sMoRTy71.com

A blog farewell, 3 years too late

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:45:00 +0000

There are a lot of great cliches for when good things come to an end. It's times like this when I wish there were more for when very mediocre things fade away completely unnoticed.

After a couple of years of active experimenting followed by even more years of neglect and blog-related guilt about not posting enough, I have decided to stop publishing new posts on sMoRTy71.com altogether. These days, 140 characters are about all I can muster.

I got into blogging late because I didn't want to be lumped in with all of the social media hippies that had started a blog. Now, as I retire from blogging, I can go back to mocking them freely (and it feels awesome).

Upcoming speaking engagements

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:13:00 +0000

There are 3 events at which I'll be speaking over the next 8 weeks or so.

Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit (April 6th, Austin, TX)
This is my second year speaking at the Summit. Last year, I headed up a rountable discussion on social media in regulated industries as well as presented at the Executive Bootcamp.

This year, I will be sharing the journey we've taken at Nationwide over the past three years as we've moved social media forward in the enterprise. I will be joining a group of really great speakers including Jeremiah Owyang, Erik Qualman, Ze Frank and Clay Shirky as well as reps from Best Buy, Xerox, Johnson & Johnson, Dell, P&G and Facebook. See the full list of speakers here.

Midwest UX (April 10th, Columbus, OH)
Midwest UX "is a unique two-day event that combines inspiring talks with hands-on activities presented by a mix of regional professionals and international experts."

I will be participating on a mobile panel at this year's event here in Columbus. Hoping I can hold my own with the other speakers that include Jared Spool, Jesse James Garrett and local UX professionals including Bryce Glass, Bill Litfin and Nationwide's own Heidi Munc and Derren Hermann. See the full list of speakers here.

Net.Finance (May 16th, Chicago, IL)
Net.Finance is geared toward senior-level financial services marketers and includes 3 days of presentations from the largest financial services brands including Citi, Mastercard, Western Union and Charles Schwab.

I will be speaking on a mobile panel titled "What is the mission statement of your mobile platform" with Laurie Kresl. Will be sharing the approach we've taken with mobile at Nationwide over the past couple of years. See the full list of speakers here.

If you're going to be attending any of these events, please stop by and say, "Hello."

#1 SXSWi moment: Brazilian Men Orgy (2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Back in 2009, I made my first visit to Fogo de Chao with Todd Earwood, Rob May, Kevin Frey and Dave Durand.

After getting seated and getting a brief overview of how the whole thing worked, we got down to our meat-eating business.

For those not familiar with Fogo de Chao, you have a card that is green on one side and red on the other. If the green side is facing up, a team of waiters will take turns delivering various meats to your table. The whole thing is made a bit more dramatic by the fact that the meat is carried around on giant metal skewers. Anyway, back to the story...

After about 15 minutes of power eating, I picked up my BlackBerry to share my thoughts on the meal. Because I wanted to get right back to it, I skipped naming the other diners at the table and simply posted:

"Meat orgy at Fogo de Chao. Unbelievable!"

After that profound tidbit had been delivered to the Interwebz, I got back to my meat pile. Over the next 45 minutes, we all ate our own weight in steak, sausage and other assorted goodies. All was right with the world.

When I picked up my BlackBerry after the meal, I was shocked to see what had actually been posted to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn:

"Men orgy at Fogo de Chao. Unbelievable!"

Whether it was BlackBerry's autocorrect or some subconscious desire (I'm really pulling for the BlackBerry on this one), I had not gotten my original message across. After frantically flipping through my Twitter replies and Facebook comments, it seemed that my tweet had gone unnoticed. Not a single reply. Whew, what a relief.

So, I posted a quick correction and we all had lots (and lots) of laughs around the table. Todd even shared my post with our waiter who was deeply troubled by it (but still made a point to say, "I'll be right back with the check, I know you have somewhere to be.").

Of course, my post hadn't actually gone unnoticed. It turns out friends and family were simply too confused to formulate a response. It wasn't until my correction went out that the "Oh, thank goodness" and "Your dad and I were so worried" messages came rolling in online. That turned out to be nothing compared to all of the comments I received that evening from friends in Austin.

You can read my original post describing our man orgy here.

#2 SXSWi moment: Guitar Hero Deathmatch (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:00:00 +0000

In 2008, Microsoft brought the top Guitar Hero player in the world, Freddie Wong, to challenge SXSWi attendees.

