EQO Community - eqo

EQO Supports the Shiny New BlackBerry Bold

peter — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:56:33 -0700

Starting today, EQO supports the shiny new BlackBerry Bold. As the phone's name implies, this device is a statement-maker. It comes equipped with all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a top of the line smartphone--camera, GPS, WiFi, media viewing capabilities, bluetooth, et cetera, et cetera--plus it sports a fancy "bold" screen. Pretty neat, if you ask me.

Anyway, after you run out and buy a new Bold, come back to EQO and try it out.

Peter

EQO Adds Support for Lots of New Phones--Nokia E71 included

peter — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:27:37 -0700

It appears to me that phone manufacturers are releasing new mobile phone models at a quickening pace. It used to be that you could have a phone for over a year without it looking dated. However, in the iPhone Era, if you bought a phone 6 months ago, you are already two years behind the times (even if the phone you bought was an iPhone). The Age of the Disposible Mobile Phone is seemingly incongruous in the increasingly environmentalist milieu of western society. However, I am certain that when someone finds a way to make money by selling a "Green" phone all of the other phone makers will jump on board. For now, though, we will have to content ourselves with the cycle of "man, I need a new phone" to "just bought a new phone joy" to "look at that guy's newer phone envy" to "damn, why am I stuck with this Zack Morris phone" and back to "man, I need a new phone".

One just-released phone that I am looking forward to trying out is the Nokia E71. Personally I am a big fan of phones that feature WiFi, GPS, full qwerty keypads, and sleek Scandinavian styling--what is not to love? Another great reason to love this phone is that it is now supported by EQO.

You may or may not have noticed, but we have added a whole host of new phones to our supported list of the Nokia, Sony Ericcson and Samsung varietals.

Peter

Go for the Gold with EQO!

jho — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:57:24 -0700

The 2008 Olympics are only a few days way, and if you’re like me, you’ve got Olympic fever out the ying-yang. But if you’re also like me, you’re painfully aware that until Couch Surfing or Afternoon Napping becomes an Olympic sport, you’ll sadly never know that feeling of glory, admiration and pride as you accept that gold medal. Or, maybe you are an active person, so active in fact, that you find it hard to stay abreast of the latest, hottest Olympic stories out there. Well, you’ll be ecstatic to hear that EQO’s Go for the Gold contest has got you covered on both fronts, plus a chance to win some SWEET PRIZES!

Tell me more you say? Thanks to our awesome ability to harness the power of technology, you can now use EQO to keep up to date on the hottest and most fascinating Olympic storylines.

How does it work? It’s simple. Each day we’ll send you three exciting Olympic highlights via EQO Message (completely free to you, of course). You’ll then get to vote on your favorite story. The next day we’ll tell you which story won the Gold medal, along with three new stories.

What’s the best part? Each vote puts you closer to – OMG – winning the drawing for a brand new BlackBerry smartphone at the end of the Olympics. Each day we will also reward one of you mobile athletes with $50 worth of EQO Credits (so you can call all your buddies to rub your win in their faces).

And hey, ask not what your country can do for you. If the prizes aren’t enough motivation, you’ll also be competing for national pride as EQO rewards our very own Gold, Silver and Bronze medals to the countries that logged the most votes throughout the Olympics - EQO will fly your country’s flags on our website. Take that, <insert country name(s) you don’t like here>!

To register for the contest now, click here.

Sadly being an EQO employee I cannot take part in the competition, but much like the real Olympics, I’ll be intently following how the competition unfolds from my couch.

Bell, Telus customers to pay for incoming text messages: Open Letter

jho — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:58:21 -0700

Dear Bell & Telus:Wow. Today is a big day for you. You came up with a whole new way to dig deep -- way deep -- into the already porous pockets of Canadians. Up until now, I naively believed that the government and oil companies were responsible for gouging me, but clearly you’ve found a whole new way to exploit the Canadian population. After giving it some thought however (and doing a little research from online sources that appear to be credible), I was able to see your rationale for this new 15 cent per text message billing structure. After all, times are tough – we’re all feeling the pinch.

I mean, look at some of these upsetting facts I found:

Bell, in 2007, you only made 20 billion dollars in annual revenue (from about 5.8 million wireless subscribers)
And Telus, well, you are clearly in dire straits. Sadly, you only made about 9.2 billion dollars from 5.7 million wireless subscribers.

Wow, I can see how it would be hard to stay afloat given these rough economic conditions. Sadly, I cannot help with either of your causes as I currently contribute $100 / month in wireless services to Rogers’ annual revenue.

Despite the fact Rogers at the moment has no intention to jump on the pay per text bandwagon, I’ve already carved out my own plan to stick it to the man. See, I’m lucky enough to work for a little company named EQO, a Canadian company in fact, where I don’t pay a penny for messages. Listen up Bell and Telus (AND Rogers) subscribers! I’m about to share my secret with you – think of it as a quick tip to help you, the little guy, STICK IT to the big guys.

