Technically Speaking

Not really an adventure, but on Saturday morning I decided to try my luck at the local Apple store in the STL area. I saw the line was only about 20 deep, so I figured I may as well join in on the phone fun.

The line only took about 1 hour, and I was in and out of the actual store in under 15 minutes with an activated iPhone 3G. So yes, I technically contributed to these numbers.

I agree with others out there that this phone is going to be changing the way we all do business remotely. The apps that are out there are overwhelming and the ones I downloaded work really well.

The only drawback I see so far is that the battery does suck down really quickly in 3G mode, but other than that, after a full charge once my battery died, the battery life into this week (Sunday into Monday now) has been really good. I guess though, battery life is suppose to be a lot better than a Palm Treo 750 according to PC World.

Technically Speaking, did I really need an iPhone 3G? Not really, but I more or less said I was getting one once they released a 3G version, and I pretty much do what I say when possible. That’s just me. Never had anything against the old version except I knew that the 3G version would be more worthwhile to wait for. If you have an iPhone experience you’d like to share from the weekend, leave a comment here or on my FriendFeed.

Did I blog today? Yes I did on our company blog.

Technically Speaking, it was actually fun writing that little story of how the team came together.

Many moons ago, I had an old drummer of mine tell me that (Critical Mass) would be a great name for our band. Of course the other guys all agreed it sounded like another Korn wannabe band.

Funny thing is that back in those days (to the part of many moons ago), they (Korn) were still an almost signed band. In anycase as Mashable pointed out from my post last night, identi.ca reached just that.

Quite funny that we all love twitter so much that once there was a service that really spoke to the tweeters, it reached critical mass that quickly. I still like it though. Even though I can’t subscribe to other dent’rs that have subscribed to me right now, it still does the one thing I like. It flat out WORKS. Gtalk still posts, as evidenced in the public stream.

Do people online just need an ability to say things that badly that when a service like twitter goes unstable, we all look for the next best thing? The ability to spout that I’m listening to Dr. Feelgood I suppose makes me, well, feel good. Many people also think that there is something to this whole phenomenon of instant 140 character wisdom.

Whatever the case is, I believe the developers of identi.ca are quite pleasantly surprised today that they reached critical mass this quick. Now let’s sit back and watch how this thing scales. Adding more servers quickly would be a great idea (obvious!).

Technically Speaking, I really need to get back to work now!

After working online all day, I figured it was about time to do something offline. That was until I saw Molzy tweet about identi.ca. I figured, ok, another plurk, and I’ll give it 5 seconds of my time. I was quite pleasantly surprised. No plurk here.

identi.ca is simple to use and very easy to understand, and most importantly - it works out of the box. I did however “lose” one “dent“. I have no clue is if that will be the community word (like twitter’s tweet), but I already saw it in the public stream and I liked it. The dent in question could have been because I was jumping between browsers.

It’s so simple, it’s almost one of those too good to be true services. My next thought of course is how this service will hold up once everyone figures how simple it is to use? The next week or few days should tell that tale.

The last nice thing before I let you go check it out for yourself is that Gtalk sets up with no issues. Also, one more thing - it’s very easy to integrate right into your FriendFeed stream. Simply put /rss after your identi.ca.

Technically Speaking, my identi.ca is right here.

E-mail is in the danger zone, but I disagree. For businesses, even though twitter, IM, chat, etc. seems to be well integrated into our daily lives, e-mail is going nowhere. While many would like to believe that it’s going away, and I know a few that would love it to just disappear entirely, I seriously doubt it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

My Thought Process

Eliminate e-mail and where we are is back somewhere around 1992. There would be specific networks or nodes set up like the old FidoNet and people would be messaging there, well, via the e-mail system on the node network. Anyone remember your first Fidomail address? Talk about funny looking, but the best thing is that it did work. Same thing with today’s e-mail.

While twitter, IM, chat all seem to have a better way of communicating, the fact remains that most of these services are all dominated by early adopters. When the mass public jumps on board, the early adopters leave the services and go elsewhere. Where do the go? They go of course to find the newest service they can go ga-ga over. Case in point, Mr. Scoble.

I can probably count the number of services that he has touted as the next big thing, on my feet and hands, and that is probably only the past 6 months. Now those that are following this so far, think how many services have you joined or checked out because he told you it was the coolest thing going?

Also with that thought in mind, I can also count the number of times these supposed replacement to e-mail services have been down. Not saying that e-mail is bullet proof, but chances are twitter will be down again before my company e-mail or Gmail is down.

Where Do We Go Now?

The original gunners asked that question. I personally would love e-mail to be replaced by something else. For now, I don’t see any other option for business to turn too. Again, chat and IM seem to be great options, but as a good example - if you aren’t partaking in say a company chat room - well than you may as well have phoned in your day.

That is the biggest issue I see. Getting everyone onboard on a concept that is simple to some, but seemingly hard for others to adjust too. Where do we go? Straight back to the e-mail program of choice, and drop the person a line!

Time to check your inbox

Technically Speaking, it’s time to once again check my inbox as it’s only Wednesday and we are still all not on holiday yet! btw, just think about it - the above video I linked was before e-mail!