumblers. You can rate the pages sent to you with a thumbs up or thumbs down. When you thumb the page, you can also submit a review and/or read reviews by fellow Stumblers.

You can also communicate with other Stumblers. Once you have chosen a photo to represent you, you can talk to other Stumblers or block them if they annoyed you. You can also make friends because you like their pages. Once you make friends, you can regularly look at your network page and see your fellow Stumblers' information. Other social networking features on this application includes making groups, discussing on forums, sending/receiving messages, and making/sharing your own pages.

I've wasted A LOT of time with this feature. Almost as much as browsing through Wikipedia. I've discovered some really cool sites using this application because I'm just too lazy to wade through all search results Google and Yahoo! give me.

Chase +1

2006-11-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

So I've been coming across some interesting groups. It really looks like that companies ranging from banks to retailers are using facebook as a marketing tool.

For example, I ran across a group called "Chase +1" where students are encouraged to apply for the Chase +1 credit card. Then, they join the Chase +1 facebook group to get a free limited edition facebook t-shirt and linke their Chase +1 credit card to their Facebook accounts. As a new member, one gets a promo gift certificate from Amazon once approved for their card. Also, there are many features including Facebook wallet, "Guess Whose Statement?", and earn and/or share Karma points to redeem at the online store. The group currently has more than 29,000 members. You can also donate karma points (1 Karma point = $1) to various charitable organizations.

I'm deciding whether to apply for this credit card. In the meantime, I'll just explore what this group has to offer. There aren't that many items in the karma store yet (besides t-shirt and facebook wallet), but I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of items Chase will put to entice the college student.

while in philly

2006-11-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

So... I took the mylo to the City of Brotherly Love. Alas, it was pretty disappointing. Although the hotel claims to be wireless, I can only get access in the lobby. So my plans for domination in a committee were thwarted as I did not have access to the information that I needed online on my Mylo. Set-up in different locations is pretty easy, as the device picks up any wi-fi access point. Too bad Philadelphia is not entirely wireless yet.

Nonetheless, I did get a lot of "Oohs" and "Ahs" from the team. The design for this device received thumbs up, as it was a very cute device. One of my techie guy friends comments, "This device is for girls. My fingers are too big. Not only that, you need nails to hit the keys." Then I realized that this was true as I typed much better and more accurately with my long fingernails than with my fingers.

Otherwise, it seems like that I was better off with a phone with the same capabilities and would be much better with an AOL instant messenger client. I searched for a way to install an AIM client on this device but failed miserably. I wish I had friends with Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk because it would be so cool to actually make full use of the What's Up application.

This brings me to another point. Some companies are coming out with this really cool phones that are dual sliders (i.e. LG SH100, Nokia N95). One side slides out a QWERTY keyboard, and another side is for music buttons or actual phone keypad. There are rumors that Helio will come out with a dual slider very soon.

Verdict with Mylo... It needs phone capabilities. I can't deal with not being connected 100% of the time because the signal dies. (At most I was connected 60% while I was on campus.)
Also, I hate reauthenticating myself on campus when the device puts the signal on standby to save battery.. Also, it's nearly useless when you travel (besides watching video and music). Even with that, loading up content is kinda tedious.

more adventures with mylo

2006-10-31T16:56:00.000-08:00

So I took it for a full test run on campus. Alas, I discovered more things wrong with this device.

First of all, the UChicago campus is not entirely wireless. Instead, there are numerous wi-fi access points scattered across campus. Therefore, I can't really use this device to communicate in b/w classes b/c I am outside where there are no wi-fi access points.

Second, I think the mylo keeps kicking me off the network because if I am idle for a long time, I lose my wi-fi connection. Thus, I have to go through the tedious process of reauthenticating myself and figuring out where my conversation was held last. Unfortunately, there is no save feature for conversations, so I lose my place a lot.

Stuff that was pretty cool (conceptually).

It was nice to check my email without having to go to a computer station or bring out my laptop. The mylo is definitely a lot more discreet than my laptop for class. Although I can always claim that I'm taking notes on my laptop during class, the professors always know that is never the case.

The What's Up feature seems so promising, but I don't know anyone with a Mylo (so no ad-hoc messaging) or anyone that does not use AIM. Seems like a great idea to consolidate all ways to communicate into one feature.