Just follow these simple directions:

Go to www.EQO.com and click on GET EQO NOW
Sign up for your FREE EQO account, and follow the simple directions to download EQO to your phone (it works with your existing phone and plan). EQO will import your contacts automatically.
INVITE EVERYONE you know on BELL, TELUS (& ROGERS) to join your EQO network (think of the Facebook invite style, but on your mobile phone).
Select a contact from your EQO Phonebook, click on EQO Message, type your message (might I suggest something like “SUCK IT, Bell & Telus!”), and hit send. You just sent your message for FREE, and your buddy will receive your message FOR FREE – no charge from Bell or Telus (or Rogers), and of course no charge from EQO.

Now THAT WAS EASY (insert Staples easy button here). You just sent the first of many FREE messages, the possibilities are endless. And by the way, for your buddies that aren’t on EQO, we also offer super-cheap SMS texts to anywhere in the world, though that won’t help your friend.

Why am I sharing my secret with you? Well, because it’s no secret at all. A bunch of us got together here at EQO a few years ago and set out to make staying in touch with people easier, and CHEAPER. It’s our contribution to good karma – enjoy, and make sure to let us know what you think!

In the meantime, you stay classy, Canadian telcos!

Check Out EQO's Fa-Bus-Pa on Facebook's Glo-So-Net

jho — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:51:15 -0700

So, there’s this great new social networking tool I stumbled upon recently called “Facebook”. If you haven’t already checked it out, you should definitely give it a try – it’s pretty cool. In addition to having your very own profile with all your friends on it like you can on MySpace, they also let you create business pages to promote your products and services, which I took the groundbreaking liberty of doing today.

Ok ok, so EQO’s been a little bit slow with promoting ourselves on Facebook's Glo-So-Net thing (...global social network/ing – I coined it right here and now), but that’s just because we wanted to put together an awesome Fa-Bus-Pa (Facebook Business Page???), filled with all things EQO Mobile VoIP Free Mobile IM & Free Texting Related.

Well actually, what would make it even more awesome (though there’s some debate this may simply not be possible), would be for you to go and visit EQO’s Facebook Page, and not just become a fan (we know you waaaaaaant to), but also become a contributor. We’re always looking for product feedback, new feature ideas / suggestions, or anything else you think anyone would find interesting.

Check it out today! Don’t be one of the last people on Facebook...to join EQO’s Page.

EQO Traveler is here.

peter — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:52:41 -0700

EQO Traveler is here.

Now when you roam with EQO you can use Travel Mode, so that all of your EQO calls will use your inbound roaming minutes instead of outbound roaming minutes. You can also enter the number of a local prepaid SIM card in Travel Mode so that your calls will be routed and charged to that number. Still confused? Check out this super helpful Travel Mode how-to video—Episode III Revenge of the Chris, the 4^th and final video in our 6 part saga.

Although I know that you don’t need any convincing, there are several reasons to watch this clip. This is the first EQO video to be filmed on Bryan’s fancy new HD video camera (so if you are a friend or family member of Bryan’s or the dude who sold him the camera, you might enjoy this). Also, this is Chris’ final performance for EQO (you’ll either be saying “phew, thank God” or “Why Chris? Why? Say it ain’t so!”). And finally, this is amateur film-making at its worst (which is always good for a few chuckles).

EQO CEO Bill Tam at next week's Dow Jones Wireless Innovations event, Redwood City, CA, April 22-23, 2008

jho — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:30:58 -0700

Webster’s dictionary defines innovation as:

in·no·va·tion ɪn əˈveɪ ʃən/ Pronunciation Key –noun

1. Mobile VoIP, text messaging and FREE IM with EQO.

2. the act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

Well #2 is probably the more accurate definition while I await Webster’s response on #1's definition suggestion.

Why is EQO at this year’s Dow Jones Wireless Innovations conference in Redwood City, CA, at the Sofitel, San Francisco Bay, April 22-23, 2008, you ask? Open Opportunity, and Turning Mobility Into Profitably (very clever) – of course!

The website told me that last year brought many changes to the wireless industry that will forever impact how people use their wireless devices. Apple introduced the iPhone; Google announced an open mobile operating system; even carriers and handset makers declared their openness. But how much is hype versus reality? Such changes will ultimately affect not only carriers and device makers but start-ups and investors, opening up increasing possibilities for revenue.

To help both VCs and entrepreneurs get a view of the innovations and opportunities that will emerge in 2008 and beyond, Dow Jones VentureWire is putting together an impressive group of speakers, including individuals from some of the major carriers, CEOs from 70 of the most promising mobile start-ups (most notably our own mobile god, EQO CEO Bill Tam) and, of course, some of the leading investors in the sector (show me the money!).

Come catch Bill Tam April 22, 2008 between 3:05-4:40 PM in Salon 3. That’s right, he only needs just over an hour to tell you about how EQO is one of the fastest growing Mobile VoIP players (and the most AWESOME) in the industry, how we are adding tons of new users everyday, and by this humble blogger’s opinion – how our monetisation model has the makings of Forbes-type-recognized success.

