The Storm is Really a Summer Breeze

I love summertime.  And I also love mobile phones.  It’s Memorial Day weekend so I’m ramping up for summer.  But I haven’t had a new mobile phone to play with in quite a while.  Unfortunately, I won’t have a new phone for awhile.  OK, you shouldn’t feel too sorry for me as I’m angling for a Pre when it ships in two weeks.

In the meantime, my wife and kids were up for new phones last weekend.  And so we bit the bullet and renewed our subscription with Verizon.  Actually, it wasn’t that hard of a decision as most carriers make the renewal process quite simple – and desirable.  My kids got new “throw-away” phones (i.e., Palm Centro’s).  And I talked my wife into a BlackBerry Storm.  Yeah, I know it isn’t hard to talk someone into a touch phone.  And I was surprised that we didn’t switch to AT&T in order to get an iPhone.  But network availability trumped everything else.  We had to have a ubiquitous network that worked in the house as well as in our kids dorm rooms.  So Verizon got the nod.

My wife really loves the Storm.  It has a spectacular camera.  And the touch screen is quite nimble.  But my wife was really having trouble with the phone.  First, the phone would periodically become sluggish – and even halted once.  Second, the great camera was terrible.  Specifically, my wife would launch the camera app and it would take 3-7 seconds just to launch.  Worse still, it would take 5-10 seconds to snap a picture.  This was totally unacceptable.  We have a new granddaughter in the house.  And Cindy needed a camera that wouldn’t require the subject to hold still.  Yeah, Cindy has a Nikon D70.  But who wants to pull out the bulky (but versatile) DSLR for some candid snaps?

So I decided to get in research mode and see if there was anything I could do.  For a very long time, I had used custom firmware loads for my WiMo phones.  Indeed, I loved my HTC Apache for just that very reason.  I had no idea if the BlackBerry could be customized.  But I was willing to look.

Wow! The BlackBerry experience is replete with custom firmware.  Better said, there are a whole lot of “leaks” from RIM to choose from.  Indeed, RIM provides plenty of tools to install their uncertified builds.  And there are equally as many tools to deploy “hybrid” builds (otherwise know as “kitchen builds” for the WiMo crowd).

So my task was simple.  I just had to download the deployment tools, select a relevant build and convince my wife that I should be allowed to monkey with her phone.  The first two steps were the easiest.  [Note: Cindy was remarkably willing to do this.  I can only assume that she was so dissatisfied with the camera's sluggishness that she was willing to cede control to me.  In any event, she said "yes" - so I was off to the races.]

The biggest technical challenge was finding a good build to deploy.  I was stunned about how dissatisfied folks are with the BlackBerry 9530 (Storm) and its camera.  And I was equally stunned by the apparent indifference Verizon was showing to its customers.  There have been several builds that have been worthy of release (and support).  But Verizon has continually deferred for one reason or another.  The cynic in me says that they do not want to improve the Storm too much as they need to have a reason for folks to upgrade to the Storm 2.  Nevertheless, I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.  I think that they want to ensure a stellar experience.  And after seventy-three (73) successive builds, I think that Verizon may very well certify the 4.7.0.148 build as the next official release for the Verizon 9530.

But I can’t wait for Verizon to finish their internal wrangling on the matter.  So I decided that .148 would be the build for our family.  So I began the deployment process.  I can’t say that the process went without any trepidation.  There were a couple of desktop reboots that were part of the process.  I found that quite odd.  I can understand the phone restarts.  But desktop restarts?  I was getting worried that this might not work as I was running it from my Windows 7 desktop.  Fortunately, everything went superbly.  After numerous desktop and phone restarts, the phone was upgraded with a sparkling new OS – and it is superb.

The new build is substantially faster and more responsive than the stock .75 build.  And up until now, the system appears to be more stable.  [Note: I want to see the phone running for a month before I call it more stable than the supported build.]  Most importantly, the camera is immensely better.  There is still a bit of a lag between depressing the physical camera hot key and hearing the shutter sound being emitted from the speakers.  But overall focusing time is drastically better.