One afternoon, as Freddie was doing a demo at the Microsoft booth, Todd Earwood decides to tell the Microsoft folks that I will take the title. Not thrilled, but totally on the spot, I had to do an audition performance.

I ended up qualifying for the final slot in the tournament to be held later in the week. Of course, the tournament wasn't about beating Freddie. It was to see which competitor would lose the least. Reassuring.

While many of the other competitors chose the shortest and easiest song ("Mississippi Queen"), I chose a little Poison. My only requirement was that the host had to make a special dedication (listen closely to the beginning of the video).

I ended up finishing third and had a blast competing. My favorite part was listening to Earwood trash talking Freddie throughout the performance.

Since humiliating all of us at SXSWi, Freddie has gone on to make a ton of popular YouTube videos with over 135 million views (What?!). "Jedi A-holes" is one of my favorites.

#3 SXSWi moment: Gary V's wine party (2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

What do you get when you cram Gary Vaynerchuk, hundreds of social media folks and dozens of bottles of wine into the outdoor patio of a gay dance club on a Sunday night in Austin, TX? Turns out, you get a hell of a good time.

Gary handing out wine

Rumors had been circulating all day that Gary was planning to have a flash mob-style party *somewhere* in Austin. The original plan was to host it at Cedar Street. But after 10 or 15 minutes of handing out wine, the party was shut down (since there was already another event being hosted there).

Gary and me

Gary and team quickly regrouped and moved the party across the street to Rain. After making our way past some dudes in Speedos dancing, we found ourselves in an outdoor patio area at the back of the bar.

Christine Major, Pete Cashmore, Daniel Ha and Aaron Strout

Within 30 minutes, the place was absolutely nuts. We were crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder and Gary was passing wine and wristbands back through the crowd which included Pete Cashmore, Robert Scoble, Chris Heuer, Scott Monty, Todd Earwood, Jim Storer, Aaron Strout and many, many others.

Todd Earwood, Scott Monty and me

After the party at Rain ended, a group of 8 or 9 of us ended going with Gary to the Pure Volume event down the street. Unfortunately, they were at capacity and couldn't let anyone else in. I left the group at around 3am as Gary and crew started organizing a tweetup in the Hilton lobby.

#4 SXSWi moment: Livin' on a Prayer (2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

The Blogger Lounge at SXSWi is always a strange and magical place. Throughout the course of a day, it is a who's who of the digital and social media space doing, sometimes, unusual things.

In 2009, I happened to find myself in a conversation with Jeff Pulver, Amber Naslund and Brian Link. I believe Jeff was sharing insights on why he was an early investor in Twitter.

As he finished his story, Jeff's attention turned to the XBOX 360 set up in the corner of the room. So, he and I cranked through a couple of tunes on Rock Band 2 (him on guitar, me on drums).

Feeling like we needed to make more of a ruckus, I enlisted Jason Falls to join us on vocals. What happened next was fake rock music history (and one of my favorite SXSWi moments)!

Note how the rest of the room isn't having nearly as much fun as we were. Also, check out Jeff's assessment of our performance on his blog.

#5 SXSWi moment: KICKin' it (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

In 2008, Anil Dash brought back his annual KICK! kickball game at SXSWi. Nick Huhn and I skipped out on some of the Saturday morning sessions to join about 40 others in the largest kickball game I have ever been a part of.

There were no team limits, so it was 20 on 20 with everyone in the field at once on defense and everyone going through the batting rotation on offense. As if that didn't make the game challenging enough, Anil had a rule that we had to use a GIANT kickball during the 5th inning. It was nearly impossible to catch or throw, so lots of runs were scored that inning.

Eric with two shoes on...

It turns out that catching a shoe is not an out in kickball

The highlight of the game was when Eric Marcoullier kicked his shoe into left field and had it caught in the air by the 3rd baseman.

Taco time!

After the game, Anil and the Six Apart team treated the group to tasty breakfast tacos and coffee. Overall, it was an awesome diversion from the morning sessions. You can see a brief video of the action here.

#6 SXSWi moment: Julia Allison talks to Stan (2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

As I headed to SXSWi 2009, one of my Nationwide colleagues asked me to snap a few photos of Julia Allison if I ran into her. Turns out he was a big fan, so I promised to do what I could.

