Nokia goes to war with Apple!

Another bite coming from the Finnish giant of mobile phones...  Nokia is suing Apple for allegedly infringing ten of the company's patents in the iPhone...

The hot news in more detail will be all over the news so I won't go into details but yet another slash in the mobile phone war for the bid to dominate the world!

Finland - Its your god given right to have broadband!

Yes, we have Nokia & a hand full of other pretty big tech firms but announced today - that by July 2010, it will be your god given right to have high speed broadband in the comfort of your own home! Yep, we're making having access to broadband a legal right, ensuring that every single one of these lovely Finnish citizens has an Internet connection of at least 1Mb/s by July 2010. Pretty cool no...

Makes you wonder why countries like the UK, being major leaders in so many sectors of everything still get away with charging a fortune for broadband... My personal connection is 25eur per month and thats around 5mb... Soon I'll upgrade to 100mb which is around double the price!

Banned from Facebook for 48 Hours!

No, I wasn’t banned by Facebook, rather I banned myself from Facebook & TV for the past 48 hours – and wow what a difference!

Reason for the Ban:

Simply put, I felt Facebook & Television where taking up too much time – Yes, they essentially become addictions of everyday life! Even at my ”young” age many people are permanently logged in… Spare time is being spent in Facebook instead of something useful & we all know the ”Girlfriend & Boyfriend scenario: Honey, what are you watching… Be quiet babe, I’m watching TV… What is it your watching?... Oh for *** sakes, I don’t know babe – just be quiet”

The effects of these two combined are detremental if you ask me! I am as such a victim who easily finds himself in front of the TV at night time with laptop permanently on Facebook, while offcourse I scroll and study other sites also…

I decided it was simply high time to see what happens without either & in the long-term my ambition is to find the happy medium – somewhere between the latest technology and old fashioned ”face-to-face” communications. Simply put, its about finding a balance & the right tools that benefit your life, without sacrificing life offline!

So I put together a few positive / negative thoughts on FB & following that I’ll give a brief of what can happen in 48 hours

Positive effects on work life:

Is there a positive effect? Yes we can network but this isn’t work life… this is essentially personal life. As an entrepreneur their are ways to network and FB is not one of them…
Yes as a digital marketer I need to know whats happening in Facebook for the sakes of my clients and their positioning to the consumer within social media, but this once again is not worklife – its is a requirement of my profession to ensure clients maximize their position online/offline etc…

Negative effects on work life:

- Less hours a day spent on actual work
- Less thinking time (I am a solid believer that FB fills in the gaps between work but shouldn't thinking do this?)
- On-going distraction - "whats happening in FB - I'll just check"
- Friends wanting to chat in FB chat (which hardly works anyway). Yes, friends overseas are a positive effect but your local friends? Really guys, pick up a bloody phone or go meet them…

Positive effects on personal life:

- Keeping in touch with friends everywhere made easy. Especially friends from abroad who are difficult to keep in touch with otherwise.
- Self learning through groups/clubs…
- Dating (various dating tools which actually work kinda….)
- Games (if your into that)

Negative effects on personal life:

- Less hours a day spent on actually doing something
- Reduced motivation to see your friends face-to-face
- I think a mix of old & new communications works. Many are using Facebook for everything – in some cases its even taken over the horrible SMS which we all know we use too much.
- Relationships are being managed from FB. People are loosing touch with the need to see each other or at least speak over the phone. People are dumping each other in FB & having relationships that never make it outside of the cyber world - is this honestly healthy?
- Why see my friends? Lets hang in FB & have a beer...
- Less motivation to work out...
- Combined with TV the overall effect is just laziness
- Future generations will be pail white, fat & munch of unlimited amounts of sugar and junkfood while they couch potatoe themselves with a laptop on their laps with FB

The last 48 hours

Just briefly instead of sitting on my sofa starring into the TV & speaking to 20 people in Facebook while I update my status every five minutes I’ve read 200 pages of a book which by the way, I rarely allocate time to myself for reading, I’ve done a lot of thinking (which otherwise I would have been telling people in FB that I’ve done alot of thinking instead of doing alot of thinking), opened up my eyes to various music groups via Spotify (now that is a good online source), had coffee with two friends in the evenings, been to gym, been shopping & essentially just spent more time doing what we used to do… Active ”offline” stuff!. Oh yes, offcourse I have been working as one always does anyway…

Please note...

I am not at all saying Facebook is no good but I think what I am saying is that we need to be self indepedant from things like Facebook & TV. I will use Facebook everyday in the future, just to communicate with friends abroad & yes, I am sure I will speak a little to my local friends but I will ensure I keep my distance & only spend a short time in there everyday. I don’t need to say anything about the combination of this & TV – I think that one is obvious!!!!