It’s easy to install; each computer is assigned a unique identifier. Users can then create password-protected private networks, or join existing ones through an AES 256-bit encrypted connection. The unique identifier is in the format x.x.x.x, so it looks like an IP address to the operating system. Thus, once the Hamachi network has been set up, you can use standard tools to communicate between machines. Shared drives will display in Explorer or Finder, and you can use Remote Desktop Connection or Apple’s Screen Sharing app.

Until recently, the Hamachi client for Windows has been way ahead of the rudimentary command-line tool that was all that was available for Macs. That’s changed. The new Mac version 2.0 sports a spiffy GUI, plus some features that were previously Windows-only, including a way of sending private chat messages between connected machines. There’s also a beta command-line version for Linux.

Hamachi is one of several related products from LogMeIn. We’ve talked about LogMeIn Ignition, for accessing computers from mobile devices; LogMeIn Central, for managing multiple machines in a corporate environment; and web conferencing system Join.me. The LogMeIn website has a wizard for helping users decide which product is appropriate for their needs.

Hamachi is available for $199 per year. The license includes the ability to create multiple networks of up to 256 computers. There is also a non-commercial version that’s limited to networks of up to 16 computers, and a 14-day free trial.

How do you and your colleagues connect remotely?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• Enabling the Web Work Revolution
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• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

To set up the iTwin, insert the device (with both halves still attached) into a Windows machine. You’ll be prompted to install the software, and to register an email address you can use to disable the device if it gets lost. The two halves are then “paired,” so that they work together to create a connection between computers using 256-bit AES encryption.

You will be able to access one machine from the other, but only if both pieces of the device are installed. For additional security, you can also create a password on the iTwin.

You can leave one half of the device in your office machine, and insert the other into, say, a laptop. You’ll be able to access, move, copy and back up files. You can edit remote files directly, or copy files by dragging and dropping them.

Both iTwin and Pogoplug allow you to connect to your own files remotely without monthly fees, and without using cloud storage. But Pogoplug connects to an external hard drive and makes it available remotely, while iTwin allows you to connect to your entire computer and network. Of course, in order to access a particular machine, you’ll need to leave it on and connected to the Internet.

Of course, there are some security issues to be considered. While iTwin provides a couple of ways to disable the connection if one half gets lost, it might take a while before the loss is noticed. And the connection is bi-directional, so if someone entered your office, they could access your laptop. Frankly, it’s an open question whether the security of this system is better or worse than a software-only solution with strong passwords.

I wasn’t able to fully test the system, since iTwin only works with Windows machines at present, although the developers say a Mac version is in the works. I’ll be interested to see how speedy and stable the system is in actual use, and how well it interacts with Windows’ sleep mode.

iTwin retails for $99 on the developer’s website.

How do you connect with your files while you’re on the road?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• Enabling the Web Work Revolution
• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

As I frame my view of where mobile is going, I can’t avoid starting with some numbers I just saw in Seth Weintraub’s post in Fortune about Android.

Globally, market intelligence firm IDC counted 269.6 million smartphones sold this year, compared to the 173.5 million units shipped in 2009.

In 2011, we might see half a billion phones sold worldwide. Smartphones will likely blow by traditional computers next year as the way most of the world gains access to the Internet.

If that doesn’t blow your mind, I don’t know what will.

Are you thinking about mobile yet? And if so, how are you thinking about it? Let’s plant our feet firmly on the ground and talk about how you should be thinking about mobile. Here are some guiding thoughts:

1. Don’t think product; think platform. People are excited about devices and apps: that is, products. As a marketer, you need to look at devices and apps as platforms for communication, conversation, conversion; pick your “C” word. Develop your app or apps with that broader concept in mind. Look to integrate mobile into your current marketing mix as a new communications and marketing platform. Don’t try to sell a product now; you can add sales later.

2. Leverage the ubiquity. Smartphones — and more recently, iPads and other tablets — are becoming essential tools. Their ubiquity is going to be unprecedented. We love these devices even more than our laptops. We are bringing them into places and situations we never imagined. There’s an intimacy, a necessity, that these devices are engendering in us. Whether that’s good, bad, or indifferent, it’s our new reality. So, as a marketer, how can you leverage this intensely personal, can’t-live-with0ut-it feeling smartphones generate? How can you be present on these devices in a way that’s meaningful, useful, and purposeful? How can your app be indispensable? Don’t think, “I want to create a cool app.” Think, “I want to solve real problems, offer real solutions, create a must-have feature” for your audiences’ mobile device. Create something essential.