One morning as I was heading into the Convention Center, I passed Julia outside of the Hilton, but couldn't get my camera out in time.

Fortunately, a couple of days later, I would run into her again. This time, it was in the confines of the blogger lounge.

I whipped out my Flip camera and made my pitch. Much to my surprise, she agreed to shoot a quick video for my colleague (and was an absolute pro doing it in one take with about 30 seconds to prep).

Stan was pretty surprised by the video. Thanks again to Julia for being such a good sport.

#7 SXSWi moment: Chat Roulette with a TWiST (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

This may be the lamest SXSWi moment that you'll read on this list, unless you happened to be at Six Lounge that fateful evening in 2010 for Jason Calacanis' live TWiST interview with Tony Hseih from Zappos.

Photo by Todd Earwood -- who has just been implicated by me crediting him for this photo...

I cannot share many of the details of the #7 moment or those that participated... just know that it was one of the funniest and truly disturbing things I have witnessed ever while in Austin.

Basically, we arrived for the show, grabbed our seats in the balcony, then learned that it would be an hour or more until things got started.

In order to keep ourselves entertained, one of the guys pulled out his MacBook and we decided to play a drinking game with Chat Roulette (those who know Chat Roulette can imagine what the criteria for drinking might have been). Before we even get started, the team from a Canadian startup stopped by and heard what we were planning. The lone female on their team decided we should raise the stakes and... that's as far as I am comfortable taking this story here.

Those who were there will, hopefully, have a long laugh. Those who were not can follow up with me this year in Austin to get all of the details.

#8 SXSWi moment: Powered by Posehn (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Our friends at Powered threw an awesome party at the Scholz Beer Garden which turns out to be the oldest beer garden in Texas. As if free drinks, free books, good company and sunshine weren't enough, Powered brought in comedian Brian Posehn to perform.

I knew Brian from his roles on "Just Shoot Me" and "The Sarah Silverman Program," but had never heard his stand-up. It was hilarious. Here is a little snippet (which is completely NSFW):

Much of the material from the Powered gig is also on his "Fart & Wiener Jokes" album which I highly recommend.

#9 SXSWi moment: Leo and the Gnome (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:30:00 +0000

The great thing about SXSWi is that there are multiple parties every night of the conference and those parties often run late into the morning. Of course, after 3 days of that, old folks like me tend to get tired.

Even Gnomes get thirsty -- photo by Gargi Patel

Last year, Jim Storer (and his Red Sox Gnome), Adam Cohen, Gargi Patel and I decided to avoid the crowds and have a more relaxed evening at the Fogo de Chao bar. It was the perfect spot because there was absolutely no one else in the bar area.

Chuck Hemann and me -- Photo by Jim Storer

Throughout the week, Jim had been using his Red Sox Gnome as a photo meme and had gotten lots and lots of folks to pose with it.

Kevin Rose and Aaron Strout -- photo by Jim Storer

Because we were sitting alone in the bar, we had to find more creative ways to use the Gnome, so we convinced our bartender to place him among the more expensive liquor bottles.

A little Gnome Perignon -- photo by Jim Storer

A few minutes later, a door to a private dining room opened and out walks Leo Leporte, Jeff Jarvis and Robert Scoble. Not one to miss an opportunity for the gnome, Jim approaches the group and asks if they would snap a couple of photos.

Leo and the Gnome -- photo by Jim Storer

It turns out that Leo was livestreaming at the time, so he decided to ask Jim a few questions about the Gnome and share his thoughts on Fenway Park before posing for some photos. Jeff Jarvis joined in as well.

It was an unexpected way to end the evening, but a great example of how you never know who you'll bump into in Austin for SXSWi. See all of Jim's photos from that evening.

#10 SXSWi moment: Make your own party (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:00:00 +0000

The first person I ran into at SXSWi 2008 was Eric Marcoullier. He and I had known each other online for a while, but had never met in person. We chatted for a few minutes and planned to connect later in the evening.

Fast forward a few hours later. I was waiting in line at Six Lounge for the Mix at Six party with Jason Falls and the Louisville crew. The line was ridiculously long and we were, literally, at the very end.

Next thing you know, Eric and his crew rolls up to the end of the line and, like us, determines the long line just isn't going to work. He suggests that we find an empty bar and tweet out the location to our friends (which was new and novel in 2008).

