Spotted these XOHM WiMax little carts in Fells Point-an area in downtown Baltimore. These carts are in front of the Admiral Fells Inn, which is pretty much the same area where the National WiMax Launch event is happening this Wednesday at 10am EDT. The carts seat 1 person and are mobile so they can goto wherever there is any action of people congregating. For example the carts went to the Olympian swimmer M. Phelps parade and also was spotted at the Ravens parking lot for the Sunday game. I saw someting like these at the CTIA Wireless convention - betcha that;s wehre they got the idea! Mobile demonstration carts = good idea, unless it rains! Although XOHM execs tell me they have a tent ready in case it doeas rain - let's hope the skys stay clear.

On the carts were WiMax enabled laptops, laptops with express card and USB modems and Nokia N810 phones. Funny the home page of all the devices was pretty much set to speakeasy.net - a website for conducting speed tests. I'll show you pics and video of my results later. It was fun seeing people chomping on funnel cake trying to figure out who XOHM is. 

BY THE WAY FOR THOSE COMING TO BALTIMORE FOR THE WEDNESDAY ANNOUCEMENT - I'm having a WiMax MeetUp - interested? then buzz buzz me til I get details posted. 

Call my Google Grand Central #

Today, I appeared on WYPR 88.1fm public radio. The show hosted by Sheilah Kast is one of the best talk show hosts on public radio! I sat down with Nathan Sturner who interviewed me about WiMax in Baltimore. At this point I have had the service for about a day and have had a chance to begin some testing of the new wireless service - so far it's been awesome when you get a great signal it's blazingly faster than alternatives. In some ares of the city it was a bit spotty which is expected for any new network. Currently they have about 180 base stations in the baltimore and have about 70% of Baltimore covered, so there's plentyof growth still to come here. In case you didn't know Baltimore, is the 1st U.S. city to have WiMax and that has put Baltimore on the "global techie-map". I recall being in Seoul Korea about 3 years ago wehere I tested a service called WiBro on the WiBro bus and I vividly recall how explosive this technology would be and the promise it would bring for new devices and applications back then. It's great to see pieces of that type of technology finally shoing up in the U.S. 

The show podcast will be here shorly, come back soon to listen!

Today, I'm on the Troy Johnson show on CBS radio in Baltimore. We will be talking about new tech news, the release of WiMax in Baltimore and we will do a live demonstration of my most recommended bluetooth headset -- the Jawbone. 

Audio of the show will be posted here soon.

Yes! The title is absolutely correct WiMax is getting it's official U.S. debut in Baltimore, Maryland. I'm incredibly excited about Baltimore getting WiMax because I live here :-) and I will be one of the 1st to test the new service. I'm also happy about Baltimore gertting some solid National tech attention, alot of tech attention is always given to the West Coast or Masachusetts as if they are the only places thriving in tech. Headsup to the Valley - there's a whole other tech economy happening outside of your backyard - stick your head and look around you might just find some great tech innovation or partenrs in Baltimore, MD. Baltimore is full of incredible tech companies and innovative entrepreneurs. The tech talent in Baltimore is really incredible but often overlooked by the media. In case you didn't know Maryland has recently been ranked #2 as as top State in Technology and Science, according to Milken Institute. YES, Maryland #2 ahead of #4 ranked California. view study

The states in the best position to succeed in the technology-led information age are (with 2004 rankings):

1) Massachusetts (1)
2) Maryland (4)
3) Colorado (3)
4) California (2)
5) Washington (6)

Stay tuned to the blog or follow me on Twitter for my WiMax journey. I'll be buying an express card today and will shoot some video to document the WiMax experience.

