According to TechCrunch, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has offered $250,000 to get a slot on one of Twitters’ feature of suggested Users. This feature pops up when someone signs up for the first time and recommends people and originations whose followers have skyrocketed by being on the list.

By getting on to this list, Calacanis wants to gain more followers and potential customers.  Twitter hasn’t responded to the offer, and even if they do there is no telling whether more followers would translate to anything other then a lot of annoying tweets but the offer does make you think twice about a site that many (myself included) mocked at the onset.  The site built on the simple idea of short 140 characters has more applications than anyone would have imagined.

Today’s Washington Post had a great column by Dana Milbank.  The piece largely poked fun at members of congress on their blackberry’s twittering away while listening the president make a dire assessment of the U.S. economy.  

Milbank’s column highlights the importance of understanding social network mediums.  Take for example, President Obama. Obama use of social networking arguably won him the election.  Since taking office President Obama has been praised for his usage of social networking, from his weekly YouTube address to his revamping of whitehouse.gov.I’m not saying congress should abandon their twitter like Obama did back in November.  I’m just saying tweets like Congressmen Culberson’s, “Capt Sully is here — awesome!” might be thoughts best SMS’d to a friend.In short, to use social networking effectively you must both understand the medium and control your message.

The Washington Post published an article today about President Obama’s staff walking in to their new workplace and finding themselves in a “technological dark age.” The article is getting a lot of attention due to the level of technology deployed throughout the Obama campaign.

I’m of two minds here - On one hand I can COMPLETELY understand why the Secret Service and those responsible for securing the White House’s communications would be extremely wary of lifting security regulations on outside email accounts, instant messaging, social networking applications - all communications vehicles that make the Executive Branch more vulnerable to an e-attack (and yes, I just made that word up).

On the other hand the American people have been subjected to our government operating in an inefficient manner for much too long, and its about time the White House was introduced to the 21st Century. These communication channels help the administration immensely by allowing them to communicate with each other, their supporters and the general electorate - something the public yearns for. After decrying the lack of transparency during the Bush years, the administration is supposed to retreat in to the turtle shell that is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, just like their predecessors? As a wise man once said - that’s not change, that’s more of the same.  

What’s needed is a bridge between secure and open communications on the Internet. The brilliant folks in the Secret Service and the Obama administration can surely work together to figure out a way to allow Executive Branch staff to creatively and constructively communicate with the outside world while ensuring a secure system.  Yes, they can!

THE DEATH OF THE INTERNET

Yesterday I began to use my new kindle, which is an entirely new device available from Amazon.  If you haven’t seen it in person, you can find out more on the web at www.amazon.com/kindle   Imagine a device that looks sort of like a frame that is about 8″ high and less than 6″ wide, maybe half an inch thick and weighs a few ounces.  Now imagine that the glass part of the frame only takes up the top two-thirds, with the bottom third devoted to an easy-to-use keyboard and a few special keys.  Under the “glass” is a new type of “page” using a new type of “ink.”  You can see the contents easily in any light, indoors or out, and if you are reading type, you can increase the font and put away your reading glasses.  What you see is what you access wirelessly and virtually instantaneously from Amazon, including books at less than $10.00, subscriptions to newspapers and other news sources from several nations, blogs, and a lot more that I haven’t discovered yet.  One nice thing is that you can (as I am doing currently) read a book or two (or more) and some newspapers, put them “down” whenever you feel like it, and when you come back to it, you come back to exactly where you left off.

The kindle is far from perfect.  As is iPhone.  As are lots of other devices and services that are being introduced to the market.  Whether these new innovations are perfect or not is irrelevant.  Taken together, they are indicative of a trend that I believe can be defined as the Death of the Internet.

To explain what I mean by the Death of the Internet, I want to reflect on two other comparable deaths: the death of the caller ID box and the death of transistors. Remember when caller ID first emerged?  What a great device!  For the first time, you knew who was calling before you picked up the phone.  The benefits are obvious.  But caller ID was not without controversy.  In fact, California at first banned caller ID technology from being used in the state, and was the last state to allow it — in about 1993 or so if I remember correctly.  Caller ID was first offered as a “peripheral” — that is, a box that you attached to your phone.  But fairly soon after its introduction as a stand-alone device, responding to rapid and broad acceptance by the marketplace, manufacturers of telephone units began to integrate the caller ID box into the phone itself.  Today, all phones, wired or wireless, for the home or office, incorporate caller ID.  It became ubiquitous, and when it became ubiquitous it was no longer “there” as something unique or even identifiable.  The peripheral itself died as it became part of the thing into which it was integrated.

