Or: Creating a nice interface for programmable call filtering. EMT, an Estonian mobile operator, provides a very interesting service named call filtering what essentially is a user-programmable call router for your GSM number. It allows you to have whitelists and blacklists of phone numbers you want to receive or drop or forward to another number - without a 'beep' on your phone. Traditionally you could either switch off your phone (and lose all calls), forward calls to voicemail or another person (and lose all calls but still get SMS messages), keep your phone in silent mode if you do not want to be disturbed but would still want to see who calls you (and possibly answer some calls) or just press the red button to get rid of annoying callers. Jaiku is all about enhancing your mobile experience. Rich presence and status information on your mobile device - what we are all used to from IM networks - is here to stay. But IM clients/networks have also something I would call 'rich contact and privacy management'. Take a look at Skype privacy settings or think about the last time you blocked an annoying user on some IM network. Now.. Just as Jaiku Mobile integrates with your address book and allows to share your status and location with folks in your address book - wouldn't it be nice if selecting 'block this person' in your rich address book would actually propagate the blocking action down to the GSM network level and answer all calls from that person with 'phone not switched on' message? Or instead of checking your silent phone every time the screen lights up during a not-so-important-meeting to see if this is your sick mother/wife/child or Big Boss calling, you could just activate a 'busy for others, available to important people only' mode/whitelist ? Clearly the 'passive address list' used as the address book in most phones is not enough and Jaiku is one application that could make a difference. The quest for a unified address book has not yet seen a full solution and the future looks bright! That's all folks!

Jaiku, the super-cool and super-useful member of the 'new age, new wave' services called microblogging has not got much "real blog" coverage (only two posts I could find) in Estonia(n). After watching a video about Jaiku I'm even more convinced that when compared to other similar services Jaiku really tries to help real people with real benefits and not just suck time and attention by providing another entertainment site on the Internet. These days, in the era of continuous partial attention, the ability to focus without disruptions is pure cash (or just peace of mind). Microblogging, with 'more updates, faster' approach certainly doesn't seem to be designed to save my attention. Internet enabled us to get in touch with people across the world easily. Remember those "I'm on vacation until XX, please contact ZZ meanwhile" e-mails you receive every now and then when replying to corporate e-mails with 10 persons in the Cc list? Well, luckily those recipients only have to deal with a clogged up inbox. After they have enjoyed their vacations. What mobile communication brought along is the ability to get in touch any time, any place. This is not the same as to skim over your full inbox once you return. This means constant 'beep-beep' in your pocket. The next step would be to stay in touch and avoid the constant disturbance created by mobile communications. I see Jaiku one step ahead of the competition, willing to bring me the information that I need, when I want, wherever I want - readily available on my mobile phone. This information allows everybody to make better decisions and disturb each other less. Putting your mobile phone on 'silent' or 'meeting' does not eliminate the casual polling call: "Where are you? How are you? Do you have time to talk?" So. Here is my wild vision where Jaiku (and mobile positioning and/or GPS phones) could take us in next few years: I leave for summer home and mark myself as "on vacation" and all my work related contacts see in their applications as "don't bug him, his on vacation" (well, actually I would be off their radar screens with this status message). At the same time, contacts in my "casual buddies" group get a green light together with "@summer cottage preparing sushi. sushi anyone ?" in their phone books. Next morning I wake up and decide to go swimming somewhere (Estonia does not have as many lakes as Finland but still many enough) and I open the map application of my GPS phone to find a new lake to visit near the summer house. The map also shows my buddies who have decided to share their rich presence with me. And I see that one of them, Margus, is nearby "drinking beer and preparing for the concert in the evening" And thus I can make a phone call: "Hey Margus! I see you're nearby - I was thinking of going for a swim and there's a nice lake near the place where you are. Lets meet up and have a swim and enjoy some beers afterwards?" Now, that is a truly different and useful mobile experience and I believe Jaiku has enough power to make it a common reality. Yours truly, martinpaljak.jaiku.com