I corned them both and asked them what they thought were the best mobile applications, off the cuff — not necessarily ones that they use every day:

Carlo’s top five:

Gmail
ShoZu
Opera Mini
Google Maps
Nokia’s own web browser

Rafe:

Viewranger and Sportstracker
Any VOIP — i.e. Fring, Truphone, EQO, Vyke
Sensor applications (e.g. Lightsaber!) flip/shake ones
GPS stuff like
Slingbox
Widgety stuff — WRT, Opera Mobile, WidSets, Yahoo! Go

Interesting, interesting, thanks chaps!

Now, even a monkey can get access to proper, mobile email, on the go. No joke

I bumped into CEO Eitan Linker at ShowStoppers — he was with uber confident Director of Marketing, Caron Tal. They were really excited to tell me about their latest upgrade. It’s a serious one. They’ve gone HTML. Quite an achievement in the context of making mobile email compatible with almost every handset.

Eitan got out his sexy red-coloured Nokia E90 and showed me the standard email working within the Nokia messaging application. Then he showed me the ‘View HTML’ menu item available for each email. Click on that and the handset loads up a beautifully rendered HTML email, complete with images. Fantastic. There’s nothing worse than getting crappy html emails through as normal text. It still happens to me when I’m reading mail on my Blackberry. Really ruins the experience. So if you’re an Emoze user, you should already have this upgrade.

If you haven’t checked out Emoze recently, have a look at www.emoze.com. It should take about 60 seconds to setup.

I managed to miss most of the launch coverage of O2’s new combined backup and blogging platform ‘Bluebook‘ (technically a re-launch, as another service had existed under that name previously), but spotted the beautiful advert on TV and decided to try it out.

The marketing majors on the backup feature - all your text and picture messages either sent or received will be backed-up, you can also backup your contacts (as offered by Mobyko and others) and share some of this content with friends. On the site itself, ‘Blueblog‘ has a little more prominence offering a Moblog-like mobile blogging platform. On the face of it this is excellent - a network operator is embracing mobile blogging and content sharing whilst providing a really valuable ‘zero-effort’ backup medium for texts and content… However, it’s not quite that cut and dried - I’m giving this a ‘C+ Must try harder’ grade at present.

—-

Sign-up: O2 are really marketing this at the moment and there’s a large advert on O2.co.uk. I follow it and a fairly standard sign-in / register screen awaits. I missed the small-print on the bottom left that explains that if you already have an account on the O2 website (I do) I can use those credentials, so I create a new account. I’m really impressed when I notice the prompt: “You can register any mobile phone for any network”… Good show O2!

I decide to try this and enter the details of my Three handset - it has more content to be backed-up any way. It beeps receipt of a validation SMS and all is going well…

Damn. It appears that ‘any network’ means ‘any network that is O2′. Great. There’s no way around this so I have to start over with my O2 handset. Not impressed - and I’m not the only one. On a second try it completes, but not without a few odd errors:

It also later gives-up on handset selection for contacts backup. This only works for certain Nokia and SonyEricsson models (I am using the iPhone), I’m guessing using the ubiquitous SyncML approach. Disappointing - especially that no other options are available over this (admittedly easier) approach other than manual entry via the website.

In use: Having resigned myself to being without contacts backup (I can iSync, it’s not a worry) the initial screen is pleasant with a Flash animation that, as I add content, shows the pictures and messages I have stored. I immediately flip to the messages tab to test out the backup feature - as a network operator this is where O2 can stand out from the crowd. I send and receive a number of messages and wait… nothing. I send ‘forward’ some older messages to the O2 shortcode (not possible on teh iPhone that lacks a ‘forward’ feature so I just create new messages and pretend) - this works:

Several hours later the ‘automatically’ stored messages still aren’t shown. Perhaps it’s just slow… the whole site grinds along at a painful pace, but it’s not confidence inspiring at all.

