MoBlogging: An Executive Summary

What's Moblog?

Defn: A moblog, or a mobile blog, is an online record of anything you feel like sharing with the world, whether they want it or not. The difference between moblogging and regular blogging is that you use your phone or Pocket PC to post text or pictures.

Defn2: Mobile Blogging (also called moblogging) is the act of posting text and photos to a weblog from a mobile device. The element of reading weblogs via mobile devices is also gaining popularity.

Brief History of MoBlog

• Earliest development occurred in Japan.
• Stuart Woodward is believed to be the first person to post from an ordinary mobile device in Jan 2001
• Moblogging gained much adoption in 2002.
• Term “moblogging” was coined by Adam Greenfield in 2002.

Current Mobile Trends

• Mobile phones/devices have a very significant role in our day-2-day affairs. Primarly, it connects an individual to the rest of the world anywhere anytime. These days Mobile phones provide an end user lot more features than just making calls & sending text msgs.
• You can share your memories and conversational content – photos, videos, text messages, multimedia messages, and notes - into a chronology that you can easily browse, search, and share.
• Mobile phones have replaced computers as the de facto e-mail terminal of choice for many Japanese who are not in technology, finance, engineering or other computer-intensive occupations. This is particularly true for the young, who most clearly prefer handsets to handhelds.

Context differences of blogging between mobile & PC:

• Mobile: Living in the moment, multitasking, varying environment
• PC: Longer attention span, more focused, rich input & formatting methods

Blogging Patterns

• “I blog the instant moments first from my phone and return to them with the PC to edit them”
• “I use the PC more for thought posts and the mobile mainly for pictures”
• “I blog stuff I did not blog previously, since I can post, for example, when traveling”

Who are the major players?

Nokia | Six Apart | Earthcam | SonyEricsson | TMobile | Cingular | Vodafone | Google | Yahoo | Microsoft | Virgin Mobile | Sprint | Motricity | Verizon Wireless | O2

Current services which are available:

Motricity's provides scores of games for millions of members stretched across several carriers and it wraps around specific games tools for rating and reviewing a title, for creating buddy lists of fellow gamers and for communicating to these groups via SMS.

TextAmerica is an online photo album or moblog site that allows you to take pictures & Videos from your digital camera or camera phone and post them to their site.

Buzznet.com is a photo sharing and journal community. The site features tools to create your own public or private homepage with integrated photoblog and journals. Buzznet also provide a rich set of API's based on XML-RPC and ATOM.

Google's Blogger Mobile lets you send photos and text straight to your blog while you're on-the-go. While Blogger Mobile is currently only available in the US.

Nokia provides a service called M-Blog for Nokia users to post the pictures & videos from their mobile phones. Nokia also provides an update to its cell phone blogging software – Lifeblog,

Six Apart has apparently purchased Splashblog, the mobile photosharing solution for handhelds.

Sony Ericsson that support Google Search and Blogger.

Cingular's new mobile blogging and social networking platform called Rabble.

Other Innovative Ideas

REXplorer is a rich interactive scavenger hunt designed to enhance the tourist experience for young adults through the fun and excitement of a public game using mobile technologies as a part of the Regensburg Experience1 (REX) Museum. The well-preserved medieval city of Regensburg (to become a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006) serves as the game board for the competition.

MoBlogs - the Future of Distributed Learning and Distributed Learning Institutions.

Connectivism - Is a learning theory for the digital age. Learning has changed over the last several decades. The theories of behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism provide an effect view of learning in many environments. They fall short, however, when learning moves into informal, networked, technology-enabled arena.

eTravel Assitant for Backpackers - The aim of the project is to design an electronic travel assistant for backpackers and extend existing research methods so that they are more appropriate for mobile group research.

EarthCam adds a twist to the usual photo blog. With a paid subscription, $4.95 US a month at the time I wrote this, you can access Web cams around the world on your phone. You can also set up your own Web cam on your desktop computer, and view it on your phone. This could be useful for people who want to see their children during the day, or check on a pet.

Mobile P2P - I bet this would be the next 'big thing' to happen. Imagine the power of P2P with your PSP or XBox or any hand held device.

Disclamier: The information found in this summary on MoBlogging is aggregated from various resources & articles which were found on World Wide Web through Google Search. The content/idea/information belongs to respective owners & I don't claim any credit for them. This summary is meant for educational purposes only.