After Netflix had introduced its streaming video service on the Roku set-top box, and after Netflix had teamed up with TiVo and Microsoft’s Xbox division and even debuted a Mac-compatible service to expand its reach into America’s home entertainment settings, Blockbuster, the once-was movie rental giant that continues to lose relevance in an increasingly convenience- and price-conscious market, is said to be readying the launch of a net-connected device of its own this holiday season.

It’s probably too late.

Netflix is King

We should wait until the product arrives in consumers’ hands before making any firm judgements, of course, but there’s no escaping the truth that Blockbuster has done little to make America want to give it some mojo once more. Netflix ran circles around the greybeard in the DVD-by-mail market. I sense the same will be the case in the budding movie download and streaming market.

Apart from a shift in its customer service support process, as well as a bit of noise about a premium charged for HD rentals, Netflix has done little to really drive users away from its catalogue. And while there’s always been demand for more film titles delivered on-demand via the company’s streaming video servers, the fact is that it is continually improving, and the quality of HD streams now available to select users has impressed critics.

Blockbuster, meanwhile, purchases its video download service MovieLink and has done little with the acquisition other than introduce a concept to install movie download kiosks within its brick-and-mortar chain of locations. Not a very proactive use of time, you might say.

A Continued Need to Compete

Still, Blockbuster has little choice to do anything but proceed with this launch, whatever the device might be. (Whether it’s an inexpensive solution or a hybrid Blu-Ray setup, Blockbuster will not say.)

Mind you, on top of the requisite hardware factor, the only saving graces the company might have at this point are:

1. Aggressive pricing,

2. A complete download option in the mode of Amazon Video on Demand and Apple’s iTunes service for the Apple TV,

3. A vast library of material to choose from. This is by far the most important of all.

The chance that Blockbuster will deliver on fronts 1, 2 & 3: slim to none.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Blockbuster Online is Offline For Entire DayBlockbuster Acquires MovielinkBest Buy and Blockbuster Looking to Enter Movie Download ServiceBlockbuster Kicks Premium Subscribers to the CurbMovieClique: Blockbuster’s Bad Attempt at a Facebook AppBlockbuster Bears Brunt of Facebook BeaconBlockbuster Wants You To Download Movies At Its House. Literally.

AT&T has purchased Dallas-based WiFi hotspot operator Wayport for a stunning $275 million in cash. The privately held company administers over 10,000 WiFi hotspots for various hotel chains like Wyndham, Marriott Vacation Club and Four Seasons as well as McDonald’s restaurants nationwide.

I caught this bit of acquisition news a little late (it’s been on the PR wires for about fifteen hours now), but I got pinged by Austin Startup on the news early this morning, and it made me wonder if the same deal that’s been proffered to Starbucks customers will also be extended to McDonald’s patrons.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a coffee-addict, and I’ll use any excuse to hang out in a coffee bar for extended periods of time to suck down that sweet, sweet nectar of the gods.. but as a father who happens to be a web worker, I more often find myself setting up shop at a McDonald’s than the Starbucks across the street. To that end, I’d be far more likely to start up a tab there and set myself up with a McDonald’s Card if it came with two free daily hours of WiFi (and I imagine I’m not the only one in that boat).

Stacey Higgenbotham over at GigaOm sees it as more of a move by AT&T to aleviate the load off the mobile data network than as a value add for McDonald’s customers:

Buying Wayport and offering 20,000 hot spots (including in airports and McDonald’s restaurants) in the U.S. allows AT&T to provide its customers with more places to do their bandwidth-sucking applications. Already, AT&T is willing to let iPhone and BlackBerry users access its Wi-Fi hotspots free at Starbucks. It also means AT&T can hold out a bit longer before deploying its 4G LTE network, which is designed for data.