If you are in town next week soaking up all that Redwood City has to offer (I know, there’s so much to do…) – Wireless Innovations is a must-see!

More on working smarter from 37Signals

chris — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:50:07 -0800

Since reading and blogging about Getting Real, I've become more interested in what 37Signals has to say. I've started perusing their Signal vs Noise Blog from time to time and have found a couple more gems worth sharing.

The first post that caught my eye was a response to Jason Calacanis' now infamous post on how startups can save money. I had already read what Calacanis has to say and found it to be generally good advice. If you want to get the most out of people, you should indeed set them up for success. But I was irked by the same point that David at 37Signals was, that Calacanis recommended firing non workaholics, and was interested to read the response post Fire the workaholics. Clearly there is a happy medium, but I found that I generally agreed with the 37Signals point of view, that working smarter not longer should be a priority. This is clearly a heated topic near and dear to people's hearts, exemplified by the outrage at the original post. Just read the comment stream to see how sensitive a topic this really is. Clearly there is a need to work hard and put in extra hours from time to time, but some of the studies mentioned in the comments talked of the effect working long hours can have on motivation. It seems that, in the long run, more hours to a point does not equate to increased productivity. It's counter intuitive, but then that's psychology for you.

The second post that I fell in love with was this one about Questioning your work. It lists a series of questions to ask yourself before embarking on a new project or even when starting simpler tasks. If you are really doing the right thing, the answers to these questions will confirm that. But if you are undertaking folly, asking yourself these questions will help you realize it. What are we doing and is it worth it? What else could I do that might be better than this? Is there an easier way to do this? I will surely ask myself these questions and others like them more often in the future.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Symbian Beta Wrap Up

chris — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:59:08 -0800

Hello and thank you to all the kind users who gave our Symbian Beta a try and then shared their experiences with us. We used as much of the feedback as we could in the upcoming commercial version and we haven't forgotten the rest. The Symbian Beta phase is now over, making way for the commercial release of our Symbian version next week. Thanks again to all of those who tested our Symbian Beta version, we really appreciate your efforts.

I am also pleased to announce that Darla Mack won the EQO iPod Shuffle for filling out the Symbian Beta Survey. Congratulations Darla, I hope you enjoy your iPod!

The Symbian Beta will still be available for download at the Symbian Beta page and we will still gladly accept all feedback coming our way, but the beta period is officially over. I hope you'll all try our next Symbian version! Please stay tuned.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Engadget T-Mobile?

chris — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:37:00 -0800

This is either a brilliant April Fools joke or a blatant example of carrier idiocy, both of which I appreciate very much. Engadget, possibly the best blog ever, is reporting that T-Mobile sent them a cease and desist for their use of the color magenta in their logo. They are also claiming that this is not an April Fools joke. I'm leaning towards joke considering how ridiculous this is, but either way I find Engadget's actions quite funny. They have changed their background to magenta and are calling themselves Engadget T-Mobile. Secretly, I hope that T-Mobile really is stupid enough to claim the color magenta as their own. Happy April Fools.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Motorola going down hill...

chris — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:43:43 -0800

Two years ago I was kinda sad when I ended up with a Motorola V635 and not a RAZR as my personal phone. RAZR's were so freaking cool back then, but they generally sucked from the nerdy technical point of view. Just try running EQO on a RAZR V3 and you'll see what I mean, slow... I was really happy with my V635 when I got it. It was way better than my circa 2002 Audiovox (colour screen!) and made calls just fine. It wasn't until I got my hands on some other high end phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson that I realized just how greatly Motorola phones paled in comparison. Motorola pulled off a marketing coup with their four letter 'almost a word' naming scheme, featuring RAZR, SLVR, PEBL, KRZR, ROKR, RIZR and so on. It seems that the consumer community has gotten over the then cool RAZR form factors and voted with their dollars because Motorola's phone division isn't doing so well. Who'd a thought better qualities products would sell more?

The news today is that Motorola is actually splitting off it's phone division from the rest of its business, a move many see as protecting the successful business from the phone division's inevitable failure. I'm not really surprised by this and I don't recommend that anyone buy into the pending IPO of Motorola Mobile.

UPDATE: Wow, didn't know it was this bad!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Who won that tasty spectrum?

chris — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:41:26 -0800

I've been following the 700MHz spectrum auction for almost a year now, mostly because the potential is huge for the wireless industry to do something amazing with this frequency. It was uplifting to see Google get involved with their petition for openness, and then it was equally depressing when Verizon sued the FCC for taking Google to heart. Now it it is finally over...

We don't know who won yet and I am pretty eager to find out who, but it looks like the FCC have achieved their basest goal of hauling in the cash! I'm really hoping it was Google (good) and not Verizon (evil) who won. Whoever wins, I hope they use this tasty spectrum to enable us wireless consumers to consume lots, quickly, and for not very much money, because I'm pretty sure KoodoMobile isn't going to do it for me.

