Breaking News?

The front page of 'Grazia' includes the following message:

Breaking News
Is Angelina pregnant?

Leaving aside the 'news' aspect of a 34-year-old woman in a stable relationship possibly having a child, I'm inclined to ask something else.

Can 'Breaking News' ever involve a question?

A very mobile wedding

Well, as I mentioned on 3rd April, I got married. Well done me. And, as I also mentioned, I was attempting to use a variety of different online social-type services from my mobile phone. So... how did it go?

I started the day by sending a text message update to Twitter. (It wasn't quite the 'Twitter wedding' that some people have achieved - but I didn't want to be too distracted during the important bits).

Then, when I picked up the flowers, I sent a MMS picture message to photo-sharing site Flickr. This wasn't perfect - I didn't use all of Flickr's mobile options so I needed to 'tweak' the file name and description later. I also updated this blog by visiting Blogger.com from my phone's browser. (I'd wanted to use ShoZu to upload a photo to Blogger at the same time but I’d written the blog post in a separate document and couldn’t cut and paste it into ShoZu).

Later that day I uploaded a photo and a short note using the Facebook application on my phone. (It’s an HTC phone running Windows Mobile). In fact, all of the day’s updates showed up on Facebook, thanks to FriendFeed, which takes information from other social networking sites and adds them to Facebook as well.

I updated my location on Foursquare, which was a little bit messy on Windows Mobile because you’ve got to tell it where you are. (Unlike the iPhone app, for example, which can automatically use GPS to narrow things down). I also used Google Latitude to keep a small circle of friends up-to-date with where I was. (If I'd wanted to share a one-off location update, I'd have chosen Glympse instead).

I left a short phone blog - a phlog - using ipadio. Not only does ipadio put your voice blog online, it also uses SpinVox to convert your words to text. It's all as simple as making a phone call. And I recorded a short video clip using Qik. Rather like a video version of ipadio, Qik doesn’t just record but also streams live, which means people could watch or listen online in real time.

Reasonably pleasing, I'd say. Anyway, I'll be talking more about my technology - and the services I used - in this week's edition of The Fonecast on Wednesday.

Wedding day

Today I've set myself the challenge of using my mobile phone to update as many different types of social-enabled web sites as possible. It's the type of thing that's been done before, I know, but not by me... and not on the day I get married.

Most of my updates should end up on Twitter (twitter.com/markbridge) and FriendFeed, in case you're interested in following them.

Right. I'm just going to upload this to Blogger.com on my Vodafone-branded HTC TyTn II.

Cuckoo

Today's OED word of the day is 'cuckoo'. The etymology notes include this delightful moment: "...the annual lessons given by the bird have prevented the phonetic changes which the word would normally have undergone".

The accidental photo-journalist, part 2

One of my photos has been used to accompany an article in the University of Lincoln's student newspaper. Could a new career as the UK's leading snail-and-coin photographer be awaiting me?

It's a dangerous game, giffgaff

You know me. I like a bit of enthusiasm. I like a start-up business. I like mobile phones. Therefore you'd think that I'd like giffgaff. And I do.

But this week I've become a little concerned, in the quasi-parental way I'd usually reserve for Geri Halliwell and road-crossing hedgehogs. Dear little giffgaff has been Tweeting about problems at Verizon. Well, not problems. A problem. A customer service faux pas extraordinaire that involved a member of Verizon staff refusing to disconnect a dead customer's mobile phone because their daughter didn't have the account PIN. Death certificate, yes. PIN, no. Not good.

But is this really a wise move from an organisation that has even less control over its customer service operation than Verizon? Relying largely on your own users to deliver 'crowdsourced' customer service is innovative, it's true. And - so far - pretty effective, it seems.

But I can't help feeling that giffgaff is throwing its stones from inside a glass house. Watch your windows, giffgaffers. We all make mistakes.

How long is an ounce?

The answer in the fourteenth century would have been "around seven-and-a-half-seconds" or "three inches". And that's before we start talking about shekels and gneeves. Thanks, OED Word of the Day.