June 05, 2010
Changes
Facebook - If it seems as though this hasn't been updated in several days, it's because Tuesday I decided on something that I'd been debating for a while. That is, I deleted my account on Facebook. During Facebook's initial growth I used to get so aggravated when I'd get links to things on Facebook and couldn't see them. You had to be a Facebook member and friended by that person to see what they were linking to.
A few years ago, after procrastinating for quite a while, I joined. I'll give Facebook some credit vs competitors like Twitter: their status updates are not limited to 140 characters. You can comment on an update and have a conversation. Facebook has built in infrastructure for photos and videos.
Slowly though Facebook has been opening up. Actually this is fine with me. My concern is that a lot of folks on Facebook don't realize how open their accounts are. It takes vigilance to keep your profile private. My opinion is that if you post on Facebook, you should post as though it's on an open weblog like this one. Facebook's encroachments into privacy this past year have been made abundantly clear this past year. If you think it's a walled garden, you're fooling yourself.
I don't want to be a part of Facebook's momentum. I don't want to encourage its growth. If you have something to say or share, post it publicly. If you think having a website is too hard, look at Tumblr and Posterous. They make it beyond easy to create nice looking sites with links, photos, videos, quotations, or just your random stream of thoughts. And both can automatically update your other social networks like Facebook and Twitter when you post something to your site.
May 31st was Quit Facebook Day. I was a day late. Analysis have said with Facebook's explosive growth, any losses that day were surpassed by new signups. That's fine with me. These things come and go. Geocities, Friendster, MySpace, etc.
I didn't sign up for Facebook because of peer pressure. I signed up so that it could be a buffer for my daily status updates. If you look over the past several years, 99% of the website updates are aggregations of one day's worth of updates. I'll figure out a different way to do this soon.
EVO - I've been working on smart phone chips for over four years now. And yet my phones have been either simple phones or what my industry calls "feature phones". Yesterday was the official release date of the HTC EVO on Sprint. My employer gives me a partial reimbursement on phones that have our chips in them. I broke down and ordered one. I don't have a good estimate from Sprint when it'll arrive, but it'll replace my aging Palm Centro.
For those who don't follow the smart phone industry, there are a handful of competitors. Relatively unknown here in the US, but dominant worldwide are Symbian phones. While they had an early lead, I don't think they're keeping up. RIM makes the popular BlackBerry line. They also had an early lead but need to get focused on innovation and getting more 3rd party interest. Next in line are the Apple and Google phones. Apple had a few years on Google, but their design and marketing philosophies are very different. Sadly, in last place are the Palm WebOS phones. I say sadly because they actually make good phones but lost mind share when their old PalmOS failed to innovate and update for years.
The HTC EVO is one of the Google phones, aka an "Android phone". Other popular models include the Motorola Droid, the HTC Incredible, the Eris, the Nexus One, the G1, and many others. I'm buying it sight unseen, ordered directly from Sprint. The only negative feedback I've seen on the phone is that a) it's big and b) the battery only lasts a day. I don't know what I'll think about the former, but I ordered a car charger to help deal with the latter. We'll see how it goes...