Netizen

Friday, July 13, 2012

Why Can't I Simply Speak Into My Tumblr Audio Post?

Either I have to upload a file already created elsewhere, or I have to submit a URL, or I have to search for a soundtrack on Spotify/SoundCloud. Why can't I just speak and create an audio post? Hello World!

SMS: Nowhere Close To Done

SMS Flickr Dene Voss (Photo credit: katielips)

SMS is great for communication. The message is short. Chances are it is being sent to someone you know well. It will get read. It is instant delivery. It is efficient. It is natural to how you talk to people. You don't talk in paragraphs.

But it is more. I think of SMS as command. Before GUI (Graphical User Interface) you had to input commands. After the cursor came the touch. There is gesture, there is 3D. I think SMS is going to emerge something cutting edge like that. You should be able to talk to the most complex of your machines through the simplest of your phones.

Power To The Cloud: Twilio Takes Its SMS Messaging API Global, Adds Dozens Of New Languages, 150+ Countries

Brewster: Is It Green?

One day while Dropio was still a company - before it got bought and put to rest by Facebook (Dropio entered the space before Dropbox) - I tweeted everyone working at Dropio with a twitter account. Only one of them tweeted back, some dude called Steve Greenwood. A few days later I found myself in front of him at the final Social Media Week party, it was a fancy party. (That was two years before I snatched the crown.) I was just standing there, he had walked over. I thought it was random, now I think not. I said hello, then I found out he worked at Dropio. Obviously I had not connected the dots. He startled me by talking of Dropio as "a trillion dollar opportunity." This was way before Google hit 600 billion, or wherever they are at right now.

The last time I met Steve Greenwood was a year and a half ago at the Barack Obama State Of The Union Watch party. I did not have the faintest idea both Greenwood and I had a mutual friend in the organizer of the event.

In between one day I met Greenwood at a New York Tech MeetUp after party. It was minutes after some random dude never seen before and after called me Sean Parker.

We are not close. We don't have each other's phone numbers. We have not exchanged emails. His first tweet was his last to me. But he has been one of those undefined guys in the New York tech ecosystem. Someone with obvious raw potential, but you did not know if you did not know.

And now the dude reveals himself. It is entirely possible I never made it to his spreadsheet.

Fred Wilson: Brewster
Jenna Wortham: New York Times: Brewster, a Mobile App, Wants to Transform Your Address Book
Life Hacker: Brewster Is an Address Book That Pools Together All Your Social Contacts and Organizes Them Automatically
All Things D: Q&A: Behind Brewster, the Buzzy New Modern Address Book
Brewster Blog
Charlie O'Donnell: Fall in love with the problem, not the product

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Will Amazon Deliver Pizza?

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

I Want It Today: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail.

There was a company in the late 1990s called Kozmo.com. It delivered DVDs and pizza. Amazon's next day delivery is on its way to becoming same day delivery, looks like. This is Amazon competing with Walmart. And it could go into big cities like Walmart has not been allowed to.

Retail is one of the oldest of industries. A lot of small shops might feel the pain.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The First To Be Sharing Bachchan's Tumblog Posts

Indian idol Amitabh Bachchan (Photo credit: net_efekt)

I think I am the first person to be sharing Amitabh Bachchan's tumblog posts on platforms like Google Plus, Facebook, possibly also Twitter. That is the honor of a lifetime.