Multimedia and more

So news in the consumer electronics world went crazy yesterday after the announcement of a new smartphone that runs Android, Google’s new mobile operating system. Google wrote the software, and a company called HTC actually built the device. It’s being sold initially only for the T-Mobile network. The device, called the T-Mobile G1, will sell for $179 with a two-year contract.

So, how does this affect the journalism industry? Well I’m guessing that this phone specifically probably won’t have much impact. But more generally speaking, it’s extremely revealing news because it shows the penchant for companies to make smarter cell phones that can do more.

I figure at this point Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and all of other major players in the traditional cell phone market are scrambling to come up with versions of their own smartphones. Many already have them, but will come out with newer iterations that meet expectations. I figure in two years, every company will have a host of cell phone models that have keyboards and Internet capability.

This market of Internet-connected cellphones is such a huge opportunity for the journalism industry, it almost makes me cry. Think about it; name one object that most people in the US keep with them virtually 24 hours a day? Most folks I know use their cellphones as alarm clocks at night. They take it with them to work, to school, to the movies, on vacation – everywhere. And if it is not directly in their possession, it’s usually not more than 10 feet away.

And not only do they have it with them at all times, but cell phones have a much greater psychological characteristic: it’s deeply personal. It is a means of communication with friends and family, it holds people’s conversations via text messages, accesses private voice mails, and is a keeper of personal photographs.

All journalistic mediums have struggled with a basic fundamental challenge of delivering the news to the customer. Whether it’s through delivery of a newspaper, catching a family during prime time, or finding a moment on their daily commutes via radio. The cellphone is another emerging platform.

The problem is, the offerings for news on cellphones is pretty thin. Right now, you can get all of the major players — CNN, NYTimes, CBS, and ABC — pretty easily via mobile sites. But it’s the local content that nearly invisible. If I see a plume of smoke, how can I easily find out if that is a control burn or perhaps some greater event in my town? How can I learn about my local city government — likely the level of governance that will affect me more than all of the other levels.

People praised innovation on the Web like Chicagocrime.org or Everyblock.com for its attention to hyperlocal. Now we need to bring that to cellular technology. Mobile versions of sites has to be a standard with all news sites, and reporters should learn some of the more modern techniques to connecting with readers through services like Twitter, live blogging and social networks.

Also, not quite as obvious, the news industry needs to seriously start thinking about hiring software developers to create programs for these platforms. Software that will not only communicate the news, but help facilitate community and local networks.

OK, here is a little tidbit a few people might not know about me. Back in my first year of college, I was a computer science major. Then, journalism stepped in the way.

I was taking photos for the campus newspaper part-time, which seemed like a whole lot more fun than programming classes. So, one afternoon I switched my major from computer science to journalism. Newspapers seemed a lot easier to do than programming, and the male-to-female ratio was a little bit better in that department. I never thought I would have to touch a lick of code again.

Fast forward a few years, then lo and behold journalism is all about multimedia and suddenly coding skills are in high demand. I guess those 10 months of intro to programming classes really paid off. But now I’m finding, maybe I should have stuck with the programming gig after all.

I had this very thought a few weeks ago when Apple announced the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone. As soon as heard the news, my first inclination was “I gotta do that.” It turns out, Apple software is based on a programming language called Objective-C. I took a peak and was utterly delighted to learn that ObjC is quite similar to another programming language called C++ that I had to make friends with once upon a time.

I actually went out and bought a book on ObjC and it has very quickly brought me back to common phrases I once cringed to hear, like polymorphism, inheritance, pointers and methods. (I can hear echos of liberal arts majors running away screaming)

OK, so all of that aside, here is the million dollar question: What should I program? So far, I’m successfully mastered the “Hello World” program (a program that displays those respective words). Apple has a ton of really great documentation and coding samples of how to do things like take advantage of location aware functionality, etc. They just released a program tool called Interface Builder, which is essentially a drag-and-drop program builder. It makes the coding part much easier for a novice such as myself. I’m ready to go, but where should I start?

Here are a couple of ideas I was throwing around:

• Location aware app that will tell you nearby services like shopping, theaters, gas stations, etc. Maybe I can connect it to http://www.everyblock.com/ ?
• A journalist toolbox, that will offer you Computer Assisted Reporting tools at your finger tips. Everything from where to get a person’s home tax records to how to file a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA). Maybe I can store it in the phone’s mysql lite database.
• RSS aggregation program that will give you headlines from a variety of sources (I’m sure this someone else already has done this. It’s pretty easy to do.