3. Put goals in the driver’s seat. Don’t go crazy and forget the fundamentals of business and marketing. We saw companies forget these when they first went on the Web. They thought that they could spend a lot of money to build a website, and all their business problems would be solved. We have seen similar madness with people getting on Facebook and Twitter without any sense of why they should be there, who they are trying to reach, and what they are trying to get their friends, fans and followers to do — other than “buy our product” or “do business with us.” Without a clear plan and strategy, mobile will become this new year’s huge time and money suck.

Mobile can be a new platform for building brand loyalty, stimulating traffic, and enhancing interaction. Eventually, sooner than we think, mobile will drive sales. If you’re going to “go mobile,” make sure that your efforts are framed by clear and attainable goals.

What will be your mobile strategy in 2011?

This post was inspired by Fred Wilson and his post The Smartphone Explosion which references Seth Weintraub’s post in Fortune about Android.

Image by sxc.hu user mrceviz

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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• Why the iPad is Right for the Enterprise
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But that’s an expensive task. The U.S. wireless industry is spending $30 billion to $50 billion annually to improve their networks, according to Dan Hays, partner at consultancy PRTM.

Verizon Wireless spent $17 billion alone improving its network in 2009, and AT&T spent about $19 billion over the past year on upgrades. Sprint laid out about half the money for the $14.5 billion it cost to launch its 4G network venture with Clearwire and other partners. T-Mobile said its network improvements have cost less but are in the same ballpark as its competitors.

No one is denying that the wireless data networks are getting crowded and requiring more investments, but one has to look beyond the woe-is-me arguments carriers continue to use for everything. But it’s not a one-way street! Sure, carriers are spending the dollars, but data is bringing in the big bucks too. If it was a voice-and-text world, they would all be beating each other up on low-margin, flat-rate plans, scratching for market share. Data has given them something to cheer about.

Chetan Sharma, an independent analyst and a contributor to our GigaOM Pro research service estimates that U.S. carriers will generate about $165 billion in revenues in 2010. Of the total, nearly $55 billion will come from sales of data services alone.

“The average margins for the US operators are around 37% with VZ and ATT in 40%+ margins overall,” Sharma said. He estimates that the carrier data margins as of 2010 are generally around 40-50 percent. Because their margins are declining, the companies are looking to spend money on network upgrades and use tiered pricing to offset some of those upgrades.

AT& T, which the article claims spent $19 billion upgrading its networks, has been a major beneficiary of the iPhone boom. Without the iPhone, the company labeled as the worst by Consumer Reports would be facing tough times. To paraphrase Johnny Cochrane, if the smartphone is a hit….!

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• 4G State of the Union
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Craig McCaw. Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia

This is the latest in the string of bad news for Clearwire; earlier it was talk about the company running out of cash, and thus, being unable to build out its network. It has cut jobs, slowed down the network build-out and has even started toying with the idea of selling spectrum. There have been reports of conflict with Sprint, the company that’s the single largest shareholder in Clearwire, not to mention looming competition from the likes of Verizon and T-Mobile, which have launched their own high-speed next generation wireless networks.

It’s tough to read what McCaw’s exit means. Some, like Michael Mahoney of Falcon Point Capital, wonder if this means the company is going under. That’s an over-reaction. From what I hear, McCaw hasn’t been that active with the company for a long time. Those in the know think it is a non-event, though it could also be something as simple as Clearwire’s largest shareholder, Sprint, finally asserting control over what is clearly its own future. Sprint currently owns 54 percent of Clearwire. One can only guess that McCaw’s exit is a precursor to some sort of company-defining event – perhaps more money from Sprint, and a management shake-up to follow. Neither Sprint and Clearwire have responded to my queries.

In response to McCaw’s exit, Clearwire spokesperson offered this statement:

Ben Wolff has been named to fill the Eagle River seat on the board in Craig’s place. You probably remember that he was the CEO of Clearwire until early 2009. In terms of business plan, his past role with the company and affiliation with Eagle River will maintain continuity in our leadership and bring to Clearwire a unique perspective on our business and skills that are sure to provide added value to the Company and to our shareholders.

Clearwire is owned by McCaw’s Eagle River Holdings, Sprint Nextel, Google, Intel Corp, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and a sundry group of investors. These companies have collectively invested about $5 billion into Clearwire, with Sprint ponying up the largest amount of cash. It also contributed a massive amount of spectrum to the company.

At present, Intel has abandoned WiMAX. Google’s strategy is extremely confusing, and its increasingly cozy relationship with Verizon doesn’t bode well for Clearwire. Comcast is too busy fending off the FCC and other regulators as it tries to put a bow on its NBC acquisition. The others are simply irrelevant entities, with neither market clout nor financial muscle. That leaves Sprint!

