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nonhuman · Oct 21, 2006, 05:56 AM

Hey guys. I've recently become the editor of a cellphone technology news site (www.cellphonetechnews.com). We're currently on the lookout for contributing writers who know about cellphone technology, and I know there's a lot of people here who know a lot about the subject. Unfortunately, it won't pay anything at this point (there's currently only two of us, and we aren't making anything off this either), but it'll get your name out there as someone who knows about the technology.

Also, on Tuesday I'll be interviewing Seth Cummings, co-founder and VP of Amp'd Mobile, about a class he inspired at Boston University on filming movies with cellphones (http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/ne...mp;template=4). So if anyone has any questions they'd like to ask him, in particular about the class or about the idea of using cellphones to create multimedia content in general, please let me know and I'll do my best to get them into the interview.

Any inquiries about either thing can go in replies to this post, private messages to me, or email to me at josh@joshourisman.com.

brapper · Oct 21, 2006, 02:08 PM

Neato. Good luck.

alligator · Oct 21, 2006, 08:39 PM

I think there are a bunch of us who know which end to talk into - but I'm not certain you'll find a ton of experts.

CharlesS · Oct 21, 2006, 10:16 PM

Seconded. You won't find any experts here, but you will find a lot of zealots (especially from the Sony Ericsson camp) bashing any phone not made by their favorite maker for stupid reasons. I suggest you go here instead:

HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource

Chuckit · Oct 21, 2006, 10:47 PM

I don't know a lot about cell phones, but my green PEBL is really pretty.

nonhuman · Oct 22, 2006, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Seconded. You won't find any experts here, but you will find a lot of zealots (especially from the Sony Ericsson camp) bashing any phone not made by their favorite maker for stupid reasons. I suggest you go here instead:

HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource

Yeah, already did that.

But no one has any questions for the VP of Amp'd?

slugslugslug · Oct 23, 2006, 09:35 AM

CharlesS, are you saying there aren't zealots on HoFo?

CharlesS · Oct 23, 2006, 01:17 PM

You can scroll up less than a page to read my post, and see that I did not say that at all.

What I did say is that there's no one but zealots here.

slugslugslug · Oct 23, 2006, 08:51 PM

I knew you weren't actually saying that; I should've winked or something. It just seemed comical to bring up HoFo in contrast to zealotry, because a lot of their posters show a pretty baffling degree of brand loyalty.

And yes, I also am aware of that last sentence's irony in the context of a Mac forum.

freudling · Oct 23, 2006, 09:05 PM

Looks like someone wants traffic to their site...

Chuckit · Oct 23, 2006, 09:09 PM

Nah, nobody wants that.

vmarks · Oct 24, 2006, 06:28 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Seconded. You won't find any experts here,

Oh, you won't?

I wrote a short series of articles on the different technologies behind the frequency modulations used for the carriers, code division, time division, and gsm which is a combination of both, as well as an overview of the different forms that internet (cdma2000, WCDMA, 2.5g, 3g) takes.

What's what in wireless?

and

What's what in wireless: Part 2

You'd be surprised what you can find lurking around these forums.

The real problem with Ericsson pre-sony purchase was that they were pursuing the grail: a single chip phone.

They wanted to handle all phone communications, all interface (screen and button and menus) and multimedia with one chip.

They spent a lot of dev on that only to find it was cheaper (which was the whole point of doing a single chip, less to buy) and more responsive to do a two chip phone, one that handled the radio and one that handled the interface and multimedia.

vmarks · Oct 24, 2006, 06:36 AM

nonhuman,

Isn't Amp'd just an MVNO? What makes an MVNO different from buying service directly from the parent minutes provider? The service at the handset will be the same, so what are they distinguishing themselves on?

Is an MVNO at liberty to re-price the minutes any way he pleases, or does the parent minute seller provider place restrictions on it? What about FCC licensing, what's involved there?

Inspiring a class at BU is nice for PR, but is Amp'd going to make all the student movies available for free over their network to all the customers? IF the purpose of the class is to inspire people to create content for the phone format, at the same time he needs to work to create the audience - despite all the adverts on TV for it, I know of no one that uses their phone this way yet.