In addition to deploying a new phone OS build, I needed to set up the phone for syncing with iTunes.  Right now, I have the master song library on my desktop.  So I deployed the Media Sync software on my Windows 7 system.  Unfortunately, I did not have the seamless experience I wanted.  The software installer balked at Windows 7.  Fortunately I was able to execute the installer in Windows XP compatibility mode and the install proceeded w/o further fuss or muss.  Once installed, the app itself ran with nary a problem.  Now I need to focus my attention on configuring Cindys instance of iTunes so that it can access my music library from her desktop.  Once done, I can set Cindy up to manage her own sync with the phone.

All in all, the Storm is a fabulous piece of hardware.  And BlackBerry has a whole lot of tools to ensure that the software remains up-to-date.  It’s a shame that Verizon can’t marry the two advantages together and certify a new build for the Storm.  Once they do, they will have an exceptional platform.

-Roo

Windows 7: Feature Complete & Ready to Rock!

I had a couple of “unassigned hours” this morning.  So I figured that it would be time to do a clean install of Windows 7.  And as everyone is aware, I’ve been thoroughly impressed with what Redmond has assembled.  But like most people, I’ve had a couple of minor annoyances that I wanted corrected.  And with this re-install, almost every one of them has been addressed.

- Homegroups finally work!  Yay!
- Permissions on all files seem to be working properly.
- Odd video fragments seem to be a thing of the past.  Indeed, video performance is spectacular.
- Windows Media Center issues have been resolved – including guide download problems.  BTW, I really do like the new Media Center fit-and-finish (including Internet TV touches).

I still have a lot of work to do – especially rebuilding and re-installing iTunes and getting Amazon’s MP3 Downloader to work without tweaking.  But all-in-all, I am thoroughly impressed with the overall Windows 7 experience.  This IS what Vista should have been.

-Roo

Sharpening Focus for Windows 7

It’s the middle of March and it looks like the Windows 7 Release Candidate will be out in a month or so.  The first beta has been a tremendously positive step for Microsoft.  The beta was kept open for almost a month – principally due to customer demand.  And the reviews have been uniformly positive.

And as most of you know, I’ve been very bullish on Windows 7.  By and large, I have used the beta on my primary home system since the first weekend that is was available.  But I’ve had a couple of problems.  First, I haven’t been able to get a HomeGroup setup.  That hasn’t been a big deal since I don’t have any other systems at home using Windows 7.  Second, I’ve had real problems with Media Center.  In particular, I haven’t been able to download a media Guide since I installed the beta.

Thankfully, my tests of current builds indicate that Microsoft has resolved these problems – and a host of other problems.  I can create a HomeGroup now, although it requires me to use IPV6 to do so.  Since I’m using a custom firmware build and there are a bunch of XP and Vista systems that are also part of my home network, I won’t keep IPV6 going.  I just don’t want to introduce any network instability at this time.

More importantly, my Windows Media Center troubles are now a thing of the past.  I can now download the guide to my heart’s content.  This makes me quite happy.  And there are a whole lot of fit-and-finish issues that have been polished in the meantime.  In short, I am very confident that Windows 7 will be (or should be) generally available sometime this summer.  Indeed, Windows 7 is more ready to be released than Vista was when it was released.  Yes, there are things that need to be fixed.  And I am quite confident that the Windows team will get them addressed.

-Roo

Windows 7 Media Center: A Tale of Two Experiences

In a very short time (less than two years), I’ve become addicted to Windows Media Center.  I can turn the TV on while I go about all of the other chores I have to do.  Yeah, I’m not using an extender to run it on a huge screen.  Instead, I am running it on my primary system where I am able to lean in and watch TV without disturbing the rest of the family.  [For those who didn't know, I have serious vision problems and I have to be within a few inches of the display device before I can even focus on the image.]

In the short time that I’ve used Windows Media Center, Ive become accustomed to the easy interface of the “Guide” functionality.  And I’m really liking the new Windows 7 features.  But after a few days of running the new Media Center on the new Windows 7 system, I was stunned to see that the Guide no longer functioned.  And I kept receiving download errors  on the system.

And I’ve been looking for answers to these problems ever since early February.  I am still able to watch all TV content.  And I am able to watch DVD’s and digital files w/o trouble.  But I can’t get the guide to work. This is terribly frustrating as I like to surf the guide via a Windows sidebar gadget – and this n0o longer works as the guide info isn’t downloading.

After stumbling through lots of dead ends on the Internet, I ran into http://www.sevenforums.com.  This is a GREAT support site for those who have taken the plunge into Windows 7.  If you are having trouble with something on Windows 7, this forum probably has an answer – or can link you with someone else who is having the same trouble.

