Author Archives: Dennis Bournique

Techdirt Lite

Posted on by

Techdirt is Mike Masnick’s blog covering technology and media. Mike’s a very good tech business analyst, particularly in the areas of privacy and intellectual property and he’s made Techdirt a hot property. It’s on CNET’s Blog 100 list, the Technorati 100 and lots of other “best of tech blogs” type lists. There’s a “Lite” version (techdirt.com/index_lite.php) that works on some mobile browsers. Good blog, I’m not so sure about the Lite version though. It eliminates the ads and most images … Continue reading →

Carnival of the Mobilists #104

Posted on by

The last Carnival of the Mobilists of 2007 is now online at C. Enrique Ortiz’ About Mobility – The Mobility Weblog. Enrique just got back from Helsinki last night (the Ferris wheel image is from there). I’m sure it took a heroic effort to put together the Carnival in short order while suffering from jet lag. As always, the Carnival offers a collection of the best recent blog post on mobile topics. Don’t miss it. Link: Carnival of the Mobilists … Continue reading →

FriendsterToGo – Too Little, Too Late

Posted on by

Pioneer online social network Friendster announced a mobile web version last week. Friendster essentially invented the modern online social network as a web of interlinked friend profiles back in 2002. It was the biggest social network for a couple of years, seemed destined for greatness and even rejected a 30 million dollar buyout offer from Google. In the end though Friendster flamed out, done in by scalability problems, management bungling and lack of innovation. It’s an interesting story, Inc. Magazine … Continue reading →

T-Mobile/Twitter and Mobile Net Neutrality

Posted on by

Over the weekend there was an incident that points out, oh so clearly, why we need net neutrality on the web and on the mobile networks. It started last Wednesday when T-Mobile USA customers started getting errors when posting to Twitter. Initial indications were that T-Mobile was blocking Twitter traffic. There was an uproar on the blogoshere and on at least one popular forum and now the issue seems resolved. Twitter announced late yesterday that SMS from T-Mobile users to … Continue reading →

mPoria – Mobile Mall

Posted on by

Shopping is the newest frontier on the mobile web. I’m not talking about downloadable content like ringtones and games, but real merchandise purchased using your phone and delivered by UPS or FedEx to your home or office. There aren’t many online retailers selling on the mobile web yet. Ebay and Amazon are there and so are Overstock, 1-800-Flowers and outdoor gear seller Moosejaw, but that’s about it. Ordering and paying online is relatively complex with a fair bit of text … Continue reading →

CNN Opens Up on the Mobile Web

Posted on by

Mobile.cnn.com has been around forever and has always been one of the best mobile news sites. It’s both deep and wide with in-depth hard news coverage and many soft news sections like Sports, Business, Health, Politics, Entertainment and Technology, plus local weather forecasts for anywhere in the world. The rub is that you can only use mobile.cnn.com though one of CNN’s partner carriers. If I go to there using the built-in browser on my T-Mobile or Boost Mobile phone it … Continue reading →

Buy Movie Tickets on Mobile MSN

Posted on by

Microsoft has added a new feature to the movie listings on MSN Mobile. You can buy tickets to movies right from the mobile web page. It only works with certain theaters and the actual ticketing is handled by MovieTickets.com, which I covered recently. Daring move by Microsoft given that this goes around carrier billing systems and mobile MSN  is featured on most of the US carrier decks. Well maybe not so daring, I just followed the MSN link on the … Continue reading →

Carnival of the Mobilists 103

Posted on by

This week’s Carnival host is Judy Breck at the newly redesigned GoldenSwamp. There are some interesting posts this week. I particularly liked Martin Sauter’s piece, “Why The Mobile Web Had Such A Terrible Start” and Post of the Week winner Corinne Ramey’s accounting of the power of simple technology for social good in “SMS Support Network: Connecting People with HIV/AIDS in Mexico“. Visit the Carnival for the best collection of recent writing on mobile topics. Link: Carnival of the Mobilists … Continue reading →