Bostjon Spetic, Scott Monty, Eric Marcoullier and Chris Heuer -- photo by Jason Falls

We ended up just down the block at Cedar Street. There was a band playing outside and absolutely no one inside. So, the 10 of us started tweeting about this great party we were hoping to have and we waited.

Photo by Jason Falls

Within 15 or 30 minutes, the bar had gone from completely deserted to pretty happening. Because we each shared with our own networks, there were plenty of folks that didn't know each other, so plenty of mingling ensued.

Photo by Jason Falls despite Jason being in the photo. He's magical.

Attendees included Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, a pre-Ford Scott Monty, Krista Neher, Steve Hall and Jim Long.

That impromptu party got the whole week started and I found myself hanging out with many of the same group the rest of SXSWi 2008.

My interview with eMarketer

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:20:00 +0000

eMarketer has just published the interview I did with them late last year. Much of this was included in the Shopping for Insurance Online: A Multichannel Quest research paper that was published earlier this week.

If you want an 8x10 of that sweet headshot, just say the word.

Shopping for Insurance Online: A Multichannel Quest

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:50:00 +0000

For those of you who love digital marketing and insurance (that's everyone, isn't it?!), I was interviewed for the latest eMarketer report called, "Shopping for Insurance Online: A Multichannel Quest."

In addition to a handful of quotes from me, you also get to see my corporate head shot which rivals my high school yearbook photo for sheer awesomeness.

Of course, in addition to your interest in digital marketing and insurance, you will also need to be an eMarketer subscriber (or be willing to pony up $695.00 to download it).

If you meet all three of those criteria, check it out. For everyone else, just point and laugh at this photo.

Nationwide Mobile for Android

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:40:00 +0000

It wasn't until I saw a post about our new Android app on AndroidCentral.com today that I realized that I hadn't posted anything about it yet.

Earlier this month, we released an Android version of our Nationwide Mobile app. Like the iPhone version which launched in 2009, the Android app provides an accident toolkit for starting a claim and provide access to your account to review payment info, important phone numbers and a digital version of your insurance card.

If you're a Nationwide customer with an Android phone (or you're just the type of person who loves to download insurance apps), check it out and let us know what you think.

This is our first version, so we'd love to hear your wishlist of features for our next update.

I was wrong about the iPad

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:46:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I broke down and picked up an iPad. Right after launch, I had shared my POV on why I didn't think it was the device for me.

While I like to blame the purchase on the fact that I already own every other gadget on the planet, part of me wanted to see if the iPad is as good as all of the fanboys say it is.

Unfortunately for my long-time tongue-in-cheek critiques of Apple, I am in love with my iPad. It has now taken the place of my EVO 4G and my netbook as my "go to" computing device.

Those of you who know me well know how hard it was to write this :)

Two awards and a South Park reference

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:12:00 +0000

I generally don't post too much about the work I do at Nationwide (or anything else given the frequency of posts over the past year), but it has been quite a month for our digital marketing team and I wanted to mention the highlights.

Back at the end of September, we won a Bronze iab MIXX award for Digital Integration for our World's Greatest Spokesperson in the World campaign with our partners from McKinney.

Then, a week or so later, we won a DMA ECHO award for our Nationwide Mobile app for iPhone with our partners from Rosetta.

Now, we get the ultimate compliment in the form of a reference in the most recent episode of South Park. During the "Insheeption" episode, they need someone to infiltrate Mr. Mackey's dreams. In the scene that follows, they reference the launch spot from our World's Greatest Spokesperson in the World campaign.

Check out the episode here. Our portion starts just after the 16 minute mark and continues for about 2 minutes. How cool is that?!

You can compare the South Park scene to the original spot here.

BlogWorld Expo 2010 recap

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:15:00 +0000

My wife Amy thinks that all of the conferences I attend are just excuses for a bunch of middle-aged nerds to get together and party (wow, that stings a little). I assure her that, while there are always opportunities to socialize with a cocktail in hand, conferences like BlogWorld Expo and SXSWi are much more than a party.

This was actually my first BlogWorld. Chuck Hemann, who was responsible for helping with the social media track, invited me to be part of a panel on enterprise social media. Being a shameless self promoter, I couldn't say, "No."

Thursday

I arrived in Vegas at 2pm and, because of a minor travel mix-up, was due to be on stage for my panel at 4pm. Ended up making it with plenty of time to spare, but very little voice left due to a cold I was getting over.