So did I find an answer? Well, not exactly.  No one has a solution.  But I now know that many other people are having the same trouble.  I have noted that I am getting what appears to be DRM-related errors in the event viewer.  Beyond that, it looks like I’ll have to wait for Microsoft to fix the issue (hopefully in the April RC).

Nevertheless, I did find some very interesting hacks through the unofficial Windows 7 forums.  These forums sent me to http://hack7mc.com where I found some very cool mechanisms to change the default background and overall theme of the Media Center.  So while I don’t have guide functionality, Windows Media Center looks really cool now!

-Roo

The Long Tail of the Information Glut

 

Long Tail (via Mike Fruchter)

Fifteen years ago, I coded my very first web site.  It was a Valentine’s day card to my wife and my kids.  The worldwide web was extraordinarily new.  Indeed, it was less that a few years old.  And I was running a web server on an OS/2 system running IBM’s GoHTTP (a combination gopher and WWW server).  I “composed” the site using a text editor (not notepad).  Yes, you really could make usable sites without fancy tools like Dreamweaver.  But the fancy tools are a huge time saver!  :)

 

You may be asking yourself why I’m dragging you down memory lane.  Well, that’s a good question.  And I may not have a satisfactory answer.  But I was thinking about all the data I collect and process on a daily basis.  I use all sorts of tools to distill this data into some kind of information from which I draw practical conclusions for my employer.  

• I use Google Reader as a means of aggregating lots of feed data.  Years ago, I used a tool called Pointcast.  And I moved from Pointcast to using a tool called Agent.  Since then, the volume of data has increased and the complexity of that data has also increased.  But it is extremely important to have a tool to aggregate all the miscellaneous source material.  Right now, I consume several hundred data feeds on a daily basis.  And Google Reader allows me to consolidate all of this information into a digestible form.
   
• I use Yahoo! Pipes as a means of processing all of this data.  Right now, my use of Pipes is limited.  I mostly use it to aggregate and assemble related feeds together.  Like most geeks, I have many and diverse interests.  I must follow technology.  And my technology needs are broken down into a dozen different categories.  For example, I read social media feeds.  But I also read data center management feeds.  I am also keenly interested in politics.  In addtion, I am extremely interested in evangelical Christianity and the commissioning that all Christians share (i.e., like Peter, we are called to “feed” Jesus’ sheep).  With so many interests, it is imperative to consolidate all of my source feeds into clusters of related subjects.  I do this by joining sources that are related.  And I do this by parsing posts for key terms that can usually designate the subject matter.Why do I go through all this trouble?  Because I am interested in far too many things.  And I look at far too much data on a regular basis.  So I use Pipes as a means of filtering out what MAY be important.  In time, everyone will begin to tag their data.  When that happens, I will use a more canonical approach to assessing content.  But in the meantime, I use brute force dictionary and source data analysis.
   
• I use other “trusted” sources as aggregators and filters for content.  Like most folks, I have a number of friends across the country.  And one set of friends are keenly interested in politics while another set of friends are keenly interested in IT technology.  A third set of friends are immersed in spirtual discovery, enlightenment and fulfilling the Great Commission.  In a way, I use these people as my editorial board.  I collect their feeds (including their Twitter streams and their Friendfeed streams) as a means of focusing my attention on the important things.  I can’t monitor everything.  And it is getting harder to do so with the passing of each day.  So when I identify a trusted source, I load their key feeds into Google Reader.  And I will sometimes put some pipes together as well.

So I use tools to process lots of data.  But it is important to note where we are in the evolution of these approaches and tools.  When I started processing data from the Internet, the tools were stone axe heads and flint.  Today, the tools are scalpels and lasers by comparison.  Indeed, the use of “intelligent agents” (promised in the late nineties) is finally coming to fruition.  We are finally in the long tail of these technologies.  The things that I did a decade ago are passé.  And the things I did two years ago are now mainstream.  More and more people will start using RSS as a source of data.  And they will use aggregators (like Google Reader) as a way of assembling and processing these massive feeds of data.  

