Back in the World of the Living
It’s been 2 years, a few job changes and a now defunct wordpress.org blog since I last wrote here, but like they say ‘you can’t keep a good man down‘.
I have been thinking for a good time now about getting my blogging back in shape ever since my former blog site became unresponsive. Word to the wise, always back up your wordpress.org directories before attempting an upgrade. But that is in the past and I am hear now to talk about the present and future.
With a new role at work coming in a few weeks and a renewed interest in all things online, I am hoping to share my experience in marketing and selling products sprinkled in with commentary of what is going on in the mobile + social space. I’ll keep this entry short because there is a nice post I have been itching to write for a few days and need to jump on that one.
If you would like to see the aforementioned defunct site that was previously hosting this blog, then go to m.backngear.com.
Status Quo Vs. Innovation: Kindle 2 Buries Text-to-Speech
One of the biggest challenges to innovation is the status quo. While the defenders of the status quo, a.k.a. the short-sighted ones, would like to continue to protect their territories, markets and margins, they are continually being pushed by innovation. Ultimately, the ‘short-sighted ones‘ have to make a choice to embrace innovation or try to block it.
Amazon.com chose the later when faced with objections from the Authors’ Guild about text-to-speech capabilities in the Kindle 2. Seth Godin writes about other recent missteps by similarly short-sighted groups.
Ultimately the Kindle 2′s fate will be determined by the market. Hopefully a challenger to the Kindle 2 will appear with full text-to-speech capabilities so that those with impaired vision will be able to enjoy literary works like the rest of us.
Unlocking Business Opportunities
What Amazon may not have fully thought through are the businss opportunities in a market enhanced with text-to-speech. For example, they could offer a selection of voice over actors for any book on the Amazon store. This could range from Paris Hilton reading The Little Engine that Could all the way to Patrick Stewart reading Moby Dick. How about having a selection of actors reading Moby Dick and let the customer choose which one to hear? What if Amazon offered it up in a marketplace like iTunes at a price of 99 cents where voice actors can upload their versions of stories that can be imported into the ebook on the Kindle 2?
And what real leverage does the Authors Guild have over Amazon? Can’t Amazon simply choose to not distribute books that disagree with their text-to-speech implementation on the Kindle 2? But the Authors Guild does not have to be locked out of this potential revenue stream and, in fact, the more voice-enabled books there are, the more books they will sell. Maybe I am just naive to think everyone would benefit or maybe the Authors’ Guild are short-sighted?
Amazon may have such a plan in place and they are simply working through logistics. I hope that is the case. There are other platforms, besides the Kindle, that can also take advantage of integrating text-to-speech into ebooks. Android already has a few text-to-speech and ebook apps on the marketplace. The next step would be to combine the two and allow users to upload their audio readings of the books. Eventually more well known voice actors i.e. LeVar Burton may join in and offer their interpretations at a slightly higher premium price.
There will continue to be ‘short-sighted ones’ that prefer the status quo in the face of change. In those cases, just look at how these organizations fared:
1. The RIAA and MPAA are losing the battle to justify lost revenues in light of the trend towards file sharing networks
2. Microsoft’s anti-trust activities failed to maintain browser marketshare against alternatives offering innovation
3. The Republican party completed an epic fail in losing the presidency and any influence in the house and senate in election cycle 2008
All I can say is that if you favor innovation then you will NOT chose to click that ‘Add to Cart’ button for the Kindle 2.
Quick Poll: What kind of security do you need for G1 WiFi Tethering?
I wrote an entry a couple weeks ago about how to tether your laptop to the G1 and Android to get Internet access. The method I described has you connect to the G1 over WiFi and uses an app called GWiFi. What I didn’t mention is that this also turns your G1 into a wireless hotspot. Now any Tom, Dick and Mary can connect and use your 3G link for Internet access. I looked at other tethering apps and they had the same security options…none.
It’s not the end of the world if the appdoesn’t provide any type of wireless encryption or MAC filtering. For example, in lieu of those esential security features, you can protect the WiFi network by monitoring who connects by looking at the status screen of the GWiFi app. If you see another computer connect, you can immediately disconnect them. Not the best security mechanism as you can see.
To find out if other G1 users feel wireless security is important, I put together a quick question and sent it out via Twitter. I explicilty named WPA and MAC filtering as two security options since those were the most well known. My guess is that most people will be happy with just being able to tether and securing that connection is of lesser importance. I’ll report back with the results in a future blog entry.
