Loopt and Buddy Beacon: Tracking people

Loopt and Buddy Beacon are two mobile services that allow you to locate your friends and family and allow them to locate you. This can be a really good thing for many people, especially young adults. At football games or concert events, it would be really nice to be able to find your friends if you get separated; however, these services could also cause problems with friends or family, specifically parents or significant others becoming too invasive. You can block people with these programs, but that in itself is what would cause the problems. I think it is more helpful than harmful though. Maybe it is something that should only be used when necessary in a crowded or unfamiliar place and not on a daily basis.

Facebook Value

Companies such as Microsoft and Google are interested in investing in the social networking site Facebook. While this is still in the early stages, Microsoft is reportedly considering investing $300 to $500 million for a 5% stake of Facebook. Facebook is seeking a minimum value of $10 billion, and there has been enough interest to go as high as $13 billion from investors. Facebook's only annual revenue is from newly established advertising relationships. Facebook continues to grow and add features making it more desirable to investors. How long until a more popular social networking site takes over or at least provides competition? I think Facebook will remain popular for a while because everyone is on it. It's difficult to get people to leave for another site when they have already developed profiles, photo albums, and have many friends on the site they are already on.

Blu-Ray a Mistake

A recent blog stated that Blu-Ray should have never existed stating "if a product requires substantial support from the parent to keep it alive, including funding levels that probably can't be reasonably recouped, it has a very high likelihood of failing." Blu-Ray was tied in with the PS3, and it is believed that this relationship lead to the downfall of the PS3 because it wasn't affordable. Blu-ray became impractical due to the price and does not provide sufficient competitive advantages. Of all the new technologies coming out and the frenzy they create. I think it's interesting to find technologies like the Blu-ray that just aren't worth the extra money for the advancement in technology.

iPhone Hacker

A 17 year-old named George Hotz was able to unlock the iPhone so it can be used with other cellular networks besides AT&T. In doing this, he received a new car, 3 iPhones and a paid consulting job. It took him 500 hours, which was well worth the time. Most people spend much more time than that finding a job because they have to, and they don't receive gifts and fame along with it. I think it is quite possible that we will hear about Hotz sometime in the near future as a technology mogul.

Yahoo and Viacom

Yahoo, the most-visited U.S. website, made an exclusive deal with Viacom to sell search-linked advertising on sites like VH1.com, Nickelodeon.com and 31 other websites. Yahoo will be using its Panama advertising program to pitch the ads and will help market Viacom's websites by offering advertisers a way to target users. This agreement will allow Yahoo to provide a broader range of websites to clients. This will help with their competition with Google. Yahoo and Viacom will share revenue from text links that appear next to search results, articles, and pictures on Viacom's sites. This is a really big deal for Yahoo.

EMI and iTunes

EMI Group said it will begin selling songs online that are free of copy-protection technology through Apple's iTunes Store., but the deal does not include music from The Beatles. The unprotected songs will be sold for $1.29 and are of higher quality than the $.99 songs. Consumers are willing to pay more for music that they will be able to use on any device. EMI is still working on getting The Beatles catalog. Online music sales are expected to increase with the introduction of this deal into the market.

YouTube Awards

YouTube created its first awards voted for by fans for one week. Winners include OK Go for most creative video and Ask a Ninja for best series, which beat out the well-known Lonelygirl15. YouTube is making celebrities out of these ordinary people who put videos on their site. OK Go's video was played on television stations such as MTV and VH1, but through YouTube the video was seen by tons more people and was accredited with the best video award when on television they owe their fame to their music. I think it is extremely interesting and exciting that the internet is creating stars through the choice of the popular public.

MySpace Restrictions

MySpace has been placing limits on the software tools that users can embed in their pages, including music and video players that also deliver advertising or enable transactions. This is because MySpace, owned by the News Corporation, whats to make sure that they are the only ones capitalizing from the 90 million visitors each month. Users complain that these restrictions prevent them from designing their pages and promoting new projects.

