Theres a whole new gaggle of start-ups that are designed to leverage the power (and stickyness) of personal networks; Plaxo, Midentity, LinkedIn, Friendster etc. They work by connecting you to your friends, their friends and their friends friends friends (or contacts). They all attempt to harness the theory behind the six degress of seperation. Now a few years ago, some clever people came up with the idea of instant messaging and MSN, Yahoo, AOL (ICQ) all quickly pushed different IM clients at the internet community. The hassle has always been that everyone has different clients, and some people have ended up having multiple clients to talk to different groups of friends. Wouldnt it be nice if these new personal network start-ups could all sit around a table and agree NOW on a standard for interoperability. Im sure that this suggestion would blow their business models - but come on, spare a thought for the user!

P.S Have just flicked over from a plain HTML "blog" to Blogger - it's making my life sooo mcuh easier! Do it!

Fizzy Fruit

These guys have patented a rather clever way of making fruit fizzy...coming to a vending maching near you soon.

Metronaps

OK - so youve been staring at the PC for a 8 hours, its only 2pm, and you know youve got another 4 hours of meetings in half an hours time. you were in the office until midnight last night and you're now physically exhausted. Time for a powernap me thinks....and where better than in a Metronap pod?

"Founded in 2003 and researched and tested at Carnegie Mellon University.

Blinkx

Blinkx (http://www.blinkx.com/) is the new "google", claimed the Sunday Times yesterday. Blinkx connects the information you need from the web, from online news sources and files on your own PC to create your own personal web to search from. The concept is smart, but the barriers to entry for someone like google are minimal. The business model has not been communicated but is likely to center around targted ads and content suggestion.

The idea, team and execution appear to be smart, but the name and logo are appaling. Ive already mistyped the word several times this morning! and the logo looks like the by-product of an office party fumble between Ebay and Mr Potato Head I've got a domain on hold that I think is right up their street so might give them a bell ;-)

Om Malik on Blinkx

Yahoo eats Oddpost

Well - it s quite a momentus day today - Oddpost (my email provider) has been acquired by Yahoo. Yahoo is the second largest provider of personal email accounts behind Hotmail. This particular space has gotten a little hot under the collar recently following Google's announcement that it would provide 1Gb storage for free to Gmail users. The oddpost acquisition comes as no surpise as these companies are looking for differentiation. Both Yahoo and Hotmail have increased storage space, but whats needed is a radical shift, something that will cut through Googles noise and get users chattering about yahoo again. So Yahoo have done it through Oddpost. Oddpost renders what appears to be something similar to Outlook express in Dynamic HTML - so its effectively outlook in a web browser. Its a fantastic customer experience which will create a lot waves when the Yahoo product relaunches soon. I wont be surprised if they create an entire application suite (calendar, to-do, address-book, groups etc) in a similar way. press release here

This blog...

I've been dabbling with this blog for 6 months now and im still not quite sure what i should be doing on it. Part of me wants to open up my innermost feelings and express them to the world. But thats not very "english" and im far too reserved for all that. Most of my posts are about the industry i work in and what I see developing and changing around me. Im much more comfortable writing about this, partly because its what I know, and partly because a lot of other people do a similar thing. maybe its good old "sheep" mentality?
the blogs I like discovering are the ones that I wish i had the guts to write myself - the ones that describe emotion, discovery, wonderment and real human issues.

P.S Its my brithday today!

Hot or not founders now moblogging

The chaps that created hotornot.com are behinfd this new moblogging site. its quite crude at the moment but it works.
While on this subject, i saw a great mobile version of hotornot the other day...its a very popular WAP destination!

Good article in the Feature about photographs and memories

I like the concept of "disposable content" and this article suggests that people approach photography in a different way now as a result of new technology.
It makes me wonder whether our traditional understanding of content will change as a result of the mobile phones that we all carry now. Perhaps the traditional bastions of content and mdeia production will disappear and end-users will become mini-media-barons. Blogging is early evidence of this shift.

Intelligent Environments

I love the idea of intelligent environments, but i think there is an enormous challenge ahead in making the experience and proposition digestable for the average consumer.

Splashpower

http://www.splashpower.com/

Splashpower Ltd. provides revolutionary wireless power transfer solutions to the mobile and portable electronics industry. Splashpower technology enables a wide range of portable electronic devices to be powered wirelessly from a single platform.

Splashpower is dedicated to promoting wireless power as the de-facto standard for powering next generation mobile devices with the ultimate mission of delivering unparalleled convenience and true mobility to the consumer.

Splashpower is a privately held company based in Cambridge, UK

Moblogging sprouts

There has been a number of new moblogging start-ups appearing in the US and Europe. In the US, I have noticed Textamerica and Buzznet. In Europe, there's Ploggle and MoblogUK. My friend Alan at Phlog.net has already got a very large number (100's of 000's) of active subscribers. Could this be the new killer mobile application? possibly - although I think the services need to be even simpler to entice the mass-market. I suspect current growth is satisfied through "early-adopters", and that securing larger audiences will need simpler submission mechanisms, such as device apps that auto-send pictures/video to the blog and/or sending pictures to a MSISDN.

Wireless Innovation Centre

The Hillington Park Innovation Centre has just launched a new wireless innovation centre. "The centre works with two types of companies: those developing new technologies and applications and those wishing to transfer current applications or technology to the wireless environment
The centre assists by reducing the cost of developing the skills and knowledge needed to develop products and reducing the cost of the infrastructure to develop and demonstrate products. It also assists with the necessary interactions with suppliers, customers and intermediaries who control market access ".

Nice personal "network" classification in TheFeature article

link here