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While consuming some of Google’s web services today (which is something I do a lot of), I noticed they have a new Favicon, as seen below.

Seems Google went from a capital G to a little g.  Perhaps they’re trying to be ’softer’?

I have seen it on Google Maps, Google Reader, Gmail, and many other Goog sites.

Interesting none the less

As I posted on GigaOM Strands.com is trying to get into the social aggregation space.  Currently the market dominated by FriendFeed which has gained an amazing among popularity amongst the web 2.0 crowd.  Today’s news follows the NetworthIQ news from earlier this month.

The service aims to take the social media aggregation FriendFeed offers to the next level by offering social recommendations on top of it.  The company aims to use your friends as a filter to “hot” content you’ll be interested in.

Along with giving you pointers to content you might be interested in, the new Strands.com will allow you to build a ‘taste profle’ to enable you to take your profile with you to other sites to further personalize those other services.

To highlight social media items to you, Strands.com has “Hot Posts” that will allow you to see what’s hot within your social group and allow you to see new things based on what your friends are suggesting.  Also, you can set groups and have granularity to which groups see what materials in your Strands.com stream.  To additionally filter out content, users can show content based on content type.  That is, if you only want to see your friends’ music items, you can have just this filtered data shown to you.

Does this type of service interest you, or is it just ANOTHER site to sign up for and adopt?

Introduction

The Samsung SCH-i730 is among Verizon Wireless’ newest Windows Mobile smartphones to come on the market.  The i730 is a slider style phone that is black in exterior color.  The slider, when engaged, displays a full QWERTY keyboard.  Like the Motorla Q9M, the i730 runs Windows Mobile 6.  However the Samsung phone runs the full Professional edition, whereas the Q runs a more stripped down SmartPhone edition.

The SCH-i730 includes bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera, touch navigation, a music player, and on-board Wi-Fi capabilities.  With a 2 year contract, the phone is currently $350 from Verizon Wireless’ website.

Exterior appearance

Where one would describe the iPhone as sexy, brilliant, even chic; the Samsung SCH-i730 is the polar opposite.  The clunky and cluttered exterior is tattered and distracting.  The front of the device is dominated by a large LCD screen with send and end buttons adorning the left and right side of the middle part of the device.  The number keys are squished and I found them very hard to use.  The rest of the keypad is made up of awkwardly placed function keys and a directional navigational pad that looks like a minature compact disk.

I found the keys to be very difficult and tedious to use.  Once you slide out the keyboard, a full keyboard is revealed that is slightly more usable than the main function keyset found on the face of the camera.  The screen switches (slowly) from portrait to landscape mode when you slide the keyboard out.

As a final note, this device is bulky and heavy.  It is definitely not made to fit comfortably into a pocket and will not draw the looks of passers by when you want to whip out your smartphone.  The buttons on the phone are adequately backlit for easy use in dark environments.

User Interface

While Microsoft made efforts to make Windows Mobile 6 more appeasing to the eye, there is still much to be desired.  In a market where the iPhone’s user interface dominates in terms of beauty and functionality, Windows Mobile is paltry in comparison.  Even Symbian OS is a figure of beauty and functionality compared to Windows Mobile 6.

However, I did find text both in the phones menus and inside applications to be very readable, showing the LCD’s display quality.

Dissapointing Performance

I found the performance of the i760 review unit to be terrible.  The response time when pressing keys and navigating menus is slow and annoying.  The touch screen is not responsive at all as it did not recognize numerous taps with the included stylus. However, the screen was very readable.

The Samsung i760 has poor cell phone reception capabilities.  I have numerous Verizon cell phones and am fully aware of areas where reception is strong or poor.  Being in an area where I know I get four bars with every other phone, the i760 continually dropped the signal and was unable to make or receive phone calls.  It was until I restarted the device that it re-gained connectivity on Verizon’s network.

When I was able to make a call on the i760, the sound was tinny and contained many echos, resulting in my having to ask the other to repeat themselves.

