Sometimes, Dilbert Cracks Me Up…

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Ed Holloway

Joost Contest Winners!

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Ed Holloway

And the winners are….

Congratulations to blog commenters #7 and #13, Dolemite01 & Dochogan they were the randomly selected winners for this round of Joost Beta Invites.

Please check back often, I’ll be doing this again as soon as I have some more invites added to my account.

Enjoy!

Tick, Tock – Time running out for Joost Invite Contest

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Ed Holloway

Just ~9 hours left to get your name in the hat for a Joost Invite. Simply leave a comment in this threadto be entered. No purchase necessary!

Winners will be determined at random, using the random integer generator at http://random.org/nform.html

Good Luck!!

Google is Coming to North Carolina

Posted on January 19, 2007 by Ed Holloway

Looks like I’ll have a new (extended) neighbor. Google has confirmed todaythat they are building a data center in Lenoir,NC a small town of 17,000 in the Western part of North Carolina.

This will create 210 jobs, and they plan to spend 600MM to build the center in exchange for some hefty state and local incentives.

Welcome, Google.

The Venice Project / Joost – Invites Available

Posted on January 19, 2007 by Ed Holloway

I’ve been fortunate enough to be a closed beta tester for The Venice Project, now called Joostfor a little while now. This is a new startup from the Skype guys, and threatens to revolutionize the way people view TV. “IPTV” technology is something that seems to be getting more and more of my mindshare (and time lately). I find it fascinating, and truly believe we are on the verge of a major disruption to broadcast and cable television. Definitely a topic to keep your eye on.

I won’t get into a full review of Joost here, but you can find a pretty through introduction here

So, now the point of this post… I have two of their coveted invites available to the closed beta, and would like to hand them out. I will do this ‘contest style’ by randomly selecting 2 winners from the commenter’s to this post. Contest will close at 9PM ET (GMT -5) on Monday 1/22. Good Luck!!

Alltel to Battle the iPhone Buzz with ‘CellTop’

Posted on January 18, 2007 by Ed Holloway

Today Alltel announced a new product called CellTop:

“An exclusive, patent-pending technology that offers customers an easier way to access, manage and organize a wide range of information already available on their Alltel Wireless phones. Celltop gives customers more control over their wireless experience through a unique and fully-customizable technology similar to the desktop on a personal computer”

Sounds like a great concept, and I’m all for ANYTHING that helps making a phone easier to navigate, but patent-pending? This sounds an awful lot like Handmark products that have been around for years. But it is nice to see carriers actually getting involved in the UX (user experience) field, and augmenting their products (sure beats crippling them, as some carries have chosen to do).

CellTop runs on the Qualcomm Brew platform, so it should be portable across multiple phones (and potentially carriers). I wonder if any of the big guys will take notice of what a regional player like Alltel is up to?

More info and screenshots on CellTop can be found at http://www.mycelltop.com/