Open Standards

By Bonnie Optekman, NBC News

While I was blogging away yesterday, consulting my notes, checking my facts, my friend Jon Accarrino, I see, was blogging about me blogging!

First off, I promised to clean up the blogging station when I was done. It wasn't that bad!!!

Second, geez – did the picture HAVE to go to the floor? I mean, not just my papers, but my sneakers!

Ok – onto business – what’s worse than your Blackberry not working? Having it not work when you’re at CES and it’s your lifeline! While my technology friends got it sorted out, I relied on text messages (see my earlier blog). Other people may want to just carry around one device. I find that to be a gamble and need a backup!

One big message that comes through loud and clear here is that "Open" is the new "Black" as I heard at one of the CES sessions. Software and hardware companies and cellphone carriers must be able to talk to each other with open standards on every platform and in every technology to make life easier for us.

I bought a micro SD card and carrier software for my nephew Craig so he could download his songs to his phone. Needless to say – conflicts with proprietary carrier software as well as Macs and PCs made that fruitless and we’re still trying to figure out the easiest way to do it, if there is an easy way.

In social networking sites, Facebook led the way by making its code public and open to third party applications.

And speaking of social networking, I was astonished to see my 5-year-old nephew flying around the Webkinz site. That stuff about digital natives is really true.

Here’s Benjamin with a little entertainment.