The media monopoly article got me riled up at 6:42 in the morning. Television, apparently, is supposed to serve the people and include education in its content. Besides a few channels that are dedicated to education most stations “efforts” at this are laughable at best. Each station is mandated a certain number of hours of education for the week. Most of these from my experience are on Sunday when less people are watching TV. It also collides with one of my favorite programs, NFL coverage. I really like educational things on the history channel and some of the non-commercial shows on PBS. I feel better once I get information on a topic that I had no previous knowledge. This happens rarely because of the 200 or so channels that Comcast gives me for $20.

The Henry Jenkins reading suggested eight traits of new media. The one that resonated with me the most was number three. That one said that the media is with us everyday and now can be taken everywhere. I think that some people are too plugged in to the point that it creates an addiction. I have friends who got Blackberry’s when they first came out. There is a reason why people call them Crackberry’s, it’s because they are so addictive. I have always been the last to get on the technology bandwagon but I got an early Christmas gift of an iPod Touch and now I see why everyone is playing with their little portable media devices all the time. This new media entertains us and can act as a barrier, for better or worse, to the outside world. Many times when I ride the bus I put my headphones on which is a universal signal for don’t talk to me.

The Michael Skoler article went a step further than the first two and proclaimed that news media was irrelevant. I haven’t bought a newspaper in years. I don’t listen to the radio outside of my car. I can’t stand local news reports on channels 4, 5, 7 and 13. This argument resonates with me. Sometimes I want to see what happened on a given Thursday but for that I can just use the Internet to find out information that I find important. I feel like “news” on TV is geared towards ratings. The health care debate in Washington D.C. will get 15 seconds of coverage while a girl who was kidnapped in Maine might be a lead story. Health care will impact more people but violence always wins out. “If it bleeds it leads” is a phrase I heard that applies to news coverage. I believe it fits.

Questions:

1.) How has the iPod/mp3 player changed the way you do things?

2.) What are some ways that advertising can have a positive effect on your life?

3.) If you ran a local TV station like King 5 or Komo 4, what would you cover for local news?

Crackberry has a video of the pearl 9100 nicknamed stratus. Go check it out.

He’s all for efficiency and saving both time and resources.  He’s no time thief.  On a daily basis, he asks himself “…for every decision [I] make, is this good for the company?  Am I helping with the company’s strategic vision?”

That’s great he is so committed to the company and what he does. But really, can he not take a five minute break for a little personal time?  We’ve all had that sinking suspicion that when we’re on the phone with him, something isn’t quite right.  There’s an odd echo.  His voice periodically sounds like he is straining.  You’re hearing noises that you shouldn’t hear on a regular phone call.  You wonder to yourself if the call signals got crossed.  Sadly no, your deepest and darkest fear has come true.  He has been multitasking while in the bathroom.

Although we’re sure (i.e. hope and pray) he washed his hands when he was done and used a hand wipe on his electronic gadgets, just to be in the free, don’t ask if you can use his phone or laptop.  And no sir, I will not shake your hand.  I have no interest in a 0.0000000001% chance of an inadvertent stink palm.

The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox

By John Freeman

Published October 20, 2009 (Hardcover) Scribner

I am thankful that the pinging has quieted — nearly — for this holiday.  The sound of tiny little elves working on a railroad with teeny little spikes and hammers, resting for a change.

I finally yesterday turned off the sound of emails in my BlackBerry.  Until then, it was an orchestra of pings between my Outlook and four different emails in my BB — all varied tones, of course.   But today, Thanksgiving, I heard just three dozen ping into Outlook — which means I only have 6,256 emails to go.

Naturally the title The Tyranny of E-Mail attracted my eye.  Bright red cover.  How could it miss.  The myth Sisyphus comes to mind — he kept rolling a large rock uphill, and just as the goal seemed nigh, the rock rolled back downhill.  I’ve queried busy, smart authors – Chuck Palahniuk says write first, then answer emails.  Another author friend says she gives herself 24-minutes in the morning to do email, and then she has to walk away.  Why 24, I do not know, but says the system works for her.  I, too, pluck out the  important ones, which is how I wound up with 6,256 I really should answer/file/delete someday. Some authors only do email at night, so there is a sense of completion — one email not spawning three or four or ten more.  The Tyranny of E-Mail says the average office worker fields two hundred emails every day.  Yeah, that’d be nice.  John Freeman — who, like me, gets up to 300 a day — writes “Information overload is a $650 billion drag on the US economy every year.”

And, because we don’t see the sender’s face, we misunderstand emails half the time! That grim stat from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, quoted in Tyranny.  And, email is biologically addictive.  How’s that for really sucking?  Freeman says email is like playing the slots.  There’s a payoff.  Ping! Just shoot me.