So what’s next? If you were to put me on the spot, I would say that tagging is the next thing to really go mainstream.  Indeed, I am seeing political groups using Twitter hashtags as a means of subjectively categorizing their thoughts.  And while Blogger and WordPress have used tags and categories for a few years, I expect to see players like Facebook, MySpace and a host of other platforms start to really focus on tagging.  Is tagging new?  Nope.  Will it become mainstream?   Yes, just like blogging and micro-blogging are now mainstream.  

So what will I do on the fiteenth anniversary of my first web site?  I think I’ll just send flowers.  Poetry and photos on a website are just too “last decade” for me.

 

-Roo

Red Rover, Red Rover – Send Twitter On Over

Strategy in the information technology space is a lot like game theory – or at least it’s like kid’s game theory.  The normal inclination of companies is to acquire other companies in order to grow.  This is especially true when the target of an acquisition has a capability that you lack in your own service portfolio.

But during times of economic distress, it’s hard to cost-justify such an acquisition.  At the same time, it is very hard to justify a “buy” when you aren’t quite sure how federal regulators will perceive such an acquisition.  Enter kids games… If you remember Red Rover, you know that sometimes you call a weak player just to get numbers on your side.  And then sometimes you call a strong and pivotal player with the hopes of building your own line.  During economic situations like we are facing today, a courageous company may just try and call another company to come play on their team.

Last night, Twitter announced that they will be playing in the OAuth games.  For those not intimately familiar with OAuth, it is an open authentication model that promotes application authentiaction and data sharing.  OAuth is not the same thing as OpenID (which is for user/personal authentication).  At the same time, they DID NOT annouce support for OpenID.

Why is this important?  Well, user/personal authentication goes straight to the heart of your customer base.  If you maintain your own user database, then you can leverage that base directly.  If you rely upon someone else’s user database (e.g., Google or Yahoo’s users), then you can’t directly tap that base – at least, not as easily.  So I’m not suprised that Twitter is signaling OAuth.  They want to have a broader reach of interoperatiblity.  Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn’t have a “platform” to exploit.  So it is in their interests to play on a field where other company’s can agree to work in a friendly (coopetition-based) model.

It also makes sense that they aren’t announcing any plans for OpenID.  Twitter just said “no” to becoming an appendage on someone else’s platform.  But they aren’t big enough to do the same thing that Facebook wanted to do (i.e., buy others and build themselves). This is especially true since there isn’t a LOT of spare VC funding these days.  So Twitter will keep its user base and “play nice” with others – for now.

By announcing OAuth support, Twitter is making itself an even bigger target.  But this time, they may be the target of a different corporation – and it smells like an infrastructure player might be in the mix.  Specifically, I see either Google or Yahoo! making a play (hostile or otherwise) for Twitter.  Personally, I think that Google is trying to bring Twitter into their universe.  It would make Google an even more compelling services “platform” if they had a “partner” who could pull the micro-blogging crowd into orbit.

Is Google thinking about it?  Who knows?  But they are certainly a big player in OAuth.  Their entire OpenSocial initiative hinges on the success of OAuth.  And recent posts by Google seem to indicate that they want to “play nice” with other companies and other services.  If nothing else, maybe they can drive more services to rely upon Google infrastructure (i.e., not their search infrastructure).

At the same time, Yahoo! might surprise us.  Their new CEO wants to make a big splash.  And there could be no bigger splash than an outright pruchase of Twitter by Yahoo!  I hope that this does not happen.  But if I were the CEO at Yahoo!, I’d really be tempted.

-Roo

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

Cell phone coverage is quite interesting.  I use a Sprint-based phone and my wife uses and AT&T phone (both provided by our employers).  So both of us have different qualities of service in various points throuhout the house.  I have reasonable coverage on the perimeter of the house.  And my wife has excellent coverage on the east side of the house.  Thanks to Google Latitude, I now know why Cindy has different coverage on different sides of the house.

Cindy has a BlackBerry Pearl.  And I have helped her to set up Google Latitude on her phone.  BTW, the BlackBerry version of Latitude is quite good.  And it seems quite different than the Windows Mobile version that runs on my phone.  But that is grist for a different post.  I had a few minutes tonight so I figured that I would finalize the setup so that her phone was associated with Google Latitude and her Google account.  I also went ahead and set her account to update her location automatically.

