Hi there, long time no see

History:
Actually I have been doing lot of things lately but not blogging. Soon 2010 is here and I have to write something that concludes this decade. I don’t know what this decade has meant to you? I entered this decade/century/millenium as an 18 years old student on high school. For me, 2000 was the entrance to the new world outside of school. I got a part time job at Europolitan, one of the 3 biggest Mobile Operators in Sweden, located in my hometown Karlskrona. Since I did not need to do any military service i started to work there full time when I had graduated from School.

Europolitan:
I worked with phone services at Europolitan. I was working as a phone operator (phone directory assitance and switchboard services) for 1 year. That was interesting itself but the intranet and all mobile devices and services that was all around me was even more inspiring. I got in charge of a phone pool service for our department and started to help my collegues to try the new phones such as: Nokia Communicator and Ericsson T68. I got some comments like: Why do you need a color screen? and What’s the point with MMS and mobile internet? We know that now right?

My Phones:
All my phones the last decade has been collected in the image on top of this post. I have been studied each and every feature in all of my phones. Buying a new phone is all about finding new functionality, hidden treasures and customizing the phone so it’s taylor made for your everyday needs. My T68 is by far my most tailored phone. I had special ringtones for almost every close friend and family member. It was the first phone with color screen and that ment that I could have fun pictures for each and every person in my phonebook. Customizing small gifs and jpegs took much time. Was the time worth spending? Actually .. .no. . .but it was fun! I have also been writing a lot of custom made ringtones for all my ericsson phones. It is cool to see all these phones side by side.

University:
When I started studying Mathematics Engineering a new world opened up. Now I could understand each and every feature i was amazed over as a user. Speech recognition/Voice compression technology/Jpeg/MP3/MMS/GSM/UMTS was even more inspiring from a technical perspective.

Did you know that the person you hear through your mobile earphone is not the true voice? It’s just a synthetic simluation of the true voice.

Scalado:
I’m glad I have the opportunity to work at Scalado in the mobile area. Every workday counts and it is important to be open minded and think outside of the box. With Scalado, I reached my goal to work and be a part of this mobile revolution. This industry is changing how people communicate and it helps people to make their everyday life better.

Industry:
The mobile industry is the most dynamic industry in the world right now. Think about other areas and the transition during the last decade. They are not even close… Now the mobile industry have started the new era.. I find my phone more modern than my computer. . It has an app store, it is fun to use and it’s always with me!

The number of people that is online can only move in one direction, _up_. The way people will use internet will differ every year.

Example 1: newsmap.jp – News, Now!

With newsmap you can see the news that are big at the moment. Bigger news means larger space on the newsmap. Great example of the reality web. Big news is not decided by any specific news-source, it’s decided by a big number of sources.

Example 2: TwitScoop

A snapshot of Twitter, now! (Image to the right) Come back in 5 minutes and you will see a different set of scoops. I would request a twitscoop that takes snapshots for the latest minute/hour/day/week/month. If you could base your scoop on location/interests/age/subject it would be even more amazing. That will probably be available tomorrow. Otherwise I have to make it myself!

Example 4: Aardvark
Ask anything and get the answer within a couple of minutes. Aardvark is a real-time information community where you can ask anything for free. They call it social-search and it is exactly where I want the internet to become. When you register you insert your interests and some topics that you know about. Aardvark will tag a question and suggest it to a person that fits. You can get questions by email/IM or directly on your iPhone.
I am aardvarking a lot and since they also have an iPhone app i use it when I’m on the run. The other day I got a question when I was on the trainstation. It was about online Address-books. I had the answer and within minutes the man from Florida got his answer. Luckily he knew a couple of swedish words and was very happy to get in touch with a swede since his grandmother was from northen sweden. He made my evening and hopefully I made his. For free and I is surely worth the time spent.

Besides all those examples, communities are a big part of reality web.

The Twitter movement combined with facebook have in one way been more revolutionary than the IM revolution (IM = Instant messaging like MSN, ICQ and Skype) since it is more about information sharing, realtime! IM is more a free alternative to something we already had in SMS and Phone Calls, with a big twist of course. Services like last.fm that is all about music is one example of communities more focused on some special interests. You can get recommended new music, discuss music with other people and also check what your friends are listening to right now. Why don’t we have that kind of communities for movies/books/location and other interests. Tomorrow maybe?

Internet have turned from an information source into an information stream powered by the users. The large amount of users means that each and everyone only has to contribute with their presence/interests and thoughts.

Where in the stream are you today? Where in the stream are you in 2 years?

The new mobile trend is Facebook/Twitter etc. integrated in the Phone. With a phone with Facebook included you can easily check the facebook status before you call someone. The pictures of your phone contacts will be in sync with the latest ones on Facebook and you never need to worry about out-dated phone-numbers since they will be upgraded when people change them on the net.

The future is now and now is history in 5 minutes. Internet is going faster and faster and the potential is what we want it to be.

This was my version. Want to know more? Check New York Times article: Hey, Just a Minute (or Why Google Isn’t Twitter)