‘Albums’ can contain groups of images (naturally), but also text messages too. Content can be from stored messages or uploaded via the web interface. It all works smoothly enough, with 1GB of free storage enough to be useful, and testing the sharing feature also works well, albeit the feature set is ‘basic’ at best and the lack of an option to bulk upload or upload via e-mail is frustrating. Any moderately demanding user is going to find Shozu with a service like Flickr a much slicker experience. Reading the Bluebook product manager’s ‘blueblog’ I see a post about a Facebook application and give that a try too. Initially it errors and once refreshed refuses to find my one shared album. I’m getting pretty fed up with this by now. It could, of course, be me doing it wrong, but I manage to do this sort of stuff day-in day-out, so if I am it should be more simple… just sayin’.

Continuing the theme of ‘good idea, executed badly’ Blueblogs doesn’t fail to disappoint either. On the plus side, posts can be made from browser or via SMS. However, any shared content is moderated… I don’t object to that in principle if this is a platform designed for ‘family friendly’ use, but it appears to be a manual process which is slow. Mobile-blogging with an hour’s delay? Hmmmm. Not to worry though, because there’s no RSS feed or e-mail alerts anyway so your friends will have to return to your blog again and again. Comments, the personal profile and the option to have multiple blogs is nice, but given even the featured blogs have only a few posts it doesn’t look like a platform that makes life easy. Oh, and whilst I’m complaining… the layout, particularly for commenting, is grim.

—-

So overall, that reads like a pretty savage kicking for O2 and really I don’t want it to be. I just can’t help thinking that if they’d put a bit more of the money spent on the advertising into the actual product it could have been so much better. The concept is great and continual backups of text and picture messaging is one of the things that only they could do, but it’s executed so poorly (and with a previously documented security gaff that makes me wonder if I really want all my messages logged by this system) I wonder how it launched… and on further reading I wonder how Newbay, the Dublin firm who’s Lifecache product this is based on, feel about this as the product spec seems to suggest O2 have really loused up this well-featured tool in the implementation.

My suggestions:

1. Speed it up and fix the bugs
2. Refine Get some designers to completely re-do the interface a bit
3. Make the blog a proper blog (use Lifecache’s features!)
4. Get your moderation done electronically (if you must have it)

…and I reckon O2 might have the beginnings of a winner here. Otherwise it’s too clunky and limited to have long-term appeal. Shame.

Jonathan Jensen, fresh from wrestling with handsets for his son and daughters, has been pondering on the (I suspect, rather large) gulf between Normobs and … well.. us…

- - -

Ewan has blogged about Normobs (”normal mobile phone users”) before. What fascinates me is the gulf between us mobile geeks and the Normobs in terms of what we use our handsets for.

My friends and family all use mobile technology, to varying degrees, but very few of them come close to realising the full potential of the device in their pocket - web browsing, email, GPS, better software, photo sharing and of course social networking. Most of them are happy with calls and texts, a few do a bit of browsing and download some music.

So what’s going on? Are my friends and family visitors from a parallel universe (some definitely are!) or do they represent many of the real mobile users of today? My hunch is the latter.

For all the effort the networks put into marketing the cool stuff you can do on your handset why are so many people not interested? Is all this extra stuff really irrelevant to them or is it just an education challenge? Normobs might, and do, argue that calls and texts are all they need. However they are missing the convenience (a subject I will return to in a future post but in a different context) and value there is in the extra stuff.

Are the networks wasting their time or are they slowly building awareness that will eventually pay dividends for them? I’d like to think it’s the latter but my gut feel is we are a long way from seeing widespread pan generational take-up of all the great stuff current handsets are capable of.

I’ve struggled to get some of my Normobs interested in stuff like Facebook, Twitter and Jaiku on their PCs - forget trying to do it for mobile!

I’m going to keep trying but come on friends and family - you know who you are - help me out here please!

- - -

What’s your experience of getting friends and family to use their handsets beyond simple calls and texts?

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

FlixWagon’s live streaming video coverage of Blogger and S60 Ambassador (and former daily contributor to SMS Text News), Ricky Cadden’s wedding, first reported here yesterday, is to be found at the URL http://www.flixwagon.com/wedding/.

