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Originally uploaded by Rob Evans.
what made me take this photo was the targeting of the local Latvian and Polish community so directly. Did they look at the call logs from this phone and decide to target those people (i doubt it).
The poor old letter box next to it adds an interesting dimension to the photo, the phone made a big dent in the mail service and the mobile (taking the pic) made a big dent in the use of phoneboxes.
Facebook is a site that it’s taken me a while to warm too. I took a look at it a while back and saw it just as another homepage application. As a result I didn’t see any value in investing my (limited these days) time in the site.
Since then Facebook as changed considerably and the addition of applications and the ability to suck into the single site all the feeds and conversations that you’re having has turned what was a geocities of the 21st century into something far more useful.
The social networking world is growing at an alarming rate and keeping up with all of these tools is proving more and more difficult so finding a single place where all these feeds turn up has been a goal for a while. I fear that a clear out of some of these sites maybe on the cards soon, I mean I’ve not tumblr a single thing since I set it up, but I guess there’s no harm in creating it and just leaving it to collect dust, you never know when it might come in handy.
Anyway, back to Facebook and specifically Facebook in the enterprise, just a few days back I did something that surprised me after I did it. I was looking for a contact in lenovo, I knew him but didn’t have his contact details, so rather than calling the other lenovo contact I have and asking him to pass on his details I looked him up on Facebook and there he was. I used facebook to replace my contacts app in my pim.
Over the weekend catching up on blogs I read 3 very interesting blog posts. The first was from Scoble, on how he uses Facebook to learn about his contacts and therefore save himself from asking stupid questions and build a better relationship.
The second and third blog posts were from JP’s blog and is views on Facebook and specifically it’s place in the Enterprise parts 1 and two. Having read JP’s posts and did what I did to find my lenovo contact I an see the value in Facebook. I’m on Facebook here
Lightreading has a post on news that Vodafone have been looking at Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ – message board) saw its share price leap more than 12 percent in pre-market trading today following a report on a Financial TimesVodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD – message board) has been considering a takeover bid worth $160 billion, approximately $55 per share.
That’s pretty interesting as Vodafone has allways been left out in the fixed line business and it’s inability to play in the tipple play market as something of a stumbling block. We know they bought an small ISP to help it get into the UK broadband market, but a play like this is just huge. Verizon are a huge player with a global footprint and a very aggressive business model at this time. This is one to watch as it could push Vodafone to the top or near the top of the big Telco league.
Technorati Tags: Telecom, Verizon, Vodafone
Lightreading has a post on the fact that BT has launched a credit card and is encouraging it’s staff to take up the offer. The savings offered are pretty poor and it’s just an example of how affective MBNA have been in selling it’s services to anyone who’ll listen. The lightreading post takes the news has an interesting slant on the story which is good.
If you haven’t seen this on Scoble’s site yet then it’s worth a watch. Jaiku is pretty cool.
Once again Telebusillis has a great story on what Apple is upto here in Europe with the iPhone. Interesting reading, but the clear loser here is Vodafone.
O2 in the UK, T-Mobile in Germany and Orange in France
If you know your onions in this field you’ll know that Orange is owned by France Telecom (iPhone in France) T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telecom (iPhone in Germany) and O2 is owned by Telefonica (iPhone in Spain UK). BT the national incumbent in the UK is missing out here as it doesn’t have a mobile network of it’s own. So BT is another loser in the iPhone game.
So it looks like the national incumbents were able to flex there muscles and win Apples contract to sell and share revenue.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, European, Telecoms, O2, Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile
Telebusillis picks up on an interesting story of the Private Equity company looking to buy TDC (Denmark’s National Carrier). The post refers to a case study looking into the takeover and asks the questions;
Supporters of private equity buyouts claim they introduce a longer term planning horizon for firms with public shareholders who have demanded that management be preoccupied with quarterly earnings improvements and short-term movements of the stock price
It’s an interesting question; are Private Equity companies in it for long term growth or short term gain? The case in question appears to be more of the short term gains than longer term growth. The telecoms market place is undergoing a mini boom right now and it’s interesting to see Private Equity firms moving into this space as they obviously see a growth potential.
I’ve become hooked on Jaiku and taking part in the community online there. As a result I’ve not been reading all of my feeds. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but taking part in Jaiku is like a conversation than just reading feeds.
Anyway, the feeds or blogs that I have been reading have been Scoble’s (he’s on Jaiku too) and Dave Winers as his blog tends to be smaller posts. One of his recent posts was social cameras which I think is such a cool idea, the thought of getting home and having all the (public tagged) photo’s that people have taken all around you is an extremely interesting thought. It wouldbe like having not just yoour friends photo’s to look at but a communities photo’s to look at…amazing.
Dave has a network problem as he’s just bought a second DSL line. I’ve also got two DSL lines but haven’t bothered to connect the two together. I did think about it, running two IP networks on the same LAN and assigning default routes manually. But the hassle wasn’t worth it. It just means the switch over if one line goes down is a few minutes longer. The complexitity versus the benefit doesn’t stack up. Besides one of my DSL lines should disappear soon, but it hasn’t.
Rob's Digital Life 