G-Mobile

This'll be the first of many "Crazy Ideas that Just Might Work" posts.

I think Google should acquire T-Mobile.

T-Mobile is the smallest of the remaining big cellular carriers. One might even say it's the last one yet to be acquired/merged/purchased.

The Google+T-Mobile combination could be lucrative for these reasons:

1. Free internet services, with text-based adds for any customer who wants it, including wi-fi hotspots (this is a big one, T-Mobile currently has the market cornered at Starbucks, United Red Carpet, AmericanAirlines Adimiral Club, Delta Crown Rooms, Border Books & Music, FedEx Kinkos and a variety of other pay-hotspot locations – many, many locations)
2. Expand internet access by offering low-cost wireless broadband via existing networks (this for home PCs and traveling laptops).
3. Alternatively/Additionally, offer discounted rates on combined cellular/internet plans, bring Google Talk to the next level by offering home telephone service via T-Mobile wireless network (home base stations). So, for around $50/month the customer would get unlimited cellular service, unlimited cellular/home/travel/wi-fi internet (anywhere you go), unlimited home phone service (with all the features of Vonage), unlimited Gmail, and all the existing Google Services.

Why would Google offer such a fantastic and affordable service? To bring more people to Google, of course. People are paying $45/month for a dial tone anyway, why not get the whole package? It would have to appeal mainly to, for lack of a better term, "late adopters", you know, the people who still haven't gotten a mobile phone yet and still use AOL internet (of course, if Google would/could buy AOL too, that would be even better).

Of course at time of writing, Deutsche Telekom AG (T-Mobile USA's parent company) has a market cap of $70 billion (USD) and Google, Inc has a market cap of $123 billion (USD), so this deal may not be quite feasible.

Please email your thoughts to robert@lifeistech.com.

technorati tags: google, t-mobile, g-mobile, cellular, mobile, communication, internet, technology, life, life+technology

Moved.

This site has moved to http://lifeistech.com

I like worpress.com, but it's just not customizable enough for my needs.

Feedburner Outage

Apparently Feedburner is experiencing Technical Difficulties:  Forum Topic

technorati tags: feedburner, feeds, technology, outage,

Feed-to-Email

Today, I posted a couple comments on TechCrunch (1, 2) on "FeedBurner Will Dominate Blog-to-Email". I found myself surprisingly opinionated about the topic. That's because I used Netvibes, Gmail, Rssfwd and iTunes to manage feeds – that's right, 4 different apps/services – and that's pretty ridiculous. You'd think with so many great services that if I clicked on a feed like this one, it would automatically do something cool like, say ask me what I want to do with it. Something like, "Would you like to subscribe to this site?" would be nice.

Instead, I get something like this:

I know, I know… If I had a desktop feed reader installed, it would know what to do with it (maybe).

My point is in 3 parts:

1. I don't want a desktop feed reader.
2. My Mom doesn't know what a "feed" is.
3. The feed icon/button () is probably the most useless and ineffective thing on the Internet you can click. You click it and then you get a bunch of garbage.

How can we fix this? I proposed in my first comment that perhaps an extension or application would be an effective in helping more people use feeds. I think it would be especially nice if a browser like Flock could build this functionality into it's interface. I click the feed icon, the browser asks me "Do you want a subscription to this site?", I say "Yes", it asks me "Would you like the entries from this site sent to you via email?" or offers to add it to my preferred online/desktop/Outlook feed reader (which can be pre-set).

If something like this exists, please email me.