Read the Engadget and TechCrunch reports for some of the dirty deets.

Update: Verizon won, shoot.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Seeking the best way to work on the web

chris — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:18:07 -0800

I've recently started working with our web team at EQO, which has been quite fun. Web developers and designers tend to be quite interesting people, usually more trendy and social than your typical engineer type (me). At EQO, our web team is dually focused on product development and marketing content pages, which has produced some interesting contentions. No one was hurt, nothing serious! But I've since become interested in how to optimally produce web services and work with web developers and designers.

A friend recently pointed me in the direction of Getting Real, a free 37Signals ebook on the best ways to build web applications. I now consider myself a disciple and recommend that anyone and everyone in the tech field, not just web people, read this book. It's short and simple message is pure gold and is well worth the few hours it might take you to read it. Seriously, every page either taught me something new, prompted change in my behavior, or affirmed some of the good things that I do. Their message in short is keep it small, keep it focused, be honest, and make it simple!

Another precious gem that has caught my eye of late is Brook's law, which states "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". This is contrary to conventional wisdom, but my experience has generally proven this to be true. I thought this was a great concept to grasp and being mindful of it will surely help me in the future.

Lastly, this Seth Godin post about working with designers was very humbling in a good way. While professional design is not an art contest, designers do like to do their own thing. Micromanaging and constraining designers is a surefire recipe for disaster. The fact that I suck at design is why I'm not the designer; it's all about trust.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

EQO Goes Artsy

jho — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:15:16 -0800

Well, not exactly... What has Marketing here at EQO been up to for the last couple months? We’ve been making kick a** short films, that’s what – a quadrilogy, in fact. The finished products below promise to enthral viewers young and old alike.

The EQO Legacy Quadrilogy is in no sense of the word "adult" or "mature," so more sophisticated comedy, drama, action and fantasy lovers may be a little disappointed by what it offers. There are however some popular tried, tested and true themes: hot girls in bikinis, a hot guy, a caveman and a trampoline. There are no wizards or goblins, but there is a slightly odd (sorry, “artistic”) announcer guy who does a good job of developing the plots.

To humanize the characters, the films were shot right here in Vancouver on the scenic DTES, amidst an angry landlord demanding we pay him for the use of his badly unkempt backyard. There's not much of a moral here, though, unless one considers it a lesson that, when filming hot girls jumping on trampolines, one should avoid doing so during a 12 year old boys street hockey game, but I digress.

Still not sure what the films are about? They’re about learning how to get the most out of your mobile phone by using EQO, of course. Despite the fact we are all about the mobile social networking and VoIP, we too enjoy some sweet eye candy whilst slaving away (the caveman being an acquired taste, and was my boss’ idea).

Check out Part 1 below entitled, “Hot Girl Jumping on a Trampoline”

You can catch the riveting sequels to the EQO quadrilogy on YouTube at the links below. Feel free to leave favourable ratings and comments, pass them onto your friends or post them to your very own site!

Hot Asian Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYx7-l6A0g

Hot Guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2wtAfK2908

Caveman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0LPIOfxtvU

Samsung and LG beta testers needed!

chris — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:16:57 -0800

We at EQO are in a continual pickle when it comes to Samsung and LG phones. We would love to support them all, but there are just too many for us to get our hands on. To make matters worse, neither have developer programs that are of any use. Thank you Nokia and Sony Ericsson for being so helpful!

We currently only support a small percentage of the estimated 47 billion different Samsung and LG models out there and we need our user's help to support more. If you are interested in helping us support your phone, please send us an email to beta@eqo.com providing your phone model, country, and mobile service provider. If we think there is a chance that EQO Mobile will work we'll help you try EQO, which will hopefully lead to us officially supporting your phone. Helpful beta testers will have the chance to win EQO Prize Packs, in addition to the tremendous honor of being the first to use EQO Mobile on a particular model. We thank our users in advance for their kind efforts and hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers,

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Symbian Beta Version 1.2.1

chris — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:19:17 -0800

We have released version 1.2.1 of the EQO Symbian Beta for Nokia Series 60 3rd edition phones. This version alleviates many of the "Memory Full" errors that our testers were getting. This problem may not be solved for people with over a thousand contacts, but the general population should be much less afflicted. Problems with the symbol table for text entry persist on some phones. Affected users will surely realize right away. We have addressed this bug, but the fix didn't make it into this release. Version 1.2.1 also contains many other minor bug fixes that make this release faster and more stable.

When upgrading to the latest version of the Symbian Beta it is a good idea to remove the old client first before upgrading to version 1.2.1. There are some issues with upgrading over the old version, be warned. Get the latest version from our Symbian Beta page or by visiting get.eqo.com/symbian on your mobile browser.

