Hi! I'm liveblogging from the Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans this week. Here are a few notes from the opening talk by New York Times technologist columnist, David Pogue. (Please excuse errors while writing quickly).

Trend #1: Cell phone + Internet VOIP

T-Mobile has Hot Spot @ Home. Released June 29 of last summer, when iPhone was released, so a lot of people missed it. You have a choice of 5 cell phones with cellular and wireless coverage. All calls are free in wireless hot spots. Even when calling from oversees. You can start a call in wireless area and move to cellular area and call remains free.

Google Cellular. "Text message your search query to 466453 ('GOOGLE' on most devices) and we'll text message back results." In 5 seconds it will send back name, address and phone number. You don't have to pay for 411 charge. Gives you weather, flight info., stock quotes, move showtimes, definitions, driving directions, unit conversions, and currency conversions.

Grand Central One number that makes all your phone rings at once. Free. Gives you voicemail. LIstening in to voicemail. Line switching.

Spinvox, Callwave: Will transcribe your message and send it via email or SMS.

#2 Ala carte video

Comcast will be offering 10,000 hours a month of on demand video. Regular shows like 60 Minutes will be free.

He doesn't think movie downloads will kill DVD. 50% of US has high speed Internet. The number of people with high speed Internet isn't going up. The selection of movies to download is terrible. There are no extra feautures. The quality is terrible. The 24 hour time limit is not enough time to watch the film.

#3 Web 2.0

75 new blogs are created per minute.

Benefit of blogs to organizations and businesses: You can communicate in a way that isn't sanitized or pr'd to death.

He thinks the Web 2.0 of today is in its "true Neanderthal beginnings." The Web 2.0 concept at its heart is that is allows people who don't know each other, who need information to get information.

Examples:
Prosper.com: Ordinary people make microloans to ordinary people.
Kiva: Microloans to entrepreneurs in developing world.
Goloco: Way to organize carpools.
E-Petitions: UK govt lets anyone start a petition.
Who is Sick?: Map where people are sick near you.

Issues/concerns
Interface Challenge: Machines are getting smaller, but fingers are staying the same size! Where are we going to put all the features.
Copyright challenges.
Ethics.
Privacy.
Whatever you put on the Internet, stay on the Internet.
Abuse.
No fact-checking (i.e. blogs)

He conducted broadway shows for 10 years and closed with singing a song about the iPhone. You can watch Dave Pogue sing the iPhone song on YouTube.