All streamed via mobile phone video, live… woosh!

I’ll see you there, virtually, baby.

I had a note in from Skyfire, makers of the uber-fast mobile web browser, letting me know that I’m most probably in ‘Beta Group 1′ — so I should be getting a link to download and play soon. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s Microsoft-platform only at the moment (that platform needs the most help!) but there’s a Symbian client in the works. Excellent.

Here’s the gossip on the Symbian client:

In addition to adding features and building a robust Windows Mobile Skyfire, we also have development underway for a Symbian version of Skyfire. Stay tuned as we extend our beta to the Nokia N-series and E-series phones in the U.S. this summer. Beta 1 and 2 users who have signed up indicating that they have Nokia phones do not need to do anything. We’ll contact you as soon as it’s ready.

Gah! Summer? Ages away!!

So the iPhone browsing experience rocks, yes? But what about the rest of the platforms out there. Well, the manufacturers and software developers have generally been nothing short of abysmal when it comes to browser-innovation so I’m excited about the prospect of a usable, FAST browser for mobile handsets. Let’s not forget Opera Mini — although, unfortunately, I tend to do so. Truth be known, I’m not sure why. I need to take another look at their current offerings.

Back to Skyfire. They’re hiring developers, big time. More details here.

SIMchronise, the mobile data synchronisation experts based in Dublin, Ireland, have just launched PhoneBackup for the Irish market. I just got a note in from CEO Philippe to let me know the details.

They’ve been doing some wicked work for a wide variety of companies since 2005 — their first public product is PhoneBackup, which, as you might imagine, does what-it-says-on-the-tin. Always a fan of things like that. PhoneBackup works with a wickedly large range of handsets — from LG to Motorola, Samsung, Siemens, Nokia… in fact here’s the full list:

PhoneBackup takes a regular backup of your handset’s phonebook and costs EUR 2.50/month paid by premium text message. Credit card, debit and paypal options are coming shortly.

Services such as PhoneBackup rank in my ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL list of services every mobile user should use. There is nothing worse than losing your contacts. I get emails regularly from readers telling me about their own personal screw-up. It’s a double-arse if you’ve had your phone stolen and not backed up your contacts. Take five minutes and get your contacts backed up. It’s worth it.

Now you can only use PhoneBackup if you’re based in Ireland at the moment — but the service is coming to the UK, Italy and Belgium shortly and will no doubt be on the radars of incumbents Mobyko and Zyb.

Every success to the SIMchronise team for the launch!

Sprint is obviously feeling generous these days - it’s giving away free mobile access to MySpace Mobile on all web-enabled phones - which it claims is a first for any US operator - to coincide with the official launch of MySpace’s mobile site.

MySpace users will get all the usual goodies - including being able to edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post blogs and bulletins and send and receive MySpace messages - by clicking through from Sprint’s web portal on their mobiles. It’s worth noting it’s only free to Sprint’s data subscribers though.

MySpace has been signing with all manner of operators as it faces tough competition from the likes of Facebook. It doesn’t seem to be doing too badly though - it’s had one million visitors a day to its MySpace mobile site even though it’s still been in beta til now.

Apple iPhone users may be consuming data like it’s going out of fashion, but they’re a tiny minority of mobile users. What about the rest of the world and their bog standard phones - how do you get them accessing the mobile Web? US operator Spring thinks it has the answer, with Openwave’s OpenWeb product.

According to the carrier, Sprint customers will be able to “get faster, more user-friendly renderings of internet sites, even those not optimized for the mobile device” regardless of the spec of their phone. Even better - taking advantage of the system won’t necessitate any action on the user’s behalf. Phew.

It’s good to see more operators looking at the non-iPhone owning public as a source of mobile data consumption and trying to make their web experience a bit better. Of course, the other way to do that would be better interfaces and better designed devices, but smarter browsing is a start.