From left: Michael Brito, Shawn Morton (damn, he's handsome!), Becky Young, Pam Clark and Len Devanna

I joined Becky Young from RIM, Pam Clark from Adobe's Photoshop team, Len Devanna from EMC and moderator Michael Brito from Edelman for a lively and (surprisingly) well-attended panel discussion on integrating social media into the enterprise.

After the panel, I was completely spent (I left it all up there on the stage), so I grabbed dinner at Burger Bar with my old pals David Alston from Radian6, Chuck Hemann, Greg Mathews and one of my new favorite people Ken Burbary from Ernst & Young.

There, I was mocked for drinking a milkshake while everyone else had an adult beverage (it was totally worth it, though). Of course, after Chuck had a $60 hamburger, we were able to mock the tiny dessert burger (made from a donut, a brownie and fresh fruit) that he got as a consolation prize.

After a quit pitstop at the Bristol, we headed out in search of Jason Falls' annual BlogWorld slushie bar meetup. While too long of a story to recount here, the reason for meeting in the middle of a Las Vegas mall to drink Fat Tuesday slushies is a good one. And, it's Falls. How are you going to pass that up? Plus we ran into Bryan Person, Dave Peck and Justin Levy while we were there.

After polishing off my complimentary Pimp Juice, we went to the TechSet event at Liquid inside the Aria hotel. Like the TechSet event at SXSWi, it was packed with a who's who of digital and social media nerd-- um, practitioners.

Spent some time hanging out with Liz Philips from HP, Cheryl Harrison, Jaime Punishill from Thomson Reuters, Mark Krynsky from XPRIZE, Zena Weist from H&R Block (another one of my new favorite people), Thesis creator (and fellow former Louisvillian) Chris Pearson and Scott Monty from Ford.

For fear of retribution from Ken Burbary, I will NOT mention that he spilled an entire glass of Macallan single malt Scotch on Scott Monty's blazer while giving him a bro' hug... uh oh!

While some of the more adventurous in the group headed to the Social Media Club Clubhouse, Chuck and I decided to call it a night. Pacific Time wasn't our friend.

Friday

Got up waaay too early on Friday only to discover that none of the BlogWorld sessions started until 11am.

Digital crisis management with Valeria Maltoni, Scotty Monty, Dallas Lawrence and Shel Holtz

Ended up eventually connecting with Zena Weist and Ken Burbary again. We spent most of the day in panels including Social Media & SEO with Lee Odden, Digital Crisis Management with Valeria Maltoni, Scott Monty, Dallas Lawrence and Shel Holtz, Social Media ROI with Ken as moderator, David Alston, Don Bartholmew and Connie Bensen.

Social media & ROI: Ken Burbary, Don Bartholmew, Connie Bensen and David Alston

In between, we grabbed lunch at the House of Blues and were joined by Chuck Hemann and D.J. Waldow from Blue Sky Factory (despite the fact he has a Michigan tattoo on his arm).

Dinner was at Aureole in Mandalay Bay with Zena Weist, Ken Burbary and Dave Fleet from Edelman. Dave actually remembered me from correspondence we had back in my Profilactic and CNET days. While the food was delicious, the highlight of the meal was the Mission:Impossible wine rack that climbed 3 stories into the air. Employees would strap into a harness and ascend up the rack to retrieve the proper bottle.

After dinner, we headed to the Mashable event at Haze. Definitely wasn't my kind of place. Too many strobe lights and too much dance music. The highlight was finally getting Zena and Ken to try a French martini. I think they may be hooked.

We bailed from Haze at 9:30p. While we fully intended to take in the Steel Panther show at House of Blues at 11:30p, we were all too tired to wait around for it to start. So, I was in my room for the night by 10:30p... in Vegas.

My only regret was not getting to see Steel Panther. Next time, gents. Next time...

Saturday

Started my final day at BlogWorld by grabbing an obscenely gluttonous breakfast at Red, White & Blue in Mandalay Bay.

After breakfast, I ran into Dave Fleet and headed to the morning keynote featuring Brian Clark, Sonia Simone and Darren Rowse. There, we were joined by Chuck Hemann who was moving a bit slower than the rest of us at that point.

At 11am, I hit the Hiring a Social Media Agency panel (AKA All Male Revue) with Jason Keath, C.C. Chapman, David Armano and Jim Tobin.

