Aaron Landry, s4xton.com - Technology Evangelist -
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Last Visited: 6/15/2008
Aaron Landry, s4xton.com
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Aaron Landry knows a lot about mobile blogging.In fact, he has 1000 mobile blog posts from his Hiptop to prove it.Ben had a chance to sit down with Aaron to discuss "The End of an Era" of moblogging with Aaron and find out what's next for this Minneapolis techie.
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We are here with Aaron Landry to discuss "The End of an Era".You actually purchased a Hiptop back in 2002 and then 2003 started into do mobile blogging with it, after a thousand blog posts, you retiring the Hiptop.
Aaron Landry: Yes, that's true.
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Aaron Landry: Well, I will start from the beginning.
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Aaron Landry: Right, exactly and so I just trashed it, I just realized that blogging was just worthlesst to me and I know it is just a pointless venture 2002 and it was just not good for anything and then once I got this Hiptop, not long after I found Hiptop Nation which was run by somebody who has had Hiptop from the beginning as well and there was just other people posting and at that time it was 90/120 pixel images.
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Aaron Landry: But, the kicker was is that they were posting it directly from their device and taking it from their device, ofcourse it was a bar of soap and the camera attached to it on the side, and it wasn't even a built in camera, but to be able to have a system where you can take a picture and then email to something and have it automatically be published on webpage was just a coolest thing in 2002 and so it was a group moblog so to speak and that time it was like, it was kind of revolutionary in a way, it is like one of the first ones out there . I mean you can date back there was some guy in Finland that did it before, but really this was one of the first ones that kind of actually took off and was being used.
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Aaron Landry: Right, exactly and infact the guy who started that site, he was invited and talked at the first moblogging conference in Japan later that year.
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Aaron Landry: Yeah, we hate them all .
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Aaron Landry: Right, it is kind of a mix between two things, well it is about three things actually.
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Aaron Landry: And at the same time have to be a social device where you don't have to stick your head in it for a while to turn on instant messenger or something, where it is just something that just works in multitask properly and that's why we bought into it and it was revolutionary then, but it is not revolutionary now.It is just that so many other devices that do so many more things now and the goal of the device isn't necessarily for the people that want the cutting edge technology it is more geared towards the masses now and the kind of functionality that they are adding into it and the kind of things that they are doing with the device are more geared to sell more devices, which is great for them, but for the smaller group of people that want the cutting edge stuff and then we got to move on.
The third piece of why I am cutting back is I need a break.I have been connected to the Internet for like four years where anybody that needs to get a hold on me or anytime I need to go to webpage to get an answer, anytime that you're at a bar and somebody arguing with your friend and just like OK I will Google it right now and then your friends become dependent and your co-workers become dependent on the fact that you always available and it is just like , OK I sent Aaron an email half hour ago and he has not got back to me, what's the deal?Like he must be really busy.
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Aaron Landry: My backup phone, yeah.
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Aaron Landry: Right.
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Aaron Landry: Well yes, I look at a lot of devices that are out there, it is like I am always especially towards the last couple of years and not seeing all the stuff I would have liked in the Hiptop.
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Aaron Landry: Right, it is not on the fastest network, it is on a closed architecture, who knows what apps will and won't be available for it, the price point is high, but it has got the features that I want and so it is I am already sold on it, it is the promise, I mean it is not, I mean that is even on release date formalized about it, but it is June sometime, right, but for what I want, it is like this looks like it is going to be a fit for me, even though I am going to have friends I can be like well, I can download this faster and it is like I can view this kind of media and…
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Aaron Landry: Oh man!My Holy Grail device…
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Aaron Landry: First of all would be small and then secondly it has to got to have a QWERTY keyboard.
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Aaron Landry: Yeah, I am so used to being able to not have to look at the device and be able to just kind of know where the keys are and be able to use it that still be able to hold the conversation or still be able to drive which of course I don't recommend to anybody.
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Aaron Landry: Probably tactile.
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Aaron Landry: If there is a Holy Grail device it is going to put my iPod and my Camera and my Phone and my Internet messenger in to one thing.
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Aaron Landry: See that's what right, it is almost impossible, I mean just because with the kind of hard drives and the way that flash memory works, it is not down to the size yet where you can have 80 gigs easily on a phone.
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Aaron Landry: Absolutely.
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Aaron Landry: Yeah, I am not sure.
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Aaron Landry: That's what, you have hit on something that I wanted with the latest version of Hiptop 2 , it is just like have this have video, it is like I want to workout some kind of script where I could be mobile vlogging, which is scary…
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Aaron Landry: or movlogging.That would be awesome to be and then to have somebody to able to subscribe to you and the people to be updated, like I could be somewhere and take a video and post it and have end up being on somebody's iPod or at somebody's computer almost immediately and for let's say a theoretical group of like 20 other people that do that from across the country or across the world doing that too, I mean that's a really cool and interesting experiment right there.
Benjamin Higginbotham: Aaron has been fun, it is been lot of great information and that we will be watching your blog kind of see where it goes from here, see where you go even if you do not stay in the moblogging area, I know you will be on the leading edge some part of social something somewhere that's just seems to be who you are and what you do and it is lot fun to watch and you really do seem to pioneer this area of the Internet.
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Aaron Landry: It is been a pleasure, cheers.
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