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We're heading to China!
After a 10-month wait, we finally have our travel approval to go to China to get Mei-li. Amy and Mahlon head out on August 4th. I will join them in Beijing on August 5th.

We have a day or so to do tourist-y things like visit the Great Wall of China, then it will be off to Zhengzhou to get Mei-li on Monday, August 9th.

After a couple of days of squaring away all of the adoption processes and forms, I will head back to the U.S. Amy, Mahlon and Mei-li will need to stay until August 20th.

Of course, we will be taking a ton of photos and video to document the process. Will post updates as soon as I can.

Two job openings on my team at Nationwide
Wanted to share a couple of job openings that I have on my team at Nationwide.

One is for a mobile marketing product manager. We need someone to help us define the mobile roadmap for Nationwide. Need experience in and a passion for building mobile sites and/or apps. http://bit.ly/nationwidemobilejob

The other is for a social media marketing lead. We need someone to help us expand our social media strategy as well as manage some of our high profile projects and vendor relationships. http://bit.ly/nationwidesocialjob

To apply, click one of the links above, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the job description, then click the "Apply for job" button.

You can shoot any questions to me at mortons7 at nationwide dot com.

Video calling article on TechRepublic.com
My latest article for TechRepublic looks at a couple of the video calling apps (Qik & fring) available for the Sprint EVO 4G.



Check it out and let me know what you think.

A week with the Microsoft Kin One
After saying a long goodbye to the HTC Incredible, I started using the Microsoft Kin One as my primary mobile device. After a week of use, I feel like I have a good idea of what the phone's capable of. It's definitely not going to complete with a smartphone, but it might have just enough extras to lure some feature phone users.



The Good
Just to reiterate, the Kin One is NOT a smartphone, so it isn't fair to compare it to an iPhone or a BlackBerry or an HTC Incredible. It is a pretty simple little feature phone aimed squarely at those who want their social content and contacts integrated into a feature phone OS. Not sure how big that audience is, but that is who the Kin One is going for.

So, back to "The Good" list:

1. The hardware design
You've gotta give Microsoft credit for taking a unique approach to the design of the Kin One. It's original product codename of "Turtle" pretty well sums up the look. When in the closed position (the Kin One has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard), it does sort of resemble a turtle or a hockey puck. When open, it looks a bit like a shorter and fatter Palm Pre.

I had several people comment on how "cute" the Kin One is.



2. The keyboard
One thing that many handset makers often get wrong is the keyboard. Over the past few months, I have reviewed several phones, like the Palm Pre Plus, where the physical keyboard were a real hindrance.



The Kin One's keyboard is actually pretty nice. It has good separation between the keys. The keys are also large enough and raised enough to be easy to target.

3. Cloud-based storage & Kin Studio
The Kin puts all of your data (photos, text, etc.) in the cloud, so Kin Studio is how you interact with it on the web.


My Kin Studio home screen. See a larger screenshot

Kin Studio is actually pretty slick. It gives you access to all of the data you have created or shared on your Kin One. It also gives you access to your Loop which is the stream of social content that you see on your Kin device's home screen.

The Not-So-Good
If read all of the other reviews of the Kin One, you would expect this list to be much longer. However, I don't think other reviewers actually used the Kin One as their primary phone for any significant length of time. Sure, it has some issues, but I wouldn't consider it a disaster as some have claimed.

1. The look and feel of the software
Some of the user interface elements for the Kin feels more like it was designed for the Jitterbug demographic rather than millennials. It features a tile layout similar to what we've seen from Windows Phone 7, but the tiles are huge on the screen. You only manage to see 4 tiles at a time. Part of that is due to the relatively small screen on the Kin One, but most of the problem is that the tiles are just too big. This forces you to have to scroll too much to find the apps or contacts you're looking for.

It also means you have to scroll a lot to see all of the content in your Loop.



I dig the tiles concept, but just dial the size back a bit.

2. The usability of the software in some places
Early on with the Kin One, I found myself running into dead ends where I couldn't figure out what to do next.

