In an effort to force users of its HTC Dream to do a software update that fixes a 911 call bug, Rogers has disconnected Internet from all its Android customers. Here’s the full text I just received on my phone:
Rogers/Fido Safety Message: URGENT Reminder 911 Calls HTC Dream software update: Mandatory software update is now available to help ensure 911 calls are completed from your phone. Please go immediately to rogers.com/dreamsoftwareupdate on your PC to download.
In order to help ensure 911 calls are completed internet access was temporarily disabled on your phone at 01/24/10 6:00AM EST. To reactivate internet service, please complete your software update immediately. Upon completion, internet access will be re enabled within 24 hours.
For users of Macintosh and Windows 7, please call 1- 888-764-3771(1-888-ROGERS1) for update instructions.
We apologize for the inconvenience but we prioritize customer safety above all.
The issue stems from a requirement that 911 services have access to GPS data, but it’s worsened by the fact that Rogers insists on using its own version of Google’s Android OS, with its own restrictions and application icons, rather than staying in step with a more broadly tested operating system.
Other carriers, such as T-Mobile, unlock handsets that are purchased outright, leaving the choice of operating system and upgrades to the user. Two weeks ago, for example, I bought a Nokia handset at a T-Mobile store for the full $50 price, and within 24 hours of asking, T-Mobile had sent me the unlock code. Canadian carriers don’t buy this; in fact, they claim that unlocking a phone constitutes copyright infringement.
Somewhere around 1999, I first saw a URL in a movie trailer. That confirmed for me that web technology had reached the mainstream. Clay Shirky points out that really interesting social capital applications emerge not when new technology is created, but when that technology is so mainstream as to be boring. He cites U.S. “citizen voter” applications designed to document suspicious voting practices, but is quick to emphasize that these were inspired by their low-tech predecessors in Africa.
Recently, I noticed something equally mainstream about a new class of technology: its appearance in movie and TV credits. As this screencap shows, the credits for @bbcgoodnews (which, I’m pretty sure, features @notrusshoward) include Twitter usernames.
Spammers on Twitter have successfully broken search to the point where it will soon be unusable.
You should make heavy usage of Twitter search. I’ve written about it before – search is where the real power of Twitter lies. By using search, you break the ‘walled garden“, letting you find strangers that may be talking about particularly interesting themes (keywords) that you share in common.
For example, when I was at SXSW, I set up a search for the term “driskill”, the name of my hotel (you should be doing this any time you travel). Late one night, my “driskill” search query picked up this tweet saying: “Anybody staying at or near The Driskill Hotel? I desperately need to borrow a MacBookPro power cord for about an hour I would be very thnkfl”. I didn’t know this guy, but he needed help so why not. I bailed him out, and a few days later, I’d gained a friend (who happens to be a kick ass photographer) and was able to help someone at the same time.
All of this relies on the notion that search results are inherently ‘correct’, or relevant. Here’s how it looks like when it’s not:
Since many of us rely on searches (esp. #hashtags), all it takes are a few spammers bombing popular search terms (which can easily be found through services like Twitscoop) to ruin search for good.
So Ev, Biz – I know you’re being slammed by millions of requests to go in thousands of directions, but I think it’s time to think about something that prevents search from degrading into a cesspool of spam. Perhaps a conversation with Ori Alon is in order?
When Google Maps v2 hit mobile devices, it used a clever trick of cell tower triangulation to guess where you were without GPS. Google’s new service, Latitude, lets you share your location with friends. That makes it a great enabler for ad-hoc get-togethers, based on proximity – “Hey, looks like you’re a few blocks away at the gym, want to grab a bite?” But it’s not just about social networking and locational advertising: Applications with location awareness could change the way we live.
The idea isn’t new-Loopt is already quite popular with the iPhone crowd (which for some reason can’t have Latitude just yet, despite their likelihood to use it). But this is Google: Latitude has more far-reaching implications. The next killer apps will come from this convergence of location-based services, personal preferences, social networks and mobile devices.
[Update: Apple is able to remotely deactivate software. I don't remember Nokia needing to do this with Symbian.]