Any more ideas? What do people want out of their iPhones?

Apparently a new feature from diet.com is making the rounds and becoming quite popular. The latest is that you can text message the name of a popular restaurant followed by a menu item to “D-I-E-T-1″ or 34381, and it will return all of the nutritional facts of that item. News of this feature has gone viral and has already appeared on several news reports, numerous talk shows and radio stations. I first heard about it on the radio, and now I’m seeing it on digg and other Web sites.

I have to admit, the service works pretty well. It’s free except for the cost of the text message your carrier charges (most carriers give an allowance of text messages). In a test I text messaged “carl’s jr. six dollar” and got back information that their Six Dollar Guacamole Bacon Burger was 1117 calories. That’s not counting the fries or the large soda. Pretty soon I was texting the name of everything I’ve eaten in the last couple of weeks. (I didn’t have the six dollar burger in case you were wondering)

This type of feature isn’t anything new. Lots of organizations are using texting services to get or return information, including Google’s new 411 service. Just text your search query to “G-O-O-G-L-E” or 466453, and it’ll return local info. (Ex. “sushi 94720″ will return sushi restaurants near UC Berkeley).

Local KITS Live 105.3 San Francisco uses text messaging to get responses from listeners to polls or song requests. The DJ will ask a question like “Text in your favorite place to vacation” and within seconds the messages come pouring in. It’s crowd-sourcing at it’s most immediate form.

It seems the only people who aren’t using a text messaging service are news Web sites. At least, I haven’t seen any. A few will provide “SMS alerts” but even then, I’m not sure I want give the power to a company to send me text messages all day about a range of topics I can’t control, dwindling down my monthly 250 text message allowance. I’d rather have the query-answer method any day.

Why is it that the San Francisco Chronicle or the New York Times can’t be the one to provide me with directions to restaurants or the latest movies playing via my cell phone? Google wins again.

The New York Times Research and Development Lab have come out with a really cool idea for getting the newspaper right on your mobile phone. They developed a product using hacked Radio Frequency Identification chips (RFID) whereby you can transfer data to your cell phone seamlessly.

The idea, once it’s fully developed, would work like this: Set your mobile phone on an area of your desk that has a special reader pad. The pad signals your computer and takes you to a site that would allow you to download RSS feeds, news stories, blog, personal notes and even directions to say a restaurant right to your phone.

The RFID part of it is more of a gimmack, the real beauty is in the software. Making it simple to, well, put the newspaper on your phone. There are a ton of programs right now that will technically do that, but none with the beauty and simplicity as this one. And one thing software developers are quickly learning these days is that User Interface is everything.

Their idea was so cool, they won the Yahoo Hack Day London 2007 competition. (I admit, I didn’t even know that was going on)

They are going to have the software ready “very soon” on their Web site ShifD.com.

Watch the video of them explaining their product far better than I could in this blog:



The Guardian reported recently that the BBC will be making its iPlayer software available on the iPhone and iPod Touch in the coming weeks. Many blogs/rumor sites are reporting that this is undoubtedly linked to Apple announcing its Software Development Kit (SDK) release at the end of February.

The iPlayer is simple enough. Stream all of the BBC content on the Web. Everyone is pretty much already doing this, except, the BBC is actually looking ahead to the future. They are trying to make their content available in as many venues as they can. Very soon everyone who owns an iPhone in Europe will know they can watch BBC content on their iPhones, and the BBC will undoubtedly see a jump in traffic. If they play their cards right, they will start offering other services to iPhone users like movie times, weather, stocks, etc. all through widgets or programs.

Now I use Apple’s iPhone as a reference, but I’m really speaking of mobile devices in general. I like to use the iPhone because I think it does serve as a rather interesting barometer given its popularity and capabilities (not to mention Google recently announced that iPhone searches on the internet are 50 times more than any other cell phone).

Pretty soon, the mobile computing platform will become ubiquitous. Some say in five years, others in two years. But no matter who you talk to, they all agree that mobile devices are the future. I’ve said it before, people today are in love with their cell phones. It’s their lifeline to the world, their method of personal communication. Now, it’ll be used as a platform for mass communication. The only question unanswered is who will be leading the charge? A Silicon Valley startup, or a news company?