Freeman: “We are at the beginning, not the end, of this problem.”

More than a complaint, Tyranny is a fascinating history of how we rolled out from clay envelopes in Turkey several thousand years ago through Kublai Khan and other military leaders to today’s speedy E’s.  Freeman threads in charming and romantic mail stories — including historical stories like that of the Pony Express, which lasted just  18-months.  He covers — among other improvements — the beginning of Time Zones, the impact of the telegraph,  and the blooming of the newspaper industry, which now is in a demise.  We learn who invented the Internet – not Al Gore, but he does have a piece of history with it.  The first emails were sent in the early 60’s, with only two-percent of the popular emailing in 1992.  By 2011, there will be 3.2 billion e-mail users.  We also get Spam, cyberbullying, Facebook — and advice.

Advice!  finally!  Freeman has ten points — here are a few:  just check your email twice a day, schedule a dinner date with a friend instead of sending a slew of emails, and schedule media-free time every day.  We did that — went to the coast for Thanksgiving dinner — I checked my crackberry twice, I’ll admit – but the drive, the dinner, and the walk on the sand, as the tide pulled back — were deeply enriching.

Hope you had a wonderful day, too!

Just when we think we’re out of free BlackBerry Twitter apps to review, we get one more*. Late last week Seesmic, a popular Web-based Twitter client, introduced a mobile application for BlackBerry. Behind Tweet Deck, Seesmic seems like the most popular Twitter client, so I was obviously excited to see it released for the BlackBerry. Users could access it via the BlackBerry browser since December of last year, but that’s not the same as a dedicated app. Now that we have the app in hand, it’s time to check out what it brings to the Twittering table.

*Sorry, we still can’t review SocialScope.

Getting started

The Seesmic mobile website detects your device, so just head there, seesmic.com, and you’ll see a link to download for BlackBerry. They have two versions, one for QWERTY models running OS 4.6 and up, and an alpha version for BlackBerry Storm users, both the original and the Storm 2. Just click on the appropriate link and you’ll see the download screen.

The download on my Tour was as quick as any other BlackBerry Twitter client, maybe even faster. The setup process is just one step, entering in your username and password. That brings you to your friends’ timeline, which is the perfect start screen. You’re basically ready to go from there, as Seesmic has only a few customization options. So let’s walk through the basics.

Sending a tweet and pictures

The basic functionality of Seesmic is so easy that I kind of feel bad for doing a whole walk-through of it. To send a new tweet, press the Menu button and select New Tweet. That brings you to the basic tweet screen. Here you can type your normal 140-character question. Seesmic also gives you some controls from this screen, including the ability to add your location, shorten a URL, or add a photo. This is the kind of control that other BlackBerry Twitter clients don’t offer.

Because the photo option is right on the main tweet page, sending them is incredibly easy. Just select Photo, and then select whether you’d like to choose a file or take a new photo. The latter brings you to the camera screen, and the former lets you explore your SD card and device memory. Select the file from here, and you can upload it to a photo service.

Seesmic allows you to choose either yFrog or TwitPic to host the pictures. I did find that it took a while to upload photos — and the ones I uploaded weren’t that large — but that could just be an isolated thing. To change which photo hosting service you use, hit the Menu button, select Settings, and then choose either yFrog or TwitPic under Media Provider.

Replies, direct messages, retweets

This is where I think Seesmic separates itself from other BlackBerry Twitter apps: it makes the basic Twitter functionalities incredibly easy. To reply to a tweet, retweet, or send a direct message, highlight the appropriate tweet, hit the Menu button, and select the corresponding option. It’s so damn easy that, again, I feel bad about doing a walk-through. There are no ambiguities to trip you up here.

There are some additional option in the individual tweet screen. To select a tweet just highlight it and trick the trackball/trackpad. Click the menu button and you’ll see the option to reply, direct message, and retweet. Here you can also email a tweet and view the specific user’s timeline. If only every other Twitter client was this easy.

Location

Seesmic gives you the option to geotag your tweets. On the main timeline screen press the Menu key and select Settings. Here you can set another options, including the aforementioned media provider. There’s a check box, the second option up from the bottom, which allows you to add Geo Location. Click that to enable it.

Then, when you go to send a new tweet, you’ll see an option to Get Location. If your BlackBerry has open GPS access, you’ll be able to add your specific location to a tweet. If, like me, you have Verizon, or another carrier that restricts GPS usage, you might not have as much luck. It’ll just stay stuck on “getting location” until you exit out of the tweet screen or just send your tweet.

