Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Qwisk is a new social browsing tool that launched yesterday at the TechCrunch Real-Time CrunchUp.  Qwisk lets you quickly and easily share content with your social networks (Twitter and Facebook supported, plus the Qwisk network).  It inserts a messaging pane on the left side of your screen to give you access to your social networks as you browse, and adds a sharing toolbar at the top of the screen to allow you to share content as you browse.  To access content that others have shared, you simply click the individual messages in the messaging pane.  To share content, press the appropriate button in the toolbar.

One can also start an IM-like conversation about a particular page with another Qwisk user by simply dragging that person’s image from the left pane onto the page.

It’s a clever implementation, although others have tried similar projects before (anyone remember me.dium?).  The timing for a social sharing tool, however, is better than it has been previously as sites like Twitter and Facebook have rapidly become a constant firehose of links.  Moreover, every link shared via Qwisk is actually a link embedded into Qwisk, making each user who clicks into a Qwisk user.  Qwisk should propagate virally, and very very quickly.

In use Qwisk is reasonably unobtrusive, although it requires the user to remember to browser using the Qwisk URL bar rather than the standard browser bar.  With large widescreen monitors, the extra real estate Qwisk consumes isn’t an issue.  It might be irritating on a netbook.  It is, however, far too easy to leave the Qwisk environment – the simple act of clicking on a link forwarded via email brings up the browser without the Qwisk add-ins.  The Qwisk team needs to find a way to make their tool a permanent feature of my browsing environment, and not something I have to remember to browse to each time before beginning to browse.

Will people leave the tools they’ve become accustomed to for Qwisk?  That part is unclear.  Tweetdeck is a staple in my toolbox because of the other features – searches, filters, and so on – and not so much the fact that it makes it easy to share content.  Qwisk, while promising, has more work to do before it’s a replacement for me.

Nokia’s N97 is the latest in their range of high end smart phones. The first N-Series phone with a touch screen, the N97 also hides a flip-out keyboard. Laden with 32G of storage, a 5 megapixel camera, Nokia Maps, Nokia’s Comes with Music service, and more, this phone is a feature laden treat for mobile phone buffs and a worthy opponent to Apple’s newly released iPhone 3GS.  In fact, the specifications for the N97 versus the iPhone 3GS are nearly identical, right down to the dimensions.

So which is better?  I took both for a spin on a recent trip to San Francisco to find out.

Let’s start with the fact that the N97 is not Nokia’s first touch screen phone.  That distinction goes to the 5800 XpressMusic.  The N97, however, is a much better touch screen device than the 5800 was.  More thought has been put into finger-tip user interfaces, and the interface itself is faster and feels more natural.  For example, on the 5800, to scroll the screen, you had to put a finger on a small scroll bar and push the bar.  On the N97, you simple touch the screen and swipe in the direction you want to scroll – a la Apple’s iPhone.  One noticeably absent gesture, however, is the iPhone “pinch” for enlarging and shrinking a screen.

The biggest difference between iPhone and N97 is simply the fact that the iPhone is designed around the absence of a keyboard, whereas the N97 is designed to add touch features to a keyboarded device.  That has profound implications for user experience, and generally iPhone succeeds better than N97.

The Home Screen is a new concept for Nokia.  Unlike previous N-series devices, the N97’s home screen can be customized with widgets allowing you to see various kinds of information at a glance – weather, presence status of friends, emails received, or a summary of your Facebook account, for example. It works naturally with the touch screen as well. This short video shows it in action.

When compared to the iPhone springboard, it’s clear that Nokia has taken a different approach. N97 designer Axel Meyer had an explicit goal to connect the people around you with the content that you wanted to share with them.  The result is that the N97 home screen provides a variety of different and useful information “on deck”. iPhone, by comparison, focuses on easy access to applications.  Nokia’s approach is promising and may ultimately have more appeal than the iPhone springboard. However, it is easier to find and use applications on iPhone, because applications on the N97 are buried two folders away from the home screen.

Artfully hidden beneath the screen is a small keyboard. The keyboard took a little practice to be able to use well, but once accustomed to it, I was able to compose short emails as easily on the N97 as on the iPhone. Managing email was a little more difficult on N97 versus iPhone.  The iPhone is really optimized for reading, filing, deleting and forwarding emails which makes for a smoother overall experience. One sorely needed improvement to N97 email is an auto-correct feature to allow spelling errors to be more easily corrected.

Another appealing aspect of the N97 is the fact that it can be used to watch video. It’s becoming more and more common to watch video on planes and while commuting on a small form factor devices like the N97 or the iPhone. And because you can pop the screen up on an angle by folding out the keyboard, it’s not necessary to hold the N97 in hand for hours at a time – a definite improvement compared to iPhone.