Thanks again to all of our testers and please keep the great feedback coming in our Symbian Beta Forum. After this next Beta period, we'll be announcing the winner of the EQO iPod Shuffle!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

The Future of Mobile

chris — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:04:43 -0800

Here at EQO we have a giant mobile phone library consisting of just about every type of phone imaginable. Us lucky employees get to try everything and take our pick. My mainstay to date has been the Nokia E61i, a Symbian, wifi enabled, full keyboard super phone that's as functional as it isn't sexy. Lately, I've been carrying the iPhone in my leisure time while still using the E61i at work (EQO doesn't run on the iPhone, yet). I must confess that I now love the iPhone and loathe switching back to the E61i every day. While the iPhone isn't technically more advanced than my E61i, it is supremely better to use. This giant leap in mobile experience got me thinking about the future of mobile in general. Now that calling/texting, mp3 players, cameras, push email and so much more is ubiquitous, what's next?

1. Web on mobile, not mobile web. Thanks to iPhone, I can now use the web, the real web, on my phone. The real web differs from the mobile web (scaled down versions and bad interfaces) in that it doesn't suck. In the future, all phones will be like iPhone in that the web experience will not suck. The proof is in the hits, Google is finding out.

2. GPS will bring us killer location based services. Google Maps Mobile can now tell me roughly where I am and tell me about nearby businesses of the kind I am looking. Soon enough, I'm expecting my phone to tell me stuff without my asking it:
Phone: Hey Chris!
Chris: Yeah, Phone?
Phone: There's a bar 30m ahead then 20m right that your brother-in-law Erik loves. Try the Scottish Ale.
Chris: Thanks phone, I'll check it out.

3. Real Applications. The mobile app market is growing and improving, but is only exploited by the brave few technical souls willing to suffer with installation and connection problems (generally caused by the near sightedness of mobile operators in general). With the advent of open platforms (Android) and the web on mobile (not the mobile web!), developers will be able to easily build and distribute applications to wireless devices. I'm expecting to be able to do all that I do on my PC, much of which is increasingly web based, on my phone, just as easily.

4. Real Usability. The traditional phone interface at its basest level presents a list of contacts with some options. Generally, this is where people spend 90% of their time even though their phones can surf the (mobile) web, play music, take pictures, and then some. The iPhone was a great leap in usability. It's the most discoverable phone I've ever used. Technopeasants can easily figure it out. I believe the iPhone affect on mobile usability perception will enable the majority to take advantage of what phones can technically already do, beyond calling and texting.

5. Media Factories. We are seeing this now. The most potent of phones are media factories, but again only for the technocracy. Currently, it is too challenging and/or costly for most people to shoot video and beam pictures around. This will change. Facebook mobile image uploads are just the beginning. Lifecasting, live reporting, photo diaries, and the like will become easier to produce and distribute.

6. Modu. While I hate pre announcement hype videos that don't tell you what the product is going to be, I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find out about Modu. Modu is essentially a next generation SIM card, a SIM card that makes calls. As a SIM card is to a phone, Modu is to all other electronic devices. I'm eager to see what they have in store for their modular gem.

7. Real VoIP. There are many mobile voip services out there, including a bright shiny orange one from EQO. None are truly the equivalent of Skype on a PC. Services using wifi aren't truly mobile, not until wifi covers the world and handoff is perfected. Services using 3G connections still require a contract with a mobile operator. All other VoIP services provide a cost benefit via other mechanisms. Existing mobile voip services are great, but they are only steps towards pure voip.

iPhone is the best mobile I've used to date that makes powerful mobile services usable. I'm not just saying that as an Apple fanboy, I really believe its the best phone ever. I can't wait to see how the rest of the industry will respond to its brilliance. One thing is for certain, things are looking up for the consumer.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Forget about last week's Oscar's - the SPIFFY Awards are TOMORROW!

jho — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:41:04 -0800

If you’re like me, you yearn for an awards ceremony that truly means something. After all, exceptional achievement deserves exceptional recognition. This Thursday – tomorrow night – from 5:00-7:00 PM, is one of those opportunities. It is with great honour and pleasure that I announce that EQO has been nominated for a prestigious SPIFFY Award!

The SPIFFY Awards recognize the most outstanding telecommunications start-ups in Silicon Valley, as judged by the members of the Service Providers Forum (SPiF) of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley. The SPIFFY's consist of 8 award categories (nominees are listed on the event website):

The Edison Award for Most Innovative Start-Up
Ground Breaker Award for Engineering Excellence

The San Andreas Award for Most Disruptive Technology – This award is for the most game-changing startup to present at the SPiF meetings. It is offered to the company whose progress is most likely to disrupt markets, and change the way people do things – SOON TO BE EQO’s!!!