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse recently told me that Clearwire’s WiMAX network was its 4G strategy. In the high-speed wireless future, Sprint would be left naked without Clearwire and its network. If Clearwire fails, you can bet it is going to take Sprint down with it. In the past there has been talk of Sprint acquiring Clearwire outright – a pricey but necessary move for the company. In the words of UBS analyst John Hodulik this is one dysfunctional relationship.

Clearwire went to the public markets and sold $1.33 billion in debt to keep building out their network. Will that be enough? When I recently met with Mike Sievert, chief commercial officer at Clearwire, he argued that the negativity is unwarranted. For instance, he said the recent debt round was a sign of confidence from the market, and gives the company room to maneuver. “People question whether we will be able to raise capital to grow the network, and we have proved them otherwise,” he said.

Sievert pointed out Clearwire has a fundamental asset – spectrum – and that’s what that matters in the end. Sprint, we’ve heard from our sources, is not in the favor of Clearwire selling its spectrum. Nevertheless, in its most recent quarter, the company added 150,000 retail subscribers and about 1.1 million wholesale subscribers, thanks to the launch of the Evo and Epic handsets on the Sprint Network.

Sievert says an average Clearwire USB modem user was downloading about 7 GB of data every month, and the numbers are higher for folks using fixed wireless modems at home. If this is a norm, they and their competitors need more spectrum to support the growth. The company was planning to reach 120 million population points (pops) in over 68 markets by the end of 2010. This means Clearwire can now start attracting new customers in larger numbers.

Will that be enough for the company to stay independent?

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According to their forecasts, about two percent of total mobile network traffic was used for wireless machine-to-machine communications in 2010, thanks to a 46 percent increase in the number of M2M subscribers. I bet the recent bump in sales of Amazon’s Kindle device has to have helped.

In the next five years, the total number of wireless M2M connections is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.0 percent, to reach 294.1 million connections in 2015. By then, M2M as a share of the total number of cellular connections is projected to reach 4.0 percent. “In Q1-2011, we expect that AT&T will become the first mobile operator to reach 10 million M2M subscribers after more than doubling the installed base in the past 12 months, largely thanks to a successful strategy for connected consumer electronics devices,” said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight.

The connected devices that use machine-to-machine connections include in-car telematic systems, e-book readers, e-frames, cellular-based security alarms and smart meters with GPRS connections. And that’s only a start! Berg forecasts that the majority of next five billion mobile connections would be hooking into consumer devices, machines and sensors. It’s no surprise that mobile operators such as Sprint and Verizon are betting big on M2M communications and have set-up dedicated units to cash in on this opportunity.

Crowley has been experimenting with local and location for nearly a decade, first at now-forgotten city guides maker Vindigo, then at Dodgeball, a hot social-networking-meets-location startup that he sold to Google. I’ve been following Foursquare since its launch.

Recently, I caught up with Dennis to talk about the importance of context to the future of location-based services, augmented reality and Foursquare itself. Given Dennis is competing with Google and Facebook, it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about specific products and their evolution, but here are excerpts from what was a long, rambling, enjoyable and educational conversation

Om Malik: What is the mission for Foursquare? Are you a social network or more than that?

Dennis Crowley: Google has that noble mission statement: ‘to collect and organize all the world’s information.’ I think a lot of what we’re doing is taking that and putting a spin on it. I think a lot about [things like] how we can build things that really alert people [to] all the interesting things that are happening within the general radius of them.

OM: Sort of like augmented reality?

DC: You know, everyone talks about augmented reality. The version of augmented reality we’re serving up… it’s just like, “Hey, there’s something happening a block away that you should know about. Hey, there’s a cool piece of art around the corner that you should look at. Hey, this is the sandwich place that your buddies are always talking about.” All the little things that we’re doing — we’re kind of building that platform and ecosystem that enable such things to happen.

OM: From an average person’s standpoint, location is still kind of geeky and a lot of work.

DC: Yeah. I think your points are valid; it’s not for everyone yet. The same thing was true of cell phones. But eventually, it’s these things that prove their worth, and they prove how powerful they can be and how much they can affect your lives. And you participate in that: You buy a cell phone; you get on Facebook.

I think people say the same thing about Foursquare, and I’m like, “I know, I know. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to be here for a couple of years and come back to you when you’re ready for us.”

I think of what we’re doing is sort of interesting now, but it’s going to be super-interesting 24 months from now when more people are aware of things that we’re doing and aware of the value that comes out of it. We’re a little bit early.