At 12:15p, I attended the ridiculously under-attended Social Media in Corporate America panel with Jeff Hayzlett formerly CMO of Kodak, Frank Eliason of Citi, Bonin Bough of Pepsico and Scott Monty from Ford. The panel was moderated by Kay Madati from CNN. It was one of my favorites of the weekend.

I finished out BlogWorld by checking out some of the vendor booths in the Expo hall. Really liked getting to see the new MyTouch Sync stuff from Ford. Also paid a visit to the Seagate booth since I am a hard drive nerd and Seagate is my brand (wow, did I just say that?).

Overall, I had a great time at BlogWorld Expo. Had a very similar atmosphere to SXSWi, but I found the content at BWE to be much stronger overall. Will definitely be back.

We're heading to China!

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:36:00 +0000

After a 10-month wait, we finally have our travel approval to go to China to get Mei-li. Amy and Mahlon head out on August 4th. I will join them in Beijing on August 5th.

We have a day or so to do tourist-y things like visit the Great Wall of China, then it will be off to Zhengzhou to get Mei-li on Monday, August 9th.

After a couple of days of squaring away all of the adoption processes and forms, I will head back to the U.S. Amy, Mahlon and Mei-li will need to stay until August 20th.

Of course, we will be taking a ton of photos and video to document the process. Will post updates as soon as I can.

Two job openings on my team at Nationwide

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:03:00 +0000

Wanted to share a couple of job openings that I have on my team at Nationwide.

One is for a mobile marketing product manager. We need someone to help us define the mobile roadmap for Nationwide. Need experience in and a passion for building mobile sites and/or apps. http://bit.ly/nationwidemobilejob

The other is for a social media marketing lead. We need someone to help us expand our social media strategy as well as manage some of our high profile projects and vendor relationships. http://bit.ly/nationwidesocialjob

To apply, click one of the links above, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the job description, then click the "Apply for job" button.

You can shoot any questions to me at mortons7 at nationwide dot com.

Video calling article on TechRepublic.com

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:33:00 +0000

My latest article for TechRepublic looks at a couple of the video calling apps (Qik & fring) available for the Sprint EVO 4G.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

A week with the Microsoft Kin One

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Sat, 08 May 2010 19:34:00 +0000

After saying a long goodbye to the HTC Incredible, I started using the Microsoft Kin One as my primary mobile device. After a week of use, I feel like I have a good idea of what the phone's capable of. It's definitely not going to complete with a smartphone, but it might have just enough extras to lure some feature phone users.

The Good
Just to reiterate, the Kin One is NOT a smartphone, so it isn't fair to compare it to an iPhone or a BlackBerry or an HTC Incredible. It is a pretty simple little feature phone aimed squarely at those who want their social content and contacts integrated into a feature phone OS. Not sure how big that audience is, but that is who the Kin One is going for.

So, back to "The Good" list:

1. The hardware design
You've gotta give Microsoft credit for taking a unique approach to the design of the Kin One. It's original product codename of "Turtle" pretty well sums up the look. When in the closed position (the Kin One has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard), it does sort of resemble a turtle or a hockey puck. When open, it looks a bit like a shorter and fatter Palm Pre.

I had several people comment on how "cute" the Kin One is.

2. The keyboard
One thing that many handset makers often get wrong is the keyboard. Over the past few months, I have reviewed several phones, like the Palm Pre Plus, where the physical keyboard were a real hindrance.

The Kin One's keyboard is actually pretty nice. It has good separation between the keys. The keys are also large enough and raised enough to be easy to target.

3. Cloud-based storage & Kin Studio
The Kin puts all of your data (photos, text, etc.) in the cloud, so Kin Studio is how you interact with it on the web.

My Kin Studio home screen. See a larger screenshot

Kin Studio is actually pretty slick. It gives you access to all of the data you have created or shared on your Kin One. It also gives you access to your Loop which is the stream of social content that you see on your Kin device's home screen.

The Not-So-Good
If read all of the other reviews of the Kin One, you would expect this list to be much longer. However, I don't think other reviewers actually used the Kin One as their primary phone for any significant length of time. Sure, it has some issues, but I wouldn't consider it a disaster as some have claimed.

