mobile 2.0

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

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

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

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