Wak Oentoenk

For several weeks I've been in a private beta test of a new social networking service designed to help mobile and PC users keep in touch and share ideas. I think it's the sexiest new product I've seen since the Nokia 7650, and even though it's still in early beta I want to talk about it.I promised not to describe some of the details of their implementation, because the patents haven't all been filed, so I apologize in advance that I'll have to leave some blanks. But here goes...The company, Inrvoice...

Okay, that's a deliberately provocative headline, but I was very surprised this week when Sprint gave more details on the rollout plan for its WiMax high-speed network. Keep in mind that Sprint's counting on support from the technology and content industries to help make its network successful. They want lots of new devices and lots of new services to drive usage of mobile WiMax.So, what are the first nineteen cities where Sprint's rolling out WiMax?There's Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis,...

This afternoon I heard from a reporter that Google and Microsoft are now rumored to be interested in buying Palm. I have no idea who starts these rumors, or whether there's any truth to them, but they're not nearly creative enough. Here's my list of other companies that have absolutely no interest in buying Palm, but ought to be in the rumor mill anyway. Feel free to re-use these if you want to manipulate the stock market. No need to credit me; I don't want to be visited by the Feds.7. AirbusCompelling...

One of the stranger rituals of American sports is the country's affection for the annual college basketball championship tournament. Why this country is so obsessive about college basketball and football, when every other college sport is completely ignored, is a mystery that the nation's greatest sociologists and standup comedians have never been able to explain.But there it is. If your alma mater's basketball team is participating in "March Madness," as we call it, it's mandatory to watch the...

I thought it would be good to add a suggestion box to Mobile Opportunity. Here it is. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this weblog, please post a comment here. I'll link to this post from the sidebar, so you can get to it easily.Thanks in advance for your feedba...

The Emerging Telephony (eTel) conference brings together the open source and web telephony community. It's a bit of a geekfest, with a lot more focus on technology than on business issues, but some of the trends and ideas I saw at it this year are worth sharing.I wrote a business-oriented summary for the Rubicon weblog, focusing on three issues I saw at the conference that I think have broad relevance to tech companies: the emerging standards for identity management, the vulnerability of mashups...

I scan a lot of technology weblogs, and it has been fascinating to see how the recent New York Times report on the hiring of Paul Mercer by Palm has been echoed all over the blogosphere. The story seems to have some sort of special iconic importance to a lot of people; they view it as a response to the iPhone, or as a milestone indicating trouble for Palm.Paul's a good guy, he had a nice reputation at Apple, but it bewilders me that the Times picked up on that particular hire. There has been a...

I know, I'm having a fantasy. The term "convergence" and the idea behind it -- that various industries in technology and entertainment are gradually merging -- is pervasive online and in the popular press. Nothing I write here is going to change that.But let me say this for the record anyway: The problem with convergence is that when you look closely, it's not happening.Markets aren't converging, they're diverging. The web deconstructs mass markets, by making it economically attractive for a...

I recently wrote that the argument over the viability of Web 2.0 applications misses the point -- most of the applications on any new computing platform die. What matters are the innovations and new business models that we learn from them.One of the things we're clearly learning about from Web 2.0 is how to organize an online community.There have been obsessive communities in society for thousands of years: dog breeders, fraternal societies, Amiga users, and so on. What the Web has done is make...

In case you missed it, there's a long interview with Jeff Hawkins of Palm over on PalmAddicts. In the interview, Hawkins hints very strongly that he'll show the company's new "third category" device in May."We’re going to be announcing something…but I won’t tell you what it is…we will be launching this year, not in the distant future. I’ll give you a much bigger hint: I’m going to be speaking at Walt Mossberg’s D Conference in May. It’s a high-end industry conference. Anyway, I’m going to be giving...