As a disclaimer, I now have a Mac notebook. I like it, but it’s been a learning experience. For a Mac to work, you need to give yourself over to it completely. You don’t save pictures; you use iPhoto. You don’t save MP3s; you use iTunes. You don’t install Acrobat; you use Preview. And so on. Apple’s built these things itself because there were a limited number of options for the Mac, and because it can integrate them better.
For a long time, Microsoft won the desktop wars because they were “open” to applications. You could write whatever you wanted. Everyone chose a PC because that’s where all the games were, that’s where all the apps worked. Developers shunned the Mac.
Then two things happened.
The Mac switched to Intel chipsets, allowing things like Parallels and dual booting to support Windows. Add a few networking drivers and support for Windows networking, and you had a respectable corporate citizen, at least for the marketing iconoclasts.
Desktop variety became irrelevant with the Internet and SaaS.
These days, the desktop is arguably less good at everything — an aging jack-of-all-trades that can’t compete with consoles, tablets, PDAs, and so on. Desktops are good for workstation tasks like graphic design, but not much else.
Most of the world’s Internet devices aren’t computers. We live in a bit of a bubble in North America but the rest of the world already knows this. (I crunched population and cellphone ownership from the latest data I could find, because I’m a nerd, and the results are at right. Canada and the US are near the bottom.)
My wife and I spend a lot of time online. The other day, I lent her my notebook for a few minutes mid-surf, and she quickly went over to Reddit. As it turns out, most of the links I’d opened were the ones she wanted to read anyway. Over at GigaOm, Om’s been reflecting on Facebook for some time now. And this got me thinking.
Surfing is increasingly a social activity. Think of news aggregators as questionnaires: “Which of these stories do you find most interesting?” If we are what we surf, then the people with whom we have the most in common are likely to have similar surfing patterns. This notion alone isn’t particularly revolutionary, and it’s driving innovation in fields like web analytics. But apply it to Facebook Connect, and it opens up a whole new realm of social networking.
Want to see a great example of monopolistic practices? It’s playing out in Browser Wars 2.0.
Most of us have by now realized that much of the web’s innovation is happening within the browser, as part of the migration from desktops to in-the-cloud computers. Adobe’s Flash already has close to 100% installation on browsers. But with AIR, the desktop version of Flash, they’re really mowing Microsoft’s lawn.
So it’s war, and Microsoft is attacking Adobe’s Flash plug-in in return. Redmond needs to own the video and Rich Internet space, and to do that, it has to defeat Adobe, replacing Flash with Silverlight.
Playing around with Slideshare as a way of uploading my Pitfalls of SaaS post, I came across this latest from Morgan Stanley. Mary Meeker always has an enlightening view of the world.
OK. Everybody, repeat after me: The Rules of Google Do Not Apply To Me.
(Yes, yes, unless of course you happen to, you know, work for Google.)
I refer to this mistake as The Google Fallacy – namely, that the ins and outs of what makes Google tick can be generalized to every web site if not the Internet as a whole. The problem with this assertion is that Google’s challenges are unique to Google. Unless you to have a few million servers to administer and $4.2B/quarter of revenue coming over your web site with a 45% year-over-year growth, extrapolating their issues to you just doesn’t work.
Most of the web operators we talk to have some degree of visibility into what goes on within their applications. But many lack a complete picture of their site.
There are hundreds of tools available to show what’s going on with a production website. But the problems arise when people try to use the wrong tool for the job, which often leads to bad conclusions. In my experience, operational questions fall into four major categories:
What did my users do?
Could they do it?
Why did they do it?
How did they do it?
There are four classes of tool that answer these four questions. But they’re all similar enough to cause confusion. Here’s a clarification.
Bitcurrent is part blog, part analyst firm, and part resource site for web operations. We're a loose federation of pundits and entrepreneurs with experience in networking and technology.
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In an effort to force users of its HTC Dream to do a software update that fixes a 911 call bug, Rogers has disconnected Internet from all its Android customers. Here’s the full text I just received on my phone:
