We kicked off the mobile blogging session with the statement that we didn't want to dwell on definitions, but rather look at the technology and solutions that would make mobile blogging easier to do.  We first surveyed the different types of mobile blogging, from filing entries from a PDA, Blackberry or cell phone, to photo, video and audio blogging.

Other than acknowledging that mobile video and audio blogging were technically "real hard to do" technically, we didn't dwell on these applications, and instead focused most of the session on cell phone text and photo blogging.

We discussed what the perfect device would be - a combination megapixel camera plus MPG-3 player and much better text handling (a la Blackberry) that had a programmable operating system (like Java or Symbian) that would accept downloaded customized applications.  At this point the room monitor jumped into the fray and brought up the issue of cost, pointing out that many people can't afford fancy cell phones, never mind a PC on which to blog.

This tuned the discussion to whether the mobile phone or PC would become the dominant internet appliance in the future, with most people in the room recognizing the huge market potential of providing services to mobile phone users, but wondering what blogging would be in a world constrained by T9 input and a 2" x 3" display.

Most of the rest of the session focused on photo blogging, and how much actual layout and design could be done remotely via the cell phone versus back at the ranch on a computer.

Menna Trott and Mie Kennedy, who are inveterate photo blogger, spoke about how the medium lends itself to a very personal expression of lifestyle and vision.  In this context, the low resolution of existing VGA-quality cameras was considered a plus by producing unintended art via visual effects that are artifacts of the rather poor quality of the image, ensuring that the image would be personal and not "professional." As camera phones increase in resolution (1 Megapixel cameras are the norm in Europe and Asia, with 3-5 megapixel cameras just around the corner) the group expected to see more professional uses in real estate, insurance, sports, corporate, etc.

Since many photo blogs consist mainly of photos with relatively little text the group pondered the definition of blogging from a mobile-phone perspective.  Everyone agreed that a non-PC centric vision of blogging had to evolve to meet the needs of the camera-phone-only user population, with photo sharing and blogging services that would be accessible via mobile phones needed in the future.

# Posted by Craig Cline on 11/13/04; 3:43:25 PM - --