A lot of my friends thought the device looked really cool. Got a lot of thumbs up on design... they did think it was a phone at first, but alas.. the mylo has no phone capability.

my initial playthrough with sony mylo

2006-10-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

I've been sent a new toy to play with for a period of time. Here are my initial thoughts. (Both briefly on campus and NYC.)

Design: Absolute thumbs up. I'm addicted to the sliding design, and it's really cute. The screen size is a little small, but I got used to it. The keypad is not bad either, but it can be a problem for big fingers. I have small fingers and hands, and it was a little difficult for me at first. The feel of the keyboard is a little strange.

Communication Support: What?! No AIM support.. That took care of 75% of my contacts. No MSN support either, but that's not surprising. The Skype support is very cool, but it's only useful if my wireless is on most of the time. The problem with this is that I have to authenticate myself to the campus network every time I turn the machine on. So receiving calls is not going to happen through Skype unless I am logged into the network. Support for Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger isn't necessarily terrible. I just don't know anyone who has accounts on either of these except for my techie friends (who have Google Talk).

Web: Browsing isn't that bad once you figure out that to scroll you need to press Fcn+(direction key). After that initial barrier, scrolling through web pages was not bad at all. It's great for checking email quickly.

Media: It's fun to carry music and video on your memory stick. Unfortunately, Sony likes being a monopoly and forces you to buy its branded memory stick instead of offering trans-flash drives.

Battery life: General surfing/chatting/listening to music occasionally.. getting around 4-5 hours. That's not too bad, but it could be better. I'm on campus at least for 8 hours per day. I don't like hauling a charger around. However, apparently you can charge this through a USB cable hooked to laptop. (In this case, the battery life isn't too much of a problem)

What have I not played with yet? What's up UI... The concept is intriguing. I like the fact that I can manage all my contacts in any communication medium in one list. Unfortunately, most of my contacts are on IM services not supported by the device. GRRRR....

While in NYC: The device is nearly useless unless you have access to a constant wi-fi network. I used it in my hotel's wireless.. but otherwise.. it was almost useless.

What my friends thought: Design is cute. Functionality a little lacking. What's the difference b/w this device and PDA besides Mylo's inferior computing power among other things. Quoting from one of my friends, "Add in phone capability, bluetooth, and AIM support... I will pay the extra $100 on top of the initial cost of the device." This rings true because there is a limit to the number of devices I'd like to haul around campus. Currently, I carry a phone and laptop.. occasionally the music player.

More to come soon. Got a Model UN conference in Penn this weekend, and that's the epitome of the need to stay connected. Let's see if this device gives me a leg up as the conference is held in a hotel with wi-fi access throughout.

using facebook to market another social networking site

2006-10-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

So I've been invited to a Facebook group called ChiCampus. It is essentially a network for Chicago-area college students under the banner "one city, one campus." So it looks like a way for me to catch a party up at Northwestern that I would otherwise not know about.

Main sections include networking, posting boards, textbooks, rideshare, city life, events, discussions, and media. Of course you can only do this on the website, Chicampus.com. It looks like the site utilized facebook to find chicago area students and market itself as the premier site for networking within the Chicago community.

Many of my friends are joining the group, but whether they are actually using this group is uncertain. Granted there are tons of chicago-area students that are posting their personal and campus events, so the idea is not totally defunct. The most I've ever seen a U of C organization make use of Facebook is the Chicago Society and their event notices regarding lectures and talks by famous faculty and policy makers on various political, social, and economic issues.

Anyway, it seems natural that college students will now flock to regional networks in order to claim unity and city spirit. As Facebook enabled the ability for one to associate himself or herself as part of a city, you get some interesting results. Some of my friends join the Chicago, IL network just because they live here. Other students (especially international students) claim associations to their respective hometowns despite being residents here on campus throughout most of the year. I haven't really decided what regional networks I should join because I am very split between three cities (birth, city i grew up in, city where i go to college now). I wish I can join more than one city network, but I haven't figured out a way to do that yet. (Watch as someone calmly points out that I can as I probably overlooked it.)

More good web 2.0 stuff to check out.

2006-10-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

Here is another laundry list of fun web 2.0 applications that I found while waiting to be interviewed today. Funny thing is that they are from Australia... lol

Anyway, I thought they were cute so you should check them out.

