Innovations can come from anywhere

ESPOO, Finland – This week will be a lot about innovation in the mobile world (James and I are at The Way We Live Next, Nokia Research Center’s geek-fest for journalists of all stripes).

ESPOO, Finland – Is it good or bad that we can record what we do, where we are, and what’s around us – automatically?

Comments (0)

Curious people doing curious things. Feel inspired?

ESPOO, Finland – What really gets us going here is when folks push the limits, do things that we never expected, challenge the prevailing wisdom and practice by going out there and doing it themselves. We like the feeling we get when we think ‘they did what with WHAT?’. I guess it is because we marvel at people’s creativity and ingenuity.

I found some interesting stories that I think illustrate how people think and do when you throw a mobile device in the mix.

Read on.

Comments (1)

When old becomes new again – SMS and Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO, USA – The humble SMS text message was a throwaway by-product of mobile network service messaging – 160 characters to shuttle unimportant service and billing information into and out of the mobile phone. At one point, some realized that maybe, just maybe, business people could use it for important business messages. It was ridiculed, though – what could anyone say in 160 characters or less? Also, operators created a whole range of SMS-based services, mostly info or download services.

Yet, it wasn’t the business-types who took to SMS. And the only SMS service that really raked in the money was ring-tone downloads, which has been declining in recent years. The real use for SMS originated with the youth who viewed it as an easy hack for communicating easily and on the cheap. They had a lot to say in 160 characters or less, to the tune of almost 2 trillion messages globally last year. Communication has trumped consumption.

And SMS still has far to go. Its simplicity is its strength. Case in point: Twitter.

Comments (7)

Hidden in plain sight

ESPOO, Finland – This week Nokia launched another NFC phone. NFC stands for ‘Near Field Communication’, a short-range radio-based data exchange technology. While NFC refers to a particular standard, you probably use something similar with tags such as bus cards, ski passes, or corporate access keys that you use by touching to a surface.