Other than heading up to Ruth’s Diner for breakfast this morning with the RoyalAnts crew I have spent the entire day doing more research and more planning and this is both frustrating and amazing. Frustrating because there is so much info out there and I’m finding new stuff hourly and there is no way to know it all and all you can do is try to keep up. That is also what is so amazing about it. Social Media is so broad and so diverse that you can use these tools to do anything you want. It’s so amazing and so fascinating that I see why I am so drawn to it. It’s like the never ending erector set of online pieces that all fit together in any way you can imagine. The way you use a product won’t be the way that everyone else does. The endless and always growing combinations are so much fun to learn about and explore that it’s easy to have a whole Saturday just kind of… slip away.

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Right now I’m sitting at my computer working on stuff for RoyalAnts. My laptop is in my living room facing towards the TV which is playing KungFu Hustle (which is on Spike at the moment) and I have my receiver switched to AUX where I have my media server (which is hooked up to my TV and surround sound) playing my mp3’s on random. I’m sitting here and I can’t help but be amazed at the technology that surrounds us on a daily basis that we just completely take for granted because we are just used to it. When I was a kid I couldn’t fathom a computer as small as my laptop, I would never have thought of using my computer on my TV and watching movies by playing a file instead of using some physical media was just plain preposterous. That’s not to say that I didn’t do this type of thing when I was a kid, I just went about it differently. I used to turn on my parents record player (then later the cassette and after that the cd player) then turn off the sound to the TV and watch tv shows, commercials, infomercials, movies and anything else with my very own soundtrack. That’s how I used to play my Atari, original NES, and later computer games as well. I have long used this means of visual audio combination as a tool to help me create. It gives me something to look at that isn’t what ever I’ve been obsessing over for the last several hours yet doesn’t completely distract me, and I always look forward to those neat little moments where what’s on TV matched up so well with the song I was listening to at the time.

But what does this have to do with RoyalAnts? What does this have to do with you and me and the rest of the world? What does this have to do with Social Media? Well it’s the same age old answer that grandparents and philosophers alike love to throw about, and that answer is everything and nothing. On the superficial level it means nothing. It’s just me talking about under what conditions I like to create. There’s nothing wrong with that, other bloggers do it all the time. But lets look at the first part of that answer, the everything part.

I shared a story about how I have been doing the exact same thing that I have done since i was a kid and as new technology came about I just adapted and found newer, easier, and more interactive ways of doing it. This to me is a metaphor for social networking. When we were kids and all the way on up through young adults we had a mandatory way of networking in the form of schools. Meeting people with similar interests, learning from them, exchanging ideas, stories, and media (through cassettes, dvds, books, etc). College was a bit less in the area of entertainment and a bit more in the area of professional interests but we still did the same thing. We sought out people of like interests and shared media (content) with them (who then became our friends) and they exposed us to new stuff and new people and on and on the cycle went.

I guess when you boil it all down what I’m trying to say is that social networking (even social media) isn’t anything new at all, it’s just the next step in how humans connect. For the skeptics out there who say it’s a fad, for the businesses who don’t want to see the value in it, and for those who are stubbornly refusing to “jump on the band wagon” I say quit dragging your heels. This isn’t something new, it’s just a new way of doing the same thing we’ve been doing since we climbed out of the primordial ooze and started making guttural noises at each other. We’re finding new ways of connecting.

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T-Mobile is going to try and open their own app store later this fall. They will be opening up the developers platform for all of their handsets from sidekicks to their new Andriod based handset which will be also be coming out this fall. I can understand why they would be doing this, with the Apple store bringing in over $30 million in their first month who wouldn’t want in on this emerging market? I can see the inherent problems with trying to get so many platforms supported under one roof, like massive amounts of apps for one phone but a scant few for others, but maybe that’s what they’re hoping for. For instance lets say that Johhny has something like a Samsung rocker and his friend Jimmy has a sidekick. If there are more apps for higher end devices like Sidekicks Johnny is going to get jealous and want to upgrade to a higher end device which will bring in more money on devices and data plans for T-Mobile (not to mention their cut of the application sell price).

Personally, I’m looking forward to this app store. I’m a die-hard T-Mobile fan. Their customer service is amazing and I have my 2 year contract renewal coming up this winter. I won’t deny that I want an iPhone, in fact the only reason I haven’t gotten one is because I would have to use AT&T, Cingular, or what ever they are calling themselves this week, and in my own horrific experience their customer service is abysmal at best. I’m looking forward to my experience this winter when I renew my T-Mobil contract and pick up some form of smart phone so I can start Downloading apps until my bank account runs dry. As for RoyalAnts, we will be looking into the various platforms and deciding which ones we want to develop apps for (of course the iPhone is top priority because it makes the most business sense). Mobile is the way the world is going and we plan on being there.

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I have written three different posts about this article and they all come out sounding like crap compared to the article itself. This post from Mashable talks about how affordable broadband effects our economy and the way we do business. It’s just a fantastic article and I learned a ton from it and now view my internet usage a bit differently. I’m done talking, now go read the article.
http://mashable.com/2008/08/05/cheap-broadband/

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