Rather than continue addressing these iphone feature specific comments, I wanted to touch on the bigger picture. What will the iphone do? No, not features, but big picture market and social transformations!

Read Write Web really nails it here, when they suggest that the iphone is going to move in on the desktop market. All those teens that used to log into AOL chat rooms, which have since moved to Facebook and Myspace are going to be able to get that experience on their phone, at anytime…..anywhere. I thought I saw some recent articles stating how popular the iphone is with kids, anyone able to track that down?

This is where the big money is, and this is where I see blackberry having some trouble. They took the enterprise market, which was the only market at the time (Dell was in the same boat when desktops and laptops were king). The iphone is creating a second major mobile market, which consists of the masses that were never going to participate using a blackberry or windows mobile phone (even though those phones could technically do it).

Similarly, I see the Kindle as having the same effect. Its forging its own market for midsized mobile data devices, albeit in a much less rapid and sexy way.

Yes, I said it, the big money. Millions and millions of CONSUMERS hooked on mobile devices more than willing to pay for apps, compulsive content purchases on the fly, or download apps powered by advertising.

So despite the fact that I don’t think the iphone is for everyone (and I hope alternatives continue to develop), the potential is quite clear. Blackberry is freaking out about this, and is desperately trying to build phones that artsy hipsters will want to buy.

Whether or not thats good for us as a whole, I don’t know yet. I suspect theres going to be some pretty interesting social changes as our less mobile friends and family catch up (my mom just sms’ed me for the first time last month!).

I want to participate in the Kiva Fellows Program.

What is this?

Kiva is a website by which anyone with a credit card can help provide microfinancing entrepreneurs around the world.

Kiva partners with local microfinancing institutions to find entrepreneurs seeking capital and then matches those entrepreneurs with financing through the website. These institutions are the ones that do all the actual work on the ground, and the Kiva fellows program is a way to for Kiva to help channel quality volunteers directly to the institutions.

In the world of giving and supporting those that have less, Kiva is the one that makes the most sense to me. Also, given the criteria that they post for a Kiva Fellow, I’d make a a damn good fit!

Successful Kiva fellows tend to have the following:

- overseas experience (check, check, check)
- high enthusiasm for kiva (check)
- familiarity with web apps and technology (check)
- background in economics (check)
- fluency in french and spanish (hablo espanol y francais)
- ability to finance your trip (thats what this post is for!!)

To address this last criteria, I set up a Smartypig account, and a goal to raise the money (rough estimate) needed to go:

 

I set this up less to solicit contributions, and more to challange myself to keep saving for this goal.

My writing is definitely the weakest link, but I know this, and its one of the driving factors behind me writing this blog. I knew I wanted to do the Kiva Fellows program over a year ago, so its definitely something I’m going to work towards in the long term. I’m not sure when it will happen, but even if its 2, 3, or 4 years off, I need to go!

the good:

• i love the new form factor
• really surprised by how much I liked the keyboard(s)

the bad:

• no copy/paste
• no push email (fwding to a mobile.me account doesn’t count)
• no email search
• no google calendar sync
• poor battery life
• no google talk or blackberry messenger
• slow software

I use google apps for my work email and calendar, so I can’t live with out push email or an over-the-air calendar sync.  That in itself is almost a deal closer.  Add in the fact that I couldn’t search through the emails on the phone, and I couldn’t copy/paste information from the emails, and you really have a useless device.  

In order to keep track of the things that caught my attention, I wanted to start keeping a list here. As always its tough to decide what format (diigo, google notebook, etc), but for now I’ll just try simple links (I know, I know, I hate that nytime.com requires a login!) Maybe I’ll even get back to reflecting on some of these topics!

Randoms

• The New Hunter S. Thompson documentary!

Local

• Laptop Guide to NYC? - what can we learn about NYC by traveling with a laptop
• Falls are everywhere - NYC art installation of water falls
• Life after tenemants - An all too familiar search for better living conditions on the east side
• Transportation enhancements! - Faster bus lines put in with pay before you board system.
• The Walls Have Big Ears - history of an NYC building
  

Green

• What bubbles leave behind? - how bubbles (tech, energy, etc) create the infrastructure needed for new industries
• The urban shift - back to the city
• The “C” word, Conservation and rewarding it - incentivizing consuming less?
• Clean(er) driving techniques -
• Fashion over cycling function - helmut head is a big concern
• Even the europeans are doing it - feeling the pressure, considering public transport?!
  
  
• Redefining who we are (as americans) -

There’s a building tension between two travel sites that I currently use to manage my travel plans, Tripit and Dopplr.  Tripit is going after the professional crowd (with a seemingly web1.0 approach) looking to manage their travel plans, while Dopplr works for travelers at large, as it provides strong tools for sharing travel plans.  Here’s a quick comparison.

Lets look at the strengths of each site.

Tripit:

- auto data entry. just fwd your reservation emails to plans@tripit.com.  its really that simple.