The most puzzling one was when taking photos. After you take a photo, you have no idea where it went or how to access it. The camera simply returns to viewfinder mode. You don't even get a couple of seconds to review the photo.

After taking several photos, I accidentally swiped my figure to the right across the screen to discover that all of my photos had been floating out in space to the right of my handset.

Of course, once I learned all of these secrets of the interface, I was fine. However, it should be a bit more intuitive than that.

3. The camera
As you might expect from a $50 device, the camera on the Kin One isn't the best. It's not terrible, but you really need to have a steady hand and just the right lighting to get good shots.

Here are a couple that I took this week.


This one turned out well


This one... not so well

The Bottom Line
If you are able to avoid comparing the $50 feature phone Kin One to smartphones like the iPhone, Droid or BlackBerry, then you will appreciate that Microsoft took a shot at something completely new by focusing on social media integration and cloud-based storage. Will it appeal to the millennials that Microsoft is going after? We'll just have to wait and see.

BTW, I purposely did not discuss Verizon's requirement that Kin One owners buy a $30/mo data plan. While that will affect the overall adoption of the Kin One, it is not something that has to do with the phone itself.

A week with the HTC Incredible
As a contributing blogger for CNET's TechRepublic, I get the chance to test out a lot of new smartphones. I generally have pretty high expectations for devices and, honestly, most handsets don't meet all of them.



I spent the past week using the new HTC Incredible from Verizon Wireless. It may be the best smartphone available in the U.S. right now.

The Good
There is a lot to love about the Incredible, but I will focus on three:

1. The design
The Incredible is a light and sleek handset despite having a big 3.7" screen. One of my favorite elements of the hardware design is the back of the case.



The back of the case is designed so that your hands are always holding the Incredible at the thinnest points. So rather than try and create the thinnest smartphone, HTC choose to make the phone *feel* thinner. Really smart design choice.

2. Sense UI + Android 2.1
I love Android, but it feels a bit unpolished in spots. HTC has developed their own Sense UI that runs on top of Android and makes it a much more refined experience. Really makes a big difference. It was one of the reasons I preferred the underpowered Droid Eris to the beefy, bulky Motorola Droid. It is also why I love using the Incredible.

3. The overall speed
The Incredible really blew me away with its speed. Everyone that picked up the phone over the past week commented on just how fast it is. It is the most responsive handset I've ever used. There is absolutely no lag.

The Not-So-Good
Of course, with just about every device, you will find things that you wish were a bit better. The Incredible is no exception.

1. Battery life
This one shouldn't be too much of a surprise. The Incredible is a powerful smartphone with GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi and a big, bright screen. No matter the handset, that is a recipe for shorter-than-optimal battery life.

I found that I could usually get through the work day (and well into the evening) on a single charge. Not terrible, but I found on heavy usage days that I would need to charge up during the day to keep it running. Not terrible for most users, but the Incredible would definitely not survive a day at SXSW Interactive.

2. The back of the case
While I love the design of the back of the case, I don't like how you take it on and off. First, it is made of plastic, so it may not be the most durable. Second, it doesn't slide on and off. You have to pry it off. I always found myself feeling like I was going to snap it in half.

This is the same issue I had with the Droid Eris. Wish HTC would rethink that choice. If you need to swap the battery or the microSD card, you will need to pry the case off each time.

The Bottom Line
Despite those small issues, the HTC Incredible is the best mobile device that I've ever used. The only reason I'm not picking one up is that I am waiting on the Sprint EVO 4G in June. If you're on Verizon, it is definitely the phone to have. Go get one right now. You'll thank me later :)

Two new articles on TechRepublic
I've published a couple of new articles on the TechRepublic Smartphones blog this week.

One is a new "week in review" format that we're trying out. I round up 5 or 6 stories from the mobile space and give my take on them.