While that’s likely the rationale being used to justify the purchase, one hopes that they see the opportunity here to continue to expand their reach and build up business for their host partners.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:AT&T Giving Away Free Wi-Fi at StarbucksiTunes Wi-Fi Music Store Now LiveiPass Offers Wireless Net Access to Consumers with WiFi/3G NetworkAre Consumers Ready for WiFi on Airplanes?WeFi Finds Friends from Their WiFiMake Money with Your iPhone. Track Wifi Access Points.Loki - Location-based Search and Navigation

One of the most talked about (and at the same time most boring) topics this election cycle has been the topic of health insurance. Granted, it’s one of the most important subjects to keep abreast of as an adult. In our world, the world of startups and entreprenuerism, getting company health coverage for yourself, much less your family, is almost impossible.

Historically, the response of workers that find themselves in the position that American IT and web workers do is to unionize and demand better wages and benefits from their employers, but those of us in tech have always tended towards the attitude of self-direction, which doesn’t lend itself very well towards what unions have typically stood for.

A good friend of mine for almost a decade and a half is working to bridge the gap for technology workers. James Smith and his current business partner Jack Edwards were interviewed on InfoWorld about an organization they’re putting together called the International IT Worker’s Group. The idea of the organization is to provide some of the benefits of a union without sacrificing the needs and desires of the individual to the greater collective of a union.

Disclosure: James and I Go Way Back

That also means, though, that I’m pretty well equipped to understand his idea here and the inspirations behind it since through the years we’ve shared so much professional history. I’m not involved in this venture of his, so the only self-serving thing I have to gain from his success is that he’d have a nicer couch for me to surf next time I visit.

Disclaimers aside, though, as someone who’s worked through a similar history of small startups and large corporations as James and Jack (often side by side with them), I understand the motivating factors that helped shape the direction that they’ve decided to apply the IITW towards. Portable health care services is one very important part, but also integral to the organization’s purpose is educational services, legal services and assistance with job placement.

A lot of that sounds similar to the traditional union structure, but the difference here is that IITW doesn’t aim to be a collective agent for leveraging employee solidarity against the technology employers of the world. Aside from the fact that tech workers are typically against the idea of unions to begin with, the industry is situated in such a way that there is no social repercussions for hiring outside a union, nor is it particularly difficult to do so.

Jack sat down with Betsy Harter yesterday over at Infoworld to talk about it:

Additionally, Edwards’ years as a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) helped him decide how he didn’t want the IITW to operate. He remembers one particular day when he was managing a crew that was performing a time-sensitive electrical job. The project was quite complicated, and his crew fell behind.

“I have never been one to sit back and watch other people work, so I jumped in and helped complete the job,” Jack Edwards said. “An IBEW union rep told me that it was against the bylaws for me to be doing the work, so I quit the union.”

This is a sentiment that rings true especially for us in the startup world. The last thing we’d need in our culture is a unionized mentality, preventing coders from plugging in a network cable or keeping the coworking space’s network dude from tapping out a script to automate the backup, or some equally plausible yet still ridiculous scenario.

It’s something that James and I chatted about yesterday after the Infoworld write-up came out, and he mentioned another reason as to why they want to stay away from the traditional union role.

“We’ve been on both sides of the fence, and you know as well as I do our business is filled with startups from their mom’s garages, there’s no way that model could thrive while tangling with unions,” said James. “On the other hand, the same kids that may be working nights in that garage on a startup are spending their days as a contractor coding for Nokia or managing servers for The Planet, and need the benefits a union-like organization can provide.”

This idea should go on the recession proof list…

Assuming the IITW gains the traction it needs to be sustainable, this is one of those ideas that might be timed just perfectly. The recent election combined with the economic downturn has finances on the minds of most of us, and anything that can help us keep our jobs (or at least find new ones more easily) will add to a sense of much needed peace of mind.

To that end, the educational services aspect is what sounds most interesting and ambitious to me. Certainly, selling portable health care on a mass scale is important stuff, but the plans for standardized educational and certification programs are what really have interested me the most when he’s talked to me about it.

For the last several years as I’ve become more and more entrenched with this whole New Media ‘fad’, I’ve been evangelizing the virtues of the various formats that term encompasses. It seems he’s been taking that to heart, and has put together detailed plans to create distance learning programs that utilize online streaming and video podcasting technologies to better facilitate the certification process.

