Categories: blog | Blogging about blogging

# Thu Jun 29 08:32:07
Possible Merge Ahead; Things You May Have Missed
Hello, dear reader(s)! I have been quiet here lately, but noisy elsewhere. I've been chatting it up over at my blog on Vox. So if you are reading this in RSS land, here is the feed you should add to your reader:

http://mikepop.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml

and for all you old-fashioned click-and-link browser types:

http://mikepop.vox.com/

Besides rambling on, I have even made a couple of things that may contain traces of amusement:

The seemingly-obvious (but I didn't see it anywhere else) Little Prince / Katamari Damacy mashup

And, the Web 2.0 / bike sticker mashup, that you can actually order and hold in your hands (or, stick to your bike/car):

I forget what we used to call these things before "mashups", but obviously mashup is the more fun term, so it has taken over.

I'm considering making the Vox blog my main blog, and archiving this one. On the plus side, it is just easier to blog there - uploading and including pics, sounds, even books/movies/albums to reference in posts is trivial - so I blog there more often. I can also post from my cameraphone easily. There are privacy levels, so in case strangers ever start reading my blog I can hide embaressing pictures from them. There is a sense of community among all users, for now. I suspect this will fade as more people sign on. They have a "Question of the Day" feature that can kick-start your brain if you can't come up with anything to write about, and it prompts stories that might otherwise not be told (I don't think I would have thought to share the time I was mistaken for Andy Dick otherwise). On the minus side, I lose the complete control over the backend I have here. There will probably be ads displayed or something. And, I lose continuity, unless I can import all these old entries. But, a clean break now and then is a good thing.

So that's what I am pondering. Keep an eye on the other blog in the meantime while I continue experimenting.

# Wed Jun 07 07:07:59
Playing with Vox
I've been playing around/blogging a bit at Vox, kicking the tires and such. It has some fun features and tools built in. http://mikepop.vox.com/ if you care to check it out. I also have some "starter" invites if anyone wants one.

# Tue Aug 17 11:07:43
The Back Shelves
Over at my moblog I have a few posts [one, two, three] from the back shelves of the kid section of the local library. I feel like I could poke around back there and read for weeks. And I've barely looked around the rest of the library. And this is a (perfectly nice for a town this sized) somewhat small library compared to most. Perhaps I should have taken up a career in the library sciences. I think I'd need a degree of some sort to get my head around a better way to re-arrange this children's section, because it could use some serious organization. The place does have an awesome exterior - I'll grab a pic later and throw it up on the moblog.

Speaking of the moblog, I'll be on the move for a while, so tune in over there for any updates, dear reader(s).

# Sun Jun 27 21:37:54
Driving mobile phone data usage with silly activities
is actually big business. Data traffic is data traffic, no matter what the content is. Sure, we'd like to think that the mobile phone community equipped with camera phones will lead to a smart mob of on-the-scene reporters and political activists working to make the world a better place, but in the end we know that most people are taking pictures of various body parts while drunk and sending it out to everyone in their address book.

This article in The Age (reg reqd) shows that Virgin Mobile gets this. Their latest effort is something called Ming Mong, which is supposed to be a sort of visual Ping Pong thing, where you try to out-clever your opponent with photos and captions.

What I like best about this campaign is the elaborately fabricated backstory and supporting materials that go along with it.

For more or less the same reason I set up things like Phortune Tellers - fun little things to do with your phone cam when bored. Not many takers yet. But hey, Virgin Mobile if you could use some more ideas, I am available for hire :)

# Wed May 12 19:39:46
Moblogging Not Immune to People Getting Bored With It, Study Shows
A recent study on moblogging trends is making the rounds. The study shows the trend sending fewer photos the longer you moblog. At this stage in the game, I don't find it too surprising. The hardware tools (in the US) are relatively primitive (low-res cameras with poor UI), the backend tools are often ad-hoc or first generation code, and the integration between the two is relatively non-existant.

Whenever I get a new gadget, I play with all its features for a bit, and those that I keep using those I find easy/fun/useful and eventually drop the ones that are a pain to use if I don't desperately need them. I can use IRC from my phone right now, but right now it is not worth the trouble. For me, moblogging photos from my hiptop is easy enough that I'm still doing it almost two years after I started.

But these early users and experiences (good and bad) will help hone the tools for the next set of users. And eventually the pictures will be high quality enough, the backend tranparent enough and the applications intriguing enough that taking and somehow using pictures from cameraphones will be as commonplace as email is today. Although it will have its roots in moblogging, it's doubtful it will be called that or even bear much resemblance to moblogging as we know it today. But whatever form this picture augmented reality takes, I'm willing to bet it will be fun and fascinating.

# Sat May 08 20:01:47
Close Enough
I'm still working on integrating the moblog and want to adjust some formatting, but I am moving this public for now. So, hi :)

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