Admittedly, I am a huge sneaker fan (1 of my weaknesses), BUT now I could actually be a sneaker designer? A new company in Portland Oregon called RYZ (pronounced r-i-s-e) is flipping the sneaker business model upside down. RYZ allows everyday people like you and I to download their shoe designer template, create your own design, upload it for voting and if the community claims you the winner, you receive $1,000 upfront and 1% of the shoe sales. Outsourcing your design work to everyday people and building a community of buyers of those specific shoes is a risky biz proposition BUT I love it and think it can and will work. Firstly, the head of the company is an ex-head of Adidas North America he knows a thing or 2 about shoes - namely the 12-18 month production cycle and the high cost of development. RYZ brags that they can produce shoes as fast as 6 weeks, pay only $1,000 and a 1% royalty for design which saves thousands of dollars, have an instant community of potential buyers and fore-go expensive marketing because the buzz of the shoe designs spills over into facebook and myspace, blogs etc...The shoes sell for $90 and some of the designs are really creative. My main concern is the community that RYZ is building is mostly of designers. Would designers buy shoes from other designers, especially if there design didn't win? RYZ, will have to be certain to market not just the cool, new crowd-sourcing business process but also focus on bringing droves of buyers NOT just designers to their site to make purchases. It remains to be seen if the site which is still in Beta can pull off the amount of sales it needs to keep it's business running but I'm hoping for the best, cause I'm first in line for these old school "Space Invader" kicks or these if they win.

What are your thoughts? Will crowdsourcing businesses like these be a success? What's the downside?

This is an awesome video by the folks over at www.CommonCraft.com that explains how Twitter works in plain english. I was about to take the time to do a video myself until I found this one, so enjoy it's really good!

Jet Blue recently got blindsided by a ton of bad publicity from not only the blogosphere but the MSM (CNN, NYT, ABC) also got in on the act, claiming that their $7 charge for a pillow and blanket was basically gouging already sky-high prices.

Now after Jet Blue's recent meltdown when it left hundreds of passengers stranded on-board for hours. You would think that Jet Blue's PR machine would be waiting in the wings for this sort of mundane Monday news and send out dozens of message multipliers to spin their side of the story before you even ordered your Tuesday latte..

Nope. Shockingly, the brass at Jet Blue has no prepared statements following this fiasco. Nothing on their blog and nothing anywhere within web-crawling distance. They just issued a bland, PR statement to the press which was rightly buried in the news stories that read--in 20 point font-- "Jet Blue to charge $7 for a pillow + blanket".

Wake up guys! Maybe you can run for president and not be aware of the internet but you can't run an airline and not atleast update your blog or send out an e-mail blast to your customers letting them know that you've got their back. This is a classic case  of a company not being prepared to answer to the bell in this day and age of a 24 hour news cycle that never sleeps and that other insomniac: the internet.

Found this fun site today and thought I'd share along with you guys. It's pretty easy to use and fun to do. Check out my crazy photos below. Check it out for yourself and have some fun at: cameroid.com

Today, I was on NPR's News and Notes show discussing everything from the iPhone to hands-free laws. We also discussed the recent warning about cellphones and possible health implications. On the show I mentioned SAR and Radio-frequency being emitted from phones and promised to post the info. So according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), specific absorption rate, or SAR, is "a way of measuring the quantity of radiofrequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the body." For a phone to pass FCC certification, that phone's maximum SAR level must be less than 1.6W/kg (watts per kilogram). from cnet.com

