And I love Flash. Spent a good bit of my career learning Flash and saw it transform the way we interacted with video on the Web. However, it is a proprietary system that requires a plugin to function properly. From what little I understand of HTML 5, this open standard marks the end of Flash.

What's funny to me is how Apple, a company that's become progressively more closed and restrictive as its dominance in the mobile space has grown, it still finds ways to do the right thing and look like a hero. And it's these little glimpses of minor heroism that keep me believing that like Darth Vader, underneath all that bad and evil beats a pure heart of truth and honor and that ultimately Good will prevail.

Apple is right here, now let's see more of this good guy Jobs.

While such sharing provides some benefits for consumers in the form of discounts or recommendations I think the real gold in sight for Blippy's investors is the belief that such a service could provide the same type of consumer data to sites that Amazon.com is using to its advantage as Brad Stone points out on the NY Times Blog.

I'm also sensing a small but growing backlash against what Stone calls the "Too Much Information Movement" as evidenced by the backlash against Facebook for its privacy transgressions. 

The real question to ask as the TMI apps and services sprout up is whether or not the benefit of sharing provides enough value to offset the loss of privacy and most of us haven't really asked ourselves that question - until now.

How important is our privacy? What happens when the pendulum starts swinging in the opposite direction towards privacy protection like it has in Europe? I don't know but I'm starting to look for alternatives to Facebook and rethinking my embrace of Foursquare. What about you?

Beyond Customer Service
Lately I've been trying to imagine how businesses could more fully utilize Twitter and customer service seems like a natural fit. Comcast and Zappos have done a pretty good job of using Twitter in this manner but what about going beyond traditional customer service and actively seeking folks to service? Help with problems or answer questions for folks who aren't expecting to receive an answer?

Services like Schmap.it are doing something like this but they have that phony auto-responder feel to them and miss the boat in my opinion. What I'm imagining is a robust, person-powered Twitter concierge service that goes way beyond customer service but applies the intelligence and reason of a human being to know which tweets require a response and which tweets to ignore. 

Lunch Advisor?
Imagine it's 11 a.m. and you're at the office and your mind starts thinking about lunch. You lean over to your colleague and ask, "where should we go for lunch?"

If you're lucky you work with a foodie and he recommends the best new place in town for the best price. If you're like most people the response is some place close by and boring. Enter the Lunch Advisor.

Tweet out that you need a lunch recommendation for around $10 per plate in your area and within five minutes you get a quality recommendation from the Lunch Advisor. But it's a Mexican place and you'd really like Thai so you respond and immediately get a new recommendation for an Asian fusion place nearby.

Now you're having a public conversation about great restaurants in your area. But how does the new Direct Messaging feature have anything to do with this idea? Now imagine Lunch Advisor sending a DM to the starving desk jockey offering a free appetizer if he shows a code on his iPhone. Or maybe the DM is a message recommending the Vietnamese place down the street for tomorrow's lunch with a coupon code?

Who Powers This Idea?
How does something like this get answered with real, quality answers 24/7? I haven't worked that out yet but I can see a business model emerging where Direct Messages are a way to send offers, codes, exclusive deals, coupons, etc. to a specific follower. 

However, that advice runs contrary to similar advice given to journalists which is know your audience and write each story with them in mind. 

Both bits of advice are solid instructions but can come into conflict with one another, especially as a journalist is trying to be creative and opinionated and not necessarily reporting on events of the day. Balancing both a need to appeal to an audience and a desire to write what is sometimes deeply personal is one of the characteristics of successful independent writers.

It's a balance I tried to achieve when blogging more consistently years ago and one I'm trying to strike right now.

Yet two other key elements to good writing are reading and volume. Great writers are usually voracious readers as well as compulsive writers meaning that they write a lot, even if not all of it is published. Practice makes perfect and I know that the more I write, the more my writing improves. 

I cranked out my best writing when I was writing three or four times a day and reading dozens of other writers in blog posts, articles, reports, books, etc. And during that time I was always aware of my audience while keeping the writing grounded in what I knew.

That's what I'm working to recapture. It's not easy but I'm doing it. Not everything I write over the next few weeks will be something I look back at fondly but it's the discipline I'm trying to reclaim.

So, why was this film a must-see 3D experience which forced me to cram uncomfortably grubby, smudged glasses on my noggin for nearly three hours? I have no idea but there are a few theories circulating around that run counter to the PR reasoning spouted by James Cameron and the studios:

1. It makes the movie virtually "piracy" proof. Much too difficult to copy a 3D movie and add it to the torrents.
2. Competing with large, HDTVs and Blu-Ray. The experience of 3D is really only obtainable in a theater. No matter how good your set up is at home, the one at the theater is better.
3. Make more money. I just paid $11.50 per ticket to see the movie in 3D. The 2D version was $9.50. I really paid an extra two bucks for blurred glasses and a headache? Yes. Yes I did. That extra coin helps the box office take and gets this flick up the financial charts just a little bit faster.
4. Try watching this movie on an iPhone. This is a theater and ultimately home theater film. It's not meant for laptops and iPhones. Maybe that's not a bad thing?