Dopplr:

- User interface
- Social network, sharing travel information
- Tech (microformats, gmail integration, widgets map integration,)

Tripit’s reservation e-mail processing is amazing.  Its so stupid, and so simple and just works.  I make reservations, I forward those confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, and my itinerary is created.  A website that actually does work for me, and creates value?  Thats a huge success in today’s world of infinite startups, creating software for every niche imaginable.  In particular, I’m a huge fan of sites that provide very functional free tools for a user base, and then find other ways to monetize it (Angelsoft, del.icio.us,mint.com, etc)

Why is that not enough in this case for Tripit to really take over?

There’s nothing engaging about the site itself.  I rarely need to go to the site, unlike mint.com.  I fwd the emails from my email inbox, and then right before my trip I go look at my trip itinerary (on the web or mobile editions).  I go to the site for a very specific reason, and its almost gauranteed that I’m not going to spend any time there browsing around, or making travel reservations (I already have my travel site routine mapped out with Kayak and TripAdvisor).

Dopplr on the other hand, despite not providing a truly valuable tool up front, has provided value through its network, and giving me the ability to share.  It was easy to find my friends on the site, and I keep getting invites from people that are joining the site.  Because these people (my connections) are on the site, I feel compelled to go back and input my data manually (which I hate doing in general!), and often I’ll end up browsing around to look at all the new connections and their upcoming trips.

Its a different kind of “stickiness”.  Tripit is sticky because it processes my data for me, while dopplr is sticky because of the network.  

Josh Lowensohn at webware in his review of Dopplr, makes some similar comment attributing Dopplr’s success to underground appeal and social approach.  Julien at Macro Principles also writes about Dopplr’s ability to do more with less, and get more coverage in the blog world than Tripit.

Its a subtle difference, so in a future post I want to explore what specifically Dopplr has that Tripit is missing.

In the meantime, combine the two, and you’ve got the best of both worlds!  Business travelers coming in for the robust itinerary tools then sticking around to share their travel information with business partners, friends, and family.

Good Magazine:
Buy a cute panda for a worthy cause

Google: 
Use google checkout to donate to these 2 nonprofits suggested by google.

Jeremiah Owyang, the blogger behind Web Strategy by Jeremiah, puts the number of homeless Chinese as a result of the quake in perspective by comparing it to cities much closer to home.  He urges people to donate to the Red Cross.

Read/write web also has somes posts on mobile giving (just for verizon), and using social networks for social good.

So I got a Kindle a couple of months ago, and I’ve finally got enough time to write about it.

The Kindle is confusing.  It has a shocking amount of functionality, and its hard to see what Amazon was trying to focus on.  Its a web browsing device, it could be a messaging device, its a blog reader, its a magazine reader, and its an online store!

My short answer is that, though this device can do many things, only one of those features is ready for primetime, and thats giving you a great alternative to reading real/paper books.  The experience of purchasing a book online through the whispernet service, and then sitting down to read for hours was really a pleasure.  Its very convenient, the screen is very easy on the eyes, and the akward form factor becomes much less of an issue as you get into a good book.

Despite that fact that the Kindle doesn’t stand out as an engineering marvel (like the iphone) or a tech swiss army knife (blackberry curve), it makes an interesting case for a new type of device.  After my few months of usage I can absolutely see how a mid-size portable device could now have a place in my daily routine, and I think I’m not alone in that thought.  Techcrunch wrote an article here about analysts predicting up to $750 million in sales from the kindle by 2010 (and even the Aussies think things are picking up, despite early skepticism)!

With a bit of imagination, I could see this becoming a great mobile blogging, feed reading, and net browsing device.  Having a big screen is really a pleasure (compared to a cell phone or the iphone) , and as more and more of us spend insane amounts of time online, we will welcome having an alternate way to get our fix.  I eventually get sick of sitting at a computer after a couple of hours, but with the Kindle I’ve definitely logged several marathon reading sessions without fatigue.  Having a comfortable device where I can read all my feeds from anywhere would definitely increase the amount of time I can read web/feed content!

Now I just wanted to highlight a few interesting observations about using the Kindle:

• You can order books from the amazon store online with your computer, and they’ll just show up on your Kindle.  As soon as I see a book I want to read, I just buy, and then its on my kindle to be read sometime in the future.  Think of all the bookshelf space being saved, the potential revenue for Amazon, and the convenience of having your entire “books I want to read list” with you at all times.  I realize you could probably just “save them” for later rather than buying them, but I like making the commitment of  a purchase, so I’ll feel obliged to read them.
   
• I wonder if there are some environmental/green benefits here.  I’d love to see the carbon footprint of paper books vs. that of the kindle (manufacturing through ongoing electricity consumption, etc)
   
• I’m also intrigued with the idea of a last.fm for books.  GoodReads.com is ok, but you manually have to update the site with your information, and in my opinion everything manual eventually fades.  If all the books you read on your kindle got automatically passed to Good Reads (including what section of the book you were reading at that moment), you could really have an interesting social reading experience.  Group could easily be created around books, and even specific chapters of the book, and eventually you could even start discussions with the community in real time as you read on the Kindle!

Here are some cool sites I’ve found so far:

• Velog - a social cycling site (check out my velog widget!)
• MyBikeLane - be active, protect those bike lanes!
• Streets Blog - an active, content rich blog about city streets, and transportation
• TransAlt - great organization promoting cycling in nyc
• Times Up - a less “mainstream”, but equally motivated activist group promoting cycling in nyc