OM: When was the first time you started to think about location as a contextual vector for data?

DC: The first phone that I had that had the ability was a Sprint phone with a great screen. This was in 2000. First thing I did [was] hack together a WAP site that would allow me to search for places from my phone.

I ended up working for a startup called Vindigo that was doing city guides on Palm Pilot. And I’m like, “Oh my God you have all these people pop in the screen, letting you know which venues they’re going to. That’s a mechanism for popularity, for interest.” This was before a lot of the social stuff was around, but we were thinking, “Maybe we should show the most popular restaurants.”

I got laid off in 2001, and that’s when I built the Friend Finder stuff. There was no language even to describe what we were doing. This was before social networks. Much later, we described it as, “Friendster on your cell phone.” That’s what made Dodgeball take off.

Of course, we brought the stuff to Google, and had an interesting two years there. While we were at Google, we were doing some experiments. Like, can we use game mechanics to encourage people? So we made a leader board. Which of your friends have checked‑in most often? You make this competitive, [and] people go nuts over it.

We started thinking a lot about a history page. Recommendation engines were just starting to get really good then. This [location history] was a good source of recommendation. We couldn’t get that stuff built over at Google.

People are giving us one or two or three pieces of data everyday about the places they go to. We can cut that data up. This is a new way to look at your neighborhood based on the places you’ve been, and your friends have been to. Places that people like you go to. I can look at the East Village of New York in an entirely different way because the Foursquare algorithm redefined the city for me.

We’ve been talking about it for years. Now we have a critical mass of people who are contributing data and willing to play with it. It’s like a perfect storm with the timing.

OM: Right now, Facebook’s social graph defines a lot of experiences. Do you think you will have this world where location just defines all content and data consumption experiences?

DC: The metric I like is that you should be able to stand anywhere in the world and Foursquare should be able to tell you something interesting nearby to do. It’s something interesting to strive for. You are right. It’s not just places; it’s experiences.

I think it’s getting there. The hard thing to figure out is its context. You’ve got the phone as the center [of the network], so it’s collecting all these data points. The next big thing to figure out is what is the contextual relevance of all that? Are you moving? Are you with friends? Where are you? Where have you been? Where are you headed?

All that stuff is interesting. You can take that stuff in and you can use that to make these choices and these decisions and hopefully serve up some interesting content. So, you’re [asking], ‘When is it going to happen?’ I think it’s happening.

OM: How do you think location will be part of our daily life and how it will impact commerce?

Dennis There are three ideas inside Foursquare. There’s latitude and longitude, and the time and day that you’re standing in right now. So this is the thing that’s most interesting to you (as of now.) That’s one of the things that we’re psyched about.

The second thing is the role that game mechanics can play in encouraging people to actually go out and do things they wouldn’t do. That’s a big idea that we’re still in the middle of trying to figure out.

I think the third big idea is the way that you can use a combination of location-based services and social media to empower local merchants to connect with customers in different ways. It’s fortunate for us that it’s one of the things that’s going to be very easy to monetize.

OM: The reason Facebook works is it maps real people together. That’s why its social graph works. You have this notion that mapping real physical places to the web and to people is the next big wave. Why?

DC: Everything that’s going on with social media is about sharing photos and about sharing links, sharing videos and sharing ideas. It’s all great stuff, but it all happens online. I think that’s the thing that frustrates me. It goes back to the core experience we had with Friendster.

In the past, I would spend all this time on my Friendster profile finding people and sharing the profile, and at the end of the day, it was close the lid on your laptop and that was it. It didn’t do anything.

So Facebook is amazing. It’s a thousand times better than Friendster was. But I still don’t feel like it’s working as hard for you as it should be. It’s like when you step away from it, it’s still there, [and] people are still sharing stuff, but it’s not surfacing. It’s not making the way that I interact with the physical world better.

It might connect me with people who obviously live in the real world, but it’s not connecting to me to the world in general. It’s all very abstract. Forgive me for being crazy.

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SCVNGR bills itself a game layer over the real world, and while it offers familiar features like check-ins and pictures, the core of the service is in its challenges: the mini games that people and businesses create at locations. SCVNGR allows anyone to build these challenges, which can be as simple as checking in with another person or as elaborate as scavenger hunt-like tests, like finding an object inside a store or pulling off a trick. Priebatsch said SCVNGR’s different approach is finding a lot of converts; the service, which rolled out in May, is on pace to hit 1 million members early in the new year.