Also, battery life was terrible, even for an EVDO smart phone.  I was only able to squeeze out 2-3 hours of talk time, compared to 5-6 hours of talk time on other Verizon EVDO smartphones.  This poor battery life was displayed at a time in which I wasn’t employing the onboard Wi-Fi.

Conclusion

Overall this phone has many drawbacks, too many to justify its high price.  Even though the touch screen is large and vibrant, its lack of response makes it at times unusable.

As stated above, calls on this phone are full of echos and tinny speech.  The i760’s cannot retain cell phone reception which makes the use experience immensely frustrating.

Thanks to the Nokia Blogger Relations Program, I received a Black N82. The N82 has much of the same features as the N95 including on-board GPS, WiFi capability, and a 5MP digital camera.  The wonderful thing is all this is in a candy bar type phone.  Personally, I’m partial to candy bar style versus the slider form factor that the N95 has.

In terms of initial impressions:

• The response time and general speediness of this device is fantastic
• Taking images is quick and responsive.
• Rock Solid - this device has great built quality
• Love the auto-screen rotation

As I reported on GigaOm, local web application developer Ryan Williams‘ NetworthIQ has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by Strands, a Corvallis based startup who is heavily involved in social recommendation software.

Strands, formerly MyStrands, is a company known for social recommendation technologies mainly surrounding online media.  The company’s core product is a music recommendation engine that allows users to discover new songs.  Today the company has announced the acquisition of NetworthIQ to enhance the functionality of their private beta moneyStrands personal finance application.

Today’s news, combined with the previous acquisition of Expensr, shows that Strands is seeking to expand its social recommendation engine to other content areas, namely personal finance.

In my interview with Gabriel Aldamiz-Eschevarria, Strands’ VP of Communications, stated Strands’ intention to bring real solutions to the issue of Internet content overload and fragmentation.  For example, in the finance space, a person can see their checking account balance on Bank of America’s website, but have to go do American Express to see how much is owed.  moneyStrands will seek to aggregate these silos of content, give users insight into their finances, and with NetworthIQ’s functionality - compare these anonomously for financial benefit.

NetworthIQ’s functionality will be integrated into moneyStrands, Strands’ private beta web based personal finance application.  NetworthIQ was launched in 2005 by Furio and allows individuals to track their net worth on an aggregate level and share it with other NetworthIQ users.  This financial social networking site enables its users to gain knowledge based on the community’s financial experiences and insights.  This is done by exposing new ways for you to track, spend, and save your money, based on other’s experiences.

On the surface, NetworthIQ and Expensr (Strands’ previously announced acquisition) may seem very similar in nature.  However Expensr is focused on tracking expenses so a person knows how much they spend on a monthly basis.  NetworthIQ, rather, is focused on giving you a community for help and motivation regarding your investments and spending habits.

Strands has had phenomenal success building a mobile strategy into their music platform.  Aldamiz eluded that moneyStrands will have a mobile component that will include versions of moneyStrands for iPhone, Nokia (S60) browsers, and BlackBerry.  moneyStrands will allow users to quickly check their financials on the web.  Aldamiz noted that financial institutions today do now have an impressive presence in the mobile space and Strands’ seeks to change that.

moneyStrands faces competition from existing sites such as Wesebe and Mint.  With Strands’ treasure chest it will be interesting to see how they develop moneyStrands into a cohesive and usable product.

Up until just recently, Williams was working at a Tigard-based firm as a software developer.  NetworthIQ was a side project he worked on and built a business around with some colleagues at Fourio.  Let this serve as an example of how being passionate about a side project can translate into being able to someday have your side project become a full time job.

When I asked Ryan about his transition now working for Strands, he said,

Joining forces with Strands presents a great opportunity to utilize
the Strands recommendation platforms to help people make better
financial decisions, providing insight into the best ways to track,
spend, and invest their money.  Personally, it’s such a thrill for
NetworthIQ to be acquired and to join the Strands team.  When my
Fourio partners and I launched NetworthIQ in 2005, we were excited
about its potential, but weren’t really sure how it would turn out. If
people would really want to open up about their money this way, and
whether we’d find the time and enery to keep it going with so many
other events going on in life.  But people did and we were able to
carve out a simple and effective solution to help people manage their
money.  Considering how global the web is now, it’s pretty exciting to
find this match practically in my own backyard, with Strands being
headquartered in Oregon.  I’m really looking forward to working with
the Strands team on the moneyStrands project and seeing what we can
do.

