It seems as though it's all the rage in smart phone communications. Personally, I didn't get it at first.  I installed it on my android phone, it apparently scanned my contact list and suggested friends, and that was that.  It gave [...]]]> Have you heard of Kik? I hadn't either until this weekend.  

It seems as though it's all the rage in smart phone communications. Personally, I didn't get it at first.  I installed it on my android phone, it apparently scanned my contact list and suggested friends, and that was that.  It gave all appearances of being another simple messenger service which held little interest for me.  Yet, all the while I heard people singing it's praises. Some even announced that it was ushering in the death of BBM (Blackberry Messenger). So what was the big deal? It took me a while to figure it out.

If you have an android phone you can have messenger services like google talk, or aim running in the background all day long which can be pretty handy. But, I guess, if you have an iphone or blackberry you can't. Kik apparently gets around that issue and allows for it's users to receive messages at any time, which makes it much more like text messaging with a few added perks. One of those perks being that it's free.

Another cool perk that Kik offers is that it notifies you when a message is sent, delivered and read. Pretty cool considering you never know where text messages go if the intended recipient fails to respond.  

Kik does seem to have a few limitations though.  The biggest limitation I see is that you are limited to sending messages only to other Kik users. If Kik were to develop a way to message phone numbers or even aim, yahoo messenger, or google talk members that would be huge.  But, for now you're stuck only being able to message the small number of people with a Kik account.  Granted that number is quickly increasing, but it's still limiting the application's usefulness in my opinion.  

All in all, I have to say I'm impressed with Kik. If they continue to grow, and are able to properly scale their service with little or no down time, I think they will be a huge success. If you use a blackberry, iphone or android phone I encourage you to check it out.  

Posted via email from brianhimes’s posterous

He was an incredible man of God and a loving family man, both of which can be evidenced by his 6 children and [...]]]>

The past few weeks have been pretty rough for me with the hospitalization and passing of my grandfather.  

He was an incredible man of God and a loving family man, both of which can be evidenced by his 6 children and 25 grandchildren.

When he was in the hospital I spent a few days traveling back and forth between my home in Burbank and the hospital, which was down in La Jolla. Many from my family made the trek, some coming from as far away as Colorado, Texas and New Jersey, but there were still those who were unable to get away. I am lucky to live relatively close and have an understanding boss who allowed me to take a few days off work.

It was during that time that I made an interesting, but not very profound, observation. My observation was that social media and mobile technology are amazing tools for communication.  I told you it wasn’t very profound. 

This was one of the first times in my life that communicating with other family members on a large scale was necessary and useful. It wasn't just about sharing what I ate for lunch.

I have always been a huge fan of social media and am usually one of the early adopters of new social media fads, but this was the first time it had REALLY been useful.  One of the tools which I found most useful was, believe it or not, Facebook.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not the biggest Facebook fan. I much prefer to blog or tweet. However, Facebook allowed me, and others, to post updates that the entire family could see and comment on. And, since I have it available on my phone it was super easy to send out updates while in the hospital.

Now, I feel as though it is important to say that Facebook cannot replace the personal nature of a phone call or an in-person conversation; but, it can be a very powerful and useful tool in all types of situations.  I am grateful to have had it as a communication tool over the past few weeks. It’s made things a little easier.

Posted via email from brianhimes’s posterous