The Fred & Ginger Award for Most Supportive Carrier
Graham Bell Award for Best Communication Solution
The Core Award for Best Fixed Telecom Opportunity
Prodigy Award for the Most Successful SPiF Alumni
The Zephyr Award for Best Mobile Opportunity

If you’re in the Bay Area tomorrow night, make sure to get your hands on some last minute tickets as it promises to be an exciting night. Just think – in just over 24 hours you could be watching our resident hero, EQO CEO Bill Tam, gracefully accepting this year’s San Andreas Award! I have exactly the same amount of time to finish getting ready for the exclusive SPIFFY Awards party that I host at my pad every year... Sorry folks, this one’s by invite only.

For more information on this year’s SPIFFY's, visit the Telecom Council's event site.

EQO Symbian Beta Version 1.2 Released

chris — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:15:38 -0800

The eagerly awaited second version of our EQO Symbian beta has arrived. The first beta yielded much excellent feedback and we thank our kind testers for all their hard work. We've tried to incorporate as much of what we heard as possible into this next version, although 1.2 is still a beta with issues of its own. That being said version 1.2 is greatly improved and offers:

Enhanced stability and performance.
Predictive text and text input status notification.
IM stability and bug fixes.
Contact search filter.
Other good stuff I can't think of.

When upgrading to the latest version of the Symbian Beta please make sure to remove the old client first before upgrading to version 1.2. There are some issues with upgrading over the old version, be warned. Get the latest version from our Symbian Beta page or by visiting get.eqo.com/symbian on your mobile browser.

Also, there is a major bug in version 1.2 that we are aware of and are already fixing for the next release. On some phones, opening the Symbol table for special character input causes the app to crash. I imagine you'll find out rather quickly if you are affected or not.

Thanks again to all of our testers and please keep the great feedback coming in our Symbian Beta Forum.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

EQO's New Facebook Application: Vibrator!

chris — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:57:17 -0800

I am pleased to announce that EQO has recently released its first Facebook application. It probably isn’t what you would expect, but it’s a fun application that will likely appeal to those who like Pokes.

Our app is called Vibrator and it lets you send your friends Vibes. Vibes are like vibrating pokes with fun messages and animations. Vibes can be sent between Facebook users, but EQO users have the option of receiving Vibes on their mobile phone. For example, if I sent you a vibe your phone would vibrate and you would see that “Chris sent you an I told you so Vibe!” We have lots of fun Vibe types, but you need to earn some of them by sending enough Vibes.

Please give it a try and let us know what you think! We are interested in your feedback and would love to know how you think Vibrator could be better and what vibes you might be interested in sending to your friends. And never fear, we have some other Facebook features in mind that are more communicative in nature. Also, props to Handi Mobility for developing Vibrator with us. They do great work and I highly recommend them.

Please try Vibrator and, while you are it, you might as well join the EQO Facebook group!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Come see EQO at Mobile World Congress this week!

jho — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:22:46 -0800

It's that time again! Second only to Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa and Chinese New Year's momentous annual events, 2008’s Mobile World Congress (formerly GSMA, now MWC) officially began in Barcelona today.

For those of you who don’t know, this event combines the world’s largest congress for the mobile industry with a leading-edge exhibition that showcases the very latest developments in mobile from around the world (I know, I couldn’t be more excited too!!!).

The Mobile World Congress, which runs from February 11-14, 2008, is the premier event for the global mobile industry, which is why of course that EQO is in attendance again this year! If you happen to stop by the show this year, make sure you come look for our local hero, Bill Tam (of current esteemed EQO CEO fame). He’ll be doing the rounds at the show and would love to talk to you about all the cool and exciting new things that are happening at EQO right now -- like our brand-spanking new awesomely-cool first Facebook application: EQO Vibrator (the name says it all...REALLY).

We also officially announced the GLOBAL expansion of our award-winning Mobile VoIP service at the show today. What does that mean for you, the EQO blog reader? Well, if you don’t already have EQO now couldn't be a better time to get it – no matter where in the world you are. If you already have EQO, make sure to tell all your friends who couldn’t access our voice service (and cheaps texts, and free IMs) in the past that they can now get up and running.

Also, just a reminder to you all that Valentine’s Day is this Thursday – if you’ve forgotten to get your sweetie something like I tend to do every year – be sure to check out MWC if you’re in the area. If you’ve ever been to a huge tradeshow like this, you already know there’s is tons of free swag to be had that would serve as great last minute gift ideas... nothing says loving like corporate branded promotional items.

Lastly, in case attending MWC doesn’t float your boat – and if you live in and around the Vancouver area, today is also the last day to attend the Pontiac GMC Canadian Championships in Whistler, BC, featuring men and women competing in Downhill and Super Combined events on the new Wild Card/Jimmy's/Lower Franz's course – which I highly doubt will be anywhere near as exciting as what’s happening at MWC.

Good times at Facebook Developer Garage

chris — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:35:01 -0800

On Monday night I hit up the local Facebook Developer Garage to demo an as yet unreleased EQO Facebook project called Vibrator. It was good times and really cool to hear the guys behind such widely installed apps as Hockey Pool and Are You Normal? share their knowledge. I definitely took something away from them towards making our app better. I also realized that I have an injured Sidney Crosby on my Hockey Pool roster...

