"But I STILL Love Technology... Always and Forever"

After reading The Economist article, Looking for the Pot of Gold, I'd say they are pretty right on about the future of e-commerce via mobile phones. The only lucrative future I could see in this area would be using it to buy things such as food (a wireless www.waitless.com), movie/concert tickets, making travel arrangements and paying for parking...you know.. all things you do on the go.

Connection speed isn't advanced enough to handle the graphics of 100 pictures of GAP skirts to load onto your tiny cell phone screen. We're so used to the speed we have at home, that trying to access the same sites on a mobile device using a slower connection, is just, well, too frustrating for me.

I also think there is a bright future for linking mobile e-commerce to mobile navigation systems. If you type in "movie theatre" and your location, wouldn't it be great to be able to automatically buy tickets to a movie at the theatre of your choice? Lunch lines...what if you typed in the word "deli" and were automatically able to place your order to the nearest deli and pay all in a couple clicks on your keypad then bypass that long lunch line to pick up your order?

Shopping for clothes on my phone? Not an exciting idea, but being able to simplify and streamline my life through my phone...very exciting idea!

Reminds me of that old Police Song, "I'll Be Watching You"

After reading the Death Knell of Privacy I'm compelled to make the argument in favor of any private company's right to use the Sprint Business Mobility Framework.

Businesses make decisions every day and have to deal with the consequences, whether they are good or bad. If a private company starts tracking their employees using this system, there may be positives such as increased productivity and peace of mind on the part of upper management, or there may be negatives such as unhappy employees and privacy issues.

Just as businesses have choices, so do employees. If an employee doesn't like a particular policy at their place of work, they have the option to leave and find a company that's a better fit for them.

This reminds me of the Michigan company, Weyco, Inc. Employees were told to quit smoking both in and out of the workplace or be fired. The story sparked quite a bit of debate on privacy issues. There is nothing illegal about what this employer is doing (his main reason is rising healthcare costs and general welfare of employees). The employer made his choice and his employees in turn each made a choice. Some decided to quit smoking (and are now thanking their employer), some were fired and some left the company.

It will be interesting to see what the fallout of the use of the Sprint Business Mobility Framework is in the future. I’m sure various businesses will have different experiences, positive and negative. But the great thing about business economics is that if enough have negative experiences, Sprint will likely discontinue the marketing and sale of this product due to lack of demand.

The Pink Donkey in the Middle of the Room

One HUGE fact is missing from the discussion of the Internet's persuasiveness in a political campaign. The big pink donkey (not elephant) in the middle of the room, Howard Dean. What we had was a presidential candidate that was (and still is) given a lot of credit for his creative use of the Internet and technology during his campaign. But, he didn't win the presidency; he didn't even win his party's nomination! I'd say this hurts the theory that the Internet is a persuasive tool when the poster boy can't do what it all comes down to at the end of the day...WIN!

The Internet will play an increasingly bigger role in future campaigns when younger people, who are obviously more comfortable with technology, turn out to the polls in larger numbers. Right now, I'd say technology has the most political effectiveness as an accelerator of grassroots organizing.

Let's look at the winner's campaign. Bush/Cheney '04 and the RNC had one clear goal...GOTV. They worked hand-in-hand to identify voters, reach out to them largely through email and personal contact and built an email database of millions of voters. They empowered each of these voters by calling them "Team Leaders" and electronically dispersed tools to spread the word to their families, friends and neighbors. 72 hours before Election Day, the RNC deployed thousands of volunteers across the country (many equipped with PDAs) and kept in constant communication with them. The plan worked. The GOP's integration of technology into a brilliant grassroots plan is what caused them to win big last November. The technology wasn't the persuasion, it was merely a tool to organize the people who are the real persuaders in any campaign.

He's Still Rick James, Bitch

Last night's comment in class about yard signs reminded me about one of my favorite recent news stories...Hattiesburg's own Rick James. The candidate for city council had yard signs stolen and defaced and blamed Dave Chappelle and Comedy Central for it. My first reaction was that he embrace this gift he had been given (name recognition...free national media attention, HELLO!) and use it to his advantage. I was praying that he'd be on TV somewhere saying those four little words that make me laugh so hard, and of course my prayers were answered by the Daily Show.

Follow up on the story: Rick James lost the Ward 4 Dem primary on May 3rd. I say he could have won if he would have only embraced all the attention and humor to persuade voters. Those darn yard signs could have been the most persuasive political yard signs we've ever seen!

FEC treads into sticky web of political blogs

Just read this article about the FEC deciding how to regulate political bloggers. Should bloggers paid by PACs, political parties or candidates be required by law to disclose this information?

Because I'm Bad, I'm Bad

Reading Sunstein's article got me thinking, I have purposely been trying to do exactly what he fears-- filtering out news about which I don’t care to hear.

For months I've been trying to figure out how I can filter OUT news about the Michael Jackson trial. But everywhere I turn it's there...cable and network news, newspapers, magazines, entertainment TV, late-night TV, Internet news sites, conversations at bars...I can't escape it! Here I am trying to put myself in an MJ-free bubble, but I can’t. So I’m not really buying Sunstein’s argument that personalization is limiting my exposure to any topic.

The Internet provides the most powerful public forum we’ve ever seen. Sure my generation might not pick up the New York Times print edition and randomly read an article about France rejecting the E.U. Constitution. Our world is so flat that we’ll hear about it from a friend we chat with online who lives in France when we ask, “What’s up?”

Just because the Internet has made it easier to group ourselves by interests, doesn’t mean that differing points of view will be filtered out. We live in a world that is so connected, we can’t escape some topics…ask the person in France who’s American friend emails them updates of the Michael Jackson trial.

Mac Users

For all of you Mac Users in the class...check this aggregator download site:
NetNewsWire

Also, for those in the class who don't want to download an aggregator onto your computer, check out Bloglines. It's just an aggregator on your web browser.