“…According to industry tracker IDC, the bestselling smartphone in the U.S. so far this year by units is not the iPhone but the BlackBerry Curve.”

While many see the iPhone/BlackBerry competition as zero sum between consumer and business users, it turns out that Apple’s marketing job convincing consumers they’d enjoy having the power of a desktop in a handheld device has been a boon to RIM.

Jessica Hempel, author of the Fortune article, states, “Since the iPhone’s introduction in June 2007, BlackBerry quarterly sales have more than tripled, from $1.1 billion to $3.4 billion.”

Most interesting to me is the article’s note that RIM first started targeting mass audiences in 2008:

“Once considered mostly a business tool, of late the BlackBerry has made huge gains as a consumer product. RIM launched its first television ad campaign targeting a mass audience in 2008, and last quarter 80% of its new subscribers came from the nonbusiness crowd.”

During the research I conducted into RIM’s market positioning in 2006-2007, I found the campaign for the mass audience consumer to already be well under way as RIM was promoting the BlackBerry Pearl to consumers.

Below is a short excerpt from Chapter 3 of Constant Connectivity in a Wireless Age: The Discursive Promotional Strategies of the BlackBerry

The BlackBerry Pearl Website

Many of the themes found on the Prosumer and Corporate focused BlackBerry website are reiterated on the Consumer-focused Pearl website, albeit with a flashier designed website. The focus is on family and leisure, as well as the style component, as the profiles include several creative professionals who highlight the design features of the device. It is clear from the high-production value of the website that RIM is leveraging its best-in-class reputation (RIM, 2006 Annual Report, p.11) as a business tool to promote the Pearl as an aspirational, luxury brand smartphone. The Pearl is presented as an extension of the user’s personality, enabling one to mediate their successful personal and work lives with the technological assistance of a stylish device.

It seems RIM’s first foray into a consumer phones with the Pearl has been followed up by what looks to be the wildly successful BlackBerry Curve.

I wish them luck on the on-going battle for market dominance. The lack of exclusive service provider deal baggage should provide some real leverage as complaints about AT&T service continue to intensify.

The GPS scam struck me as a particularly civilized form of robbery, a Thomas Crowne type of an affair involving airports and luxury cars, as compared to the rude reminder of B.C.’s less glamorous car theft problem I received when I was recently visiting Vancouver. As I got on the SkyTrain to head downtown, a huge sign tacked to the wall of the mall overlooking a grey parking lot warned “Bait Cars Are Everywhere.”

The car bait program has been in place since 2002 and has seen a dramatic decrease in car thefts in the Lower Mainland, according to ICBC. The program has a sexy website (in comparison to ICBC or the VPD anyway), which is where I found this gem about how my hometown is managing to buck the province-wide trend of declining car thefts: Bait Cars Tackle Williams Lake Auto Theft Epidemic.

I’ll have to write something nice about my hometown next time. Until then, underscore_mouse and abbenquesnel have some pretty Flickr pictures of the area…

This assertion seemingly dismisses the concerns about the issue of blurred boundaries and the professionalization of personal (via technology devices) that I highlighted in my thesis about the BlackBerry.

Is the work person and play person really the same thing?

What is the advantage for the ‘personal’ in having your work life integrated seamlessly into your private life?

Does this make us more or less secure in our employment? More or less connected to our work? More or less valuable?

Might the assumption that you are your own brand which is always on — observerable and accessible to all people all the time — be an attitude particular to creative professionals with jobs that more closely reflect their personal interests than say tool and die welding?

While I realized that personal relationships, cultivated on “off-time”, have always driven business relationships, and that social networks simply serve to increase the reach and value of these conversation; I still can’t shake the possibly dated concern that the loss of these walls, the that could hide the bad guys, also means the loss of a wall that provides a shade for the good guys in the glaringly transparent and connected world of social media and networks.

Does online work/life integration result in a more sanitized existence for those aware of the online brand they’re creating, or does it just require a higher degree of vigilance in maintaining an online identity?

Does blandness prevail in the name of SFW identities?

What does it mean to be talking about brand management in our personal life? It’s a business term usually used to refer to a company’s image.

Lots of questions.

One thing that’s for sure, the boundaries between work and private life will continue to become increasingly blurred as constant connectivity moves beyond 24/7 email access to integrated social networks.

