I’m headed to Tokyo for the first time, arriving on Thursday through Tuesday August 7th. Thinking about heading to Kyoto over the weekend but not yet sure. Would love to hear about any recommendations on places to visit, things to do, or even people to meet.
Facebook and Blogging
Many people have noted the lack of native blogging capability on Facebook. It has been mostly a utility around connecting and sharing with one another, as opposed to a publishing platform. The news feeds and status updates are a de facto form of publishing. There are also several blogging applications that have launched but the most popular one, HotBlog, only seems to have around 20 K users. I use Typepad for this blog and am quite happy with it, and I also created an account on Vox but haven’t really used it much. Vox lets you have more fine-grained control over whom to share your
posts with but I think it’s only a matter of time until FB will let you
classify your ‘friends’ and give you finer control over what you share
to whom. At that point, I don’t think I’ll have any reason to use Vox. And if there were an app that let me compose and publish blog posts from within Facebook with an option to publish to this standalone site at the same time, that would rock. I hope Typepad is working on a Facebook app.
Off topic: Great Summer Pastime in Boston
On the spur of the moment, I decided to go kayaking today…I’ve seen many a kayak on the Charles River so I googled "charles river kayak" and sure enough found my way to Paddle Boston’s site. Renting a kayak was painless and affordable ($14 per hour, includes life jacket). And there I was paddling down the Charles, listening to Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, which was fitting for such a glorious summer day…can’t wait to do it again.
TeleNav for Blackberry: Driving Directions Made Easy
My friend Brad and I were playing golf yesterday and we used his Blackberry to navigate to the course. I didn’t realize that new Blackberry models have built-in GPS chips and that, with the TeleNav service provided by Sprint/Nextel, you can get driving directions just as with in-car navigation systems. Wow. Brad’s a big fan, claiming it’s nearly as useful as email. Very, very cool. Given that Blackberrys are connected to a network, they could be used to collect and communicate traffic information in real-time, and of course reroute accordingly. I did my college thesis on using cars as probes for real-time traffic information back in the day, so this is especially exciting!
The Blackberry insight blog gives a great overview on Blackberry & GPS.
Pottermania in Harvard Square
So I’m heading to the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square last night to meet up with some people for drinks, and the place is teeming with people, many dressed in capes and pointy hats. I wondered what was going on as I pushed my way through the throngs to get to Noir for a much-needed drink…of course, everyone was out and about for the new Harry Potter book, which went on sale at midnight at the area bookstores. They ended up closing Mass Ave because there were so many people. What a sight to see people of all ages brought together by such a cultural phenomenon.
Earth2Tech Launches
Congrats to Om and the rest of the GigaOm team on their launch of Earth2Tech, a publication focused on the cleantech/greentech industry. I don’t know much about it but it seems that it will be a welcome addition to the burgeoning space.