I remember the year 1955, because of a few reasons.  My family moved from New York to the Greater Washington area (Alexandria, VA).  And the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in the World Series.  And there was also my first transistor radio.  It was not “a portable radio.”  It was not even always “a transistor radio.”  Often it was simply “the transistor.”  It was remarkable.  Radios shrunk from those pieces of furniture you gathered around to listen to Dragnet to something you could hold up to your ear with one hand and carry with you everywhere.  No plug; one special battery.

Transistor radios, we all knew, were made possible by transistors themselves.  The hype about transistors, and what they could do, and how they would change our lives was at least as great as the hype that exists for the Internet now.  Transistors would be everywhere.  They would be part of everything.  They would change the way we live.  The predictions actually came true!  Transistors ARE everywhere today, from your wrist, where they are used to keep time, to the device on which you are reading this, to your car, your kitchen.  It is hard to think of a device where transistors are not integral components.  They are ubiquitous.  They are no longer peripheral to anything; they are a vital part of our lives and the way we live.  So vital and so integrated into our lives that we no longer think of them.  Transistors have basically “died.”

Just as transistors have died from ubiquity, so too will the network that today makes possible my new kindle and the iPhone, Blackberry, cell phone, text messaging, GPS devices, streaming video, Internet Radio.  This network operates through wires and wirelessly, within a house and throughout the world.  I no longer go to a special place, such as my desk, to access this network.  Remember the phrase “I’m going to log on”?  When did that phrase emerge?  Ever hear it anymore?  We no longer need to use the phrase because we no longer need to “log on.”  We are connected all the time.  And as these devices — plus devices we aren’t even aware of yet — do move beyond their initial flaws and get closer to perfection, they will be integrated into our lives even more.  Our connection to a network we currently refer to as the Internet will no longer be peripheral to us.  It will be part of us.  Wherever we are.  In one form or another, obvious and totally hidden.

As this is happening with accelerating speed, the Internet is dying as certainly as caller ID boxes died and as transistors died.  I think this will have enormous implications on the way we communicate and the communications industry.  I expect to write about that some more in the future.  But in the meantime, if you want a hint of how the communications industry is going to change, take a look at what The Washington Post is doing with the iPhone — I am very excited about the fact that Qorvis has been part of that effort.  This is a prelude to a new era in communications.  Here is the release that announced the first in a series of applications for the iPhone:

July 23, 2008 10:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time  

washingtonpost.com Launches First iPhone Native Application

City Guide App Provides On-the-Go Info for D.C.-Area Hot Spots

GPS-Enabled Search Plus Reviews on Restaurants, Bars & Clubs

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today washingtonpost.com launches the site’s first downloadable application for the iPhone and iPod touch, providing an on-the-go, personal entertainment guide for over 2,000 Washington, D.C.-area restaurants, bars and clubs.The City Guide app uses a GPS feature to find and map all nearby locations within blocks of where a user is standing. With an easy-to-navigate design, the application lets users search by name, neighborhood and cuisine. Users can quickly look up an address, phone number, hours, price range, directions and more.Popular Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema’s restaurant reviews and top picks from washingtonpost.com’s Going Out Gurus guide users to the city’s best destinations. Users can make a list of their personal favorites to reference regularly or create a list of hot spots they want to try.We are continuing to explore opportunities to translate features on washingtonpost.com for mobile audiences and the City Guide application was a natural fit,” said Jim Brady, Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com. With this application, we are giving mobile users all of the information they need to conveniently navigate the entertainment scene in and around D.C.The City Guide iPhone application is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch under the Lifestyle category. Users can download City Guide using the following link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewSoftware?id=285887422&mt=8 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)The new iPhone City Guide app is an expansion of washingtonpost.com’s mobile entertainment offerings. Anyone with a Web-enabled mobile phone can look up information on D.C. area restaurants, bars and clubs or movie show times by visiting: http://twp.com/cityguide. Users without that capability can text a search term plus a location to WPOST (97678). For more information on City Guide mobile offerings visit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/cityguide/mobile/.  washingtonpost.com worked with Qorvis Communications to develop and design the City Guide iPhone application.

About washingtonpost.com: washingtonpost.com is an award-winning news and information destination that delivers world-class reporting and innovative multimedia content, creating a truly interactive news experience. Using the latest technology and tools, washingtonpost.com encourages participation and content customization across all platforms, allowing readers to engage with washingtonpost.com anytime, anywhere. Winner of four consecutive Edward R. Murrow Awards for Overall Excellence for Non-Broadcast Affiliated Web site, washingtonpost.com is owned by Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive, the online publishing subsidiary of The Washington Post Company. (NYSE:WPO)

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