Mobile Blogging…Long, Long way to go
by Aner Ravon

I attended a Genesis Technology Vision event yesterday and was pleasantly intrigued. It was not the typical, stereo-typed VC day a working bee would expect, but a real, candid discussion about the role of mobile services and technology in a converging world. It did focus, naturally, on the innovation landscape and potential, which got me thinking again about the potential for new communications apps in a converging environment. I have managed to put together pretty substantiated opinions about the limitations of traditional communication apps (Email, IM, SMS, Voip) when it comes to convergence, but have not a clue about mobile blogging. Is it yet another buzz-hype or a real, uncovered need waiting for innovators to solve and prosper?

Let’s think this through for a minute. Blogging is not a trivial mobile app at all. I can actually think of totally different applications - one for writers and one for readers. I trust mobile browsing will become the dominant reading tool and therefore focus on mobile posting. Since the advantages of a PC are so dominant when it comes to “regular” posting, the natural use case would be a value add, complimentary one - basically capturing a spontaneous moment. That particular moment can be described textually, visually or both. It can justify a brand new post, add flavor to an existing post or simply comment on a previous one. Various editing tools seem to be required - Spell checking, tagging, previewing and simple editing of at least a subject line and a descriptive sentence.

Then, as a publisher, I’d like my readers to receive an indication about the mobile origin of a particular entry. After all, my mobile testing and photo capturing skills are not something to brag about.

And I haven’t even touched on the need to manage more then one blog at a time, comment on other people’s blogs, search for blogs, receive RSS alerts and so forth. It seems endless!

Equipped with enthusiasm I googled “mobile blogging applications“. and then “blogging from my mobile“. Nada. A pile of techie stuff. Actually I did find and click a sponsored link, Hblogger, which turned to be mobile blogging software for Palm devices. I took a moment to ponder the business logic behind creating such an application for Palm, and then it was time for help. I turned to my friend Alon who pointed me to three possible solutions - Pico, Shozu, and Flickr moblogging. Pico seemed like a sophisticated mobile posting app. It supposedly works with every XML RPC powered which basically means all modern blogs out there (are we actually supposed to know that term???). However the application is available for Symbian devices only and I own a Motorola RAZR. Ouch. I moved on to Shozu. Posting through Shozu is a bit of a trick since Shozu is a mobile picture sharing application, not mobile blogging. Since Shozu supports uploading to Flickr and since Flickr support direct posting to a blog, there is some transitive sense that according to my friend Alon does the trick. However, Shozu, despite having more clients then Pico do, still do not have an option for my RAZR.

Beat up but undeterred, I moved on to Flickr. Flickr has taken a simple route but one that actually works. If you are technically challenged like I am, here is a “simple” step by step guide:

1. Follow Flickr’s instructions and link your Flickr account to your blog. Cheat #1: don’t forget to add “xmlrtc” to your blog’s web address, 10 minutes of misery right there.

2. Flickr then generates a unique email address for you which will act as a posting proxy. You can receive your unique email address via email.

3. Add a Flickr contact to your mobile address book. Cheat #2: copy and paste the email address to a web sms application and send it to your mobile. Then use the phone to extract the email address from the SMS and save it as a new email contact, preferably a contact that starts with an “A”.

4. From that point on, anything you send to that address will be immediately posted as a new entry. Cheat #3, Flickr will use the picture file name as the entries subject, not very convenient. You need to remember to rename the picture before you post it.

I tried it. Got an entry with a weird subject I had to immediately go online and delete.

Now how ugly is that? Random subject, No editing, no formatting, no reviewing, “straight forward” activation and a very “intuitive” user experience. And we’re talking about the best one out there i could find after a couple of hours of search!

Unacceptable.

The big problem with the current state of mobile blogging is not lack of need. It is with quality. The flaws easily outweigh the benefits. No-one seems to have figured out how to really provide mobile blogging on a mobile device. No-one seems to have figured how users can feel comfortable with the expected results of their mobile actions. Bloggers are regular users, not gadget freaks, and they need to be approached as such. I believe an echo-system will be created, but it will require some fresh approaches and some macro level iterations, at least.

Aner Ravon
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