Manufacturer / Model number	SAR rating (1.6W/kg)	SAR rating (2.0W/kg)
Alcatel OT-256		0.59
Apple iPhone	0.974
Apple iPhone 3G	1.388	0.878
AT&T Tilt	0.88
Casio G'zOne TYPE-S	1.34
Cingular 2125	1.44
Cingular 3125	0.825
Cingular 8125	0.79
Cingular 8525	0.79
Dallab D900	1.02
DBTel J6		0.94
Denso Touchpoint	1.3342
Denso TP 2100	1.38
Denso TP 2200	1.44
Dopod 810		0.65
Dopod 838		0.327
Glofish x500		0.74
Helio Ocean	0.724
HP iPac 6315		0.652
HP iPac 6340		0.65
HP iPac 6500	0.83
HP iPac 6510	0.83
HP iPac 6515	0.83
HP iPac 6828		0.47
HP iPac 6910		0.387
HTC 8125	0.79
HTC Mogul	1.13
HTC Str Trk	0.825
HTC Touch		0.91
HTC Touch Dual (P5500)		1.59
HTC TyTN II		0.38
Imate Jam		0.53
Imate K-Jam		0.618
Innostream INNO 90		0.80
LG Prada		1.29
Mitac MIO A700	0.61
Mitac MIO A701	0.77
Multitone CH70	1.45
Orange SPV E200		0.82
Orange SPV M5000		0.172
Palm Centro CDMA	1.35
Palm Centro GSM	0.74
Palm Treo 600	1.43
Palm Treo 650 CDMA	1.50
Palm Treo 650 GSM	1.51
Palm Treo 680	0.78
Palm Treo 700w	1.26
Palm Treo 750, 750v , 750w	1.26	1.16
Pantech C120	1.13
Pantech PN-215	1.30
Philips 162		0.51
Philips Fisio 100	0.98
Philips Fisio 120	0.98
Philips Savvy		1.10
Philips Xenium 9@9	1.14	0.74
Qtek 8500	0.825
Qualcomm pdQ-1900	0.2634
Qualcomm QCP-860	1.2487
Qualcomm QCP-1960	1.41
Qualcomm QCP-2035	1.28
Qualcomm QCP-2760	1.33
Qtek 2020		0.47
Qtek 9000		0.17
Qtek 9090		0.27
Qtek S100		0.53
Sagem MW 3020		0.93
Sagem MY 100, XtraPac		0.85
Sagem MY 501c		0.97
Sagem MY C5-2		0.53
Sagem MY C5-2v		0.53
Sagem MY C5-3		0.70
Sagem MY X2-2		0.87
Sagem MY X3-2		0.93
Sagem MY X5-2		0.58
Sagem MY X-7		0.71
Sagem MY V-65		0.65
Sagem VS1		0.83
Sagem VS2		0.79
Sagem VS3		1.0
Sendo X	0.7
Sharp 902	0.53
Sharp GX10i	0.8
Sharp GX20	0.7
Sharp GX25		0.62
Sharp GX30	0.7
Sharp GX30i	0.7
Sharp TM150	0.823
Sharp Z-800	1.29
Sidekick	1.47
Sidekick II	0.74
Sidekick III	0.50
Sprint VI600	1.41
Sprint PPC-6700	1.098
Sprint PM 8912	1.27
Sprint PM 8920	1.19
Telit X60		1.21
Telit X170		1.13
T-Mobile Dash	1.34
T-Mobile MDA	0.98	0.65
T-Mobile MDA II		0.27
T-Mobile MDA III		0.20
T-Mobile Sidekick LX	0.67
T-Mobile SDA	0.61
T-Mobile Vario		0.32
T-Mobile Vario II		0.57
T-Mobile Wing	0.717
Toshiba VM4050	0.922
Treo 600	1.43
Treo 650 CDMA	1.50
Treo 650 GSM	1.51
Treo 680	0.78
Treo 700w	1.26
Treo 750, 750v , 750w	1.26	1.16
Verizon Coupe CDM8630	0.628
Verizon PN-215	1.30
Verizon XV6700	1.09
VK Mobile VK530		0.885
VK Mobile VK570		1.05
Vodafone 710		0.66
Vodafone Simply VS3		1.0
Xelebri 7		1.1
Xera GZ100		0.84

As many of you may be inundated and overwhelmed with current iPhone 3G coverage, I promise not to bore you with more of the same. Instead of wondering if you should buy the new 3G iPhone I’d much rather focus on the “purple cow” in the room that many people aren’t discussing. That being the Apple SDK, for the non-techies the Software Development Kit. Did you know that Apple is offering a revenue share agreement for developers where you earn 70¢ on the dollar? Yes you heard right! If your app were selling for $10.00 you would take home $7.00 per sale! That is a major revenue share opportunity that probably won’t last for long. Which is why I want you to focus on making apps for this gadget. As I read the news from the Apple site you can tell that CEO Steve Jobs is clearly excited after realizing in 3 days (this past Sunday) Apple sold its one millionth iPhone. Steve said: “the iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend. It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”

