Roland Tanglao's Weblog

I wish this Olinda social radio with WiFi and an API wasn't a one-off prototype. I want one. Hmmm maybe somebody could build something like this with The Bug from Bug Labs?
From Slide 2 of 41 (Movement, S&W):

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This is Olinda, a radio prototype Schulze & Webb is currently building for the BBC.

Radio’s really big in the UK. A few years ago, in terms of hours listened per week, it overtook TV. There are about 70 broadcast digital channels, and those are what this radio tunes into. There’s no internet streaming radio here.

We wanted to take all the ideas that have been really successful on the Web, and see if we could apply them to consumer electronics… really take them mass market, you know.

So we started small. The first thing we did was ditch the idea of presets. Often people don’t bother programming those little buttons with the stations they want to listen to. Instead the radio monitors how you listen to it, and compiles a list of your most-listened-to stations instead.

Then what we did was stick a wifi card in the radio so you can share the fact you’re listening to the radio with your friends, using a social listening Web service already built by the BBC. On the left of this mock-up you can see six lights. When one of those comes on, you know that somebody in your primary network of friends and family is listening to the radio. So you press the light to see what they’re listening to, and if you like it then you tune in to listen along with them.

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I am glad I can finally announce that Raincity Studios has acquired Bryght. Needless to say I am stoked and already enjoying working with my new colleagues. Working with Bryght has been great, the best job of my life and I am sure it will be the same at Raincity.

From my Raincity acquires Bryght story on bryght.com:

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We can finally take the wraps off something we have been cooking up for a while. Raincity Studios has acquired Bryght (press release)! The expanded company will operate under the Raincity Studios banner and the Bryght name will live on through the hosting products (i.e. Bryght Light Sites and Bryght Virtual Private Servers will continue). Raincity Studios will also continue Bryght's work in leading edge technology like Jabber / XMPP and OpenID. And of course, all Bryght guys are now Raincity guys!

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Really looking forward to our 4th annual Northern Voice! And to some great ideas and speaker submissions!
From Northern Voice 2008:

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The Moose is Loose in 2008!

Want to speak or lead a discussion? Then fill out the speaker submission form (speaker submissions close Monday December 10).

Got an idea for a topic or discussion but don't feel like speaking on it or leading a discussion? Then check out our Call for Ideas (we've seeded the list with two initial ideas: microblogging and mobile blogging but these are just examples!) and add your own idea and rate others' ideas!

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Facebook - The blockbuster seqel to all the geeky prequels! To paraphrase Tim Bray, I've seen this movie before. Only it's different this time. Unlike UUCP email, profs email, Nortel's Cocos, BBSes, Usenet, The Source, Compuserve, The Well, etc non geeky people of all ages are using Facebook to privately and semi-privately blog, share interests and email each other. Which I think is great! And I love that Facebook is becoming a platform.

But until you can get all your stuff (your status messages, your private messages, your wall posts, your events, your profile information, etc) out like you can get all your photos and all the associated metadata out of flickr using its APIs, I would be careful.

Just like everything else on the Internet, if it's not on a domain you own or control then it could be shut down and removed at any time without any prior notice.

In other words have fun with facebook but recognize that's the stuff on there is ephemeral and ethereal and mostly invisible to Google; if you want something permanent that the world can see whether or not they belong to Facebook, stick it up on a website or blog or wiki or other web app with permanent public URLs on your own domain.

No disrespect but don't believe the hype from Tech Crunch and Read/Write web; kyte.tv isn't (yet) as great as The Skyte :-) the Java applet is cool; it allows me to upload photos very quickly in real time over WiFi, GPRS or 3G from my N93 (check out my RolandTV channel) and chat about those photos but it would be cooler if you could do video. Looking forward to video support (i'd settle for 3GPP but love if it supported the N93's glorious 640x480 video).

 

Suggestions:

• Don't call it kyte.tv if it doesn't do live video!!!! I am sure that is coming.
• Fix the chat to allow cut and paste
• Fix those URLs please: http://www.kyte.tv/channels/browse.html;
• jsessionid=na3urj9uqokh.as02?first=0&mode=LATEST#uri,channels/1114 belongs to 1999 no disrespect intended!

If you are a savvy user who doesn't mind enduring the occasional yak shaving geekery of configuring and using today's Voice 2.0 products, then Canadian telecom oligopolies and r*poff prices and indeed world wide telecoms r*poffs are largely irrelevant as Andy points out. All you need is an internet connection and for extra bonus fun and flexibility, WiFi and a device like an N800 or a mobile phone with a SIP client. The real revolution in Voice 2.0 will occur when this kind of flexibility and power is available to all not just folks like Andy and myself and the people who read this blog.

FROM VoIP Watch: Price Breaks In Canada Won't Happen Yet:

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Mark Evans points to a Globe and Mail article about why our friends to the North won't see the kind of price wars we see in the USA.

I beg to differ as we have enterered the era of global telephony carriers, where as a result of IP boundaries no longer exist. For years when I traveled internationally I had to use callback systems, now for the time I've been working out of the country I've made likely less than 20 calls on my International calling card or direct calls from my cell phone. Almost all my calls have been via Truphone, GizmoProject, Skype, SightSpeed or GoogleTalk via the Nokia N800. GrandCentral has handled where the calls end up. I could have also used services like Jajah, Rebtel, Mint Telecom and others too. We're way beyond local numbers being portable between local carriers and mobile operators. We're at a point where numbers start in one place, end in another and appear to be where they seem to be but really aren't.

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URLs with question marks, ampersands, etc should be banished to the Web 1.0 h*ll where they belong. I've been preaching the clean URL gospel for years but if I see one more WordPress blog with "?p" or one more Drupal site with "?q", I'll scream :-) Seriously if your webhost or your tech gal/guy can't figure out how to use clean URLs, find somebody else. It's 2007!

Some great news about Northern Voice 2007 (which I am one of the organizers of):

1. Speaker Submissions: The Deadline has been extended to December 1st as Lauren wrote. You don't have to be famous or a professional conference presenter: we're looking for both fresh and experienced voices who wish to present or chair a panel on topics related to the blog-o-sphere, videoblogging, podcasting, virtual worlds like Second life, the two way web/read write web/web 2.0, blogging 101, podcasting 101, etc. It's all about the abstract. If it's well written and topical, your chances will be much higher. Submit today!
2. Registration is open now! Pre-register and save $10. That's right it's only $30 for a single day and $50 for both days as opposed to $40 for one day and $60 for both days at the door. I bet we'll sell out like last year so pre-registration is recommended. Register now!

Another howler from the Globe and Mail (please hire more technology writers like Matthew Ingram who are clued in and listening rather than people like the author of this article).

The prognostication that "Web 2.0 companies cost too much to be profitable in Canada" will turn out to be just as laughable as the 1990s predictions of Apple's demise. The whole point of Web 2.0 (the read write web or whatever you want to call it) especially with affordable infrastructure like Amazon S3 and EC2 is that anybody with a great idea and great implementation skills can build a web service anywhere in the world (not just in Silicon Valley) that is useful and scalable. Not convinced? Some Canadian examples: flickr (which was reportedly profitable before being acquired by Yahoo), dabble db, bubbleshare just to name a few.

FROM globeandmail.com : Quick out of the gate, with best days still ahead:

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"You'll notice that there are no Web 2.0 companies on the list -- they just cost too much to be profitable in this country," Mr. Behr said. "We're not looking for something you'll see on the Internet, instead we're looking for applications that make what you see work better."

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