Let me start this off by saying, I never win anything. I’ve entered a few random contests in my lifetime, but have never really won. A few weeks ago Andrew Mager twittered a link to CNet’s Palm Pre test drive contest. Basically Palm and Sprint are giving away 10 Pres to various people who have experience blogging and an interest in gadgets. I decided to enter because, well I’m interested in the Pre, and who doesn’t want a free phone? After answering a few questions about my background with smart phones and involvement in social networking amongst other things, I clicked submit and forgot about it.

Since the headline already spoils it, I won’t be dramatic: last week I received an e-mail saying I was chosen as one of the 10 finalists to receive a Palm Pre. Along with the device Sprint will be providing three months of free unlimited voice and data service. I’ll be blogging in a promotional section on CNET with an unboxing, my thoughts on the Pre hardware, WebOS and more. You can check out the dedicated Palm Pre Test Drive blog or just view my posts alone here.

If there is anything specific you’d like to see me cover in the review, feel free to leave comments on this post or my unboxing over at CNET.

This is an older clip from Conan where Seinfeld discusses why he doesn’t use a BlackBerry. He makes some good points about how we are glued to our devices and can’t even hold face to face conversations anymore. Watch until the end for a bonus iPhone related chuckle.

[Via: CrackBerry]

I’ll be spaeaking at Ignite Philly this Saturday with Jeff Vogel about Unbreaded, the concept and why sandwiches are universal. If you aren’t familiar with Ignite, here’s a description I wrote in a previous post:

The event which was first introduced in the spring by The Hacktory, P’unk Ave and Make:Philly, features presentations from local forward thinkers in an interesting format. Each speaker has 5 minutes to display 20 slides which transition automatically, making for a very to the point presentation.

This third iteration of the event will feature some great speakers who are also friends including Two Guys on Beer, Viddler and more.

This is a great event to network, meet familiar faces from Twitter, and get a good idea of the innovative projects going on in Philadelphia. Plus the venue, Johnny Brenda’s has great food and a solid beer selection. You can visit Ignite Philly and follow them on Twitter for more information. I hope to see you there!

Event Details:

What: Ignite Philly
When: May 2, 2009 – Doors 6pm, Show 7pm
Where: Johnny Brenda’s 1201 N. Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125

Facebook has recently been posting recruitment videos that show how different departments of the company function, and how much fun it is to work there. This video explains how apparently the engineers behind the Photos application are ninjas. Interesting stat: Facebook receives 2,000 photo uploads a second, which is 40 million a day and over 1 billion per month, making it the largest photo sharing service in the world. With 200 million users, I guess this seems plausible but man, that’s still crazy. Watch the video to get a quick, glossy glimpse of work at Facebook, including a bonus look into one of their data centers.

[Via Silicon Alley Insider]

The inclusion of GPS in mobile phones and the popularity of the iPhone and Android app stores has lead way to a surge in use of location-based services. These applications tend to be very useful for the consumer, whether it be finding a nearby restaurant or times at the local theater. But the inclusion of location-based services in social networking sites has raised a few alarm bells over privacy.

In February, Google launched Latitude, a not so innovative tool a kin to Loopt and BrightKite, which allows people to notify their friends of their location at all times. Because Google allows you to pick and choose who has access to your whereabouts it seems rather safe. Of course one may find it hard to turn down a significant other’s request to follow, but the location reporting can be turned off at any time. Over at TechCrunch, MG Siegler has written a post about the upsides of Google Latitude in which a woman was able to track down her purse after it was stolen with her phone inside. Siegler explains that even though Google has policy in place not to share your information, it is questionable whether or not it would be released upon request of a law enforcement agency.

Just today, AT&T Wireless launched FamilyMap allowing subscribers to track any phone on their plan on a map in real time. The problem here is that at no time is the person being tracked asked to opt-in to the service. A text message does go out to each phone notifying them that the service has been activated, but according to Gizmodo the messages were cryptic and pretty much ignored.

These days, even elementary school students have mobile phones, to stay in touch with their parents, and sure FamilyMap may be a good service to keep track of the young ones. But, I myself am on an AT&T family plan with my parents and siblings and would never want my father to know how often I’m out drinking with friends. With an explosion of blog posts about FamilyMap today, I see AT&T changing the process of opting-in or notifying users that their phone is being tracked in the next few days.

It is obvious that location-based services will become a strong point in staying in touch with your friends, and I definitely appreciate this aspect. Large players like Google and AT&T have entered the space, and things will only get more interesting from here. Just wait when Facebook adds GPS-enabled features to their mobile app that reports your location to the News Feed. That’s when we’ll really see an uproar.

I was Googling myself today (yes, rub it in) and realized I lost my PageRank. This site, benkessler.com used to hold the #1 position for the search term ‘Ben Kessler’. Now I’ve lost it to some councilman in Bexley, Ohio. So how did this happen? Well I haven’t updated my blog in almost a month, and the posts in general have been very staggered.

I’ve been working on a project with Jeff Vogel for a few months and am glad to have finally got it out the door. Unbreaded is a blog that covers news, reviews and recipes of sandwiches. We’re starting primarily in Philadelphia but are looking for readers to submit their own reviews and pictures of sandwiches from all over the world. We were very lucky to be featured on MealTicket, Phoodie.info and FooBooz, Thrillist, Technically Philly and have had a very positive response from people following @unbreaded on Twitter.

So now I have some motivation to get back to blogging over here. Please check out Unbreaded and let me know what you think in the comments.

Back in August I wrote a post about several Twitter accounts set up as the main characters from AMC’s Mad Men. Since then, hits still pour into my blog for that post as marketers and advertisers worldwide have picked up on how successful the accounts have been at creating a personality on the web for the show. The best part? These accounts are not affiliated with AMC or the show in any official way. In fact, the people behind them didn’t even know each other, and kept their true personas secret.