Now that’s impressive, but what’s more impressive is that more than 10 million downloads for the iPhone App store took place over a single weekend. This is huge; phones are only as good as the functionality they can deliver. While everyone else is crying about no video, no flash, and no photo messaging you need to be crying about all the money that iPhone app developers stand to make. I certainly don’t want to overstate the opportunity most apps are free, but a few that are bringing real value to customers are selling between $5-$10 per app. No one really knows how long this revenue share opportunity will last but you can be sure that as soon as the iPhone apps store is booming with thousands of apps Apple may decide at any time to reduce the amount of share it will give to developers.  My concern is that I want to make sure more of US are at the iPhone developer cash register. Stop wasting your time on being a consumer and be a creator, we need more app developers of color to band together and create apps for our global community. Many of you already work in software development so there is no excuse. I received my approval not to long ago, get yours and let’s get paid! Start by downloading the FREE SDK and then join the iPhone Web dev group.

Bottom line: I totally recommend buying the new 3G iPhone. It pains me to know that I paid over $500 and waited in line for 24 hours in the rain, you can view my iPhone gen 1 tech-tailgating video to see how serious I was.  But don’t buy the Phone just because it is better and cheaper than the original but because it’s an investment for you to monetize.

So if you have an idea to take over the world or maybe a simple idea for a biz program or a hot music application– think big and think iPhone demographic - now go make it happen and get you share of the loot$. What apps do you think we should be creating? If you aren’t a developer share your thoughts so developers can get rolling!

John McCain's internet debacle continues as one of his handlers named Soohoo (his real name not his Trekkie or internet handle) replied to rumors that John McCain does not even know how to surf the internet by replying "John McCain is aware of the internet!"

This set off the blogosphere into a worldwide belly laugh as they pointed out the inherent embarrassment in that statement.

But this does beg the question of "Does the next president of the United States really need to be internet literate? And if so, how much?

Let us know your thoughts below...

Shhh!! No one say anything but  M.  was supposed to be on vacation this week.

He is supposed to have "limited access to the internet" but knowing him he is probably sneaking online to do work when  his family isn't looking!

According to his twitter page he was at the beach throwing sand on his XO laptop...yeah right.

 What do you guys think? Will Mario ditch his family to get online tonight? Or will he just straight sneak?

$10 bucks and a grande latte says that he does. Any takers? Listeners and viewers call (609)456-0484 to tell me if Mario is addicted to the internet or chime in below!

Panel discussion at the GSP EAST conference moderated by Frank Gruber, panelists from KickApps, Mixer, Userplane & 

Key points:
Joining social networks can be like joining a gym membership - panelist suggest subscription model can work.

Biz models:
There have to be compelling reasons for ppl to comeback to the network
Monetize ad inventory within your network usage model on set CPM rate

Reflections / Lessons Learned:
-launch & iterate just go and change while its out there, don't meet to death, you'll never get to the total features you want out of the box, develop core features and go from there
-be true to yourself and don't chase the money! Be passionate about what you are doing
-know what your good at and do that, hire people for your weaknesses
-listen to your community - really listen, show their input making an impact
-launching a microsite on MySpace may be
-you need to OWN your database before starting with using a service, this can also be monetized
-get something out sooner by using a template driven site, launch now and upgrade later

Widgets
- widgets are the new webpage - it's all part of a modulaziation of components
- high growth
- widgets are a building block not a building
- think thru the life-cycle how do I create, market it and track it like a product
- use widgets in a broader data-driven, multi-channel strategy
- focus on the user
For publishers:
- new channel or distribution point
For advertisers:
-LET the numbers be your guide - its the process you need to establish
-shift from banner to more active approach (i.e. install widgets to play games, win prizes etc)
Start with a goal and tie it to some form of monetization (like ads, or ecommerce etc...)
- set goals within the context of your audience (if your demo is 55+ males dont put a widget on MySpace you wont get anything)
- know your audience, extremely data-driven, list channels for distribution (newsfeed, create cross promo bridges, track each channel, have some sort of conversion rate to your goal)
-measure conversion to goal, optimize extremely quickly
-review Comscore top app providers and see what their apps are doing and how they are at the top
-channels are different but consumers are all still the same
-really know how you succeed, is it max number of installs or was it more important to have people accces a video and play it back
-if you have the methodology in place you won't feel intimidated