The camera on the N97 is a gem.  With 5 megapixels of resolution, Carl Zeiss optics, and a xenon dual-LED flash, this is the equivalent of today’s snapshot cameras.  Other camera phones can’t hold a candle to any of the N-series phones, simply because of the attention to detail that Nokia lavishes on the camera.  For example, here are two unretouched photos of the San Francisco skyline – the first shot with iPhone, and the second with the N97.  The iPhone photographs have a pronounced blue cast to them.  Notice how much brighter, color saturated and clearer the N97 photograph is.  Moreover, the differences become even more pronounced when each photograph is viewed at its original size (click on the photograph to see it full size).

The impact of the extra pixel density can be seen in other ways as well.  For example, the photograph taken with the N97 presents several opportunities for cropping and digital zoom.  I’ve created a dramatic photo here by cropping, warming the color temperature and saturating color.  The same crop and manipulation of the photo taken on iPhone is dramatically different.  Moreover, even after cropping the N97 photograph it is still 1496 pixels wide – large enough for a small print.

The digital zoom on the N97 is also quite good.  The photo below is unaltered.  It’s a little blurry because of the digital zoom, but with sharpening it could be improved  easily.  iPhone is simply unable to take this shot.

You can really get some amazing photographs with the N97. Here are a couple more  that I shot walking around San Francisco.

The N97 also supports the capture of widescreen video.  I found it easy to grab small clips, although the tiny form factor of the device made it difficult to hold steady.  A welcome addition would be some image stabilization capabilities in the camera.  In the absence of that, a small tripod would be very helpful.

The impact of 5 megapixels of video capture can also be seen in these two short clips of a fountain I walked by in Detroit’s Airport on the way back.  The Nokia clip was shot on a two year old N95 equipped with a similar 5 megapixel camera to the N97. The clips are near identical, showing the same fountain.  However, the Nokia clip shows much greater clarity, color, and detail than the iPhone clip does.

Another N-Series feature I took advantage of while in San Francisco was navigation.  Both iPhone and the N97 come with mapping software, a compass, and the ability to plot a route.  In addition, the N97 includes a 3 month license for Nokia’s navigation application.  After the initial 3 months, a navigation license can be purchased from Nokia for €49,99 (about $70) annually.  Coupled with an aftermarket dashboard mount, this turns your phone into a viable substitute for a dedicated navigation system from a manufacturer such as Garmin or Magellan. You will, however, want to purchase a car charger, as running the screen constantly results in a rapidly depleted battery.   Navigation for iPhone will be available as a third party application from TomTom later this year.

Web browsing is roughly equivalent on both devices. The Nokia browser and Safari on iPhone are both webkit browsers, which means that they render pages nearly identically.  iPhone has the edge, however, because of the multi-touch “pinch” gesture.  It’s simply easier to display and read a web page on iPhone.

And what about music? Music is, after all, Apple’s heritage.  Surprisingly, the N97 is very good here.  With 32G of memory, expandable by a further 16G SD card,  the N97 can hold more music.    The N97 playback application is not as slick as Apple’s iPod application, but it’s still very serviceable.  Plus, the N97 includes speakers for stereo playback if you don’t want to listen on your headphones.

Other notable differences:

• Battery life: N97 wins over the notoriously bad iPhone power consumption.
• Gaming: Both devices support touch screen gaming.  In addition, the N97 puts a gamer style D-Pad on the device, whereas iPhone simply uses the accelerometer to create innovative new games.  However, the sheer number of games available in the iPhone app store make iPhone the better gaming platform.
• Screen: N97 wins with a 640×360 pixel monster vs. the iPhone 480×320.

So N97 or iPhone?  Which one wins overall?

The N97 is a smash hit when it comes to photography and video.  If you care about taking great photos or videos and sharing them with others, then there really is no better choice than the N97.  However, you will have to compromise on user experience. The N97 is less polished than the iPhone, and Apple’s iPhone experience is simply easier and better integrated overall than the N97.

If applications are important to you, especially email, iPhone 3GS is the better choice.  Applications load faster, are slicker and easier to use, are better integrated with the platform, and there are simply more choices on iPhone.

I’ve been carrying a Nokia N95 and an iPhone for over a year now.  I really do enjoy photography with the N95 plus the features of the iPhone.  I’ve tried several other Nokia N-Series devices over the past year as they’ve come available to me, and always returned to the N95.  After four days of carry an N97 and the new iPhone, I can honestly say that I would make the upgrade from the N95 to the N97… but I’m not yet ready to give up the iPhone.

I dread getting email on Facebook. 