Function: To-do list

Go to... Remember The Milk

This free service allows users to manage their to-do lists online. Cool features include integration with Google Maps (where is my task?), various IM services (AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype, Yahoo! are all supported), extensive keyboard shortcuts to quickly organize and list your tasks, share and manage your lists with your contacts, mobile access (either through Google Calendar or Apple iCal) or through Atom/RSS feeds.

Function: Share that really funny email

Go to... Fwditon.com

Read, rate, and share the funniest email forwards. It's similar to digg, but specifically for funny emails. Way to save me from getting all that junk email but still lets me enjoy my guilty pleasure of reading the occasional humorous story from backwards-ville.

Function: Community for parents

Go to... Minti

Minti is a social networking site targeted at parents. This is a site for parents to write, share, and rank advice from everything to raising a child to how to invite your in-laws over for dinner. It carries a light-hearted tone and a little refreshment from the craziness of MySpace and Facebook. Although I'm not the targeted age group, it's amusing to see what advice floats for parents.

Function: Australian students want facebook

Go to: Studentface

A social networking site for students in Australian universities. Having similar features shared by MySpace and Orkut, the site allows students to share information, photos, videos, and many other things. Members need a valid school email address (.au or .edu) and need to be part of Australian university.

Function: MySpace clone

Go to: Babbello

This is a very popular social networking site for Australian teens. Just like MySpace, you can have your own blog, chat, share media, and take online quizzes. It also has extensive mobile applications. You can share ringtones, games, wallpapers, screensavers, and MP3s. There is a lot of content on this site, but it still manages to look organized. You can also blog by SMS.

Australia certainly has a few promising Web 2.0 applications. I particularly like Babbello's extensive network of mobile content. I also like Minti's focus on parents.

Facebook APIs

2006-10-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

So it looks like social networking will eventually converge to one-size-fits-all mentality... as Facebook has opened its site to the public and MySpace has introduced videos in response to YouTube's explosive growth. So here are a few Facebook APIs that I found interesting.

Facebook + LinkedIn = Alumwire

Alumwire is a new social network designed to create professional opportunities for students, faculty, and alumni. You can use your Facebook account or create a new account with a ".edu" email address. The service began at Harvard and Berkeley but it now supports thousands of colleges.

With Alumwire, you can create a profile, upload a resume, and join business-related networks. Other features include calendar and messaging. That's about it in terms of features.

This site will probably won't take off because it uses Facebook API extensively. What is stopping Facebook from installing this features to its site?

Facebook + Craigslist = tixology

This is a service for Facebook users to find, sell, give away, or swap tickets to collegiate sporting events and concerts. You can post your tickets on the site, and your friends or other users can see this posting and contact you via Facebook.

Another site that extensively uses Facebook API. A niche classifieds service is the best way to describe it. As of September 2006, there have been more than 1000 postings. If more people actually knew about it, especially at larger schools, this may be a great addition to the super popular social networking site.

As far as I can tell, this service is restricted to college networks. It would be interesting to see how this service expands if the regional networks are added in.

The Mini-Feed Aftermath

2006-10-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

So remember about a month or so ago, millions of Facebook users protested against the mini-feed and news feed that show what everyone was doing right on one page?

So I've been asking around my friends and what they think? Some quit Facebook because of the creepiness. Some absolutely adore it for its efficiency.

"I personally like it...It's nothing that wasn't there before... it just makes information more accessible to people who don't really know computers."

Another conversation:

[23:03] D: initially i don't think people understood what was revealed in them
[23:03] D: and quickly facebook adjusted the feature so that people can decide what is shown on the feeds
[23:03] D: so i think that's when people got over being angry about it
[23:04] D: there are some people who post messages obsessively and are embarrassed when it's announced to everyone
[23:04] K: yeah
[23:04] K: did u think people stopped messaging so compulsively once they were up
[23:04] K: or no one really cares now
[23:04] D: i think people waste less time when the important things are posted like they are with the feeds
[23:05] D: so if you want to know what someone has been doing, it's pretty easy to look and see
[23:05] D: instead of checking all their friends profiles or something
[23:05] D: i think they did initially
[23:05] D: but then adjusted the privacy so that ppl can't see who they msg
[23:06] D: facebook is good for stalking and i think this feature enhanced the stalking possibilities

On security matters:
[23:08] K: and u're not afraid of potential stalkers?
[23:08] D: eh
[23:08] D: i haven't run into any big creepos on fb lately
[23:09] D: so i'm not worried
[23:09] D: i mean so what if they read msgs i write on my friends walls
[23:09] D: i write them on their walls instead of private msgs knowing other ppl can see them
23:09] D: if there's anything especially embarrassing :) you can always x out that story and it's gone

All in all, control is definitely important for users on social networking website. As long as these users feel secure about what information is public and which information is private, then there seems to be little concern about security.