This CBS Mobile game is the first of its kind utilizing outbound calling, which literally calls players to action,” said Cyriac Roeding, Executive Vice President, CBS Mobile. “Your cellphone rings, and a detective calls you to the scene - just like a real CSI detective. This combination of game play with popular content and a whole new level of interactivity represent enormous entertainment and business potential for the mobile world.”

Well now, this is rather smart. I reckon this is an excellent innovation. It should, theoretically, expand the immersive nature of the game. There’s a risk it could be a total interruption — particularly if the device you’re using doesn’t have a multitasking capability. But I applaud the innovation.

I’ll see if I can get a copy on my handset and play about with it.

You can see more at http://www.gameloft.com/

It looks like paper plane tickets are finally be superseded by mobile phones. According to the New York Times Continental Airlines have been testing mobile phone boarding passes since December. The airline industry has talked about mobile boarding passes (as opposed to mobile phone check-in) before, and the process has got the backing of the IATA (International Air Transport Association) but Continental is one of the first companies to actually go ahead with a full blown pilot.

Continental’s favoured system is a 2D barcode, which is scanned from the passengers’ mobiles and apparently harder to fake than other tokens.

I’m struggling to see a downside here: it saves time, saves paper, it saves the airlines a bit of cash and I’m far less likely to lose my mobile than I am a plane ticket. Please, airlines, hurry up and make mobile boarding passes the standard.

Animated avatar company Gizmoz has landed $6.5 million in funding, with an investment round led by DoCoMo Capital, joined by ngi capital. Previous investors Benchmark Capital and Columbia Capital also contributed funding.

Gizmoz said it will use the cash to will invest into Asian expansion, starting with work in Japan, and also announced today that its service will be compatible with AOL instant messaging service for the first time. However, with DoCoMo Capital as a backer, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing Gizmoz moving more towards mobile offerings. Gizmoz itself is strongly hinting at the same direction highlighting of its Japanese move it’s “a market that leads the world in mobile internet adoption” and stresses its interests in cross-platform services.

So, just weeks after Microsoft announced it was bringing Silverlight to Nokia mobiles, the software giant has gone and struck a deal with Adobe to bring rival rich media software Flash Lite to Windows Mobiles.

Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite “to enable web browsing of Flash Player compatible content within the Internet Explorer Mobile browser in future versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile phones”, says Adobe, and Adobe Reader LE software for PDF viewing for mobile devices.

Steve Jobs may have signaled he doesn’t much fancy Flash for the iPhone but it doesn’t look like Adobe is short of friends on this one - especially if it can persuade an archrival like Microsoft to use the technology on its own devices. I don’t think Microsoft will be feeling too bad about giving its competitor a push - after all, Flash is already on half a billion-odd devices. A few more Windows Mobiles won’t hurt.

Nokia and Oracle have announced the latest fruits in the five-year co-operation to make the companies’ devices and software interoperable: business users with a fondness for Siebel CRM will now be able to get access to the applications on the go.

The pair have announced that Nokia’s Intellisync Device Management will now be able to work with Oracle’s Siebel CRM platform; Oracle’s Database Lite is now available for Symbian version 9/S60 Version 3, while Siebel Wireless is also ready for the Nokia E90 Communicator.

What with the news about Silverlight coming to Nokia phones last week, it seems the device maker is doing a good job of wooing the big enterprise software players onto the Symbian platform of late. More evidence Symbian fancies itself as an operating system for business users too?

You remember Jay knocked up a version of the Wordpress client editor I am in the process of getting built? He did it ridiculously quickly (here’s the news about that). Well, he’s launched it! You can get an early build — very early, mind — at http://scribe.na.nu/

My developer encountered a few challenges hooking in with the XMLRPC engine on Wordpress but he reckons he’s possibly got it resolved. It is, alas, going to be another week or so until he has news as he’s going out the country.

Jay’s launch puts me in a wee bit of a strange position: I’ve transferred my cash to the developer — well, it’s being held in escrow by Rent-a-Coder and the developer is still working away. Meantime I’ve actually been able to use Jay’s Scribe to post blogs remotely. The arse? I can’t discontinue with the development. I’m a bit committed.

