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on Podmo

Here's a great local innovation (I like those). Podmo provides 'free community networking for mobile phones'. Its a great service which provides access to content and other services such as messaging at no cost to users. All you need to setup a 'podmo free zone' is a server with Bluetooth radio capability that has access to the Internet (I set mine up on a laptop). The Podmo Server can be downloaded for free from the website. Many mobile phones now support Bluetooth so connecting your phone to your Bluetooth network is pretty easy to do (most of the time). Podmo supports an increasing number of mobile phones and the list on their website is pretty comprehensive. Unfortunately for me, my phone just happens to be an LG phone for which there is no support. I understand there may be some differences in their Bluetooth implementation (so much for interoperability). However, with a bit of begging, I managed to borrow a Nokia N73 for a short time to test this out. To run Podmo on your phone you need to download the podmo player. This turned out to be very easy now that I had a supported phone. Once that was done, registration was simple and away I went. There were a number of different types of downloads to have a look at, some news/information services and a messaging service. What Podmo really needs is more content and services - I'd like to see a web browser in there so that I can get out to the web without incurring charges from the mobile phone carrier. Their website provides a facility to upload content as well if you want to contribute. To me there seems to be enormous potential for education and training with services such as Podmo. It is very simple to setup a Podmo network anywhere. This could be in an education environment, work setting or any number of locations where it would be useful to establish some sort of connectivity. Since most mobile phones support Bluetooth, and the number of phones supported is pretty good and should only get better, the cost of providing network devices could be extremely cheap (get users to use their own phones). Using the Podmo network the connectivity, via Bluetooth, is free which removes a substantial barrier for using mobiles. What is needed is some good educational or training content. There are some obvious limitations such as the range of Bluetooth and perhaps, the number of devices that you can connect, depending on your bluetooth radio/server. Given the vast number of mobile phone models there will always be the possibility that some users may not be able to connect as well but the popular ones seem to be covered. Despite these limitations, I think that this sort of networking is really worth further investigation. Cheers, Jerry.

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Posted July 10, 2007