Take at a look at a video interview I conducted with Priebatsch, a fast-talking,  22-year-old whiz kid:

• Location-Based Services — Just a Fad?
• The Enormous Promise of Location
• Is Geolocation a Real Business or Just a Feature?

That trend has many early WiMAX backers worried, and even Clearwire isn’t immune to the idea of experimenting with a new flavor of LTE. Telegeography says that by the end of 2010, there will 11 million WiMAX subscribers around the world but the going is to get a lot tougher for WiMAX. In the next two years, LTE networks will be launched by carriers in 55 countries, and that should jumpstart the growth for LTE-related services. In comparison, WiMAX is going to be relegated to fixed and nomadic applications, instead of being a mainstream mobile offering, Telegeography argues.

LTE, which launched in late 2009, will take about six years to garner an estimated three percent of the total wireless market, Telegeography posits. A lot has to do with the availability of phones that support LTE and other devices that can leverage the wireless broadband technology.

While TeleGeography predicts that WiMAX subscriber growth will continue apace, by the end of 2015 LTE subscribers will outnumber WiMAX subscribers by a factor of more than seven to one. “If you forget all the past hype about WiMAX and focus just on the next five years, it actually has a bright future” said TeleGeography’s Pete Bell. ‘You can expect to see WiMAX achieving average annual growth in excess of 30 percent over that period. Within the next 24 months LTE networks will have been launched by major cellular service providers in some 55 countries, with most other countries following suit over the subsequent three years, he added.

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As part of the deal with Qualcomm, AT&T gets about 12 MHz spectrum of Lower 700 MHz D and E block spectrum in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, and 6 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D block spectrum in rest of the country. The total FLO TV footprint covered about 300 million people. The deal will need approval from the FCC and other regulators. (Read new comments below.) Qualcomm tried to find buyers for FLO, but it seems to have decided that selling spectrum was the best option.

“As part of its longer-term 4G network plans, AT&T intends to deploy this spectrum as supplemental downlink, using carrier aggregation technology,” AT&T said in a news release. It’s not clear when AT&T would start building networks based on this spectrum. The deal is likely to close in the second half of 2011, so this looks almost like a 2012 buildout — roughly the time AT&T will start rolling out its LTE network at scale.

The bottom line is that this is a good strategic move by AT&T.  Just as it needed to bolster the bandwidth to the base-stations, companies like AT&T need more spectrum to deliver the bandwidth over the air to mobile consumers. The Dallas-based phone company was recently rated as the worst mobile phone company by Consumer Reports.

Will the FCC Approve?

If  recent history is any indicator, FCC approval for the deal may not come easy. The FCC has become especially queasy about AT&T and Verizon’s spectrum assets, noting in its Wireless Competition report that spectrum assets were becoming more concentrated. AT&T can slow down the deployment of that spectrum at a time when the market needs it the most. In a report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted:

In particular, many stakeholders outside of the top national carriers who we spoke with noted that policies for making spectrum available for commercial use, as well as policies governing some essential elements of wireless networks, favor large national carriers, potentially jeopardizing the competitiveness of the wireless industry.

In addition, FCC was pretty clear about not allowing Harbinger, a hedge fund behind LightSquared network to sell some of its spectrum assets. In March 2010, Stacey Higginbotham reported:

The Harbinger network could help ensure competition among the major wireless carriers thanks to the conditions the FCC has placed on the spectrum that the private equity firm plans to use as part an agreement to let Harbinger take control of SkyTerra  — namely that SkyTerra has to be a wholesaler, and that traffic from the largest and second-largest wireless carriers in the U.S. cannot comprise more than 25 percent of the traffic over the SkyTerra/Harbinger network. This means AT&T and Verizon could not buy up huge chunks of the network or spectrum to keep others off of it.

That is a clear indication on the part of the FCC to take a hard look at spectrum sales to large carriers, especially those that include repurposing of spectrum.

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RIM, the company behind the iconic mobile-messaging platform BlackBerry, is said to be in talks to acquire Seattle-based startup Gist, according to industry sources. While the deal is said to be nearly done, there is always a fair chance that the two parties might not come to an agreement. The deal terms are not available at this time. I am waiting for comments from both Gist and RIM. Gist VP of Marketing Robert Pease emailed a response: “We don’t have any comment on your story.”

Gist, much like rivals Rapportive and eTacts creates profiles of people in your business network by using publicly availably information from sources such as Rapleaf, a San Francisco-company that has been receiving close scrutiny for its data collection techniques. This profile data is available any time someone emails you.

