Monday, October 13, 2003

RSS Feeds For Mobile Phones WML From MetaClient - Impressive Tool for converting RSS to WML. If your website is available in RSS format, you can easily make the site wirelessly available to mobile phones, PDA's, and WAP-enabled pagers by converting it to WML (Wireless Markup Language) format. MetaClient.com is providing a free web-based tool for this purpose. Our RSS to WML converter will convert your RSS document into a WML site, and all you have to do is put it on your web site.  [The Doc Searls Weblog] 3:59:00 PM    comment []

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An Update To The Tablet PC OS Could Be Launched At Comdex So here's the latest in the series of tablet OS update rumors: The next revision of the Tablet PC OS, allegedly code named Lonestar, and numbered as version 1.7, will be announced at this year's Comdex, and should be available some time around the middle of February. Everything is very sketchy, but it looks like the Lonestar update will contain bug fixes, as well as improvements to the handwriting recognition system, and a new and enhanced TIP. The possibility of handwriting training making it into the package is feasible, but remote. A second update, which will be more of an enhancement pack, could occur by the middle of next year, possibly adding little "power toy" applications, and generally resembling a "Tablet PC Plus! pack". Supposedly the rather odd "1.7" version number is meant to indicate that it's more than just a little 1.5 incremental update, and almost a version 2.0, but not quite broad in scope. If Longhorn efforts sap Tablet PC development toward the end of next year, the 1.7 update is all the Tablet PC users will get. However, if the time window until Longhorn is longer (with Longhorn slipping into 2006), the tablet OS may get a full-blown version 2.0 update. In either case, it looks good, and naysayers can't complain that Redmond isn't updating the Tablet PC platform. At any rate, the information seems very murky right now, and it may all end up being as real as all those previous promises of a tablet OS update, which ended up being denied and cancelled a week later. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Comdex brings a month from now. [Tabula PC] 2:53:22 PM    comment []

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Creating Customer Evangelists Great observations from John Porcaro:   Two excerpts: "I'm a big fan of the concept of creating customer evangelists. Over the past several months, I've learned a great deal about the topic from blogging, from reading your posts, and from the authors of Creating Customer Evangelists.  But what we're talking about is letting the customers--the ones who just love your products or services--do it for you. It's about giving them something to talk about and making it easy for them to do it (even rewarding). It's giving them permission and rewards and social standing (the MVP program). It's removing barriers and maybe just as important not standing in their way.  As with most effective marketing, doing it right is tough, but it seems like it's worth it." (John Pocaro) 12:33:06 PM    comment []

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Profitability In The Blogging Tools Market Great example of the power of blogging and salient point from Robert Scoble on the profitability of blogging tools in the corporate environment.   I am using News Gator myself - and do agree that in many areas (such as the one below) it is superior to email. "Problem is that inside Microsoft we use email the way we should be using blogs. But, that'll change someday. Weblogs with RSS with News Gatoris superior to email -- when corporations figure that out, the blogging tools market will become profitable."  [The Scobleizer Weblog] 11:55:26 AM    comment []

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Linux PC Maker Plans E-mail Service Linare, a seller of cheap Linux PCs, plans to offer a free e-mail service for fans of the open-source operating system.  [CNET News.com - Front Door] 11:42:05 AM    comment []

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Manila Beta Update Manila Beta: Password-protected RSS feeds . Previously, there was no way to read RSS feeds for Editors Only Manila sites in an RSS news reader, because Manila uses a cookie for authenticating membership. [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 9:43:17 AM    comment []

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The Ongoing Development Of File Sharing Technologies Interesting article on the social considerations around the RIAA and the ongoing development P2P tools.   File-Sharing Goes Social - Two Excerpts: The RIAA has slowly altered the environment so that relatively efficient systems like Napster were killed, opening up a niche for more decentralized systems like Gnutella and Kazaa. With their current campaign against Kazaa in full swing, we are about to see another shift in network design, one that will have file sharers adopting tools originally designed for secure collaboration in a corporate setting. The RIAA has taken us on a tour of networking strategies in the last few years, by constantly changing the environment file-sharing systems operate in. In hostile environments, organisms often adapt to become less energetic but harder to kill, and so it is now. With the RIAA's waves of legal attacks driving experimentation with decentralized file-sharing tools, file-sharing networks have progressively traded efficiency for resistance to legal attack. (www.shirky.com) 8:15:37 AM    comment []

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