Text Message Assisted Shopping

Technology companies in California and New York have introduced mobile Internet applications that allow shoppers to use their cellphones and PDAs to search the inventory and prices at the local mall. This service is already in place at 13 malls and is expected to be available at 100 malls by November. The major problem with this service is that retailers usually don't have the sophisticated technology t o track their stores' inventories and transfer that information to their website. If this service does become widely used across the United States, there will be more competition for lower prices, as the price of each item in each store will be available for review by the shopper effortlessly. Another result of this service could be stampedes in certain stores because special offers and promotions will be available to the shopper whenever desired.

Quigo

While Google and Yahoo have been competing to decide which one is better suited to become the top advertising source, Quigo Technologies has stolen some of their business. Quigo prides itself as being an alternative to the giants. Media sites like ESPN.com, FoxNews.com and Cox Newspapers' 17 sites have stopped using Google and Yahoo and signed up with Quigo. Unlike Google and Yahoo, Quigo gives advertisers the list of specific sites where their ads have appeared, and also the opportunity to buy only on specific Web sites or particular pages on those sites. It also allows media company sites like ESPN.com and FoxNews.com a chance to manage their own relationships with advertisers. Quigo Technologies is still far behind in the race of becoming the top ad source though: contextual ads generated $2 billion in revenue last year and about 60% of that money went to Google.

Cell Phone Ads

With new technologies galore, traditional advertising is a thing of the past. The newest great idea for ad placement is on cell phones. Cell phones are like a pocket-sized billboard. The phone is now being called "the brand in your hand" because you're never more than a foot away from it. According to industry watchers, the cellphone ad space is predicted to grow. Start-up companies are already being developed to postion themselves as middlemen who bring brands to the screen. There are carriers who are hesitant to turn the cellphone screen into ad space though because of concerns over privacy and consumer patience.

Waterproof Cellphone

A new phone is coming out that is totally waterproof. It's called the Fujitsu F703. You can completely submerge it in water without any damage. Price and launch date haven't been determined yet, but pretty soon all cellphones will have to be made more durable in ways such as this. This idea of a waterproof phone didn't come about from lack of durability though. Research has proven that cellphones are dirtier than toilet seats, so the idea was to create a cellphone that was washable. It would be nice to not have to worry about water damage to your cellphone anymore. Sometimes people just get stuck in the rain or thrown in a pool, so I think a waterproof cellphone is a good idea. Somehow it interests me more than cutting edge technology being implemented in cellphones like mp3 players and video capabilities.

MP3 Players Everywhere

MP3 players are being integrated into all types of gadgets. There's plenty of cell phone choices that double as MP3 players, and now you can get a watch that plays MP3s also. For $160 you can get the Macgyver 512MB MP3 watch that plays MP3s, stores files, and records your voice. Soon MP3 playing capabilities will surround us in everyday technologies. There won't be a need for a gadget that simply plays MP3s, MP3 players will just be added to existing technologies to make life as simple as possible.

Human Body for Broadband Networking

A Japanese communications company called NTT claims they can send data over the surface of skin at speeds equivalent to a fast broadband data connection using a technology they call RedTacton. IBM pioneered the idea of the human body as a conduit for data in 1996 with a system that could transfer small amounts of data at low speeds, but RedTacton is the first practical system because it doesn't need transmitters to be in direct contact with the skin. The transmitter can be built into gadgets or carried in bags and work within 20 cm of your body. The supposed benefit to body-based networking over radio-based personal area networking technologies is that the body-based networking is more secure. I'm interested in seeing how this technology plays out, and if it will become an important technology in everyday life.

iPhone

“We want to reinvent the phone,” Jobs said. I think Apple did just that. The new Apple iPhone is the latest breakthrough in cell phone technology. It combines three top-selling products into one device: a mobile phone, an iPod with touch controls, and an Internet communications device. Young adults are going to be dying to get the iPhone, so they can update their cell phones and MP3 players simultaneously. I think the iPhone will also be popular with adults of all ages who are looking to have an all-in-one device that can be used for work as well as for exercising at the gym. Now it will be a race to see who can create a better mobile device with newer and improved technology. I'm sure it won't take too long for Apple to outdo themselves again.