Despite not generally considering myself a bad guy, I not entirely sure I’m ready to throw back the shades on all areas of my life to all people. This negotiation has been ongoing for quite some time and will continue for the foreseeable future as expectation of access and transparency shift.

In the meanwhile, I’m balancing the integration of work-related contacts into my previously personal-only social network, and it’s working out famously. Notifications from this integrated network about upcoming local events (for fun and work), connect me more closely to my physical community.

Maybe it all comes down to the old maxim that you get out what you put in.

Social media stress…only in San Francisco, home to what I’m guessing is at least 90% of the ‘250′.

Being overwhelmed by social networking options isn’t a new theme, but it’s also not one that’s going away.

This line in Candide resonates loudly:

“…even in those cities which appear to enjoy peace, and where the arts flourish, men are more devoured by envy, cares and anxiety than all the tribulations visited upon a citadel under siege. Private griefs are crueler even than public miseries.”

While the world of social media isn’t quite ‘private’, the stress you’re feeling about it is likely internalized and not a broadly shared public concern. What I take away from this is that if we’re not (appropriately) wringing our hands about public sins, our concerns are bound to be about something closer to home. Being involved in an industry with a self-appointed 250, these private envies, cares and anxieties are something I hear about frequently.

It’s interesting how cyclical all this social media experimenting has turned out to be — after being more than satisfied with my Facebook interaction for the past many months, and then recently joining Twitter in order to communicate with SXSW attendees, I’m back to blogging after an eight month hiatus. The above quote wouldn’t fit into the Twitter or Facebook status fields due to character limitations, never mind that they are an inappropriate venue for these comments anyways.

Last week during her demo at SF New Tech’s Online Video event at Dolby Theaters, Cathy Brooks of Seesmic, said that not all mediums will work for all people and that some people will just never be comfortable in front of a camera. There is no one-size-fits-all medium that will serve everyone’s needs, and so that’s why we continue to be served up with a proliferation of choices on how to connect.

Maybe the fatigue people are feeling with social networks is exactly what’s needed to bring about a round of winners in a crowded space. Will the result be the adoption of OpenID, a handful of super-portals, or will Internet audiences go the way of cable audiences, increasing segmented by a desire for niche networks?

I imagine this will take many more rounds of discovering, experimenting, and learning before any answers become apparent.

Updated: Cory Doctorow on “The Future of Ignoring Things”.

August 24, 2007

Reprivatize your social network

I linked to ARS Electronic in the last posting and feel compelled to point to Arse Electroknia, as so many other blogs have recently.
Besides having an amusing name, Arse is holding a conference in the city in early Oct on the theme of PrOnnovation – the history of how pornography has driven technological innovation for […]

0 Comments

Filed under CA, San Francisco, technology

August 24, 2007

Are there fortnights in the future?

The Museum of the Future will be closed for a fortnight or so in late August.
I don’t think this is suppose to be funny, but it is a little, no?
When was the last time you heard someone drop ‘fortnight’ into a conversation? For me I think it must have been when I watched that Pocahontas […]

0 Comments

Filed under technology

August 20, 2007

AT&T’s favorite child

Is AT&T playing favorites? Rumor has it they’ve disabled the BlackBerry’s GPS functionality so that the iPhone doesn’t look “diminished” in comparison.
Slashdot reports: “BlackBerryCool got a tip that not only was AT&T removing GPS functionality from their version of the BlackBerry 8820, they’re doing it so it won’t show up the iPhone. While carriers crippling […]

0 Comments

Filed under technology

August 19, 2007

Observed: zombies, communist chic, and $100,000 ponytails

1. “Zombies are the new Pirates”

From flash mobs to Facebook app…
Hilarious mash-up video of White-house journalist interviewing Dubya about zombies:

2. Red Invasion in SF – Hammer and Sickle red hot marketing gimmick
It has moved way beyond the annoying hippy kids with the dirty Che Guevara t-shirt… communist-era propaganda has never been more popular as evidenced […]

0 Comments

Filed under CA, San Francisco, technology

August 19, 2007

From the mouth of (valley) babes

Due to the topic of my thesis – “Constant Connectivity in a Wireless Age: The Discursive Promotional Strategies of the BlackBerry” – I was asked several times during my interview process if I thought the iphone would wipe out the BlackBerry.
Like most other people, I was completely enamoured with the iPhone when I first used […]