Ergo do check out Jay’s Scribe, if you’re up for blogging from Wordpress on your S60 handset. And spare a thought for my version … whenever it arrives!

Ok. Here we are. A blog post authored with my wonderful new Wordpress client on my Nokia E90…Hello, world!

Good news for the team at Vyke — their Mobile VoIP service is now availalbe in Nokia’s Download store. Which must put it on.. what.. a good few million handsets right-away. They’re passionate folk at Vyke — I met Aaron a while ago and found him a switched on chap — so I’m sure they’ll be delighted at this news.

If you haven’t checked out your download store recently, have a look. You should hopefully find Vyke there.

Vyke’s mobile VoIP software is found in the Download store, which is located in the main menu of compatible Nokia mobile phones. Once the download is started, the software installation and set-up process takes approximately 2 minutes to create the user’s Vyke account and top it up with $1 of free calling credit.

Let’s hear from CMO Jan Christian Berger:

“We are delighted to offer this greatly improved service with Nokia. Our new account creation and top-up features enable any new user to make mobile VoIP calls in just a matter of minutes. With access to our service directly from any The Cloud hotspot and our $0.04 per call and $0.00 per minute pricing for calls to landlines in Western Europe or any number in North America, the value we are creating for users is very compelling.”

Any Cloud hotspot? Wow. There are tons of The Cloud hotspots across the UK. I’ll need to try that out.

Thankfully Vyke will work on almost any decent E and N-Series Nokia handset including the E90.

So I’ve been working with my symbian developer toward getting the Wordpress client operational, yes?

We’ve had a bit of a set back in the context of data quality and interacting with the Wordpress XMLRPC system. The developer and I are in dialogue. He’s doing his best, I think.

Meantime, I was chatting with Jay Fenton.

Jay is one half of the uber, uber, uber programming geniuses who power Howler Technologies (Makes of ROK Talk). (The other half, Dan Lane, is no less a genius. I’m still impressed that he’s actually got an RFID chip in his arm that will open his house door.)

The other day he enquired about the development and how it was going.

“Shouldn’t be that difficult to use XMLRPC to connect with a Symbian client,” he commented, “In fact, let me just…”

I didn’t hear from him over IM for an hour or so.

60 minutes went by.

Then I got an IM, “Done it.”

He sent me through some files to put on to my E90.

Seconds later I was blogging from it. Here’s the post I wrote.

Here’s an E90 screenshot:

And some more…

I was agog.

“WOW,” I told him by IM. Lots of ‘You’re fooking wicked!’ etc.

His response?

Thank you dear chap. It’s just the way i flip ‘em (the bits, that is)

A seriously gifted chap, Jay.

I can now blog from my Nokia handset!

If you’ve got a BlackBerry, you might want to hold off taking it on holiday to India for a while. According to Reuters, representatives from the country’s mobile operators are meeting with government officials to discuss the possible security implications around RIM’s mobile email service. Apparently, the government is so concerned, the idea of a BlackBerry ban has been floated.

Reuters add that Indian security agencies want RIM to provide the government with all the necessary algorithms to break the encryption used by the BlackBerry, while The Business Standard suggests that if the algorithms aren’t delivered, RIM could find itself cut off from the end of March.

It’s not the first time RIM has found itself under the microscope over security concerns and even threatened with a ban, but this is thought to be the first time that it’s been asked to hand over its encryption keys. It’ll be interesting to see whether RIM would rather hand over the goods or keep its crown jewels safe and face being locked out of a massive market.

ROK Entertainment Group, best known for its ROK TV application, has snapped up a controlling interest in Finnish mobile and web applications development company Geniem, taking a 51 per cent stake in the business.

Geniem, which sells on device portals, Bluetooth technologies and social media to carriers as well as consumer goods companies, has the likes of Nokia, Volvo, ABC, Pepsi, and SonyBMG already among its customers.

