Long time no blogging on my end.  My team have been extremely busy working on adding mobile video to our MSN Mobile US site.

Sending a little link-love to Phil's blog on our new MSN Mobile Video service:

Just in time for March Madness. 

Get the complete 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket on your phone.  Track your favorite teams through the tourney and click thru to full game details.

http://sports.mobile.msn.com/en-us/ncaabk/final4.aspx

With msn's latest update, you're now able to follow live game details for your favorite NBA and NCAA basketball teams on you're mobile phone.

Big kudos to the sports feature team working closely with FOX Sports on being full game box score and leader stats details to mobile. 

To see it, just go to mobile.msn.com on your phone, then click FOX Sports, then NBA or NCAABK under Today's Scores. Click [details] on any game for live or post game details.

I can't wait to see what is coming next on our mobile FOX Sports site.

Mike Mace’s entry is definately worth a read.

Mobile applications, RIP

Summary: The business of making native apps for mobile devices is dying, crushed by a fragmented market and restrictive business practices. The problems are so bad that the mobile web, despite its many technical drawbacks, is now a better way to deliver new functionality to mobiles

I almost split a gut reading this article under Personal Tech on Washington Post tonight...

It's the year 2010. Microsoft owns Yahoo and has just changed the name of Flickr to Microsoft Flickr Live Photo-Sharing Service for Digital Camera Enthusiasts. The service is still free, but Windows Vista users will have to validate their copy of Vista as "genuine" first to use it. What has Microsoft wrought?   -- WashingtonPost

Google announces more applications for iPhone.  Adding Google adds Calendar, browse Gmail, and Reader.  Their reader application is one of the best RSS readers out there. 

Another interesting fact on the browser usage of iPhones from another article.

"Google's search site from iPhones surpassed the number of queries from people using market-leading Symbian-based phones for the first time."  - http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9849352-7.html

Our favorite local theater, Admiral Theaters, is restoring the auditorium seats and are accepting donation.  It is nice way to support West Seattle's only local theater.  

Donations for Seats and Free Tickets

They are also running a "dinner and movie" special for those that frequent the Mission and Blackbird Bistro just down the block.

For all West Seattle island dwellers...  The DOT has posted detailed road closure article with lane closure information.  Pretty helpful for folks heading North or trying to get off the West Seattle peninsula.  I plan on telecommuting several days during this closure (Aug 10 - Aug 29).

Full article link

Articles like Plugging In to the Future - WSJ give me hope that I'll be able to pick up a plug-in hybrid in the next two years from my local dealer.

I'm only 20 miles from my Redmond office, but it can take me over an hour on some days to make the one-way journey from West Seattle.  Come to think of it, I haven't driven more than 60 miles in one day in the past 6 months.  I'd love to be driving on electricity only for my commute.   

In the meantime, I've just ordered Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America. 

Great GTD seminar sponsored by Google with Merlin Mann from 43Folders discussing his method of keeping his email under control.  For anyone longing to staying above water with high volume inboxes and have a life outside of email, you should check this out.

• Inbox Zero

Another MVNO bites shuts down last week.  It is not a good sign for those that want to innovate on mobile services in US to see another high profile MVNO meet with the same demise as ESPN Mobile MVNO last year.

Amp'd Mobile has text messaged it's subscribers announcing that the service may end at midnight on Tuesday 7/24. 

Amp'd Mobile to shut down July 24 at 12:01am? - Engadget Mobile

More startups enter mobile video space with WSJ review MyWaves client/service today. 

Start-Ups Bring Web Videos to Cellphones

via WSJ.com: PJ Main on Jul 18, 2007

Start-ups are offering new ways to access Internet videos on cell phones. The services allow users to view a wider array of clips without locking themselves into a subscription and without purchasing a fancier phone.

WSJ also had demo video of using MyWaves.com on Motorola:
   

The 5 sentence email is golden advice. I find that the initial mail that you make to someone, if short and sweet almost always return the desire response.

Ten things to learn

Our MSN Mobile portal v1.0 launch got picked up by major news outlet this weekend.  Please stop by and check out the integrated browse portal with rich content channels and full suite of live services.  Just enter http://mobile.msn.com or http://msn.mobi in your phone's browser.

Here is quick screencast of our MSN Mobile portal in action on my phone showing a little of our beta FOX Sports and MSN Entertainment channel.  

Forgive the audio track on the screencast... my voice is going with a cold... 

Please stop by our team blog and give us your feedback.

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This announcement by video giant like FOX is pretty amazing.  FOX Video has opened up several of their networks to allow sharing via video embeds.

http://www.beet.tv/2007/06/fox_video_is_sh.html

NY Times Sunday edition ran a nice piece covering of mobile video efforts at ESPN and other broadcasters. 
Yes, the Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big

I love this quote from the article... “I have a 5-year-old, and he doesn’t know that there are phones you can’t watch TV on,”.  My 7 year old has only been exposed to TV via DVRs at home and maybe watched only a few hours of broadcast TV in his life.  When I read this article today, I asked him to describe broadcast TV to me.  He thought for a second and then told me that watching regular TV was like going to the movie theater and someone else controls when the movie starts and ends.  It definitely makes sense for younger people to embrace these innovations as natural even common place.   

Check out a video tour of quiet launch of YouTube mobile site.  Worth a look for those interested in mobile video.

Additional notes:  It appears that the YouTube Verizon exclusive ending this weekend and that is why the site went live.  http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/youtube-mobile-debuts-verizon-exclusive-ends/2007-06-18

Underlying Forbes article

Review of study points to risks with mobile application market.  Summary of the report cuts to the chase.  People are concerned with complexity and cost of using new mobile services.  If you talk to the average user, they are deathly afraid incurring additional fees. 

http://pda.mobileeurope.co.uk/news/news_story.ehtml?o=3249

* Social networking: There are two issues holding the market back - cost of data charges (E.g., consumers are not convinced they should pay to upload a video to YouTube via mobile when it is effectively free on a PC) and interoperability - people want to interact with their network of contacts irrespective of what device or network they use. On the plus side, with more powerful cameras, phones are now perfect for 'citizen journalism' - giving the immediacy that a PC doesn't have.

* Mobile TV: Alpheus' assessment suggests the market may be held back by two factors, (i) screen size/resolution and (ii) how mobile TV fits into the existing TV distribution landscape, for example, users won't pay twice for TV they already get at home. The key to cracking this issue may be (a) bite size TV (E.g. news) that people can access while travelling (supported by research by Orange reporting that the average use of Mobile TV is two and half minutes per day and (b) add-on TV/DIY TV allowing people to upload clips to the likes of YouTube, or download extra features or special features for their favorite TV shows. Another potential revenue stream exists in moving content off mobile phones onto TVs or PCs where it is easier to view.

I doubt the last point of moving content off the mobile phone to a TV or PC is a realistic one. 

Amazing to see something only on a powerpoint deck turned into a fully functional portal within 9 months working on XHTML or higher handhelds. 

It was great to see it move out beta yesterday, replacing the ancient mobile.msn.com and msn.mobi sites!   

We all took time to celebrate the roll yesterday to production over drinks and food.  A plane ride back to Seattle in the early and today we're all back to work onward our v1.x efforts.