Using Gmail on the Apple iPhone Solution — When Good Intentions Go Bad

By all accounts I can find, Apple has sold roughly a million iPhones since it launched on June 29. That makes a million people setting up the new phones in the US alone, and what is likely a healthy percentage using the Gmail email service.

Personally, I have about six Gmail accounts including those through the Google Apps for your Domain service, and I’ve recommended and installed a number for clients. So, given the popularity of the new phone and the email service it was something of a stun to find just how completely insane the two work — sort of — together.

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Links from LZZR.com

Here are some thoughts, and an experiment in fighting link bumping, from LZZR.com, an SEO weblog — interesting take on some of the current “nofollow” controversy.

Why it is good to link to LZZR

My WIRED Cover

About three months ago, I ripped the shrink wrap off my monthly WIRED magazine and found a note from the publisher. They were doing a special run in partnership with XEROX around a piece on hyper-personalization on the web. If I was one of the first 5,000, the note said, to send in a picture of myself at the appropriate resolution, I’d get my face on the cover of the magazine. Of course, I’ve always wanted to see my face on the cover of WIRED magazine.

So, I shot off the first pic that came up — a scruffy-looking, vacationing Pete shot through a mirror in a get-away hacienda in New Mexico this year. Very vacation-chiq. Still, my face, my WIRED.

I think it’s a befitting example of the kind of personalization we’re capable of now, that even a publication the size of WIRED can reach out and touch us readers so personally, and it’s something all small businesses can take a note on: how many of us have 5,000 individual clients in our rosters? How long would it take to reach out and touch them each so personally?

BlackBerry Messenger: A trip through the Internet Time Machine

I don’t use a Blackberry. In spite of the cult of Blackberry, I’ve always found the device difficult to navigate. Even the new Pearl, with the cute scroll-wheel, is marred by the funky keyboard layout. I just can’t get used to typing on keys that have more than one character each.

Of course, as a new iPhone user, the Blackberry has drifted even further from my sphere of potential use. Today, I got an email from a good friend who happens to work at T-Mobile. It was an invitation to join his Blackberry Messenger contacts list (Messenger is the software application that provides chat between Blackberry users).

First, I can’t use the software because I don’t have the device. To my knowledge, I can’t use the software on my desktop machine either. Of course, I wouldn’t know the answer to that, thanks to my second problem.

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Chautauqua: John Harwood Blog

If there was any sarcasm in my post on John Harwood not being able to remember the URL of his new weblog — and there was — I take it back completely. John emailed me today to let me know where to find the blog, discovering the post I’d written on him as he — I assume — gets acclimated to scouring blogs on himself. Thanks, John, for jumping in with both feet and shooting off the quick correction: Political Capital with John Harwood.

I spent just a few cursory minutes reading the blog and the only thing I find missing is any comment system. I did not register for the CNBC site, which could have been the problem. Still, I’d love to be able to interract with Harwood on the site in a more substantial fashion.

iPhone Debuts — In My Pocket

I was one of those people. I was one of the who-knows-how-many standing in line at the Apple Store for a brand new iPhone. And, I did it on vacation in Buffalo, NY, meaning I got it a full three hours before all my peeps in Portland.

Was it worth it? Now that I’ve had three days with the thing, was it worth the money, the time, the sales tax?

First things first. The Apple Stores were — I have to imagine I can speak generally here, extrapolating my experience in the NY store — awesome. They were managed impeccably. Lines were bled into the store at around 4 customers every few minutes, ensuring no logjams on the store floor itself. We were shuttled all the way to the back of the store and asked the simple question: “What do you want — 4 or 8?”

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