Photo Credit: CarbonNYC
My Android Speaks Sweet SMS to Me
I mentioned in an earlier post the convenience of having your SMS message popup even when the screen is locked, well how about having the message spoken to you when it arrives? There is really no technical reason why it can’t come to fruition considering Android has a Text-to-Speech (TTS) app that can be downloaded and there are already apps that take advantage of TTS.
This past weekend I found a new app called SMSpeaker, made by the same people that brought you Speaking Pad. It costs $.99 from the Android Marketplace which made it a difficult decision to test, but for the good of all G1 users I decided to give it a go.
Once installed, the app does exactly what it says. When a new SMS message comes in, it is read aloud. Pretty straight forward. You can also have it repeat the message if you missed by simply tapping the screen. This will come in handy with the newest California law banning texting and driving. Here is a video of the SMSpeaker app in use.
While testing, I found the app very handy if your phone is sitting across the room because you can now hear the SMS message and who sent it. This also brings up a word of caution because the SMS message may not necessarily be something you want other people to hear. Take for example, you may be planning a surprise party for your girlfriend or making arrangements for a boys night out which you really do not want read out loud. On the otherhand, it could be an interesting intercom-like system to send audio messages to your wife or kids. As with any app that comes out, you can adapt it how you see fit.
There are other Android apps that could benefit from TTS integration. Take for example Twidroid or any Twitter app for Android. Short 140 character tweets are ideal for TTS, but there would need to be some filter on which tweets are spoken so you hear the ones that are from those twits you would want to literally hear from. If the implementation is right, this is an app I could imagine paying for.
Taking the Next Step
As with Augmented Reality, we are only scratching the surface of the benefits TTS will bring especially for those with imparied or degraded vision. My father, for example, wears glasses for reading and has a lot of trouble reading his Blackberry because his glasses are not always around. I saw this first hand a few months back as he was struggling to read the small screen and text. Imagine being able to simply click on a message and have it read out to you.
So while all of these touch screen phones have brought a great user interface , where does that leave those that are unable to see the screen? The developers of SMSpeaker are already pushing ahead with more apps that will bring benefits to an audience larger than the everyday mobile phone user.
Photo Credit: Tim Caynes
SMS Messaging with Android on the G1
It seems like there are a ton of SMS apps on the Android Marketplace, but can they all be great? I thought I would share what is working well for me and maybe that will help a small percentage of Android and G1 users find something that works for them as well.
DISCLAIMER: To be honest, I’ve had a very limited exposure to all the SMS apps in the Marketplace. I usually try to test a few and then once I find one that works well, I stick with it. If the developer of that app continues to add interesting features and fix issues then the barrier for me to switch apps gets to be higher. Trying new apps that do the same thing as the one I have become accustomed to is really not my thing. So if you are looking for a review of all the SMS apps on the Marketplace, try AndroidGuys, AndroidApps or just Google sms+android+app+review.
SMS Messaging
I am probably what would be classified as a low volume SMS user. Most of my contact with friends and colleagues is, in order of use, via e-mail, IM and Twitter. SMS comes up fourth because I mainly use it to very quickly communicate with friends when I am not at the computer or they are not at the computer. So the apps I selected and now use daily are based on my own selection criteria. Yours may be different and thus these apps may not suffice. To each their own.
First off, the built in SMS app is OK but definitely not great. There were a number of bells and whistles missing and it takes two Marketplace apps to compensate for these shortcomings.
Chomp SMS adds a very cool interface that allows you to see your SMS conversations as word bubbles. It also adds an on-screen keyboard, a highly sought after feature for sending off quick messages without needing to open the keyboard. Finally, you can text multiple recipients from a single message. For those of you that don’t have root access to the G1, thus no auto-rotate, Chomp SMS also has a auto-rotate option. There is a video review of the Chomp SMS app on Youtube for anyone interested.
SMS Alerting
To make SMS on the G1 even more convient, wouldn’t it be great if the messages popped up on the screen as they came in making it easy to read them? It would be even better if the messages displyed even when the screen was locked so that you didn’t have to unlock the phone just to read SMS messages. Add to that being able to set a different LED color for SMS messages and you have almost a complete SMS alerting app.
That is where SMS Popup comes in. In addition to all of these features mentioned above you can also set the notification to vibrate and set reminders of unread messages. There is a video review of this app for those interested.
I’ve run with both of these apps for a few weeks and not had any issues with crashes or usability. You’ll notice that in order to get the close to perfect SMS experience you need both apps, but that is a small price to pay primarily because they are both FREE.
That rounds up my SMS review for the G1 and Android Marketplace. There are a lot of other SMS apps on the market and I am sure they all have their benefits. If any of the apps mentioned above start to falter, I’ll be shopping for something new so let me know which ones are comparable or better in your opinon.