The second is an introduction to the WebKit rendering engine that powers the browsers on iPhone, Android, Palm and, soon, Symbian and BlackBerry.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

The 2010 Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit recap
Last week, I was fortunate enough to head back down to Austin, Texas. I had just been there a month earlier for South by Southwest Interactive. This time, I was going to be attending the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

We have been Bazaarvoice clients at Nationwide since 2008, but this was my first Summit.

Monday
The night before the Summit Bazaarvoice hosted a small reception followed by roughly 30 small dinner groups around Austin. I was paired up with folks from BV, including CFO Ken Saunders, Intuit, Lending Tree, Charles Schwab, Fingerhut, Rosetta and ExactTarget at Perry's Steakhouse.


The vault at Perry's Steakhouse

We were given a private dining room that was housed inside an old bank vault. The food and conversation were great. Most of the companies at dinner were in financial services, so we were able to relate to how we were each using BV services.

See all of Bazaarvoice's photo from Monday night on Flickr.

Tuesday
The Summit kicked off on Tuesday with a total of 8 sessions. Three of those really stood out for me: Douglas Rushkoff's talk on innovation and corporate culture, Manish Mehta's session on the growth of social media and Kelly Mooney's panel on millennials.


Douglas Rushkoff

The millennials panel contained a lot of interesting insights into their media comsumption. The most shocking revelation, even more than the 100+ text messages they send daily, was the fact that none of them, including two recent college grads, owned or wanted to own a credit card.

I was asked to co-host a roundtable discussion on social media in highly-regulated industries with Dan O'Neil from Rosetta and Meghan Meehan from Bazaarvoice. Had some really good discussions (with most of our competitors) on how to use social media and still remain in compliance with the myriad of regulations that govern our industry.

Tuesday night, BV took all of the attendees out to the Mexican American Cultural Center for a party. In addition to the usual party components of a band, open bar and food, there were some quirky extras thrown in like a mechanical bull riding contest, some electrical performance art and fireworks.

While I declined to ride the bull, I was convinced to be a part of the electrical performance. It's a bit tough to describe, but I was placed in a metal cage between two 7 foot tall Tesla coils. After being locked in the cage, the coils fired hundreds, if not thousands, of lightning strikes at me. All of the strikes were synchronized to a pulsing dance beat. Yes, I had had a couple of drinks...


Me in the cage



See all of Bazaarvoice's photos from Tuesday on Flickr.

Wednesday
The second day of the Summit started off with some fanfare. The University of Texas drumline joined Bazaarvoice CMO Sam Decker on stage to get things started.


Love the guy at the breakfast buffet. Must be an A&M fan

I missed a couple of sessions due to business calls. So I didn't get to see Mitch Joel's keynote in the morning.

The highlight of Wednesday for me was Dmitri Siegel from Urban Outfitters. He shared how UO has been able to include customers in everything they do including the design of products.


Dmitri Siegel showing the Sellect Waterfall Sandwich meme

Wednesday night, I was able to convince a few Austin friends to join me for a couple of drinks. Aaron Strout, Kyle Flaherty, Chuck Hemann, Peter Kim and myself talked social media, Austin real estate and sports while watching part of the Red Sox game. It was nice to connect with these guys and take a break from the conference for the evening.

See all of Bazaarvoice's photos from Wednesday on Flickr.

Thursday
The Social Commerce Summit officially ended on Wednesday, but there was a one day Executive Social Media Bootcamp on Thursday. It was a much smaller event with about 40-50 brands in attendance.

I was asked to present as part of a panel on Facebook. Also got to hear from Sean McDonald, Ben McConnell, USAA, PETCO, Dell, Nielsen and others. It was very informal and hands-on. At one point, Ben McConnell helped a volunteer draft a social media strategic plan for his business. You can read Sam Decker's recap of the bootcamp on the Bazaarvoice blog.


You down with OGST? Yeah, you know me!

The event wrapped around 3pm and I headed straight for the airport afterward. Of course, I couldn't leave Austin without getting some Salt Lick. Ended up running into Kenny Kim from American Express, so we shared our thoughts on the event over some amazing brisket.

Overall, I had a great time at the Summit. I highly recommend it for anyone working in social media/social commerce.