Following and unfollowing

This walk-through/review has been mostly glowing, but that isn’t to say that Seesmic is perfect. For instance, I’m not the biggest fan of the unfollow process. It’s simple to do: just click on a tweet from the user, hit the Menu button, and select Unfollow. My problem is that there is no confirmation process. Once you click that, you’ve unfollowed the user, even if you clicked it by accident.

The good news is that re-following is easy. Just click Menu again and click Follow. You can follow new users, too, by finding one of their tweets, pressing Menu, and selecting Follow. Again, it’s a simple system that makes intuitive sense. I just wish they allowed a confirmation for unfollowing. Some of us mess up sometimes.

Search

Seesmic allows basic search functionality, a feature not included in all BlackBerry Twitter clients, but which obviously should be. Just click the Menu button on any timeline screen and select Search Twitter. That brings up an input box, where you can enter in any search term.

Because the nature of Twitter is changing, you might want to make the same search multiple times. Seesmic makes that easy. You can save any search by selecting Yes from the save search field. Down below that area there is a list of your saved searches for easy access. You can also delete any of your saved searches.

Shortcuts

There are no shortcuts, not even T for top and B for bottom. That is incredibly disappointing. It seems like those two shortcuts are near necessities for BlackBerry Twitter clients.

Random Thoughts

• Seesmic runs incredibly fast. Maybe that’s because it’s the first Twitter client I’m running on the Tour. Maybe it’s because it’s a really efficient program. I’m in love with the speed.
• As I’ve said throughout this review, the menu setup is intuitive. Everything makes sense, at least with the way I use Twitter.
• As of this moment, Seesmic beats out UberTwitter for my favorite.
• The notification of replies and direct messages is cool. I wish it integrated with the inbox, though.
• I’ve suggested all this to Seesmic. I suggest you do the same.

This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.

Walking through the Seesmic BlackBerry Twitter app

This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.

Walking through the Seesmic BlackBerry Twitter app

Walking through the Seesmic BlackBerry Twitter app
Joe
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:48:26 GMT

It’s late and I should be sleeping. instead I’m typing my first blog via my BB. Finally figured out how to d/l wordpress’ App (which doesn’t show up in BB appworld) anyway I hope this works, because it’s my last chance at being connected on the go since my laptop power chord gave up working for me.
I’m currently in the heaviest growing/pressing/learning/ugly/revealing process of my last 5 years. And it’s amazing and exciting. I’ll write more about some things I’m learning when I’m not typing on my bb. But (how much time can I waste redundantly explaining my bb blogging) most of that specific blogging will be happening over at www.theglenniferwedding.wordpress.com it’s new. So if you’re interested, go check it out.

Time for bed

P.s. What is with all of the christian conferences? I knew therre were a lot, but since twitter holy crap that’s all I hear about anymore. I’m not saying I’m better than that, but if all the church does is send it’s workers to conference after conference, when will the church actually get to bring the good news? There are just some people that make it there job it seems to go to every conference and twitter about them all day. What is that?

[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ]

Seesmic, one the larger provides of desktop applications for Twitter has moved into the mobile market. As of now, heading on over to the Seesmic website from your BlackBerry will enable you to download the all new BlackBerry Twitter client.

Features:

• All your timelines-Seesmic for BlackBerry groups all your Twitter timelines into one simple application. Whether you want to scroll through your friends timeline, check on a saved search, view a list or want to find a private conversation with a friend, everything is one click away from the main menu.
• Saved search and list support- Searches and lists saved on your Twitter account are automatically imported and made available inside the BlackBerry application – a first for a Twitter application the BlackBerry.
• URL Shortening -We integrated the same URL shortening capability than in our popular Desktop client. Just type a URL, press the shortening button and we’ll transform your long URL into a really small one so you have more space for your tweets.
• Background Notifications -While it is running in the background, Seesmic for BlackBerry will alert you to received Direct Messages and @Replies that require your attention. This is done using the familiar system-wide icon notification bar that alerts you to new mail, sms messages and voicemails.

Two versions are currently available while in beta and alpha stages v1.0 for BlackBerry devices running OS 4.6 and higher, and an alpha v1.0b for the Tour 9630 and Storm series devices. no support to be found for anything less then 4.5 but in all reality who would be running anything less then anyways? Give it a shot, let us know how it works in the comments.

• More Information And Downloads Available Via The Seesmic Website>>

CrackBerry.com’s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Seesmic Releases Twitter Application For BlackBerry Smartphones!

Seesmic Releases Twitter Application For BlackBerry Smartphones!
Bla1ze
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:32:02 GMT