My favorite app presented was Eat-a-Rama, a Yelp-style Google Maps mashup for restaurant ratings. It shows you restaurants within the map you've chosen and also shows ratings and reviews for each restaurant. The killer feature here is the ability to see what restaurants your friends have rated, adding an element of trust. I added the app as soon as I got home. The interface of the app is very slick and user intuitive, which was nice when it came to adding my favorite restaurants to their listings. My three favorite restaurants near my house weren't listed yet, weird. Don't worry folks, I've added the only three good restaurants in Cloverdale. The good news is you now know where to eat if you are ever in the hood. The bad news is that you would be in Cloverdale.

Another interesting presentation was that by Garth Shoemaker. His app, I'm Reading, was pretty sweet. I wasn't really into it because I get enough recommendations from people I talk to in real life that my "to read" pile is substantially large. I also don't need to show everyone how smart I am through books I've read, which is only moderately smart seeing as I count Harry Potter amongst my favorites. What really got me interested in this guy was his "protect the internet" rant urging us to be good netizens. He likened apps like Vampires and Zombies to the scourge of the internet. He urged us to be conscientious when releasing Facebook applications that might annoy him and other self righteous computing science graduate students. I imagine he wasn't a fan of Vibrator either. Personally I get a kick out of simple apps that are really just a bit of fun. Sending a SuperPoke! or biting a chump is a social interaction I liken to a physical nod, smile, or shove. These acts means something and if people want to do digitally do such things to eachother, who is this guy to say they shouldn't?

When it came time to present Vibrator I was rather more nervous than usually I would be in such situations. I generally consider developers to be amongst the smartest people in the world and I find presenting our app to them a bit intimidating. My nerves weren't aided by the error Facebook tossed me the first time I tried to do anything. I'm convinced it was Facebook's fault and not ours... The next action I took was error free, no harm no foul. Vibrator was received with the usual laughs and skepticism, but the proof will be in how many people end up using it. I hope lots.

All in all it was a good night. I learned much from the other presenters and from presenting myself. It was great to see the Handi guys, who helped build Vibrator, and ex EQOer Ash of PeerGlobe out there. Miss604 has a great run down of the whole night on her blog; I also was quite hungry. Looking forward to the next one...

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

My trouble with new social (video) media, no skimming

chris — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:20:36 -0800

I love the social media /new media revolution brought about by Web 2.0. I love all the sharing, creating, empowering, filtering, and most of all I love reading blogs. I read mostly mobile and tech blogs, but I'm starting to get into the customer evangelist, marketing type blogs. There are actually customer evangelist blogs. They call it the long tail for a reason, because it reaches the micro niches and minute interests of almost everyone including me. And if you can't find what you are looking for, create it. It's as simple as that, you become the niche, amazing.

Now that I'm out of buzz words, wait, mobile penetration. Now that I'm out of buzzwords, let me share with you a problem I have. Beyond that I can't keep up with my feeds, the trouble I'm having now is with video. Three minutes of my life is quite a commitment for me and, beyond a headline, you really don't get the sense of what a video is all about until you start watching it. With blogs, I can skim to my hearts content, but not so with video. I want to watch all of these videos that could be interesting, but who has the time? The only videos I do watch now come highly recommended. What I need is a video skimming app, or maybe feature of video sites, that labels the good parts. It could have digg style voting on the money shot. We'll call it social editing maybe? Let it be known that I just coined that term.

I did I search for video skimming and came up with mostly research type stuff. I know there is video tagging right now, but it's really for inane comments at this point. What I really want is the climax, the clutch one liner and none of the preamble. Somebody, please build this for me.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Pivotal 700MHz auction begins tomorrow!

chris — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:02:19 -0800

This is a topic near and dear to our hearts here at EQO. As you may well know, the FCC is auctioning off a chunk of the 700MHz spectrum previously used for analog TV channels 53-59 (those channels will now be digital). The FCC is doing this so they can make billions of dollars and their interest, as far as I can tell, is purely financial. The 700MHz spectrum is ideal for wireless in that signals travel further and penetrate obstructions better. The owner of this spectrum could set up low cost, high service availability, and fast wireless network that could change the face of the American wireless industry, which is generally considered a laughing stock compared to the rest of the modern wireless world.

The front runners to win this tasty bit of frequency are Verizon (evil) and Google (awesome). Verizon would likely use the spectrum to buoy their own position in the USA by offering services only slightly better than those of their competitors with little to no improvement in usability or feature innovation. On the other hand, Google is rumored to be planning a free (ad funded) and open wireless network that would turn the wireless industry on its head.

I'm surprised at how little press this is getting considering the magnitude of the implications, but then maybe I'm just a dreamer. In any case, the auction begins and, sadly, we can't follow it, but Engadget will tell you all you need to know. We should know the results in a couple of months and favorite to win, based on no personal bias whatsoever, is Google.

