Here’s a really interesting concept and tool for those looking to build a mobile website that will be compatible across all devices - for free. Including hosting.

mobiSiteGalore has introduced a desktop and mobile based publishing platform that allows anybody to build their own mobile website within minutes using a templated system that walks you through 6 steps that ends with your own mobile site published on their sub-domain.

The entire process is mobile web driven - so you don’t need to download any widgets, applications, or peform complex downloading sequences.  The templates are pretty restrictive (unless you’re a code geek), but it needs to be to keep it simple.

Having said that, you can add feedback pages, upload images, format content, restore to previous versions, add hit counters, send email and SMS invitations, optimize for SEO and include auto-redirect to your desktop website if someone attempts to access your mobile site on a laptop or desktop.

You can even do all that from your mobile device - a first in the industry.

Check out their online demo of building a site through a non-smartphone mobile device here.  

What surprised me was that the “free” user generated websites on their sub-domain did not include mobile banner ads or other forms of mobile advertising…. which begs the question - why do this if they aren’t generating revenue?

If you don’t like the idea of promoting a sub-domain, you can always setup a redirect from your dotmobi or mobile enabled domain to their sub-domain.

Now what’s your excuse for not having a mobile website for your company, service, or brand?

Yesterday Google followed up on earlier statements that the browser is now the platform by releasing their own browser dubbed “Chrome.” Click here for full details from Google.

This is not Netscape vs. IE all over again. It’s not even Windows vs Mac. 

It’s more like cold war Russia vs. USA where instead of fighting in proxy countries such as Korea or Vietnam, they’ve chosen the browser as their proxy for world interweb domination.

The browser is the gateway to everything else - from desktop to mobile and everything in between that connects technology to people.  Check out Sachendra’s article here as he goes deeper into some of the other implications to other browser and mobile players in the ecosystem.   

I downloaded the browser last night on my home system and was impressed with the overall experience.

Here are a few things I really liked:

1. URL window is ALSO a search window. Now type in what you are looking for if you don’t know the exact URL without having to open a separate search window
2. When you open a new tab - it shows you large thumbnails of sites you’ve recently visited. 
3. Beautiful & simple interface that optimizes screen space
4. Bookmarks and cached sites were pulled in from firefox
5. Download window appears nicely at the bottom
6. Multi-threaded - meaning your browser will no longer crash or get hung up while waiting for wonky javascript

Things I didn’t like? Like firefox, my web Outlook mail does not render correctly. There doesn’t appear to be the equivalent to the Firefox IETab pluggin - but i’m sure this is coming soon.

Ironically, I had just finished pimping my firefox browser on the advice of co-workers with coComment, IETab, Delicious, Faviconize, Firebug, FireFTP, Linkwad, Live HTTP Headers, PDF Download, PicLens, ScrapBook, ScreenGrab!, SeoQuake, SnapLinks, StumbleUpon, Twitterbar, WebDeveloper, and Window Resizer. 

How soon will it be before Chrome has their own list of custom plugins? Chrome is open source - so it shouldn’t be too long before we start seeing them.

Will there be a mobile equivalent too?

Until there is a declared winner or somebody beats everybody else into submission, I’ll continue to run with Opera, Safari, Firefox, IE and Chrome for all my daily browsing needs

Earlier this week I managed to secure one of the first corporate issued blackberry BOLDs that were sent to us by Rogers.

After about 20 minutes I had successfully swapped my SIM card, loaded the new desktop software on to my laptop and had fully synchronized my email and other data to my new device.

First impressions? The Bold  is the best and most complete Blackberry ever put to market.

It comes with: A super fast processor, wicked resolution, an improved design, Wifi, Bluetooth, and keys that don’t feel like cheap plastic (a la curve).  The web browser does a pretty good job at rendering desktop websites, and finally there is a way to manage your media files. It’s a bit wider than the 8800 - but it’s a bit thinner too.

