The Chumby imperative
June 14, 2008
This is more about consumery stuff than business but I do believe there could be application. Before disappearing to Boston I stumbled across Chumby. It’s a wireless device that has a touch screen through which you can access information services via widgets you allocate to your Chumby via a computer terminal. The range of material they can deliver is astonishing, including news services, stock indices, video, music, photos. For the person who is techno-allergic, like my good lady Jude, it’s the dieal way to interact with the digital world.
Among other things, I can set the Chumby to show my Flickrstream, Twitterstream and Friendfeed. That allows me to deliver content when I’m away. What I really want are widgets for my Blip.tv, Phreadz.com, Seesmic and Kyte.tv accounts. Since I have a USB camera, it would allow me to create videos to which Jude could respond while I am traveling. There wouldn’t be any sound because Chumby doesn’t have a direct upload facility but hey. It’s a start.
Chumby doesn’t yet deliver to EU but I was fortunate enough to have a friend who was kind enough to take delivery on my behalf.
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I got one of these when they were selling early units back in January this year. I liked using it for awhile, but after that I didn’t really get much use from it. I feel like I just haven’t figured out compelling usage scenarios: maybe you can ferret them out and tell me about them.
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I know the Chumby folks very well. Have met the team and the VP of Biz Dev is a good friend. SAP and Chumby are in discussions… think about that
But if you’d like me to get you closer to the company, please let me know.
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[...] The Chumby imperative | AccMan Dennis has a Chumby. Hopefully he can figure out the long-term value so I can start getting some out of mine. (tags: chumby ria gadgets) [...]
@Cote: The value is more for Jude than I - she’s a technophobe so having a simple device like this makes a huge difference.
@SteveMann: now you’re being a tease. But yes, I’ll take that offer.
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