iPhone vs others

I am the proud owner of an iPhone, and I have enjoyed it every moment I have had it. In fact, I stood in line for 6+ hours for the first iPhone (iPhone 2G) and even got myself up at 6am to wait for the 9am release of the iPhone 3G. The 3Gs however, I did not wake up for.

In the two and a half years time since the original iPhone was released with a "revolutionary new multi-touch system, and breakthrough internet device" the idea of combining these two features into phones has sky-rocketted. It seems like everyone and their cousin has an iPhone or some type of multi-touch device. There are the few proud users who remain loyal to the blackberry and other button featured phones, but that market is rapid dwindling.

As it is time for my mom to purchase a new phone, I thought I would share a few ideas about the mobile phone market. My mom, not being a technologically gifted person, wants a phone that is easy to use, has a nice screen, with big buttons. She doesn't really want a lot a features, but wouldn't mind being able to show off pictures and read her email, and until recently check facebook. So for me, I have petitioned her to get the iPhone. My reasoning is logical I think. First off, the iPhone hands down has the best features of any phone that AT&T sells and for my mom, since my Dad and I already have an iPhone she would make the family complete. Because there is still the financial aspect to the convincing, I must also remind my mom that iPhone's cost is just slightly higher when one does the math. First off, what is now becoming standard and I think a little much of price gauging by wireless telecom services is that beyond the most basic junker in the store, you must buy a "data plan". These data plans are universally priced for all phones for the most part, ie whether you have a cell phone that barely does more than text from the internet or an iPhone/blackberry that shows the whole page. So, with that said, if you are going to pay the same price, wouldn't you at least want a phone that could capitalize on every last bit of the data plan you are paying for?

For my mom, I think this is her best option. What does everyone else think?

Jeff

The Financial Crisis

Being that I am studying to be a future economist, I find it very interesting to understand why the United States and essentially the rest of the world is in the financial crisis we are in. I am nowhere near the end of my quest, but only the beginning. So, with that said, I am going to keep researching and building knowledge, and along the way I am going to write ideas that I have about the situation. Maybe I'll come up with solutions and maybe I'll just rant a tad about what I think. But one thing is for sure, there are going to be many posts about this topic and the hope is that knowledge will build for both you and me.

Hope whoever reads this enjoys this series of blog posts.

Facebook

Next time you're in a classroom, take a look around and see what web-sites students are on. Occasionally I do, and I would say a majority of the students are on facebook.

According to facebook's company profile, there are more than 400 million users, half of which log in every day. With the average person having 130 friends or more on facebook, its a popular way to share topics of conversation, chat with friends, send links to websites, and send messages among other things. Just recently online gaming has reached into facebook with apps that include advertisements and paying features. All of which make facebook an ever growing network. According to studies its nearest competitor MySpace holds just a few more million users, and with a growth rate of more than 57% compared to MySpace's 10%, it will only be a few more years (even months) before facebook overtakes MySpace. In fact analysts project facebook to overtake MySpace by the end of 2010.

With this ever growing social network, people are communicating faster than ever. As was commentated on in a previous blog post, text messaging is also an increasing method of communicating, but I think the two serve different purposes and are actually stark competitors of each other.

If you go to facebook.com on your computer's browser you will see several advertisements, usually on the left side of the screen. In addition, applications and groups are used to advertise. What mobile devices do well, annoyingly for advertisers mind you, is essentially limit or eliminate all advertising. If you use the facebook app for the iPhone, there is just a concise version of facebook, you can fully manage your friends messages/wall posts, but you can't see advertisements and games. This limitation in viewing advertisements may spell long term problems for facebook as people ever increasingly switch to mobile platforms. As there are more users, there are going to be increased costs for servers and this will incur more revenue from advertising to match the demand. So, maybe facebook should invest in figuring out new strategies to be sneaky and advertise inside their mobile apps.

Further, texting does not incur any advertising at all. Facebook does however. If more people start to use their mobile devices, i.e. iPhones/Blackberries they are likely to just use texting as their way to quickly communicate and have facebook for their public selves. In this advertisement free environment, who is going to pay for facebook's costs? As more and more advertisers realize this, they may pull away from advertising, decreasing the revenue for facebook, which may lead to its future peak and downturn. Just a little advice to facebook is to look out for mobile devices, but don't ignore or restrict involvement, but embrace it. Figure out ways to make a profit, not just provide a convenient tool for users (but do that as well).