Gist, which is led by CEO T.A. McCann (ex-Microsoft), was started and initially funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. The company launched in 2008 and raised $6.75 million in Series A funding from The Foundry Group and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. In a recent news release, Gist claimed that it had 100 million social business profiles. The company makes plugins for popular email clients such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, Google Apps and it also has apps for iPhone and the Android platform.

For RIM, the idea behind acquiring Gist would be to possibly re-invent the phone address book and make it integral to its core offering. It would actually make a lot of sense for RIM to do this, as it plays to its core strength – namely, messaging. By making the address book more networked and more social, RIM can build a social inbox, much like the one being championed by Facebook.

RIM has become acquisitive in recent years, especially as it has started to face intense competition from more Internet-savvy rivals, Apple and Google. It acquired Dash for $3.8 million in 2009, and followed up with Torch Mobile and earlier this month it acquired Swedish design-house, The Astonishing Tribe.

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Brian Pokorny, CEO of DailyBooth

DailyBooth, a San Francisco-based social photo sharing service is making the much-awaited leap from the web to the mobile Internet by launching the final version of its iPhone app. The company had launched a beta version of its app earlier this year. This new enhanced version of the app replicates DailyBooth’s web features such as a live feed, comments and follow/following on the small screen.

“We’ve started over and built this from the ground up,” said CEO Brian Pokorny, who before joining the company was a well-known Silicon Valley investor with Ron Conway’s SV Angel. “In addition to the iPhone, the app will be great for all of the new iPod Touch (devices) launched a few months ago that all have a front facing camera,” he added.

DailyBooth, co-founded by Ryan Amos and Jon Wheatley and initially incubated by YCombinator, was able to raise $1 million in seed funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, Betaworks and angel investors such as Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake and ex-Googler, Chris Sacca.

Android Coming Soon

The company is planning on releasing an Android app soon. “Android is currently in the works right now,” Pokorny said, pointing out that with more smartphones coming to market with front-facing cameras, it makes more sense for DailyBooth to support them. There has been an explosion in the number of mobile photo sharing applications, with well-known venture capitalists opening their checkbooks for such companies.

Frankly, I have been surprised that DailyBooth hasn’t pushed into the mobile arena more aggressively, a question I posted to Pokorny when I ran into him a few weeks ago. After all, DailyBooth is growing at a rapid clip on the web. This Twitter-meets-Flickr like service is a lightweight social network that has found favor with the younger demographic, one of the main reasons it has grown so rapidly. It works well because it allows folks to easily share their daily lives through pictures and short pithy comments.

Front Camera Revolution

However, as much as it has been successful on the web, it has been noticeably missing on the mobile front, giving opportunity to new mobile-only photo services such as PicPlz and Instagram. Pokorny doesn’t see those services as his competitors, mostly because he sees DailyBooth as a “front of the phone” app” while others are “back of the phone apps.” (Nevertheless, no one can take Instagram lightly, which has been growing at a breakneck speed.)

“The content generated from these apps are primarily objects while the content from DailyBooth is all about people and faces,” he argued. “The user base is also different, as our users are predominantly under the age of 25 and view the Internet as an extension of their lives.  They are comfortable with face communication, as many of have grown up with web cams as the norm.”

Just as YouTube is about broadcasting videos and Apple’s Facetime is about communication, DailyBooth is about communication through the medium of pictures. Pokorny said DailyBooth is much more “of a new type of platform for social communication through pictures via photo comments back and forth between users,” versus back-of-the-phone apps, which “offer a broadcast style communication or a window into what your friends are currently looking at.”

I think Pokorny makes a good point, though I wouldn’t call DailyBooth a means of communication. I see it more as asynchronous interaction. I find it fascinating how different demographic groups adapt the Internet to interact differently. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see how successful DailyBooth is on mobile. It certainly has the makings of what I think is a good mobile photo service – it is “a unique and more immersive, two-way service” that is designed from the perspective of the “mobile user.”

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Trapster is a multi-platform application, which allows folks to report and get information about speed traps and road hazards. On a map, Trapster shows user-reported speed traps, red-light cameras, and speed cameras (the ones that actually issue tickets) that are close to you. It has been downloaded nearly 9 million times and has been one of the top location-based apps for a while. It is certainly a GigaOM favorite and a good example of crowdsourcing at work.

The crowd-sourced data is precisely why NAVTEQ bought the upstart company. As mapping data become commoditized, companies like NAVTEQ have to offer additional experiences on top of the raw mapping data. Practical information such as traffic conditions and speed traps are only some of the location-built experiences.

