Firstly, you may ( or may not) notice that I've renamed the "Facebook/Twitter" category on this blog to "Social Media". Why? Read on...

I have been involved in the development of Facebook Applications for what seems like an eternity. In fact, my first Facebook App, Garfield Photo Invader*, dates back to November 2007!

My presence on Twitter started also quite some time ago and I've sent out 4,909 Tweets to date - not a huge amount by some people's standards, but still indicative of some level of engagement ;-)

None of this makes me a "Social Media Guru". If anybody ever calls me a "Social Media Guru" I will probably not have very kind words for them - it's a stupid and meaningless title. What I would say is that I'm a sociable person - both online, and off. Social Media has brought me into contact with many people whom I would never have met otherwise - particularly in Switzerland, where I live.

What I've now started to do is to try out other forms of Social Media. That's why the category name has changed. It's about more than just Facebook and Twitter. It's also about DailyBooth, Flickr, Foursquare and (dare I say it) Ping.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be working with all of the above to see how they can enhance my life. It may be that they don't. They may just become distractions and demand too much of my time.

This is what I'm calling my "Social Media Experiment". It might seem a bit late for some of those reading this but I am somebody who only uses any form of technology, hardware or software, if it's of any use in enhancing my life. The result of the experiment will be that I'm either more present in more ways on these platforms - or that nothing changes. We'll see!

There will be posts here relating to the experiment and to any conclusions I have made along the way. Please feel free to come back and check, comment or compare your experiences!

Meanwhile... see you on the interwebs!

* Sorry - it's offline now :-(

Cartoon credit: HubSpot on Flickr

From pure white to beautiful black, with some wicked colours in-between, these new models are very tempting:

According to various sites I've found that mention these watches, they're available for pre-order on Colette but I couldn't find any mention whatsoever of these watches - or Swatch, for that matter!

If anybody sees these then let me know or, better still, get me both the black and white models (and maybe the green to boot, if you're feeling flush) and I'll be a happy bunny!!

Watch and enjoy:

Anybody care to predict what the World will be like 50 years from now?

(pardon the rather traditional and totally politically-incorrect role models... it just seemed to fit with the picture...)

scene 1:

Enter the Husband, stage left...

Husband: "Honey, I'm home!"
Wife: "Darling! How was your day?"
Husband (falling, tired, into the soft leather of the sofa): "Tiring, but look: I saw some really cool shoes that I just know you'll love.."

He takes out his iPhone from his pocket and turns on the small and almost unnoticeable Apple TV, cleverly hung on it's "iTVHook" from the widescreen TV on the wall, with the "Remote™" App. Flipping effortlessly through his photo collection, he arrives at the video of the shoes taken only minutes ago...

Husband: "Well, what do you think".

Wife: "Ooooh, they're lovely! I just HAVE to have them."

She reaches excitedly for the iPad lying on the sofa next to her and, lo and behold, her doting Husband has already sent her the link to the shoe website in her email!

Two clicks and she's bought the shoes! (wow - they had "one-click"™ buying...)

Husband: "Now you've got those sexy new shoes, what's for dinner?"

Wife: "Well, I tried out a recipe from that fantastic new Jamie Oliver™ iPad™ recipe App you bought me - and that new kitchen iPad stand you bought is just great! "

He sits at the table... she disappears into the kitchen and emerges carrying a fabulous roast butternut squash and thyme bake (well, what did you expect?)

fade to black...

fade to next scene:

It's after dinner, the kids are in bed listening to their favourite stories being streamed to their AirPlay™ speakers from Daddy's iPhone™.

(OK, enough of the "™" already.. assume it's there form now on.... Ed)

Husband: "Darling, would you like to watch that movie you were talking about yesterday? I hear it's available for rent on iTunes."

Wife: "No, I don't really feel like it tonight... why don't we just get comfy on the sofa and surf a bit of YouTube?"

Husband: "Hm, ok (hoping she'll fall asleep so that he can try that new iPad multiplayer Project Sword game he's heard so much about)"

They settle down to zap their way through YouTube on the Apple TV, jumping from clip to clip with Remote on the iPad...

Wife: "Hey, are you asleep?"

Husband: "zzzzzzzzz"

Wife (smiling, satisfied with herself for winning some "me" time!): "Great! Now I can get some serious FaceTime™ (oops, there it is again) with that dishy guy I met in the cafe today. At least HIS life isn't ruled by geeky gadgets!"

...

Domestic bliss, made possible by Apple™ Come on - you know you want it...

"The Walking Dead" will start on AMC with six one-hour episodes on, wait for it, Halloween!

Well, I seriously hope that this new series either makes it over to UK TV or onto an iTunes Store that I have an account on. It'll be interesting to see how well it translates to a TV series. It'll also be interesting to see if it runs for a second season ...

Here's the trailer for your viewing pleasure - the soundtrack choice as the trailer progresses is just priceless!

(thanks to @danoliver for bringing this to my attention!)

I had intended to keep my iPhone 3G and use it as a backup phone, both in the UK and in Switzerland. This would mean that the phone needed unlocking so that I could swap SIMs. No problem, I thought: Just ask those nice people at Swisscom if they can unlock it! After all, I've had it over two years and have certainly paid back the subsidised price difference by now!