Now, Elizabeth Holmes at the WSJ has exposed the people behind the Mad Men accounts to be various fans who have real careers in marketing and advertising from all over the U.S. With a plethora of impostors posing as brands, celebrities and most recently, the Dalai Lama on Twitter, it is great to see these Mad Men accounts being handled with care and responsibility.

Still, one would think at some point AMC’s marketing department would want to take over these accounts for fear of losing control of the message. What do you think? Is it safe to let non-employees act as ambassadors of the brand on a very personal and conversational platform like Twitter?

My sister gave birth to her second child, this past Saturday at 4:13 am. Violet Belle weighed in at 7 lbs., 11 oz. and is as healthy as can be. She seems to be a good, happy baby and has been opening her eyes wide! I am so excited to have her in the family. Her big sister Lily, who turns 3 at the end of February is having so much fun with the idea of a baby in the house.

I’ll be posting a lot more photos in my flickr photostream as soon as I can.

Since others are giving insight into perhaps not the *best* apps but their favorite, I thought I’d make up a list of my own too. These applications are those that I use the most and highly suggest you try them out too.

10. Tap Tap Revenge – The first game I ever downloaded on my iPhone and I still play it very often. The ability to download new tracks and the recently added multiplayer mode make for never ending fun. If you aren’t familiar with it, think Guitar Hero for iPhone, where you tap the notes coming down the fret board to the music. Also see Tap Tap Dance which includes tracks from Moby, Daft Punk and Justice. [iTunes Link: Tap Tap Revenge | Tap Tap Dance]

9. Facebook – My previous phone was a BlackBerry and the Facebook app for it was horrible. It was very limiting and didn’t allow me to easily post comments or write on my friends’ walls. The iPhone version does those things and also adds smooth picture viewing for times when you’re trying to stalk someone on the go. [iTunes Link]

8. The Weather Channel – The Weather app that comes loaded on the iPhone is quick to use but very limited in features. The Weather Channel app lets you store favorite locations and instantly access hourly and 10 day forecasts. The killer features include daily video forecasts for your area, detailed maps and severe storm warnings. [iTunes Link]

7. Shazam – You’ve probably seen Shazam in iPhone commercials on TV. Simply hold your iPhone up to a song and Shazam tells you the title, artist, album and gives you iTunes and YouTube links. It wasn’t until recently that I realized Shazam’s potential. While driving in a friend’s car that was CD and iPod-less we had to resort to listening to FM radio. A particularly annoying but catchy tune had come on that we just couldn’t remember the name to – it was bugging us to no end. “Why don’t you pull out your suhweet iPhone and use Shazam?” said my friend. I followed his lead and voila, the gremlin inside the app told us the song was “The Way” by Fastball. When you need to know the song that’s playing on the radio or in a store or restaurant, Shazam is a must have. [iTunes Link]

6. Evernote – Its creators call Evernote your “second brain” and it is a hands down no-brainer to use this as your primary note taking app on the iPhone. Text, voice and picture notes are immediately synced between your iPhone, Evernote.com and the desktop application in Mac or Windows. Evernote also uses Optical Character Recognition to let you search for text in pictures you have taken. This makes its great for taking photos of wine or beer labels, or any other written document you might need for later. Most recently, Evernote added Microsoft Office document syncing which works particularly well for my college needs. [iTunes Link]

5. Yelp – Yelp is the premiere destination on the web for rating and reviewing restaurants, stores and more. I typically do not go to a restaurant before looking up reviews on Yelp. That said, this app uses the iPhone’s GPS to show restaurants, bars, stores and more closest to you and will let you access reviews. You can also click through the address to bring it up in Maps or tap the number to give them a call. (Honorable mention goes to OpenTable where after looking up restaurants in Yelp, you can instantly book reservations) [iTunes Link: Yelp | OpenTable]

4. Instapaper – I wrote about Instapaper when it was first released back in January and have used it regularly every day since. On a normal day, I constantly find interesting headlines but don’t have time to read the articles when I’m at the computer. With Instapaper, I can click the bookmarklet in Firefox and it saves the article, allowing me to read it later on the train with my iPhone. Simple, and to the point. [iTunes Link]

3. Rolando – With Rolando, ngmoco has defined what an iPhone game should be. Use your finger and the accelerometers to help these cute little guys get through treacherous yet fun platform levels. If you are hesitant about paying the $9.99 to purchase the game, you might want to wait for a price drop but these videos might change your mind. [iTunes Link]

2. Pandora Radio – Internet radio at it’s finest. Start with an artist or song that you like and Pandora will play music catered to your tastes. Rate songs with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to further define what you want to hear. If you’re bored of your personal music library like I am, this is the app for you. [iTunes Link]

1. TwitterFon – Some may say I tweet too much. You guys can blame it on TwitterFon. Despite it’s simple design (compared to Twitterrific or Twinkle), TwitterFon is the most efficient and packs the most features of any free Twitter application. Besides the built-in web browser, and automatic URL shortening with TinyURL, there are separate tabs to view your friends timeline, replies and direct messages. You also have the ability to view users’ profiles and follow them right within the application. [iTunes Link]

It’s been a great first year for the App Store and I hope the developers continue to release innovative products. The applications I am really looking forward to in 2009 are SlingPlayer and Qik, but it doesn’t look like Apple is too hot to release them just yet. We can only hope that application restrictions will continue to wither away by this time next year.

You’ll be reading a lot more of them soon. Maybe not so much here, on my personal blog but I’ve got two separate projects in the works with my friends Jeff and Jameson.

Will let you guys know as soon as possible! In the meantime, I update way too much on Twitter, just follow me: @kessler.