In a conversation, Nokia EVP Tero Ojanpera earlier this year said, ““We want maps to be part of everyday life, and as a result, we are working on building a richer experience on top of the map…I think it is going to become obvious that companies with mapping assets are at an advantage.” The company has been slowly building upon the idea of map-based experiences.

The acquisition of Trapster makes perfect sense and is a good move, as Trapster can only help enhance the value of NAVTEQ’s mapping information. When I first communicated with Tenereillo back in 2008, he told me his plan was to make the app available on all platforms, and he bootstrapped his company. It currently works on most major smartphone platforms and also with popular devices such as Garmin and Tom Tom.

Tenereillo has been working on the company he founded since 2003, but it wasn’t until the arrival of iPhones and the app store that Trapster found the momentum it needed to become a big smash.  It’s now the number two most downloaded free navigation app in the iTunes app store.

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It’s almost counter-intuitive to the concept of mobility, but I find that I’m carrying more devices than ever, even as both hardware and software continue to improve. When I’m not toting numerous devices, I’m actually spending more time deciding which devices to bring and which are staying home. Granted, I could be an outlier; since I cover the mobile device scene for a living, there’s a plethora of laptops and phones to choose from, not to mention a MiFi, two cameras, a pair of wireless keyboards, an iPad and more.

Some of my gadgets have been replaced over time thanks to converged functionality. For example, I sold an Amazon Kindle 2 after buying my iPad; a few days of enjoying my Kindle books on the Apple tablet convinced me that I no longer needed my Kindle. That tradeoff made sense, and while not everyone would have made the same decision, it did reduce my mobile device load by one piece of hardware. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I found myself last night considering the purchase of a Galaxy Tab. Samsung has quickly sold one million of these popular 7-inch Android tablets.

Why would I buy one when I already have an Apple iPad? The reason actually applies to all of my devices: no one device fully takes the place of another because of compromises in functionality. Smartphones haven’t replaced laptops, and tablets don’t take the place of either, for example. Instead, as features are improving across all devices, form factors are evolving, which means we have more device choices for use in different contexts and locations.

My consideration of the Galaxy Tab is a perfect example: It appeals to me because it’s lighter and smaller than my iPad, but still offers much of the same functionality. That means I’m more likely to travel with the Tab, while my iPad is better suited — for me, anyway — around the house in places I don’t want to use a traditional computer: the couch, in bed, etc…. Of course, I’m heavily invested in iOS apps, so due to the “app lock in” costs, I’m not likely to trade in my iPad for the Tab!

I face a similar challenge when it comes to leaving the house with a camera. You wouldn’t think so, because the camera is the perfect poster child for device convergence: point and shoots are quickly fading in popularity due to improved smartphone cameras. In fact, the New York Times recently reported an 18 percent decline in the sales of point and shoots since 2008, largely due to phones with solid cameras. But when I cover the Consumer Electronics Show next month, readers won’t want to see marginal, camera phone pictures; they’ll want high-quality images and videos. I have to balance mobility with functionality.

I have an excellent DSLR in my Canon T1i, but there’s a problem: That camera is too bulky and heavy to effectively navigate the sea of attendees at CES. If that’s the case (and it is, given my past experience) and a smartphone camera just won’t do, what do I do? You guessed it: I just added a superb point and shoot to my device collection, the Canon S95, which fits in a pocket. So now I have yet another device to either carry or choose from, not just because of functionality, but because of form, weight and other factors.

Amid continuing advances in technology, one theorem still holds true for mobile devices: Every single one of them is a product of compromise. Want your laptop to run longer? That can be done, but you’ll either have to give up processing power or be stuck carrying an extended battery. Gotta have your latest videos filmed in 1080p? You’re not doing that on a smartphone yet, so you’ll need to tote a separate camera.

Devices are getting better, and everything is moving away from the desktop as consumers want to enjoy apps and services on the go. But for some reason, I feel like all of the improvements in mobiles are just weighing me down. Put another way: My mobile needs used to be met with a laptop and a phone. Now my hardware stack is getting so big I can’t carry it all. Am I alone in the quest for the perfect set of just a few gadgets that can really everything I need?

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RIM is moving aggressively to extend QNX to its entire smartphone lineup, Jeffries & Co. analyst Peter Misek said last week, adding that, within a year, every new device will be running QNX. But as Canaccord Genuity’s T. Michael Walkley wrote last week, winnowing the portfolio of new BlackBerry OS devices could damage the company amid increasing competition in the space:

“We believe RIM will likely lose high-end smartphone market share and higher-end North American subscribers over the next several quarters,” Walkley noted, “due to limited new high-end product launches ahead of new QNX smartphones combined with improving competitive smartphone offerings such as the Samsung and HTC Android based smartphones at most carriers and the iPhone likely launching at Verizon in February.”