I think he can open the door by being the YouTube of the phone world- but he has to free it up first.

nonhuman · Oct 24, 2006, 08:29 AM

Originally Posted by freudling

Looks like someone wants traffic to their site...

Well yes, that's true. But the main reason I posted that here was to see if anyone was interested in writing, and to see if anyone had questions for Mr. Cummings. The interview's this afternoon at 4:30 (ET), so still time for questions...

nonhuman · Oct 24, 2006, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by vmarks

Oh, you won't?

I wrote a short series of articles on the different technologies behind the frequency modulations used for the carriers, code division, time division, and gsm which is a combination of both, as well as an overview of the different forms that internet (cdma2000, WCDMA, 2.5g, 3g) takes.

What's what in wireless?

and

What's what in wireless: Part 2

You'd be surprised what you can find lurking around these forums.

The real problem with Ericsson pre-sony purchase was that they were pursuing the grail: a single chip phone.

They wanted to handle all phone communications, all interface (screen and button and menus) and multimedia with one chip.

They spent a lot of dev on that only to find it was cheaper (which was the whole point of doing a single chip, less to buy) and more responsive to do a two chip phone, one that handled the radio and one that handled the interface and multimedia.

Wow, nice.

Hehehe, Ricochet. I remember when they demoed their product at a BMUG meeting. Must have been '94 or '95. Are they even still around?

nonhuman · Oct 24, 2006, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by vmarks

nonhuman,

Isn't Amp'd just an MVNO? What makes an MVNO different from buying service directly from the parent minutes provider? The service at the handset will be the same, so what are they distinguishing themselves on?

Is an MVNO at liberty to re-price the minutes any way he pleases, or does the parent minute seller provider place restrictions on it? What about FCC licensing, what's involved there?

Inspiring a class at BU is nice for PR, but is Amp'd going to make all the student movies available for free over their network to all the customers? IF the purpose of the class is to inspire people to create content for the phone format, at the same time he needs to work to create the audience - despite all the adverts on TV for it, I know of no one that uses their phone this way yet.

I think he can open the door by being the YouTube of the phone world- but he has to free it up first.

Good questions. I had only covered one of them in the questions I had already written up. I'll definitely try and work them in. Thanks.

vmarks · Oct 24, 2006, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by nonhuman

Wow, nice.

Hehehe, Ricochet. I remember when they demoed their product at a BMUG meeting. Must have been '94 or '95. Are they even still around?

The Ricochet network is still alive, although how healthy they are is a different question.

Would you believe there are still Blackberry users married to the Ricochet service?

vmarks · Oct 24, 2006, 05:40 PM

You have to update us on how the interview went.

bowwowman · Oct 24, 2006, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by nonhuman

But no one has any questions for the VP of Amp'd?

yea I got one:

Why do they always have to use a bunch of
ghettothug-crakhead-biotchi-looking sh*t4brains bozos in their ads ??????

Is this the only market segment they sell to, or just the only one they care about penetrating ?

nonhuman · Oct 24, 2006, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by vmarks

You have to update us on how the interview went.

Make me.

The interview went really well. Was about 30 mins long. I need to go over it again a couple times before I can really form any good opinions on it, but there was a lot of good information in there. Seth seems like a cool guy, and there is definitely some cool stuff going on with Amp'd and video technology.

One of the more interesting things I learned from the interview is that, apparently, people actually want to watch long videos on their cell phone. I had assumed that the demand would mostly be for short clips, but apparently the consumers actually like watching longer stuff on the tiny screen, especially for things like live coverage of UFC fights.

nonhuman · Oct 24, 2006, 08:34 PM

Originally Posted by bowwowman

yea I got one:

Why do they always have to use a bunch of
ghettothug-crakhead-biotchi-looking sh*t4brains bozos in their ads ??????

Is this the only market segment they sell to, or just the only one they care about penetrating ?

Their target market is 18-25 year olds. Their ads have whatever will sell their product to that market.