Tuomas Kumpula, Geniem’s CEO, said the company will be rolling out its services to ROK’s customer base and will be introducing a white label mobile social networking product aimed at network carriers in the future. The deal sounds like it could be a hot combination - bringing together two of the most talked about mobile applications, mobile TV and social networking.

I took a chance and installed ROK Talk on my Nokia E90. I wasn’t sure if it would work. You never know if there’s weird and wonderful incompatibilities between the devices, particularly since the E90 is a bit of a brick. Literally a brick.

Genius. It worked first time.

I met with Ed Hodges from ROK Talk — (well, actually, Howler Tech, the developers) yesterday to shoot the breeze. I spent the first 30 minutes telling him what a good product it is. I’m still thoroughly enjoying using it. Although, I think Ed had to start deploying the fake smile when I was going on about it.

I have zero tolerance for normal conference calls now. I don’t do them. It takes a lot of get me on to a normal piece-of-shit conference call nowadays.

I can’t stand that arsing about… “Is he coming on?”

“Did he get the message? Is my clock right? He’s FIVE minutes late??”

All that crap dissipates immediately with ROK Talk. You simply click the conference call participants out of your address book and press go. The ROK Talk server dials everyone and woosh… you’re on the call. If someone gets dropped from the call - or WORSE — if they ignore the initial call, they simply dial the ROK Talk number and they’re joined into the call right away.

There’s a significant amount of demand for folk wanting to try out the service whilst it’s in beta so if you’ve signed up on the form there and you haven’t heard anything, drop me a mail and I’ll do my best to petition Ed for you. Or if you’d like to experience just how wicked it is as a service, shoot me you and your colleague’s phone number and I’ll setup a call between us for a few minutes.

I’m a big fan of the Truphone offering. I buy it — I buy the concept behind the service. 3G and WiFi represents a good medium for calling.

The on-handset deployment is phenomenally well implemented (as best you can on Symbian, I suspect).

The service works nicely.

There’s only one person I know who uses it like no tomorrow, though.

That’s Jeb, from Brilliant Expos. Jeb uses Truphone all day, all night. Jeb cites one of the key reasons for doing so, apart from his support of everything mobile (he’s a big mobile fan), is price. Truphone offers some really competitive rates. I’m not sure how they’re able to make cash — if any — at these rates though.

Switch off the rates and Jeb, a big international caller, will (I suspect) have to look elsewhere. I don’t quite know if the service itself is compelling enough to keep his attention.

I’ve got an account. I used it a few times. I just… I find it quite difficult to remember to use it. For the longest time, my internet connection here in the UK was so shit that I couldn’t even use Skype on it, let alone consider trying out Truphone.

Then I’ve been swapping between all sorts of different handsets, most of which haven’t been Truphone compatible.

The team — the people I’ve come across — are some of the best in the business — talented, friendly, capable.

So here’s my question: How do you use Truphone? What are your experiences?

If you haven’t actually tried it, do me a favour, sign-up (it’s free, actually you get 2 pounds calling credit!) and check it out and knock me over your thoughts?

James Whatley lives on Jaiku. I don’t think they’ve got a more prolific or exacting user. He really does spend a lot of his real time existence living through the service — which is why there is, perhaps, no one better qualified to give you a perspective on the Joy of Ku.

- - -

I’ve been meaning to write this piece for a while now. In fact, ever since Google made that purchase last year the whole blogosphere has been falling over itself trying to figure out exactly what Google intend to do with their now five-month-old purchase.

I had an eye on eventually contributing to this but by the time I got round to it, most of the good stuff had already been covered. Notably this piece by Jonathan Mulholland (”What Google has planned for Jaiku“).

Then there were the series of posts at the beginning of the year regarding the spate of errors/downtime that Jaiku kept throwing up – (downtime, by the way, is merely par the course for your average Twitter user… But we’ll leave that one there for now).