There’s no question that BlackBerry OS is a quality platform, particularly in the enterprise. But end users — who increasingly get to choose which devices they carry to work — simply want a compelling smartphone experience. Android and iOS have successfully eaten into RIM’s market share both in the US and worldwide. Though Blackberry emphasizes productivity, Android and iOS are simply superior for tasks that extend beyond the work environment: browsing the web, playing games and using other kinds of apps.

Nonetheless, there is tremendous opportunity for any manufacturer who can combine user-friendly features with an enterprise-minded OS. In his note last week, Misek cited QNX’s “great” browser, superior security and low power consumption. Just as importantly, QNX — which very few people have actually laid their hands on— appears to deliver the same kind of compelling user experience that fueled the success of iPhone and Android. And nobody is as well positioned to take advantage as RIM, given its reputation for rock-solid business apps and its massive mindshare among IT departments who still have some influence over which devices staffers carry.

To achieve its potential success, RIM will need to move deftly from one OS to the other, supporting the aging Blackberry platform while aggressively building an ecosystem for its new one. For my thoughts on how to do that, see my weekly update at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Image courtesy of Flickr user Honou.

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The app, which launched in July 2010 amidst a lot of fanfare, critical acclaim and criticism, has been quietly figuring out its long-term game plan. The app uses a unique interface that marries magazine-like metaphors with multi-touch gestures, and displays links shared by your followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook. It’s one of my favorite apps, but I’ve always felt the company needs to embrace the world beyond the two social networking heavyweights: Twitter and Facebook.

RSS Everywhere

When McCue stopped by my office earlier this week, I put this question to him. He asked me to stay tuned. The company is looking to embrace RSS and other information sources. It’s not hard to imagine Flipboard showing content from Google Reader. Flipboard wants to make social sharing and social content curation easier for a deeper content experience, McCue said.

The keys to this future are two technologies: RSS and HTML5. “We think of RSS from the consumer’s eyes,” McCue explained. Flipboard wants to make it easy for folks to consume RSS-based content, but offer it in a manner that mainstream users will find palatable, he said.

In addition to RSS, the company is looking at HTML5 as part of its future. “We are going to be relying more and more on HTML5 going forward,” McCue said, pointing out that the company is soon going to be submitting HTML5 extensions to W3C that make it easier to use magazine style elements such as pull quotes and sub-heads.

HTML5 Framework, FlipPages

McCue, who in a past life worked for Netscape and later started TellMe Networks (sold to Microsoft for $800 million), believes his flagship iPad application is merely the first step in his long-term vision of building a new kind of information company. Behind all the talk of content consumption, content sharing and content discovery is the core business model: a new kind of advertising network that combines the traditional magazine style branding with personalized experiences.

Today, the company that has raised $10.5 million from the likes of Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, is launching HTML5-based Flip Pages, which give web-content publishers a framework to offer iPad-ready experience. When content from a handful of media brands such as Bon Appetit, Lonely Planet and SB Nation is shared on Twitter or Facebook, Flipboard renders the page as a magazine-style reading experience. Flipboard is working with OMD, an advertising agency, and testing magazine-page sized brand advertising from advertisers such as Pepsi, Gatorade, Infiniti and Charity Water.

More Than Just an Ad Network

From the day Flipboard launched, I’ve often wondered what the company’s business model could be. For starters, the company could offer a SaaS-based service that would allow them to easily build Flipboard-styled iPad apps for a nominal fee.

For instance, a small publisher such as GigaOM could sign up for this service and create magazine-style subsections and cover page, pick and choose fonts and other such visual elements, and create a unique enough experience. Flipboard could submit the final app to the App store, but the marketing of the app is left to the publisher. Similarly, the company can quickly add support for other tablet devices such as Android-based tablets or Palm’s WebOS based tablets, if they ever come to market.

Given that it costs tens of thousands of dollars to build an iPad app, for small publishers such as us, paying, say, $10,000 a year seems like a bargain. Now here’s the best part: The apps would carry the code for Flipboard to serve ads-from either its ad-network or on behalf of publishers for a fee. As it signsup high-quality, niche publishers, the company starts to develop big enough reach for its ad network.

If the company wants to go one step further, it should build Flipboard-powered web sites for publishers such as ourselves: a good way to build more momentum.

Of course the big question is, will publishers bite? I will, for sure. After all, what’s good for Oprah is good for me. Apparently, Oprah wanted Flipboard to build an app for her.

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