No chance. Once a Swisscom iPhone, always a Swisscom iPhone. I could pay somebody in London to unlock it for me but they only knew how to unlock an iPhone with OS version 3.1.3 ... I'd already updated to 4.0.1 and am not going backwards for anybody!

Enter JailbreakMe.com 2.0 and some quick surfing!

The process was easy and quick. To save you from surfing around for the answers though, here's how it's done:

(Note for the geeks amongst you: This may be old news for you. I didn't write this for you though, but for everybody else who may feel a little nervous about playing around with the innards of their iPhones!)

(Important note for everybody: remember that this is, while no longer illegal, something that those nice people at Apple don't like and something that will void your warranty - if there's any warranty left on your old iPhone 3G/3Gs)

Step 0. Make a backup of the iPhone with iTunes.

Step 1. Visit JailbreakMe.com with the device you want to unlock. If you visit from a laptop you'll only see the default server setup page.

Step 2. You'll see a welcome screen with a "slide to jailbreak" slider:

Step 3. This is exciting! Go for it. Slide the slider and you'll see that you then download "Cydia" onto your iPhone. Cydia is used to Jailbreak your iPhone - allowing you to install other software not authorised by Apple and not supported. Once Cydia is installed, start it. Choose the option "Let Cydia make my life easier" to ensure that you pull updates in the future and you're sorted.

Step 4. Your iPhone is now Jailbroken - meaning that you can install other software through Cydia.

I'm not too interested in the majority of the Apps that are featured in the Cydia repositories - except for one: Click the "Search" icon, go to the search box in Cydia and search for Ultrasn0w (that's a zero, not an "O"). Links I found on the internet mentioned version 0.93. I installed the latest version, 1.1-1, which states that it also unlocks iPhone 4!

Step 5. Install Ultrasn0w and allow your iPhone to reboot.

Step 6. There is no 6. It's done!

Here're two screenshots from my previously-Swisscom-locked iPhone 3G, just after rebooting (with an Orange pay-as-you-go SIM):

Remember not to update your iPhone iOS version past 4.0.1 with iTunes unless you've checked out the availability of a Jailbreak and Ultrasn0w for the new version - otherwise your phone may be locked to your original provider again.

That said, those 5 minutes of time saved me the cost of getting the phone unlocked by somebody in the UK for around £30-£40. maybe I should have kept this quiet and charged you all? ;-)

Big thanks to comex and everybody behind JailbreakMe.com and to the iPhone Dev Team for Ultrasn0w. No thanks whatsoever to Swisscom for stating that they never unlock phones, even after a contract qualifies for renewal.

Disclaimer: Of course, this is messing around with your iPhone's iOS and may cause your phone to be messed up. Make a backup first with iTunes. If all goes belly-up, simply restore your iPhone with iTunes and restore the backup.

Not only are there great prizes up for grabs, but the website is really nice - I love the helicopter preloader:

(click the image to go to the site...)

There are some really fun videos on the site too, like this one:

OK, so it's an old theme - but on a massive scale - could this be a new form of transport?

Think you can do better or want to show off with some crazy stunts? Then sign up and upload your video!

The website is in German and French and they're on Facebook too:

It seems that Mark Zuckerberg was being his usual open self when asked about the subject on TV recently. According to the Bloomberg article:

Zuckerberg, in a television interview this month, said Facebook will go public “when it makes sense,” without elaborating.

Let's face up to some facts, shall we: It may never make more, or less, sense for Facebook to go public. That particular response from Mr. Zuckerberg is not exactly the sort of eloquent insight we'd expect from the figurehead of a multi-national multibillion dollar phenomenon such as Facebook. Maybe that itself is a clue to why Facebook shouldn't go public yet: More time is needed for Mark Zuckerberg to mature, to learn about running a public corporation and to take responsibility before he can really be forced into that role. Maybe he'll never lead the company once it's gone public? It's a challenge.

Another reason it's a good thing:

The extra year will certainly give him, and his close management team, a chance to finally get really in touch with developers - something which is not only sorely needed but also seems to line up with the stated strategy, according to the article:

...venture capitalist Jim Breyer, a member of Facebook’s board, said in January that the Palo Alto, California-based company isn’t focused on a 2010 sale. Instead, Facebook’s management is trying to woo more users and developers, Breyer said at the time.

So, Facebook. You want to "woo" users and developers? Cool. When are you going to start?

Woo users by making it clear what the privacy settings mean and make the defaults clear. Clear communication is the only way to stop people being upset. Just remember that most people who use Facebook aren't US college-kid geeks and learn how to communicate with them.

That's users. Developers are a little bit different, and the same. We want to have clear communications too - and rely on them. Your platform would be a lot less interesting and nowhere near where it is today without App developers. Talk to us. Tell us when new features are coming and, more importantly, when existing ones are going to be radically changed or simply switched off. Your approach to informing and supporting developers is, at the moment, severely lacking. Fix it. Woo developers by helping them to use your frankly more than dodgy and badly-documented platform.

One other thing: Most of your users and developers are not even in the US. Think global and don't impose an American way of thinking and doing business on those outside of the US.

Once you're finished wooing, and Mark Zuckerberg has had a chance to mature a little, you can change the company culture to make it more friendly and less "take it, or leave it" when it comes to those who raise issues.

If you can spend an extra year and focus on those things then Facebook will really be a good and ethical company to invest in. Sure, people will invest without you being "nice" or more ethical. It may just help, however, if you are...

I'd certainly like to see it.