He hasn’t made it clear at what stage they plan on deploying that part of the IITW program, but it could be as soon as the first quarter of the new year, which is when the health insurance program is slated to come online.

Up until that point, they offer free membership and access to the groups internal social network. It’s definitely worth checking out, and a resource to keep an eye on to see how it develops. If it gains momentum, it could be invaluable.

So you live in a major American city like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, or Chicago. You’re hungry. You know you’ve got tons of lunch menu options in a given area to choose from. But do you go for a standard recipes, or do you seek out one of the day’s specials?

If you’re on the prowl for something new, Lunchtimedeals might help to simplify and streamline your decision making process. The idea behind the service is to give restaurants a platform by which to reach potential customers with discounts and special dishes.

You can visit LunchTimeDeals and simply seek out featured items as they come. But if you want to give it the least bit of effort, a quick sign up of your email and location can give you regular messages about things being pushed out by neighborhood eateries. Of course, this entails names in the food business to join the fold and push highlights to a select segment of the site’s audience. But Lunchtimedeals is young. If it manages to connect to the right set of “early adopters,” it could grow fast quite soon.

We mentioned a few cities that Lunchtimedeals lists in its database. Other locations include Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Yet it should be said that New York is essentially the only place worth searching. All others are devoid of entries. (Or, to be thematic about it, entrees.) This can certainly make the site feel empty and host some unnecessary linkage, but just as long as you recognize its informational limitations, it might serve you well.

Naturally, the creators of LunchTimeDeals are as eager for consumers as they are for producers in the great big (prepared) food chain we have in this country, so they provide basic “Tell a Restaurant” and “Tell Your Friends” Web forms for people to interact with. If all goes as planned, it’s not unimaginable to think it will be long before LunchTimeDeals manages to diversify its day-to-day attentions to breakfast, brunch, and dinner, too.

From gas prices to the environment and being able to use the carpool lane, there are many reasons to start carpooling. The question is, how do you easily find people that happen to be driving to the same destination as you?  Luckily, as with almost everything in this day and age, there are Web apps to help you with this very query.

For a double whammy of savings, make sure to check out our list, Check Gas Prices Online: 11 Handy Tools to find the cheapest gas for you and your carpooling buddies to split.

General

Avego.com - Avego is a service accessible via the iPhone or an average cell phone that allows you to get rides at a moment’s notice. The service uses GPS to allow drivers and riders to find each other.  Via the GPS function you get exact directions indicating where to pick up and drop people off, and also get a running tally of how much the ride costs.  After the ride is over, both the driver and passenger can rate one another.

CarpoolConnect.com - Offers up international carpooling opportunities for people mainly in the USA, Canada and Europe.

CarpoolWorld.com - CarpoolWorld has been around since 2000, and continues to provide matching services for those looking for drivers and passengers. Also offers the ability to set up carpool groups for your company, club, sports team or just about anything else you can think of.

DivideTheRide.com - A carpooling site designed to get your children around to their activities. One person starts it, they invite people they trust, and then a calendar is created. Reminders are sent via email and text message.

eRideShare.com - Assists you in finding rides for daily carpooling, cross-country travel, running errands, or even to special events & club meetings.

GishiGo.com - A ride sharing system that charges $.99 for creating a post as either a driver or passenger, and allows you to post reviews of the experience after it’s over.

GoLoco.org - A social network style carpooling site that makes sure everyone pays their share of the expenses. Each mile of a proposed trip is calculated at $.50, then split between the number of people and then GoLoco receives a 10% share of the transaction.

GooseNetworks.com - A service focusing on corporate websites to allow your employees to find people they can share rides with, providing them with public transit schedules, and more.

iCarpool.com - Assists you with finding carpooling partners for work, long distance trips, events and more. Works for members in Australia, Canada, Europe and the USA.

NuRide.com - NuRide offers sponsored carpooling. Set up your ride, confirm that it actually occurred, and you can earn points towards rewards such as gift cards, discounts and more. All members must belong to a company or organization so as to remove some of the anonymity.

