This article was heard on the radio program "The Computer Report," which is broadcast live on WCAP in Lowell, Mass., and is syndicated on WBNW in Boston and WPLM in Plymouth, Mass.
This article relates to Coola, a startup that had great technology, but went under in the dot-com crash. Their pioneering work is still of importance because it indicates a unique set of business possibilities:
For a library for the price of a book, visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
The value of your palm device depends on the information you put in it and the ease with which you can access that information when needed. So how can you keep your palm filled with the contacts, events, and notes that matter to you, without time-consuming and error-prone hand input?
There are sync services you can sign up for that will load your palm with info from the Web -- pick one or more channels and the service will push info on those topics onto your palm whenever you sync. But what at first seems like a convenience, soon devolves into a nuisance, cluttering your palm with unorganized information -- just one document after another, using up all available memory space.
The power of the palm comes from the ease of using the built in applications -- like schedule and address book. This isn't a PC with gigabytes of space where you can just dump everything. This is prime real estate, private property. You want to put up no trespassing signs, no spamming signs.
Your email files may be a mess. Your PC may be out of control with all that you have saved on it. Your palm should be an oasis of order and control. This is where you want to put the information that matters to you, what you need to help organize your life, info you might want to reference repeatedly, info you are going to want to consider in making important decisions, and getting together with people who are important to you. You don't want to hook up a fire hose from the Web to your Palm.
A new company that I've been doing some consulting for -- Coola -- has a quick and easy way for transferring pre-selected chunks of information from the Web or an email message to a palm device. To receive information this way, you click on a special link on a Web page or in an email, and the associated information will be added to the appropriate application on your palm (schedule, address, or memo) the next time you sync.
You can also send information this way to friends, customers, and business associates who use palms. It just takes a minute to fill out a form at their Web site www.coola.com and get the link for inclusion in email and the code for inclusion on Web pages to make it easy for others to move your particular information to the right application on their palms. You could use this technique to pass around your electronic business card. You could even include a link in your standard email signature to make it easy for recipients to move your contact info to their palms. Likewise, when you send out email about an upcoming meeting or event, you could include a Coola link that makes it easy for everyone to move the details to their palms. For a meeting, you can even include an alarm that will buzz a pre-selected time before the event, as an added reminder.
For instance, if Dave and Bill had an email list of regular listeners to this radio show, they could send out a weekly email message with a link that would move a note with details on the upcoming program into the schedule on listeners' palms for 7 to 8:30 on Sunday morning, with an alarm so they'll remember to tune in on time.
Once you've registered, you also could use this technique to harvest info that you want to move to your own palm, even when you don't have your palm with you. Simply fill out a form for an event or a contact -- maybe copying and pasting from a Web page or any document to the Coola form, then click on the resulting Coola link, and the next time you sync your palm the info will automatically move to the application you chose.
With this approach your palm becomes your safe harbor, the place where you keep the information that counts, and also your way to build a bridge from the world of the Internet to the physical world -- with content gleaned from both worlds and organized just the way you want it.
Give Coola a try at www.coola.com and let me know if you come up with creative uses for this new capability. [Unfortunately, Coola is no longer in business.]
Related article: Sync to people: building relationships
palm-to-palm
Related article: Bridging wired and wireless,
and putting the user in control
Transcript of chat session on what you can do
with Coola
Go to Coola fan page
Palm resources to go (coola-ized for convenience)
This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com
For a library for the price of a book, visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
Return to B&R Samizdat Express
Buy Richard's book Web Business Bootcamp (published by Wiley) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471164194/brsamizdatexpres
<
| Internet Business Showcase: | ||
|
|
|