SOMEWHAT FRANK

Apple MobileMe Syncs Everything For A Fee

The release of the new 3G iPhone and the launch of the Application Store secured the spotlight last week but there was another release which caught my attention. Apple launched MobileMe to replace the .Mac service which has been around for awhile. Though the .Mac migration may have had a few hiccups, the new MobileMe service offers users who pay just $99 per year an Apple run exchange for keeping contacts, calendar events and email synced to a PC or Mac computer and iPhone or Touch. The release positions Apple into a new space as a supplier of personal enterprise computing solutions. Apple takes on "free" email providers by locking up new me.com users to an account on a yearly subscription. Will this change the "free" email standard?

Twitter Man Hooks Up With AIM Status

Setting  your status message on a social networking application has become fairly standard but keeping all of your status updates flowing through all your social networks can be somewhat tricky and time consuming. I previously wrote about twitterfeed which I use to send some of my updates from Flickr and SOMEWHAT FRANK directly to Twitter. I also wrote about Matt which helps to post single status updates to multiple twitter accounts. But I just found out about a new way to leverage AIM instant messenger to set my status on Twitter.

Video: Why I Love Blogging

I recently spoke at BlogPotomac about social media and my love for bright shiny objects. At the event I talked with SearchMarketingGurus.com's Li Evans about why I love blogging. Check out the video (below) and find out why.

Why do you love blogging?

How Does Friend Connect Put Users In Control?

Google will be launching Friend Connect tonight to turn the open Web a place for open social apps to run wild as a motivator adoption mechanism for the new Google Gadget 2.0 format with OpenSocial across the Web. With Google powering email and search and collecting user data, I wonder about this new social component and about user controls. I did not get a chance to ask this question on the call due to what may have been technical issues but regardless I wanted to throw it out there to the blogosphere to give their SOMEWHAT FRANK perspectives on the following:

  How Does Google Friend Connect Put Users In Control?

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below if you have a SOMEWHAT FRANK opinion.

Do Paper Greeting Cards Still Have A Place?

With Mother's Day and a bunch of birthdays coming up I have been thinking about the whole gifting process and more specifically paper greeting cards. I think there is still something nice about getting a paper card since it is an artifact but I have found that more of the total inventory of greeting card play music. I find it kind of annoying but it is tough to find a good card anymore. It seems that someone must be buying greeting cards that play music because they seem to be taking up a majority of the Hallmark greeting card rack these days. But with all the social interactions that technology has enabled from your cell phone messages to online e-cards to Facebook gifts that can be sent here is SOMEWHAT FRANK question for you:

Do Paper Greeting Cards Still Have A Place?

Give your SOMEWHAT FRANK opinion in the comments section below.

Photo Attribution: Bashar Al-Ba'noon