1. The look and feel of the software
Some of the user interface elements for the Kin feels more like it was designed for the Jitterbug demographic rather than millennials. It features a tile layout similar to what we've seen from Windows Phone 7, but the tiles are huge on the screen. You only manage to see 4 tiles at a time. Part of that is due to the relatively small screen on the Kin One, but most of the problem is that the tiles are just too big. This forces you to have to scroll too much to find the apps or contacts you're looking for.

It also means you have to scroll a lot to see all of the content in your Loop.

I dig the tiles concept, but just dial the size back a bit.

2. The usability of the software in some places
Early on with the Kin One, I found myself running into dead ends where I couldn't figure out what to do next.

The most puzzling one was when taking photos. After you take a photo, you have no idea where it went or how to access it. The camera simply returns to viewfinder mode. You don't even get a couple of seconds to review the photo.

After taking several photos, I accidentally swiped my figure to the right across the screen to discover that all of my photos had been floating out in space to the right of my handset.

Of course, once I learned all of these secrets of the interface, I was fine. However, it should be a bit more intuitive than that.

3. The camera
As you might expect from a $50 device, the camera on the Kin One isn't the best. It's not terrible, but you really need to have a steady hand and just the right lighting to get good shots.

Here are a couple that I took this week.

This one turned out well

This one... not so well

The Bottom Line
If you are able to avoid comparing the $50 feature phone Kin One to smartphones like the iPhone, Droid or BlackBerry, then you will appreciate that Microsoft took a shot at something completely new by focusing on social media integration and cloud-based storage. Will it appeal to the millennials that Microsoft is going after? We'll just have to wait and see.

BTW, I purposely did not discuss Verizon's requirement that Kin One owners buy a $30/mo data plan. While that will affect the overall adoption of the Kin One, it is not something that has to do with the phone itself.

A week with the HTC Incredible

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:17:00 +0000

As a contributing blogger for CNET's TechRepublic, I get the chance to test out a lot of new smartphones. I generally have pretty high expectations for devices and, honestly, most handsets don't meet all of them.

I spent the past week using the new HTC Incredible from Verizon Wireless. It may be the best smartphone available in the U.S. right now.

The Good
There is a lot to love about the Incredible, but I will focus on three:

1. The design
The Incredible is a light and sleek handset despite having a big 3.7" screen. One of my favorite elements of the hardware design is the back of the case.

The back of the case is designed so that your hands are always holding the Incredible at the thinnest points. So rather than try and create the thinnest smartphone, HTC choose to make the phone *feel* thinner. Really smart design choice.

2. Sense UI + Android 2.1
I love Android, but it feels a bit unpolished in spots. HTC has developed their own Sense UI that runs on top of Android and makes it a much more refined experience. Really makes a big difference. It was one of the reasons I preferred the underpowered Droid Eris to the beefy, bulky Motorola Droid. It is also why I love using the Incredible.

3. The overall speed
The Incredible really blew me away with its speed. Everyone that picked up the phone over the past week commented on just how fast it is. It is the most responsive handset I've ever used. There is absolutely no lag.

The Not-So-Good
Of course, with just about every device, you will find things that you wish were a bit better. The Incredible is no exception.

1. Battery life
This one shouldn't be too much of a surprise. The Incredible is a powerful smartphone with GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi and a big, bright screen. No matter the handset, that is a recipe for shorter-than-optimal battery life.

I found that I could usually get through the work day (and well into the evening) on a single charge. Not terrible, but I found on heavy usage days that I would need to charge up during the day to keep it running. Not terrible for most users, but the Incredible would definitely not survive a day at SXSW Interactive.

2. The back of the case
While I love the design of the back of the case, I don't like how you take it on and off. First, it is made of plastic, so it may not be the most durable. Second, it doesn't slide on and off. You have to pry it off. I always found myself feeling like I was going to snap it in half.

This is the same issue I had with the Droid Eris. Wish HTC would rethink that choice. If you need to swap the battery or the microSD card, you will need to pry the case off each time.

The Bottom Line
Despite those small issues, the HTC Incredible is the best mobile device that I've ever used. The only reason I'm not picking one up is that I am waiting on the Sprint EVO 4G in June. If you're on Verizon, it is definitely the phone to have. Go get one right now. You'll thank me later :)

Two new articles on TechRepublic

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:30:00 +0000

I've published a couple of new articles on the TechRepublic Smartphones blog this week.

