We've All Come a Long Way

Being in Las Vegas for CES and making the Nokia announcement (oh yeah, and iPhone too) made me realize how far we've come with camera phones and moblogging in such a short amount of time. Take the photos below, for example. These were taken on my Danger Hiptop in June of 2003 (I can't believe that's almost four years ago!). Yes, those are full resolution -- they were that small! See all the photos here.

At the time, I felt that I was *late* to the moblogging boom [1] since I had previously been a bit 'meh' about it all.  From the SXSW Tech Report interview I did in 2002(!) [2]. My reaction now in bold italics.

How much of an impact will new wireless devices such as the Danger Hiptop (The T-Mobile Sidekick) have on the blogging community? Do you ever blog via a PDA?
Nobody wants to see blogging just for the sake of blogging (Yes they do.). But, I do believe that some of these tools will initially produce this result. Still, the technology of wireless devices is the next logical step if we ever want to see webloggers as journalists -- or at least as informed observers (OMG, shut-up). For developers, these devices will certainly influence the way we design sites and manage our content (true, ask the Vox team); we're going to see a demand for standards-compliant code as soon as these devices reach mass appeal (True, but how much do I hate the phrase standards-compliant?). Do I ever blog via a PDA? I still use the 7 inch long emergency cell-phone that AAA offered its users (I bought the Hiptop a couple months later).

Well, I love blogging for the sake of blogging. And I'm just amazed by how much easier moblogging has become. But more importantly, the quality of photos is getting to be amazing. Take for example, a photo that was on my phone, having been taken with the Nokia N93i for their demos:

Image268

Sure, professional lighting helps. But it's still possible for us to take unstaged photos that look like this:

Barak and Andrew playing with the N93i

2 comments

[1] I love that I used to write about getting a phone on Six Apart's official weblog. I also love that people TrackBacked their posts about me getting a phone.

[2] The funny thing about this interview is how much I'm fighting my real voice to appeal to the SXSW crowd circa 2002. I mean, seriously, it's not hard to tell which question in this interview Anil helped to supply an answer. Hint: think microcontent. (This isn't a dig at Anil -- it's just not an answer I'd give) One of the best things about my time at Six Apart is learning how to be comfortable being in my own skin. I love giving the big picture (where will blogging be in x years) now because I go from gut and the passion I feel about about technology and blogging (and I avoid using the phrase 'semantic web'). And I'll sound completely random from time to time in press, but at least I'm being myself.