One other thing I find interesting about facebook and social networks is one's ability to "facebook stalk" people they know of or complete stalkers. There is a certain amount understanding when one posts online, but where is the limit on privacy? Of course there are safety/privacy restrictions, but it just feels a little too creepy to me to think that literally hundreds of people are seeing the latest picture of me, or hearing about my latest status update. Quick fact, people update their status's 60 million times per day on average. I guess one should just use the cardinal rule, post only what you want other people to see, because remember, you boss or university may be looking at it, not to mention your mother or father.

For whoever reads this blog, what do you do on your facebook?

- Do you log in every day?

- Do you "facebook stalk" your friends / strangers?

- Do you have family or people at work on your page?

- Jeff

Text Messaging

Ever been with a friend and it seems like they aren't quite there? Chances are they are texting someone. More and more people are texting it seems than using any other function of communication. I bet you have heard the phrase, "oh ok, I'll text her/him". In fact, according to a Nielsen Mobile Survey, more people use their cell phones for texting than they do for phone calls.

To show just how much the trend is increasing is seen with these figures. In 2006, the typical American cell phone user would use around 65 text messages a month. In just two years this number jumped to 357 messages. This is a 450% increase of the usage of text messaging features on cell phones.

According to the survey, Americans sent more than 75 billion text messages in June of 2008. This number accounts for average 2.5 billion messages sent across the United States. In more recent studies, Americans has reached 1 trillion text messages in 2009.

More importantly, who are the ones texting? Carriers and surveys have seen it is coming from teens between the ages of 13-17. This demographic sends nearly 1,800 text messages a month. Even kids under the age of 12 are texting, some on average of 428 messages per month. These are staggering numbers that show a significant change in the ways our young people communicate. This has even led cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint to demand cell phones with QWERTY keyboards from their manufactures. Go into a retail store and see how many phones with keyboards.

I believe there is much more to this phenomenon than just increased numbers. I think this increase of text messaging has much to say about our society in the United States, and I don't think its a great one.

First off, its time to set that phone down and focus on those who are in the room with us. Its already the case that the numbers of families who have dinner together around a table have fallen. Now the remaining precious time we have is being given up to talk to our friends about the latest gossip. Gossip in my opinion is pointless anyway, and is only further a detriment to our psyche through texting.

Another place people text is in a classroom setting. Cell phones are almost as ubiquitous in a large class as cigarette lighters used to be at concerts. Dividing attention away from learning the many tools we need to do well on that next midterm or final exam, not to mention have a successful career.

Texting is even something that is dangerous at times. Take this girl for exam in New York. she fell into a pot hole because she was more focused on her text message than what was in front of her. A more common place text messaging is becoming further dangerous is when it is done behind the wheel. In studies, it is worse to text while driving than it is to be intoxicated. The reason behind this is that people are associated not with what is in the car or what is in front of them, but rather their minds are in a second world with whatever is being said in their text message. This has led many states, including my home state to ban any use of cell phones in a car by the driver.

Now the question is, why do people text so much? Of course people like to talk, we are social beings and sometime we just wanna let our friends know the score of the game, or invite them to a coffee at Starbucks. But, is it because it is so easy to do or inexpensive (compared to phone calls) ? Maybe so, but I think it is a part of something much more important and secretly devious. That is our ever increasing nature of the speedy life. People need to be in multiple places, and need quickness in how we communicate. But those are just two pieces of a more important part of society. That is the demand society puts on each individual to accomplish more than the day before. More needs to be learned and more needs to be achieved, all of which has more competition and has higher standard of scrutiny because of all the competition. Text messaging is a tool that was designed to make things easier in life, but as easier equates to doing more, the tool that used to make things easier is over used, which begs to question what will be the next tool to make texting easier?

The final part of this blog I will touch on, is at what point will this be too much? When will we be too stressed out? What is the human breaking point? I think we are running, not walking to an explosion of our minds.

- Jeff

P.S. as a part of humor, only if Tiger Woods would have had an iPhone.

TigerText