Dave Winer has recently switched to a Blackberry and is (re-)discovering what it means to read news and post to your blog from a mobile device. As they say, “What’s old is new again!”. I’m glad to see some renewed attention in this area; there is still a lot of room for improvement and innovation here.
Dave hits a few good points, in response to the hypothetical question of posting from a Blackberry:
I’ve seen a few blog posts asking why would you want to post from a Blackberry? After all, you could carry a laptop with you, and of course typing on a laptop keyboard is much easier than typing on a PDA keyboard (it is, no argument there). And maybe it’s a good idea to take a break from blog posting sometimes, maybe it’s a good thing that you can’t post from every conceivable place.
Being able to publish while mobile will be useful (even essential) to a certain type of user. It might not have broad appeal for all the bloggers out there, but if you’re a traveler, or like to push the latest pix, mobile blogging could be a killer app. Being able to publish to your blog would seem essential here, rather than having to join another service. I’ve written before about mobile client blogging apps. Dave is creating a web-based application that looks promising, talking to various standard blog engines.