Here are some things I really liked:

1. Copy and paste - so simple… but so necessary. Still can’t believe this isn’t a feature on the iphone
2. Flash with the camera - again something the iphone lacks
3. Video capture
4. New media capabilities for music and video - you can even sync with itunes… but it’s still not as easy to use or figure out as the iphone
5. Crystal clear screen with incredible resolution -  the best so far from Blackberry.
6. Like the iphone, the Bold is 3G - meaning it runs on Canada’s fastest wireless network. Download speeds here in Toronto are similar to broadband at home
7. Improved icons and operating system make for an improved overall user / device experience
8. Battery life seems pretty good. I went a full day of normal usage and still had half the bars left
9. Micro-SD card slot - that is accessible without having to remove the battery. NICE.
10. Overall aesthetics of the device.
11. Keyboard - the keys actually feel bigger than my 8800. There’s a certain comfort to tactile typing

Things I didn’t like:

1. SMS is now a separate icon… and doesn’t come as one of the default icons on the main screen. I figured out how to reorder the icons, but it took me a few minutes. I understand why this is separate as that’s how most other platforms deal with it, but I wonder how many existing blackberry users who are used to seeing SMS in their email inbox will be confused or lost by this subtle change.
2. There is no intuitive way to download other widgets directly from the device. This probably wouldn’t have been a complaint before Apple introduced the App store… but it’s something that is really missing now.  4 widgets came pre-loaded in the download folder (yahoo, facebook, Google talk and bb help), but what about the rest? Missing the App store here…
3. Speaking of widgets, I still really dislike the blackberry facebook widget. It’s completely out of sync with the iphone version… even the generic mobile web version is more intuitive and functional.  I was hoping that with the new device there’d be a newer version…

Other oddities / observations

1. Love the auto-correct feature - although some of the interpretations are funny. I sent an SMS to my girlfriend with “xoxoxoxoxo” and when I accepted the auto-correct it replaced it with “zigzag”
2. When you download widgets you often have to click to accept terms and conditions. It’s not intuitive to see that “decline” is pre-selected and once you do accept, you aren’t brought back to the main screen. I had to back out of the terms screens to see my new icon
3. A proper craddle is missing from the box. The Bold comes with a neat retro-looking clock that activates when you are charging - so wouldn’t it be nice to have a cradle so that it actually acts as a clock on your desk?  

Should you buy a Blackberry Bold?

If you love your current blackberry, you will absolutely love the Bold. It’s by far the best device created to date. 

By improving on the best mobile device for professionals (by adding in some features found previously only on consumer devices), you’ve got a great device that should sell really well.

If you’re still unsure and you are still coveting the iphone… wait a few months for the Blackberry Thunder (now rumored to be called the Javelin) which will be a full touch screen version of the Bold.

It’s been a while since i’m posted one of these… but that’s partly because it’s been a bit more difficult to maintain the same publishing schedule over the summer when there are other things I’d rather be doing than banging away at my keyboard

Here are three articles you may have missed that were published on either onedegree.ca or the canadianmarketingblog.com recently:

1. Don’t focus on mobile, focus on the customer
2. The mobile phone book goes social
3. Status is “Online” for mobile instant messaging

Last summer when the iphone went on sale in the U.S. consumers were loving the visual voice mail feature that allowed people to see who called and what was said as an email or SMS message from their device.

This also means you can check your vmail as text in noisy places, or if you are out of country and don’t want to check your messages and incur hundreds or $$$ in fees.

What I didn’t realize is that Telus also offers this service and was the first one to do so in Canada. Check out their press release here.  The Telus service also allows you to get an audio recording of the message as an attachment to your email.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any rate information on their website- but this is a feature worth investigating if you want the benefits of visual voice mail without having to switch to Rogers to get it on the iphone.

As promoted on this blog previously, I’ve been given the opportunity to present the impact of social media on meetings & events at this year’s Incentive Works conference - Canada’s largest meeting & event show.

I really enjoyed pulling together this presentation as it builds on last year’s topic of “meetings 2.0” and really shows how far we’ve come in one year in terms of leveraging and incorporating technology in our lives - and in our work place.