How is it that Facebook, with 200 million users, still suffers along with the same broken email client as two years ago.  With no folders, no offline mode, slow search, no forward, no ability to add people to a thread, no archive capability, and no ability to delete multiple messages, it is the worst email experience I’ve ever encountered.  The proxied email message I get in my Outlook Inbox when somebody mails me on Facebook only adds salt to the wound, because I can’t reply to it – without logging into Facebook and using their brain dead email client. That’s the reason my Facebook Inbox is clogged with thousands of messages, and some important messages go unanswered. 

You’d think that an enterprising third party developer might have created a solution to this – a connector to Facebook for Outlook, or a better Facebook email application that can run in the Facebook environment.  The answer is sadly, no. 

Here’s my challenge.  I’ll put up $200 toward a prize for the first Facebook email client (offline or otherwise) that will allow me to effectively manage my Facebook inbox.  If you have a Facebook inbox problem, join me – put your pledge in the comments below.  Let’s see if we can raise $10,000 for some lucky developer to fix Facebook’s email problem.  And if you’re the first developer to deliver a working modern replacement for Facebook’s email, then you hit the jackpot!

VoIP on Facebook – Is it Worth? asks whether, after all of the hype months ago about Voice on Facebook, it makes sense to integrate voice applications with the platform.  The writer observes that it’s relatively easy to simply exchange phone numbers.

I can’t speak for the other vendors mentioned in the post, but I will say that a substantial portion of Calliflower’s call volume is still generated from our Facebook application, more than a year after we moved to the web.  Calliflower on Facebook continues to grow at the same pace as our web application, despite the fact that we do no promotion on the Facebook platform as well.

The audience for Calliflower on Facebook are primarily people who are trying to use the Facebook platform as a prospecting tool. They’re seeking to network with individuals and businesses, and host a call with potential customers using Calliflower.  It’s quite a different demographic than the typical Facebook user, but it’s still a strong demographic.  The Facebook for Business group, for example, has over 40,000 members. 

So is it worth integrating with Facebook?  As Andy Abramson said, “[yes], from the perspective of being a call trigger point, not a voice hosting platform.”

Want some help promoting your teleseminar, or online event?  Calliflower conference calls have a number of features that are designed to help internet marketers do just that.

Google Indexing

Each public call in Calliflower is Google indexed.  Calliflower uses the Subject of the conference call as the <META> Title, and publishes the Agenda of the call as the <META> description. And, just like a blog, each public call is added to the apps.calliflower.com sitemap.  The result is that Calliflower calls are naturally search optimized.

Here are some examples:

ReadWriteWeb Live recently held an online event titled “Online Tools for Career Discovery & Job Searching”.  A Google search of Online Career Discovery displays this as the #8 result:

When Voxbone announced their iNum country code 883, they were interviewed on the SquawkBox podcast.  A Google search on country code 883 shows this result as the #4 result:

To take advantage of this as a call organizer, you must:

1. Use keyword rich Subjects for your conference calls, and for the Agendas for your calls. 
2. Give Google time to get it into the index.  Calliflower is a large site, and it can take a day or two for calls to appear in the Google index.  If you publish your event a week or ten days in advance, it will appear in Google searches for sure.
3. Link back to your event, in order to boost its search ranking.  ReadWriteWeb Live events rank very highly because they frequently employ this strategy.

Facebook and Twitter Integration

One of the best ways to promote your event is via your social network.  Calliflower helps you to automate that in three ways:

1. You can press the button on your call to cause a Twitter message to be sent about the call.  The call URL will be shortened with bit.ly, and the message will go out on your personall Twitter account, plus the @Calliflower Twitter account.
2. You can set Calliflower to automatically tweet every new public event that you create as well.  That way you never need to remember to press the Tweet This button.
3. On Facebook, if you have installed the Calliflower Facebook application, Calliflower will automatically add calls to your profile newsfeed.  Note that you can achieve the same effect if you already send your Twitter stream to Facebook. 

Best of all, because Calliflower uses bit.ly to compress URL’s, you can also track the effectiveness of those tweets.  Simply create a bit.ly account, and then search for the compressed URL.  Bit.ly will tell you how many people clicked on your call, when, and from where the clicks originated.  Try http://bit.ly/info/gs2lZ – a bit.ly record of a tweet that was sent for a call a couple of weeks ago — to see what I mean.

Calliflower Best Practices for Social Media Effectiveness

When I create a public event with Calliflower I do three simple things.

1. I create the call in advance, with keyword rich agendas and subjects. That gets my call into the search engine with the keywords I care about. 
2. I write about the call on this blog, well in advance of the call, including those same keywords. I may also put out a press release using PRFree or another link friendly service.  My goal is to creates backlinks to my call and increases its ranking in the search engine.
3. I promote the call using Twitter and Facebook in order to create more visibility and to be able to track interest. 

Calliflower was created to be search engine and social media friendly, and an ordinary conference call service just isn’t.  That’s a competitive advantage that all of our customers should be exploiting.