May 2011 -- The Social Mobile Revolution Continues [ From Scobleizer's private EA account]

I've joined this nice new social media, stock market trading game called Empire Avenue [made by an Indian btw, @Dups on Twitter]. You can drop in a comment below for an invite. This article is better capable of referencing how the platform works and this below, is an excerpt from Scobleizer's shareholder mail sent privately to us. Not sure anything's revealed in the read that follows, but this surely worth a dekho....go for it!

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It's been a busy week in the world of technology. Many people were at Techcrunch Disrupt trying to find the killer new technology. I stayed home, because the real disruption is happening in labs in Silicon Valley, not in the hallways at a conference.

Today, for instance, I visited the headquarters of SeaMicro. Haven't heard of them? You will. They are positioned to being one of Silicon Valley's fastest-growing hardware companies ever. What do they do? They build microservers that give you 4x the compute in the same space as well as use a lot less electricity. This means better cloud services are coming soon because companies like Rackspace can put even more compute into a datacenter for the same buck. That video will be up by morning.

One thing I've been working hard on this past month is spring cleaning. My studio is nice and clean now, and so is my iPhone (I deleted more than 100 apps I haven't used much) so now I'm ready for producing even more great content so that you'll get those "plus one" dividends you are hungry for (the more blogs, videos, tweets, photos, and interactions you have, the more you'll see your dividends go up).

So, my best PRODUCTIVITY TIP is to write some Gmail rules to filter out your inbox. This is the single best thing I've done for my productivity in the past year. Every day my Gmail filters get rid of hundreds of lame emails. Notifications? Gone. Lame PR people? Gone. Newsletters that aren't must read? Gone.

Plus, you can do the reverse. You can "filter in" important items. For instance, if you write me an email with the word "Rackspace" in it, it gets put into a Rackspace tab. I do that with emails from my boss, from my wife, and for certain keyword topics.

Don't know how to do filters? In Gmail start with an email that you want to filter out and click the "More Actions" menu. In there you'll see "Filter Messages Like These."

So, if you never want to see emails from someone anymore, just do that and then set it up to filter all of those messages into the trash, or into a specific tab. It takes some playing to get it to work right, and get your system setup properly, but if you need help, I'm here to walk you through it.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES YOU SHOULD WATCH

Sony Bloggie 3D video camera, $249.

I just got a 3D TV. Now, I know most of you really hate the idea of 3D TV, especially if you have to put on those stupid glasses. But, I'm still enamored of the possibilities.

This week Sony started shipping a 3D video camera called the Sony Bloggie 3D. My early tests (I just got mine today, which I ordered as soon as they came available) are promising, although the software isn't as nice as it should be. The videos are nice, but the battery doesn't last all that long (less than an hour) and, of course, you'll need to wear those weird glasses if you watch on a 3DTV although the screen on the back of the camera shows 3D without needing glasses.

My recommendation? If you are a 3D freak, or early adopter gadget lover, you'll want this to show off to your friends, but nearly everyone else should avoid. Read the reviews on Amazon to get more pros and cons: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MHS-FS3-Bloggie-Video-Camera/dp/B004H8FNCQ

MOTOROLA VERIZON DROID X2

Android phone lovers will like this new Droid. Costs about $200 after subsidy. Pros? Great large screen and fast performance. Cons? Goofy design (still haven't figured out how to properly compete with Apple) and big size. I just got mine today, so haven't had a chance to test out battery life, or other features. So, keep in touch for a more in-depth review.

NEW SERVICES

Onavo -- must have for iPhone travelers

You know when you travel how roaming data fees go through the roof? AT&T was charging me about $1 per meg, and then $5 per meg if I went over a 200mb limit. Yikes! So, how do you get more out of each buck? Get Onavo. It compresses your data, worked really great on my recent trip to Amsterdam. Saved about half. Did you know every time you look at Google Maps it can take megabytes? That can get expensive very quickly. Make sure you're running Onavo if you are traveling. http://www.onavo.com/

MealSnap -- get rough calorie count from meals

This is a pretty mind-blowing app. Let's say you are trying to learn a little more about what you're eating. You open up MealSnap, and take a photo of that chocolate cake. Within a few minutes it comes back with what you're eating, and a rough calorie count. It's pretty interesting, but overtime you can start playing games with yourself to eat better. And if you don't, well, at least you'll have an understanding of why you're overweight. http://mealsnap.com/

INSIDER SECRETS

This is probably going to be the toughest part of the newsletter to write. Why? Because while I know of a few insider secrets if I tell you I'll mess up their launches and/or cause problems for their engineering teams if people show up early. But, I've seen a few things that I'll be obtuse about.

One company, who keeps an authority score, similar to the ones you see on Empire Avenue, is working on a way to add in a real-world human element to their score. Empire Avenue does it by letting us buy stock in each other, this new company will give us a way to "gift" points to people who've done something for us. It's a new "thank you" economy, which will be interesting to watch as it launches soon.

