Friday, April 28, 2006

Evaluating some moblogging sites

I have started using my Treo 650 to evaluate various moblogging platforms. These include boltfolio, busythumbs, kaywa, lifeblog (Nokia phones only)and winksite. There is quite a comprehensive list of photoblogs and moblogs along with a good introduction on what they are capable of on livingroom.org

I am unable to test the lifeblog site as I do not have a Nokia phone. However, I will keep this site on the list so that an apprentice with a Nokia phone could try it out.

So far I have found that boltfolio & other PC based photo / video archiving applications like fotolog and phlog take a long time to download on to a mobile phone. The pages also do not display very well & there is some difficulty with accessing important buttons / links.

Kaywa has a charge of 99 Swiss francs annual fee to use. Beyond an average apprentice’s budget. So I am down to, busythumbs, buzznet and winksite. I have also decided to see if I can find an apprentice with a mobile phone that is supported by Shozu to make use of flickr.

winksite stands out with its fast page downloads and clarity of navigation. It is a site built for mobile phone access. However, I am finding it tricky to post on to the page I have set up but am working on it. The other three are more straight-forward as the photo I need to post on the site just needs to be MMS / emailed to the site’s email address.

Next week, I intend to assit apprentices sign in to a page that they will be assigned. I am setting aside an hour for the task. During the week, I hope that we will have time to have a play with the sites using each apprentice’s mobile phone. At the end of the exercise, they should have access to the site and have set up a page that they will be able to post their photos to.

Just being able to upload photos into an archive is very much a basic level eportfolio. I need to find out how much text we can embed within each photo and see how feasible it is to put in the text using a mobile phone. I am also keen to explore the concept of attaching an audio file with the photo. This is a better way to input descriptors into an eportfolio using a mobile phone. So I will need to work on finding out how to do this & find some sites that will allow this to be done.

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