Since her phone doesn’t have GPS, Google got the location information from the cell tower that Cindy’s phone was associated with.  So Cindy and I learned that her phone was communicating with a cell tower across the highway about a mile south of us.   I thought this was kind of cool.  So I called her into the classroom to show her the Latitude application from within iGoogle.  And she walked into the classroom on the east side of the house.  Within two minutes, I noticed that her location shifteed to someplace to the east of our house.  In fact, she had moved between towers just by moving thirty feet to the east.   And when she walked back to the living room, her location changed in Latitude – indicating that she had associated with the original tower.

Both of us thought that this was realy cool – and quite startling.  Google has done a good job making sure that the customer must provide approvals before anyone can see/consume location information about your account.  But most folks won’t be paying detailed attention.  Therefore, I wonder how many people will unkowingly give all sorts of location data to all sorts of people – including Google.  Yes, tracking kids may become easier.  But being tracked by Google (or other entities) will also be much easier.

-Roo

Center of the Universe? Meh, Bleh or Ewww?

Google is taking an increasingly central role in all of my computing. [Note: Please take a look at a few of my recent posts.]  Here is the quick list:

• All of my personal email is processed via GMail.  This includes my ISP email that I pull via GMail.  And the introduction of offline capabilities only locks me further into the Google camp.
• 99% of my searches use Google.
• I consume 95% of all of my RSS feeds using GReader. The other 5% is processed using Yahoo! Pipes.
• I use Chrome over 80% of the time. I still use Firefox (for some of the extensions I love). And I still play with both Opera and Safari. But these will dwindle, not grow.
• I’m beginning  to use Latitude for my location-based activities. I’m not sold on it yet. But Brightkite is going to have a tough time keeping me.
• I use GTalk as one of several IM ecospheres I routinely frequent for personal communications.  This is even more important as my company will (in all likelihood) interconnect its enterprise IM solution to the public Jabber infrastructure via the GTalk servers.  Personally, I believe that XMPP will soon become the modern-day equivalent to SNMP (the protocol that unified all email systems globally).
• I’m using iGoogle as a portal to all of these services. The current iGoogle actually has some very nice features.  It has certainly improved greatly in the last two years.  And the integration of GReader and Latitude make it far more compelling than it was a year ago.
• I used to run this blog on Blogger (a Google asset).  But when I joined Microsoft three years ago, I had to drop Blogger.  Of course, squatters came in and took my old blog address.  So when I left Microsoft, I started to run this blog on WordPress.  Actually, I like WordPress a lot more.  When I transition to a site on my own domain, I will still be using WordPress.  But Blogger (Google) has a huge number of active blog sites.  And the fact that it is a free service will bring people to Blogger and get them hooked on Google tools and Google advertising.
• Over the past year, Google has been a pivotal player in the Open Social movement.  And they are achieving an even great role in open/federated authentication.  With their work on OpenID, they will be one of the three top players in any federated authentication solution.

It is clear that Google has a huge postition in my universe.  And that position is growing, not shrinking.  With more and more Google assets in common use, there is a defniitve gravitational “pull” associated with these computational bodies.  Indeed, the gravitational well of Google is getting larger and larger.  For example, if I had the spare change for a new phone (and no time left on my current contract), then I think I might pick up a GPhone rather than an iPhone.

This is becoming quite reminiscent of the place Microsoft began to take in the early and mid-nineties.  Is Google becoming the next Microsoft? Gosh, I don’t want to be the millionth person to discuss that hypothesis.  But it might be worth looking at Google as the next IBM.  IBM had a lock on an entire platform (the mainframe).  Every decision that was made within the corporate data center had to factor in the current and future blueprints from IBM.  And it sure looks like Google is more and more capable of exerting this kind of influence – especially as cloud-computing evolves into a reality.

At this time, Google is a key vendor of some important client technologies.  And Google is a key player as a vendor of infrastructure services and capabilities.  Google is also a new and increasingly important player in communications. And Google is practially the only player in search-based advertising.

So what’s next for them? Is it hardware? I don’t think so.  They don’t mind specifying standards – like their handling of the GPhone.  They won’t build it – but they’ll design and direct it.  Is it software?  Well, I’d have to answer yes and no.  They will build the software and then distribute it.  But they will do this as a means of providing a platform for ad-based revenue.  And right now, Google is able to monetize all of their software and standards investment via a simple advertising tax they impose on nearly every platform.  Will they focus on services?  Hmmm. That might be interesting.  But I doubt that they have the stomach for that – especially in a market that is shrinking – not growing.