Nice job Ryan!  We can’t wait to see what awaits with Strands and the new moneyStrands product!

I almost had a hernia from laughing so hard when I read this in my newsreader this morning.  According to Symbian Freak, Microsoft wants to attain 40% market share of the smartphone market by 2012.  I’m sorry Microsoft, but you’re a loser in the mobile field.  Between the Apple iPhone, Nokia s60 devices (which currently hold 40% worldwide market share), RIM BlackBerrys, and upcoming Google Android devices, Microsoft Windows Mobile is a clear outsider in this market.

Personally, I have tried each of these platforms and Windows Mobile is the slowest, buggiest, and unstable mobile phone operating system in the current market.  Windows also does not have an eye in making a cohesive user experience.  This is a space Apple is winning hands down, currently.

If you disagree, I look forward to a lively discussion in the comments 

Andy Abramson just posted an insightful article regarding WiMax, Skype and a the potential for a Skype killer, and what telcos need to do.

T-Mobile customers have been waiting for what seems like years for the cell service provider to give us a 3G data network.  Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and AT&T have had 3G networks for quite some time, giving us mobile broadband access to the Internet.

T-Mobile has finally started the rollout of the 3G network, starting with New York City.  The new UMTS/HSDPA network will appear in other markets as the year goes on, hopefully in Portland where I could get access to it.  Currently, according to Om’s post, there are only 4 handsets available for T-Mobile’s 3G network.

However, thanks to the Nokia Blogger Relations program, I have a Nokia N81 8GB.  I would *love* to use this phone on a 3G network here in the States.  It won’t work on AT&T because they use a proprietary HSDPA network.  My hope was that T-Mobile’s network would be compatible with this Nokia phone.  Unfortunately, it’s not, because like AT&T, T-Mobile has chosen to “lock-in” customers by also employing their own proprietary 3G network.

This means that handset makers such as Sony/Ericsson, Nokia, and others who want to build a 3G handset are going to have to make 3 versions.  One for the Europe market, one for AT&T’s US network, and now one for T-Mobile’s 3G network.

This also means if I have a handset that works on the 3G network here in the States and I travel to Europe, I won’t have 3G access to the European network.  *Shrug*

I’m trying to process the information coming out of the newswire and blogosphere regarding the ClearWire/Sprint story.  For those unaware, an interesting batch of companies is coming out of the woodwork to contribute to the new company and in effect help build a wireless network.  As Om points out, Google and Intel have contributed $1 Billion, $500 million came from Time/Warner and Comcast, and $100 million has been put out by Bright House Networks.

Speaking to VoipWatch’s Andy Abramson earlier today, we briefly discussed the interesting mix of companies coming together for this venture.  I can see why Intel has jumped in as they have a large amount of capital invested into WiMax so they’ll do just about anything to see the technology prosper and be profitable.

However, considering ClearWire’s product is a fixed wireless alternative to other Internet service providers such as DSL and cable modems, what is Comcast and Time Warner’s interest in the deal?  Why would these players want to present another option to their broadband Internet services?  The only play I can think of is to be able offer a type of Internet service where their government-sponsored monopolies don’t exist.  Or perhaps to offer cell phone service that is re-badged, like a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO)?

With WiMAX’s new resurgence, it’s definitely as a player in the 4G space as an alternative to cell phone carrier’s upcoming LTE network.  In the US, Verizon and AT&T have said LTE will be the technology of choice for their 4G networks.  How will WiMAX shake things up?

I was watching Survivor on our local Portland CBS affiliate last night when I spotted what looked like a Mac/PC ad from Apple.  Instead, Greg Macpherson, running for Oregon Attorney General, used the Apple ads as a template for his political ad.  Pretty funny.

What are your thoughts…it is smart or a cheap rip-off?