Bridget Carey: The Digital Dish

How old is your phone?

How often do you buy a new cellphone? A study released today by J.D. Power and Associates says the average length of time a customer owns a cell phone is about a year and a half. And that's longer than last year's findings when people reportedly only owned a cell phone for 16.6 months.

It ranked Motorola and Sanyo brands as highest in overall customer satisfaction. The study also reported on several wireless handset usage patterns:

• Sixty-nine percent of all cell phones owned are a clamshell design—an increase of 19 percent from 2006. This compares to 29 percent for the candy-bar style, and 2 percent for the slide-cover design.
• Handset features that are used most frequently include: speakerphone (51%); camera capabilities (35%); services to send/receive short messages (22%); and gaming (16%).
• More than one-half of all current wireless users compared other handset brands before selecting their current wireless phone. Those customers who compare phones during the selection process are more likely to be satisfied overall with their current handset than those who do not.

You can read the full release here.

Motorola Lab at Wannado City

Wannado City will add a Motorola M-Lab occupation venue to it's role-playing theme park for kids, located at the Sawgrass Mills Mall.

The grand opening will be on June 21 and is designed for children between the ages of 8 to 12 (but 13 and 14-year-olds are also welcome) to simulate working in a high-tech scientific laboratory. The "young inventors" get to wear lab coats while solving problems using technology and teamwork through an interactive video game. The problem solving mission doesn't involve cellphones and communication technology, as you might think, but rather includes a underwater exploration involving deep sea creatures and focuses on innovations in technology.

Even though the children might not be working with Motorola cellphones, the Motorola logo will be displayed throughout the lab. In a Motorola press release, the company said they purposely didn't want the lab to involve cellphones because they do more than just make cellphones, and they didn't want to blatantly market their phones to children.

In connection with Motorola's partnership with Wannado City, there are plans to integrate Motorola communications products throughout the park, such as providing two-way radios for the Wannado City police and fire department park venues. They are also equipping park staff with Motorola two-way radios.

New concepts for news

While covering the winners of The Knight Foundation's News Challenge the other day, I came across some interesting studies from Jupiter Research analyst Barry Parr.

In a report on user-generated content strategies for media sites, it states that one half of online users participate in content creation. Also, about one-third of user-generated content users see such content as a differentiating feature on media sites.

There hasn't exactly been a barrage of comments to my story but it seems just having the option to comment makes it somewhat more pleasing to readers that come from the Facebook and MySpace world. And speaking as Facebook addict, I agree. One of the key findings in another of Parr's reports is "One-third of online users are interested in social networking features for media sites." (From the report Social Strategies for Media Sites, published May 9, 2007.) Perhaps there will be a day to come where we can have personal profiles and links to friends and join community events and groups, all on a newspaper's site... it's an interesting thought.

But if you have some new concepts on how to use digital media to communicate the news, check out the details on how to enter Knight Foundation's News Challenge at newschallenge.org.

Where no mouse has gone before

My latest 60-second review is the Rocketfish Twister Wireless Notebook Mouse. I wouldn't spend $44.99 for a mouse. My Microsoft mouse works just dandy and it's half the price. But the Rocketfish is a bit more pricey because of its unique features. It's about as thick as a cellphone (not counting those Razr-like phones) and can fit into a pocket.

The bottom twists to form a curve in the mouse that fits in your palm. (It reminds me of a Star Trek phaser, which for me just adds to the neat-o factor.)

And when you want to tuck it away, just twist the bottom back and it's flat for storage.

Although I'm not one who has the need to stick a mouse in my pocket, I do like how it will fit easier in my laptop case.

But the most important part: the laser works without a hiccup. I would rather have an actual scroll wheel than a touchpad, but then it wouldn't be Star-Treky.

Have you used the Rocketfish Twister Mouse? Have you already found the perfect mouse? (Or bought the mouse from Hell?) Just click that comment link and tell me about it.

Marketing meets Microsoft

If you haven't already heard, Microsoft acquired aQuantive, a online advertising company, for $6 billion today. This comes after a month of deal-making in the online advertising industry, including Google's purchase of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

Today I spoke with Gaston Legorburu, a chief creative officer with Sapient, also a online marketing agency. Legorburu is based in Miami and said when they heard the news, they were walking around ecstatic, "like we just went public today."

aQuantive manages Avenue A/Razorfish, an interactive advertising agency (with an office in Fort Lauderdale), which is Sapient's top competition, he said. And these online advertising deals are bringing lots of attention to Sapient - and similar companies - helping them become big players.