Is Google a Microsoft or an IBM?  Who really knows the answer to that question.  But should Google be watched by federal regulators?  I would have to say yes.  While I don’t think that Google is exercising monopoly power to the disadvatnage of others (either competitors or customers), I do think that they have the means to do so.  But will the current governement (as controlled by the Democratic party) have the stomach to play watchdog over a company that is known to fund many a Deomocratic pet project?  Now there is an interesting question.

-Roo

Google Is The Center Of The Universe – Part II

I am a casual user of Brightkite.  I use it to log into four or five different locations on a regular basis.  And I use it to do a couple of location-specific tasks – such as location posts and location photos.  But as a general rule, I use it only a handful of times each day.

But there are a couple of things I love about it:

• Entering location data is easy.  I have a few dozen Placemarks set.  And I can enter my location by referencing one of my preset Placemarks.
• Phone integration is quite mature. SMS data entry is a snap.  I can send an SMS message to a single phone number (after associating my phone with my Brightkite account).  Checking in is easy. And sending pictures and text are a breeze.

But I am not altogether thrilled with everything that Brightkite does.  Indeed, I have a couple of problems with it.  

• I have to build a completely separate friend/follower base.  I hate this.  I want to have one friend/follower/contact base for all my social apps.  It’s not hard to use Brightkite’s functionality.  But it is yet another user database.
• I have to use a separate user/password to signon to the service.  I really want a single signon or federated signon.
• I really want my location solution to integrate with my mapping solution.  In this way, I can do dirctions and distance calculations simply.
• I would love for my social systems and my location systems to work together.  Specifcally, I want to be able to IM or send tweets to folks that are around me.  And I’d love to have the ability to use XMPP as the infrastructure for these communications.  In that way, I can leverage the immense automation potential of Jabber-based systems.

Do I need another location-based system?  Probably not.  Do I want another location system?  M0st definitely.

Enter Google Latitude.

 This morning, Google told the world that Latitude was available for testing and use.  So I downloaded itand gave it a try.  Google Latitude does some things extremely well.

• Google gets the basics right. I can check-in. And I love the fact that I can use Google Maps to put a pin where I am located.
• Google does get the GPS fundamentals right.
• Google has mobile clients for all the major phone platforms (although I am hearing that the iPhone client really needs a little help).
• Google uses the single signon system that my other Google apps use.  More importantly, it can leverage OpenID in a federated model.
• Google integrates with Google Talk.  Hence, it is XMPP-enabled.
• Google integrates with Google Maps and Google Earth.

While it would be fair to say that Google has the framework and fundamentals right, it still needs to polish some of the rough spots.  In particular, the check-in process is particularly clunky – especially for phones w/o GPS.  Since GPS is avaialble on all “new” phones, Latitude reaches the tech savvy folks who like new toys.  But the reach is limited for those phones w/o GPS.  And the SMS functionality appears very immature.  There is no simple way to check in (via a service like Placemarks).  

Bottom Line: Google Latitude is a great first step.  It gets the fundamentals and infrastructure right.  But it really needs some work on the UI.  With a few more polishes to the UI, this WILL replace my Brightkite use.  But for now, I will use both and incur the overhead of doing the same thing twice.  This offering will force Brightkite to up its game or risk losing everything it has worked so hard to earn.

 

-Roo

P.S. Louis Gray has a great write up on Latitude and its impact upon Brightkite and Loopt.  His thoughs are available on his site.

Realtime Reporting Is Evolving…

…towards realtime collaboration.  And the transition is exciting.

Yesterday was a busy day at work.  It’s the busy time of year in the tax preparation business.  And I’m always multitasking: planning for next year’s systems, supporting systems we’ve deployed this year, and consulting on systems that are experiencing trouble at any given moment.

But even on busy days, there is time to multitask on other matters.  I knew that the Republican National Committee was holding their election for the new committee chairman.  And I really wanted to watch what was happening – in realtime.  As someone who uses social media as an avocation, I knew that there were ways of getting realtime feeds of data.  I did a little checking and found that three or four of my favorite commentators were live-blogging the event.  So I was quite excited.  