When Facebook mini-feeds and news feeds first came into existence, no one knew what to do with it initially. As there were no announcements about the new features, users freaked out as all of a sudden you can see what's happening with any of your friends all in one convenient listing.

[23:11] D: they should have had announcements before
[23:12] D: telling us what will happen in a few days
[23:12] D: b/c it was kind of shocking
[23:12] D: and ppl weren't clear about what was revealed
[23:12] D: like, are they gonna tell people whose photos you've been viewing or how many times you've looked at someone's profile?

K: Have some people stopped using Facebook?
[23:14] D: yeah i know a couple ppl
[23:14] D: they thought about getting back on after they understood the feeds and that you can limit them
[23:14] D: but didn't
[23:14] D: b/c they were still mad
[23:15] D: i think it's kinda dumb, but that's just my opinion
[23:15] D: they switched to myspace

How ironic... they switched to the more public social networking site with possibly more stalkers and crazy people.

There definitely seems to be a tension between being connected and being secured. Although it is quite frightening how much information you can dig up by using Google, it's interesting to note that more people feel the need to be connected. Technology has come to a point where there are people who love to share and communicate with others all the time, and people who cherish their privacy and try to separate technology from their lives. There are 100 million users on MySpace, so people stay on the site despite the security and stalker concerns.

Professor's use of MySpace draws ire from the administration

2006-10-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

According to the Independent Weekly, there is a controversy surrounding a university professor that is using MySpace as his course website for his students. N.C. State professor, Tom Hoban, is offering Sociology 395-M, "Social Movements for Social Change" on the popular social networking website. Administrators claim that this practice is wrong, but Professor Hoban cites that the university website does not provide adequate means of social interaction that is required for the course. The professor is also citing academic freedom as he faced much criticism from conservative groups for his liberal-bias in teaching.

This is quite interesting as many universities are paying a lot of money contracting their information technology services to outside firms. If professors are allowed to use MySpace as their course website instead of the university system, imagine how the adminstration will feel if all of their professors stopped using the university system as means of storing and sharing course material among its students. There is also legal issue as well. Can course material be availabe to the public? Although students could technically adjust their security settings, could the professor be allowed to post course material in plain view?

From my experience (and many of my other friends' experiences), our course website is called "chalk". Professors can post syllabi, course materials, and announcements. They are also discussion boards, built-in email client, gradebook, etc. It is not a bad site by any means, but organization can be a huge problem as the site is prone to crashes. There are no chat room clients so interaction is quite slow.

It would be nice if the course website allowed students to exchange notes or talk about problems without having to email everyone individually. My friends always thought it would be cool to having a "pictionary"-like drawing board on the site so people can collaborate over economics problem sets or discuss the pros/cons of certain international relations theory. I always thought it would be natural to allow the site to send us reminders over email or SMS about any changes to the class whether it be room changes or assignment changes.

I don't know if the university would ever attempt to do those things as it may cost a significant amount of money. Some of my professors have personal websites on the university network and direct their students to those sites for course assignments and materials. These professors also pass on announcements via the listhost or their websites. The Chicago GSB has its own internal network where students log in to gain access to course materials. Email is the communication of choice for many students regarding coursework, but it would be nice to know if my TA emailed me back a reply for one of my questions on the homework through my phone if I'm away from the computer.

What do you guys think?

Google signs deal with Sony BMG and Warner for free music videos

2006-10-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, Google did buy YouTube, but apparently they have deals for its video service, Google Video, with Sony BMG and Warner. Since Google has the standard ad-revenue model, it's no wonder that Google sealed the deal to distribute thousands of free music videos on their video service.

It'll be interesting to see how this YouTube, Google Video, and copyright threats play out in the future. Although Google is probably the only company that can afford to lose big on its $1.65 billion acquisition, Google is sending a striking message to the media industry as these companies struggle to gain foothold in this new market.