Again – this was aptly covered by someone else here (”Jaiku users flee to Twitter as a result of Google neglect“) and yet again ably kicked back by our friend Mr Mulholland (”Think Jaiku is loosing to Twitter? Wait ’til Android devices start shipping“).

(Damn he’s good)

So, what am I going to write about?

First off – without presuming too much – a brief explanation:

What is Jaiku?

* Micro-blogging (like twitter)
* Limited to 140 characters (like Twitter) to your first ‘Jaiku’
* Jaikus start threaded conversations (unlike Twitter) with no character limit (unlike Twitter)
* Jaiku also enables ‘Presence’ from your S60 handset: Location + Phone Profile + Latest Jaiku
* Jaiku as a feed aggregator – pulling in all your feeds into one single ‘life stream’
* An ‘active’ contacts book, when futurists debate the address book as being key to any user’s daily life, Jaiku is often looked upon as leading the way
* And above all, a community…

That’s that covered. So what now?

Right, well – and there’s definite sleeves rolling up going on here - thing is, since the Google buy-out, Jaiku has become ‘closed’ – aka ‘invitation only’.

Rubbish.

However another thing is – every user gets ten invites. EVERY user gets ten. If you’ve been there since the beginning or if you signed up an hour ago, ten invites is what you get.

So some clever chaps over at Weeno Media cracked onto this and thought that they’d play Google at their own game (remember Gmail invites folks?).

And their variant of this game? http://jaikuinvites.com.

What’s it for?

Well the clue is in the name. Jaiku Invites.

You need one? Let them know.

You got some to share? Let them know.

They do the hard part in the background and link up those that need them with those that have them spare.

Supply meets Demand. Magic.

Why the big fuss? Well this is kinda cool.

I’m using this space to tell you about this website because I want YOU to go and sign up for Jaiku RIGHT NOW.

Over the coming weeks I’m going to be going into what it is exactly I love about this service.

There are many, MANY reasons.

Is it the community? The threaded nature of conversation maybe?

What about the ‘presence’ enabled S60 application? Ahead of it’s time when it comes to true life-streaming.

Then there’s the different ways to contribute to the site itself, (text/app/web/m.web), every one of them having their own plus/minus points. They each deserve a mention too.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I’ve been trying to write a piece about my love affair with Jaiku for some time now.

Each time getting halfway through and realising I’ve gone completely off-piste and spend the next 15mins fighting my way back to the point, (see this post on my VOX for a perfect example).

So I’ve decided to break it up a bit. Consider it a bit like a book club.

I’ve told you about Jaiku, I’ve told you I love it, I’ve told you how to go and get it.

Next week I’ll tell you what is so bloody great about it… (if you haven’t worked it out already)

- - -

You can add Whatley as a friend by visiting him at http://whatleydude.jaiku.com — and you can get SMS Text News updates at http://smstextnews.jaiku.com.

It looks like RIM is shucking off its business suit and preparing to get down with the kids. After making its name as the device of choice for salesmen on the move, the BlackBerry is now getting into social networking, according to Reuters.

According to the news agency, RIM will be making online community and content from DipDive, the social networking site set up by Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am, available to BlackBerry users.

What’s going on these days? Apple is trying to dress up the iPhone as an enterprise device while RIM is going the other way and making-over the BlackBerry as a consumer play. Whether either of these changes will be successful is anyone’s guess, but if it means more interesting applications on either, I’m all for it.

This year’s CeBIT trade show is turning into a proper mobile web punch up. The announcements from Microsoft, Yahoo and now Google are really showing just how competitive the mobile applications space is getting. So what’s Google’s big reveal for CeBIT? Google Gears for mobiles, a program which lets users work on Google applications even when they’re offline.

Now you’ll be able to get Google Gears on your Windows Mobile if you have one. Google Gears, which the search giant describes as a mobile browser extension for creating rich web applications for mobile devices, is now available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 and should be available on Android soon.

This looks like an attempt by Google to charm business mobile users - the most like to be using Windows devices and to need offline access to apps. It’s a good start, but I’d like to see more applications, particularly office productivity software, using Gears.