I remember when I used to go to state conventions and state committee meetings.  That was quite a while ago.  When I used to attend, there really were smoke-filled rooms.  Of course, many had smoke in them because I used to smoke a pipe.  But that’s a different story…  In the past, only an annointed few individuals were privvy to the rooms where important decisions were made.  If you were lucky, an enterprising reporter might post a story in a local paper.  And a few folks could get telephone updates from friends who were at the venue.  But you never had any realtime view into the process.

That all changed with the advent of the worldwide web.  And those changes accelerated with the introduction of blogs.  If you knew someone who was attending, you could get an update of events within a few hours.  And that was wonderful.  But while you could receive data faster, it was an evolution and not a revolution.

But the last four years have seen some important changes.  First, wireless phones have introduced the ability to get instant feedback (via SMS or the web).  Second, text messages have been augmented with the addition of rich media – including both audio and video.  Thid, everyone has these devices.  So anyone in attendance at a meeting can communicate.  These three shifts in communications have enabled everything I saw yesterday.  And live blogging has been a real difference maker.

This week’s RNC meeting was something altogether different.  Not only was there good communications (despite WiFi troubles at the hotel), but communications became multi-dimensional.  Live blogging has always meant that realtime posts could be sent from conferences and meetings.  But microblogging (using Twitter, Friendfeed and other tools) has meant that short and pithy bursts of info could be sent in realtime.  More importantly, short messages could be sent form the outside to the inside of the venue.  And this simple fact transformed everything.

I was sitting in Kansas City.  I was not in the meeting room.  But there were a few dozen people who were there and who were twittering the event.  And these people provded multiple views (and voices) about what was transpiring.  And I heard the voices of various operatives from many of the different candidates.  But more importantly, I and other people could send questions or engage in realtime conversations about what was transpiring.  This made those “on the outside” seem to be part of the process.  This fact alone should increase excitement and participation by those who couldn’t otherwise attend.  But I am sure that many people at the venue used the feedback from the remote audience as a means of gauging what the common folk might think of what was going on behind closed doors.  

Of course, the only folks who were engaged in the #rncchair discussions on Twitter were twitterati and cognoscenti.  But these folks were a fantastic proving ground for the technology.  And the growing applicability of this technology was apparent to all. Folks who had broadband connectivity and a larger screen were at a tremendous advantage.  They could provide and receive far more information for their use.  I am sure that the various candidates’ teams had various levels of technology.  And those with a good handle on the technology (i.e., those who posessed smartphones like iPhones and BlackBerries) were at an even great advantage.  [Note: It was clear that Saul Anuzis' team stayed in the race for a long time because he had mastered many of the communications channels available to him.]

As technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, more and more people will gain more and more advantage from these technologies.  And as the software and services become even more accessible (i.e., less complex) even more people will be able to take advantage of realtime participation.  

In the end, the technology alone did not make a deterministic difference.  Michael Steels won the race because he had a good plan and he executed it quite effectively.  Many folks will point to a specific reason that they think was critical for Steele’s success.  I won’t be so bold.  I wasn’t there.  But I know that Michael Steele didn’t lose the race due to an insufficient grasp on the communications technologies at his disposal.  Indeed, why else do you think Michael Steels was so visible as a Fox News contributor?  He knew the imporance of using communications tools to energize his base while broadening his reach.  And the communications tools available to us today helped to make that possible.

I’ll leave each of you the assignment to determine why Michael Steele won the chairmanship.  In the meantime, I used a variety of tools to stay”in the know” – Twitter, hashtags (specifically, #rncchair and #tcot), Twitter search (at http://search.twitter.com) and Twitterfall (http://www.twitterfall.com).  Twitterfall is fantastic.  It provided a realtime rolling (or falling) ticker of a particular conversation thread.  I was able to see who the talkers were as well as see who I should be following.  

And for those interested in metrics… By getting involved in this one event, I saw my overall follower count (on Twitter) grow by over 20%.  Of course, I started from a small base, but the real numbers were nonetheless impressive.  

Finally, I would like to reinforce an important point: I do like to send “thank you’s” to the folks that followed me as a result of this event.  I use SocialToo.com as a means of responding to all new followers.  It is a great tool to help “personalize” the process of nurtturing your following.  If you didn’t receive a “Thank You’ from me, drop me a note and I’ll send you a personalized email with my warmest thanks..

 

-Roo