"I think Microsoft is going to have a hard time with the agency part of the business," Legorburu said, adding that there are brand and cultural challenges Microsoft might face. "Microsoft isn't exactly a touchy-feely company."

He might have a point there, especially when people imagine Microsoft to be the pudgy pocket-protecting dweeb "PC" from the Mac commercials.

Read more about it here.

Yeehaw: Terremark in Texas

To listen to my interview with Terremark Chief Executive Manny Medina, go to Today's Extras page on the Miami Herald, or just click here.

Medina spoke with me about yesterday's announcement of Terremark's purchase of Texas-based Data Return, and he explains that the future of the industry is heading toward virtual servers (which happens to be one of Data Return's specialties).

ad:tech Miami

It's almost time for the first-ever ad:tech Miami conference, held during June 26 and 27 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. This conference examines content of the digital advertising market and will focus on Hispanics and Latin America. The theme: "Speaking the Right Language: Engaging with Hispanic and Latin Audiences."

I recently sat down with ad:tech Chair Andrew Ianni, who told me that he plans for the Miami stop to target the Hispanic community. Although this is the first time it's in Florida, ad:tech has been around for 11 years, and there are 10 ad:tech conferences around the world. Ianni said adding Miami as a stop was a "no brainer" since he U.S. Hispanic market is a constantly growing consumer market.

"What's happening with search in Brazil is vastly different than what's happening with search in Mexico," Ianni said. And it's not just a place to learn what's happening with search, but also with all sorts of technology mediums, such as mobile advertising in the U.S. Hispanic market and in Latin America.

The conference will feature more than 120 speakers from the U.S., Brazil and Latin America. Media company executives speaking include MTV Networks, General Motors, Telemundo, MSN, Grupo Televisa and Google, to name a few.

There are about 75 exhibitors signed up, to see them all go here.

Stay tuned in June for more coverage of the conference from yours truly.

Sign of the times

Anyone passing by Fort Lauderdale these past two days might have noticed the Bellsouth signs came down off the 11-story-high Florida headquarters at 6451 N. Federal Highway, and two new 6-foot AT&T signs are going up today and Monday.

But for those of you with Bellsouth e-mail accounts, you don't have to do any changing of your e-mail address... for now. AT&T spokeswoman Kelly Layne Starling tells me the company hasn't announced a time frame around a possible transition for the bellsouth.net domain name to att.com. We shall wait and see.

Growing up CEO

You may recall a story back in September about Weina Scott, a 17-year old chief executive of her own podcast hosting site, Switchpod.com (and she made a cool $40,000 for working 20 hours a week).

It was recently announced that she won the 2007 Growing Up CEO award, which honors young inner-city entrepreneurs, all under 21 years old. It's founded by the not-for-profit organization Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC).

From the release:

Weina Scott, the 17-year-old daughter of Haitian entrepreneurs who had sold rice, flour, and sugar in Haiti before fleeing for their lives to the United States, launched Switchpod.com, a podcast hosting company, with another teenager in 2005.  A year later the company was bought – and Weina and her partner each received $200,000 in stock as well as $40,000 annually to continue to run the company.  “This is the American dream,” says Weina, who has been accepted at both Harvard and Yale. 

I'm told she's going to Harvard. (I don't know about you, but learning her story made me wish I did more when I was 17!)

Growing Up CEO is taking nominations for 2008. If you know of another Weina Scott out there, tell me about it.

Does Lemon need a lesson in tech etiquette?

If you caught video of the Dolphins mini-camp, you may have noticed quarterback Cleo Lemon had a Bluetooth stuck in his ear during a media interview.

It seemed rude to some people that he didn't take the phone off, and Cam Cameron brought it up in a press conference that he didn't understand why Lemon had the phone in his ear.

I didn't think having a Bluetooth resting on your ear was something worth bringing up in a press conference. I was with my family when the news came on, and it was clear that my parents found it disrespectful and were shocked that someone would dare have a phone in their ear, whereas I just thought it was pretty lazy on his part. But if I was interviewing him, I don't think I would feel offended.

Perhaps with new technology comes the need to learn new etiquette. Our parents taught us table manners, so the next generation needs to teach their children things like cell phone and texting manners. An Associated Press story featured in today's Business Monday about E-mail etiquette seemed like common sense to me, but then again many people I know could use a few lessons in tech etiquette -- especially in a culture that is expected to be in touch 24/7.