I'm not saying the film didn't look great. It did. Quite possibly the most beautiful film I've ever seen. And I do believe that the 3D added to that beauty and the effectiveness of the film but it did so at a price. The price of actual money ($2), the price of comfort and I believe the price of having a film that might not present the same experience for everyone.

Not everyone can see films in 3D (some common vision problems make 3D film ineffective) and I don't believe that I'm getting the same experience as everyone else. It's the same reason I hate hearing about people's dreams. It's like those old computer 3D paintings you had to stare at for a while to see the 3D. Half the time I never could see it and I felt left out of the experience I heard everyone else squealing about. Sort of the same with 3D movies. I hear others raving about it non-stop and wonder if I saw the same movie they saw? I think I did but that 3D didn't seem all that spectacular to me.

So, why 3D? I don't really know but I do know this, I'm not a fan. At least not until they can figure out how to get it working without those nasty butter smeared glasses.

This post was written entirely on my iPhone while lying (or is it laying?) in bed with my 20 pound feline purring nearby.

The only reason I'm blogging on the iPhone is to review the new Squarespace app. I have a wireless laptop that would make this much easier to post.

Likes: it's obviously more portable than my laptop and the autocorrect keyboard is nice to have when blogging. It's also an easy way to quickly communicate in more than 140 characters.

Dislikes: There doesn't appear to be a way to format text, add links or integrate any media other than photos. And of course the iPhone isn't the best device to use for composing lengthy messages of any kind.

The app is pretty feature rich considering the limitations of the iPhone. I can add categories and tags, preview the post, edit previous posts and check real time stats. That's a win.

This app will definitely help me increase the frequency of my blogging and for that I'm grateful to Squarespace and glad I'm a customer.

And that's my excuse for not blogging. Kids. Well, kids and work. And the work excuse is actually a pretty good excuse because it does take up a lot of my time but I still find time to watch "Seinfeld" or listen to podcasts.

So, why is it so hard to find the time to blog now? Where did that creative spark go? I had kids when I was blogging daily so that excuse doesn't hold up as well. No, I think the real reason I don't blog anymore is that I'm scared. Scared that what I put down for the world to consume is weak, pathetic drivel that isn't worth publishing. Frankly, I've lost my edge and that sucks.

How do I reclaim my edge? I'm not sure but avoiding the act of blogging certainly doesn't help. The formula I used in my golden days of blogging was simply this - blog often and the quality will follow.

And now that Squarespace (what powers this blog/site) has an iPhone app there's really no excuse for me to avoid a daily blog post. 

Yes, this is the beginning of my daily blogging. As rough and unpolished as it is right now I am confident that I will look back on it in six months and smile that grin of satisfaction knowing that I decided to get back in the saddle and pursue one of my original loves - writing!

"Oh really?" they ask. "You don't sound like you're from Memphis and you certainly don't act like a Memphian."

I'm still not quite sure if such comments are meant as compliments or insults but my guess is that they're intended as a compliment. Which is sad when you think about it, especially when considering the source of such comments - fellow Memphians.

If a wiseguy from Brooklyn said something similar to one of his neighborhood brethren it would no doubt be an insult.

"You're from Brooklyn? Really? You sure don't sound sound like it. What, are you too good for us you gotta talk like some oatmeal newscaster from Iowa?"

Or imagine the big buckled Texan berating his Lone Star State kin. Or the guy from South Boston. Or Savannah.

But in Memphis, sounding and behaving like an outsider is to be envied.

Why is that? 

Since I'm a native Memphian I believe I'm in a position to take a guess at the answer, even if I don't sound and behave like one. 

Memphis is the Charlie Brown of cities. Always running towards the football but never quite kicking it. Lucy is always there, with promises and smiles, ready to pull that football away at that last, critical moment. That's Memphis. Full of optimism and hope but ultimately landing on its back time and time again.

Yet, like Charlie Brown, it's still a lovable, endearing place full of great ideas, ambitions and dreams and able to keep plodding along in spite of the back-breaking string of disappointments.

And after a while, the people of Memphis, lovable and good hearted as they are, adopt some of the self-deprecating qualities of their Charlie Brown city. 

The result is that a fellow Memphian who doesn't sound like Charlie Brown is something to be celebrated.

"He doesn't sound and act like us. Maybe he's kicked the ball. Good for him."

Why don't more people follow this simple plan? Most folks find it hard to stay focused and dilute their efforts to dominate a niche by not clearly defining it from the get-go. A recent example of someone succeeding with this formula is I Can Has Cheezburger. The site began with the narrowest of niches, essentially a blog about Lolcats. However, from that dominating success the site has been able to expand to other categories such as FAIL Blog and Engrish Funny.

Other examples abound and possibly the most successful one being Huffington Post. What began as a non-localized, left-leaning political blog quickly dominated the niche and recently expanded into locally focused content as well as broadened the initial niche target.

What does this have to do with me? I'm in the process of identifying my niche. The dominance comes later but right now I want to scope out that niche and fully understand how to move forward with it. Any suggestions?