Here is an outline of what is being presented over 90 minutes on August 19th:

1. Creative opening (thanks to Michael Ofarrell for some of the visuals!)
2. Introduction to Social Media
3. Defining & introducing the tools
4. Impact on meetings & event planning
   • Before the event
   • During the event
   • After the event
5. Measuring Social Media’s impact
6. Pitfalls of Social Media
7. Top 6 things to remember
8. Questions and Answers
9. Obligatory self-promotion of the company I work for, my blog, and the other blogs I contribute to (onedegree.ca & canadianmarketingblog.com)

Specials thanks to Craig Ritchie for providing some of the foundational content and context.

I’ll post a link to the presentation on slide share sometime next week. PDF version also available upon request.

This week Yahoo! announced that they now know where you are… well as long as you give them permission first with their new Fire Eagle location based services (LBS) platform.  

Isn’t Fire Eagle really another term for describing a phoenix… as in the rising of the Phoenix - or is that a bit too ironic… or iconic for them given everything they’ve gone through with Microsoft this year?

Marketers should be really excited about this new platform. Besides making social networking kinda creepy (as blogged here last November), it adds context and relevance to your online ads.

Adding location (aka relevance) to an online behavioural targeting program attached to a CPC (cost per click) or CPA (cost per action) model is an online marketer’s wet dream. 

The way Fire Eagle works is that you either tell it where you are (country, city, town, zip etc…), or give permission for GPS enabled devices to do it on your behalf.  Fire Eagle will then publish your location information to the services that you have approved - whether it be a restaurant review site or facebook. Relevant ads will follow.

The neat thing about this new service is that it is completely open to the development community with a robust API - which means you can add geo-specific information to virtually any web service you want. It could be as silly as tracking where your friends are on the way to Collingwood for that weekend getaway on a google maps mashup. It would be like getting directions then seeing where people are relevant to those directions.

Already over 50 services have adopted Fire Eagle’s platform into their own offering including Six Apart’s blogging service Movable Type, messaging platform Pownce and neighborhood news site Outside.in

Whether or not this service will compete with Apple (they have similar services on their iphone platform) or the upcoming Google Android platform or becomes a complimentary web service to the above remains to be seen.

I’m not sure people really want everybody to know where they are at all times… but fortunately you can control your own settings - even manually update location to defer people from where you actually are…. like saying your current location is your home address where you are “working from home” instead of announcing that you are actually on the golf course AGAIN on a Friday afternoon

Thanks to Andrew Boisvenue for forwarding me this classic satirical look on the “typical” creative / agency briefing process.

Does this look familiar? I’ve seen this happen before on Interactive projects when technology ends up trumping strategy… and not the other way around.

From my perspective, strategy should lead technology and creative. What do you think?

 
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1994 Original burning the bacon logo

It’s been one year since I launched burning the bacon with barrett as a way to add to the conversation in the mobile and interactive marketing ecosystem with an emphasis on the Canadian market.

You can check out my first post here.

Some people doubted that I had the patience and enough things to talk about to keep the conversation going beyond the first few months. The blogsphere is littered with dead blogs - sites that are perpetually on hiatus.

I’m proud to say that in 12 months I’ve generated 441 tags, 122 posts in 19 categories with 183 approved comments. I’ve also continued the conversation by consistently commenting in other blogs and have started contributing to both onedegree.ca and the Canadian Marketing Association blog.

This site has gone through a few redesigns and now incorporates 16 plug-in widgets. I’m struggling a bit with how to continue to get link love from articles that are still relevant… but aren’t easily findable because of the volume of content I’ve generated.

What do you suggest?

In celebration of the one year anniversary of this site, two things happened this weekend

1. My domain host did not renew my domain name… so it was temporarily down & redirecting to one of those spammy looking directory search pages.  Luckily it was resolved within 6 hours and it happened on a Saturday… the lowest traffic day of the week.  I’m working on a separate post with additional thoughts and insights into the domain business
2. I’ve updated the site with new widgets and an updated blog roll that reflects sites that I’m currently following

Every month attracts a larger audience than the month before. Thank you for following my conversation and thank you to those who actively participate with comments and personal emails.

I’m looking forward to the next 12 months and welcome (as always) your feedback

Thanks to Lolly at blog till you drop for introducing me to Wordle clouds.

They work three different ways… enter a bunch of words, give them a URL or provide a delicious account name. Below is my wordle cloud for this blog. You can also see it online here.