One is a new "week in review" format that we're trying out. I round up 5 or 6 stories from the mobile space and give my take on them.

The second is an introduction to the WebKit rendering engine that powers the browsers on iPhone, Android, Palm and, soon, Symbian and BlackBerry.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

The 2010 Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit recap

noreply@blogger.com (Shawn Morton) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Last week, I was fortunate enough to head back down to Austin, Texas. I had just been there a month earlier for South by Southwest Interactive. This time, I was going to be attending the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

We have been Bazaarvoice clients at Nationwide since 2008, but this was my first Summit.

Monday
The night before the Summit Bazaarvoice hosted a small reception followed by roughly 30 small dinner groups around Austin. I was paired up with folks from BV, including CFO Ken Saunders, Intuit, Lending Tree, Charles Schwab, Fingerhut, Rosetta and ExactTarget at Perry's Steakhouse.

The vault at Perry's Steakhouse

We were given a private dining room that was housed inside an old bank vault. The food and conversation were great. Most of the companies at dinner were in financial services, so we were able to relate to how we were each using BV services.

See all of Bazaarvoice's photo from Monday night on Flickr.

Tuesday
The Summit kicked off on Tuesday with a total of 8 sessions. Three of those really stood out for me: Douglas Rushkoff's talk on innovation and corporate culture, Manish Mehta's session on the growth of social media and Kelly Mooney's panel on millennials.

Douglas Rushkoff

The millennials panel contained a lot of interesting insights into their media comsumption. The most shocking revelation, even more than the 100+ text messages they send daily, was the fact that none of them, including two recent college grads, owned or wanted to own a credit card.

I was asked to co-host a roundtable discussion on social media in highly-regulated industries with Dan O'Neil from Rosetta and Meghan Meehan from Bazaarvoice. Had some really good discussions (with most of our competitors) on how to use social media and still remain in compliance with the myriad of regulations that govern our industry.

Tuesday night, BV took all of the attendees out to the Mexican American Cultural Center for a party. In addition to the usual party components of a band, open bar and food, there were some quirky extras thrown in like a mechanical bull riding contest, some electrical performance art and fireworks.

While I declined to ride the bull, I was convinced to be a part of the electrical performance. It's a bit tough to describe, but I was placed in a metal cage between two 7 foot tall Tesla coils. After being locked in the cage, the coils fired hundreds, if not thousands, of lightning strikes at me. All of the strikes were synchronized to a pulsing dance beat. Yes, I had had a couple of drinks...

Me in the cage

See all of Bazaarvoice's photos from Tuesday on Flickr.

Wednesday
The second day of the Summit started off with some fanfare. The University of Texas drumline joined Bazaarvoice CMO Sam Decker on stage to get things started.

Love the guy at the breakfast buffet. Must be an A&M fan

I missed a couple of sessions due to business calls. So I didn't get to see Mitch Joel's keynote in the morning.

The highlight of Wednesday for me was Dmitri Siegel from Urban Outfitters. He shared how UO has been able to include customers in everything they do including the design of products.

Dmitri Siegel showing the Sellect Waterfall Sandwich meme

Wednesday night, I was able to convince a few Austin friends to join me for a couple of drinks. Aaron Strout, Kyle Flaherty, Chuck Hemann, Peter Kim and myself talked social media, Austin real estate and sports while watching part of the Red Sox game. It was nice to connect with these guys and take a break from the conference for the evening.

See all of Bazaarvoice's photos from Wednesday on Flickr.

Thursday
The Social Commerce Summit officially ended on Wednesday, but there was a one day Executive Social Media Bootcamp on Thursday. It was a much smaller event with about 40-50 brands in attendance.

I was asked to present as part of a panel on Facebook. Also got to hear from Sean McDonald, Ben McConnell, USAA, PETCO, Dell, Nielsen and others. It was very informal and hands-on. At one point, Ben McConnell helped a volunteer draft a social media strategic plan for his business. You can read Sam Decker's recap of the bootcamp on the Bazaarvoice blog.

You down with OGST? Yeah, you know me!

The event wrapped around 3pm and I headed straight for the airport afterward. Of course, I couldn't leave Austin without getting some Salt Lick. Ended up running into Kenny Kim from American Express, so we shared our thoughts on the event over some amazing brisket.

Overall, I had a great time at the Summit. I highly recommend it for anyone working in social media/social commerce.