Long live Googletel!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Windows Live Mobile no longer free?

chris — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:22:58 -0800

I heard news the other day from a few sources that Microsoft is going to start charging for Windows Live Mobile. This is generally considered bad news in the mobile community. For EQO, it is awesome news.

I understand why users don't like paying for something they got for free. I really don't understand why on earth Microsoft would consider this. It's not like they are running out of money over in Redmond. There are plenty of ways a user can make use of the Windows Live IM network when mobile. I'm guessing and hoping that users will flock to free third party services rather than pay Microsoft.

Come Windows Live Mobile users, enjoy free IM with EQO Mobile.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

EQO Symbian Beta is here!

chris — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:17:35 -0800

The EQO Symbian Beta is here! This version differs from our J2ME version in that it is built natively for Symbian Series 60 3rd edition phones. The Symbian version offers many improvements over the J2ME version, but is also still a little rough around the edges being a beta and all. Since you are all my great friends, feel free to use my promo code "chrisr" for some extra sign up credit.

Get started on our Symbian Beta page and learn all about it. If you do decide to give the Symbian Beta a try, check out our Symbian Beta Forum for the latest news and bug reports. Users that fill in our Symbian Beta Survey will have a chance to win an EQO iPod Shuffle!

Supported Models:
3250, 5500, 5700, 6110 Navigator, 6120, 6121 classic, 6290, E50, E51, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, E90, N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N81, N82, N91, N92, N93, N93i, N95

Cheers and thanks for testing!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

EQO Finishes 2007 Strong

chris — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:03:52 -0800

It's been a crazy and intense year at EQO, much like the first. As we near our second birthday, things are really looking up. Our traffic has gone through the roof in December, which seems to indicate that our efforts of the past year are starting to pay off. Thousands of people are signing up for EQO everyday now and we are busier than ever! Alexa has a great graph of our wonderful traffic boost, which I blame on our recent bug fixes, increased platform support, and more and more countries being added all the time.

Cheers to a great year and here's hoping for the best in 2008! Thanks to all of our great users who stuck with us through the "challenging" times and helped us with bug reports, beta tests, and feature suggestions. We've got a lot of great stuff planned and already in the works, so please stay tuned.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Renewed Twittering results in immediate gratification

chris — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:53:27 -0800

I have tried Twitter on many occasions in the past and I can even use EQO for Twitter updates, but Twitter has never stuck for me. Today, I was reading the blog of social media guru Chris Brogan (as a customer evangelist ought to do) whose Twitter Revisited post inspired me to give Twitter another shot. Earlier in the day I had even watched this Jeremy Owyang video with Guy Kawasaki (another customer evangelist hero of mine), which made mention of Twitter and its usefulness. It really seemed to me like all the cool nerds were on Twitter, convincing me to give it another shot. I posted a couple of Tweets and then decided to follow Chris Brogan. Turns out I am his three thousands follower, resulting in a personal thanks. Immediately after and likely because of said incident, a few more people decided to follow me. Cool, instant gratification indeed. I'm going to give Twitter a serious shot now, for at least a week:) Anybody interested in Twittering with me, my id is chriseqo. Looking forward to the Tweets!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Love the bubble video

chris — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:50:19 -0800

If you haven't seen the Bubble Video, made famous by TechCrunch and the many lawsuits coming it's way, watch it now. I freaking love this video for many reasons:

It is hilarious.
I can point out to my older khaki pants, blue shirt wearing product management colleagues that they star in this video for being obsolete:)
Web 2.0 is getting a bit ridiculous and this video wouldn't be getting so much attention if this wasn't true. Just look at all the companies listed on Go2Web2.0. Many of these sites exist because they can, not because they should.
The buzzwords are getting out of hand too, although I do giggle whenever someone says "mobile penetration". I encourage more video mockeries be made to make buzzword saying people (mostly MBA's) feel ridiculous. I may start playing Web 2.0 Bingo at conferences...
Hopefully this takes those Rails/Ajax developers and their inflated egos down a peg, restful this...
Blog, blog, blog it all, blog it if it's big or small! You don't have to blog if you don't want to, really, you don't have to.
Pokes fun at people with giant egos who are successful in part due to luck. I hate giant egos.

Don't get me wrong, I love Web 2.0 and all the social sites that have pretty much replaced everything I used to do on the internet. To be successful you do have to have changing the world as your goal and I know first hand how hard it is to build a great product/service that does just that. However, it seems like people are trying to ride the web 2.0 wave to quick riches these days. For this reason, the justified mockery begins. I wish people would make viral video mockeries of more fads, like say for tight jeans, Volkswagen vehicles, and reality TV, as a start.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Funny Video about Facebook

chris — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:43:51 -0800

Saw this on TechCrunch this morning, a funny video about Facebook on Wallstrip with Lindsay Campbell: http://www.wallstrip.com/2007/12/17/12-17-07-facebook/

SuperPoke!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist