Slashdot Mirror
Blog From Your Cellphone?
seldo writes "The BBC has an article up about blogging from your mobile phone. The idea is not really news, but the interesting part is the host of links to interesting new (free) software that lets you do it, including: Manywhere Moblogger (Java), WAPBlog (Perl), and KABLOG (J2ME mobile Java, runs on devices like Palms, the Treo and Blackberries). All three of these interface to also-free server side tech which you need to set up yourself (KABLOG interfaces to the popular MovableType server and compatibles). The article also mentions the proprietary foneblog service which seems very easy to use, but it is software intended to be run by cellphone companies for their users."
How many times does a blog-minded person lose something that was on their mind to time? Blogs re-tell life and a person cannot carry a pad of paper with them all the time to relate their feelings and observations. Most people already carry cell phones and this is a great natural extension.
Brought to you by the Artificial Idea Factory.
Does anyone really need to type long blog entries on the terrible interface of the current wireless phones?
Fnord.sig
Sadly, we're going to see a lot of this over the next couple of years.
As mobile Internet access becomes reality, the media will be awash with boring articles that offer no more insight than performing "Function X" from your mobile phone.
Next.
The interesting part for me would be the host of links to interesting new (cheap) mobile services. Fuck free software if it'll cost a fortune to do it.
Perhaps the answer is in the article itself:
The latest trend is moblogging - updating your blog with a mobile phone.
Name of the new trend tells us plenty...
For me a blog still means a weblog, ie. a collection of links, not some kind of journal (although I love some of the livejournal entries - teen diaries more than anything really.).
How can you really surf and spot places you want to link to with a mobile phone? Ok, so it is getting better than it used to with the new generation of big colour screen mobile phones, but I still can't imagine surfing around from my phone and updating my blog from there.
And the phone keyboards?! R we going 2 c journals updated in abbreviated style?
It just seems to me that it can only be a way to get even more irritating teen journals getting published on the web. Not so good.
Isn't blogging, as in writing a diary an egotistic wanking excercise?
The things that bloggers forget are probably often the kinds of things that weren only fleetingly interesting to begin with. The cool stuff will probably be remembered, or the blogger in question will write it on a napkin for blogging when he/she gets home.
With the advent of moblogging, I predict that the quality of blogs will go down as bloggers start saying random shit whenever something seems interesting for a moment. Blogs will become watered down by passing distractions, people will lose interest, and blogs will go the way of the narccicistic "this is me, this is 8,000 pictures of me, here are my favorite movies, blah blah blah" sites.
Hmm. . . maybe that's not so bad after all. I'm sure natural selection could use some help in the world of blogs.
Some genius decides to blog on their mobile phone while driving.
You know it'll happen, because you've seen 'em too... driving with their knee, phone in one hand, lipstick (or a McDonalds shake) in the other, chatting away.
I don't know about you, but mindless "yeah.. Uh Huh..." conversation is at least possible while driving (and with a hand-free headset). As far as eloquent conversation goes, you probably won't be Winston Churchill while your attention is on the road, but you can at least make guttural affirmative noises. Blogging, on the other hand, requires some coherent, focused thought (insert obligatory comment about Slashdot trolls here).
Talking on a cell phone may be challenging, but I find dialing while driving to be almost impossible to do safely. Blogging on a cell phone? Somebody's gotta be dumb enough... I hope they have air bags.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
99.99% of blogs are a complete waste of time written by narcissitic (sp) idiots who think the world is intrested in what they say. I read this article before it was posted here and the guy who is quoted at the bottom, Mr. Holahan, is an idiot also, and sounds like he is stuck in 1996 trying to sell a "surf the internet and get paid for it" idea. Blog will be popular for a while, then will dissapear except for a handfull of people who write intrestingly enough, and will probably write more fiction than fact. I have never read a blog and hope I never do, besides if blogs are diaries, they are suppose to be secret and personal, lets keep it that way. Thank you.
If you've really read any blogs at all, you'd know blogs interlink extensively. This is a great mechanism to increase the signal/noise ratio. Same way that the web works, except much quicker in time. So you wouldn't come across lots of blogs like Trixie's unless you went looking for them.
If Trixie's got readers, who have the same interests that she does, that's fine; as a community they are able to discuss what they'd be discussing anyway, except much more easily. If not, nobody'd link to her and she'll stop posting the junk after a while. Get over it: the internet stands for freedom of speech; anyone can express themself; and you can't gag them just because you think they're stupid. Actually, its my opinion that blogging needs a certain amount of humility, rather than being a consequence of vanity.
And they say blogs are just about vanity ;-)