Another company, started by a Stanford artificial intelligence professor, amongst others, showed me something mind-blowing. His new app, using nothing but Facebook, found all sorts of "social circles" of mine and my wife's. It found all my wife's elementary school friends. It found the speakers I had hired for conferences in the 1990s, most of whom I hadn't talked with for years. Pretty mind blowing stuff, which shows this social revolution isn't over yet.

Earlier this week I visited Pier 38 and DogPatch Labs. You should know that as the place Instagram was born. Well, while there, a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "we're growing faster than Instagram." Turned out it was Cole Ratias, CEO of MyPad, which just passed eight million users, all gotten this year. Pretty mind-blowing growth, you might listen to my interview with him: http://www.cinchcast.com/scobleizer/231659

Anyway, just an example of a newsletter that we could send out. It'll be more fun if you get involved and give me similar items for next week's newsletter. If you like this, please use the new features in Empire Avenue to comment or like this newsletter. That'll help my standing on the service. Oh, and do give me tips of geeks I should own, my bank account is pretty healthy again, so looking for great people to add to my portfolio here.
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Though I'm sure most of this news will be made public eventually, feels nice to even psychologically get in on the Silicon Valley goss ;)

Scobleizer's got that right, hasn't he? :)

References and Recommendations - The WOM 'Like' Button

Ever recommended someone? An agency, vendor, recruit, consultant, opening? In retrospect, ever looked back at the quality of the recommendation and wondered if it would jeopardize your relationship with either person?

A recommendation is a Word Of Mouth (WOM) 'Like' button. [Even Facebook gives you an option of Like/Recommend when embedding the button on a site :)] It's strength is what matters to me the most though. While I do recommend based on prior experience, it might not necessarily be a *work* experience; it could be based on vigor, very obvious effort taken in a past setting, multiple WOM thumbs ups', timelines adhered, ethics validated, economic viability (trust me, cheap is not always good) and ergonomics. Isnt that how LinkedIn recommendations work too, both for profiles and products? Isn't that how Orkut 'Testimonials' used to work too (nostalgia, much)?
Also, hitting the 'Like' button is not enough, when recommending for other than any of the above reasons, I always ensure to leave a 'Comment' below with either a Have-never-worked-with-them-Feel-free-to-grill/reject Disclaimer OR an obvious reason for placing a finger on them, Heard-they're-cheapest/fastest/best-in-the-market types..

Based on what do you recommend?

And whom do you think of first? The person you recommend - helping or boosting their face value OR the person you're recommending to - To not have them duped, to deliver better quality, to get a job done faster. cheaper. prettier. cleaner?

Also do you demand your pound of flesh in due course for the brownie points earned via the recommendation? A favour, a thumbs up for yourself, a barter trade of business or even a potential job? If yes, then is that a genuine recommendation even? If no, then I hope you know there are very few like you out there ;)

Being Social to help train Artificial Intelligence – Redefining Social, are we?

In this world of increasingly smart consumer appliances, I think it’s time we take a breather and look back at what makes for this artificial intelligence (AI). Doesn’t AI make life better? It does, right? Isn’t a washing machine that can download applications by accessing your home wifi, scheduling washing and coordinating your water temperature better than having to do it manually?

But will we participate is the question in the ‘training experience’.

This was first referenced to by an article I read in DNA Money, an interview with Mr. Hakan Eriksson who said that companies like Electrolux, IFB and Siemens would love to know how you’re washing your clothes – hot water or cold, detergent usage, how many litres of water are being used so they can remember and self-load in future. But then the company asks you these questions to better your experience, to gain some feedback and you say “Hey, no, I don’t want to participate in this survey” while you spend a large part of your day on Facebook chatting with friends discussing much more private things.

In a more decidedly Indian scenario, think about a myriad of examples to this effect. Kaya Skin Clinic requests you to message back toll-free about your experience with them, as does Vodafone. But the initial frustration that you’ve had with the telecom provider irks you enough to not want to opt-in and participate in a series of questions about your experience with the telecom officer- even though it could better the experience for someone else, even though you will spend that time day-dreaming or probably checking your Tweets. There’s a whole category of people who think they already ‘wasted’ enough time on the telecom officer who couldn’t solve their problem in the first place, but they don’t realise how their input could probably better it for 10 other people in future; they don’t realise that they could well be one of those ten!

In this increasingly social world, we bother to create a bigger, better avatar about ourselves on social networks – trying to populate our profiles with the coolest of books, the most famous bands, hobbies and movies but what about those social aspects with a return on investment? What about experiences like these.

Can we then safely call ourselves social without being a part of said and similar examples? If yes, then we’ve just unknowingly redefined Social. If no, then we’re just beginning to ponder....and you know what? Sometimes, that’s all that matters :)

So the next time your upset with your Online travel portal voucher and want to right it – argue, berate, discuss and opine, but don’t turn away from that extra email id and phone number the guy asks off you to call up and get some feedback about teething trouble with his newly launched wap site. Give – Feedback, brickbats, compliments and bouquets. It’s time we look at these things as a long term investment...