PickupPal.com - Sign up for carpooling for work, long trips, to events and more. Focuses heavily on reducing your carbon footprint on the Earth.

Pooln.com - A car pooling site with a social networking structure. Give it a try by entering the zip code where you live and the one for your office to see if there are any members who match up with your needs.

RideAmigos.com - Use the RideAmigo’s RideMatcher system to enter your trip or commute, and find people with a matching schedule that you can share a ride with. The service also shows the environmental impact reduction of the people sharing a ride. Also offers a corporate version, which restricts results to people within your company.

RidePro - A white label solution for companies and cities looking to set up their own carpooling site.

RoadSharing.com - Enter the route for your proposed road trip and find people to share the ride with and split the costs. Has lots of international members, and it’s easy to spot who has the vehicle and who is looking for one.

TrafficBulldog.org - Billed as a commuter advocacy site, TrafficBulldog offers up news and suggestions on reducing traffic congestion via carpooling and other suggestions.

Zimride.com - Zimride offers carpooling for just about any distance you can think of in the USA. They have a Facebook application and have already built an app to be released to work with Android.

Region Specific

511.org - The San Francisco based 511.org site provides a ride share area where you can find other commuters to pool with in the Bay area.  Carpoolers get free bridge tolls during peak hours, and if you start a Vanpool, you can receive up to $900 in gas cards.

Car-Pooling.com - Offers carpool matching for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Carpool.ca - Canadians get their own carpooling site with Carpool.ca.  Find rides, read up on carpooling etiquette, and other general tips.

CarpoolMatchNW.org - A carpool site focusing on Oregon and SW Washington.

Carshare.com - Carshare is a directory of carpooling services for the UK that you can look up by region or by just looking for ones that serve the entire country.

Liftshare.org - Focuses mainly on carpooling in the UK, but also offers up the chance to find walking and biking buddies.

MyRideSmart.com - Carpool matching service specific to the Atlana, GA area of the United States.

RideArrangers - In operation since 1975, RideArrangers is a program in Denver, CO focused on matching up people for carpools.

RideFinders.org - RideFinders is specific to the St. Louis area and provides an interesting incentive in the form of up to six free taxi rides a year.  These can be used in case you have unforeseen circumstances that keep you from meeting up with your ride.

TheCarpool.com.au - Set up carpooling for work, school and trips for people all across Australia.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Zimride Launches Carpooling Network for FacebookPickupPal Pushes Green with Carpools to ConcertsZilok Pushes Green Lifestyle with US Launch: Video InterviewEdenbee or Not to Be? Climate Change Social Network Steps In To HelpGREEN LIVING TOOLBOX: 80+ Green Sites

There are countless online spreadsheets and word processors these days, but not too many online databases. Sometimes the best way to work with data is naturally within a database. Managing data in a spreadsheet can only get you so far. Sure, it’s great for number crunching and financial analysis, but if you want to enter data once and use it over and over again in queries and reports and share them with others, then the best solution is an online database. Here are six of the most popular online database services available today.

Zoho DB & Reports

Zoho DB & Reports offers a free and easy way to create your own database online. You can create a database from scratch or by importing data from an existing spreadsheet. The databases run rather quickly, which was a pleasant surprise. There doesn’t appear to be any limits in place for the number of databases you can create.

You can share any database with anyone you want by simply adding their email address and sending them a link. They don’t even have to join Zoho to view the database which is a nice change of pace from other services. Another excellent feature is the ability to embed any database or view on your website. Here’s an example of a database called The Zone where I have every Twilight Zone episode along with other information. You can share databases with individuals, make them public or keep them private.

Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is not really a database service but a Web application builder. What’s strange is that it’s eerily similar to their own Zoho DB in that you can create databases as well. Zoho Creator does offer a great deal more options than Zoho DB. It offers an excellent interface builder for creating customized forms and the ability to build database applications for the mobile platform.

They have their own API for those interested in building more complex databases. Their scripting language is called Deluge. Zoho has stated that there are plans to one day unite Zoho DB and Creator into one product which makes perfect sense.

DabbleDB

DabbleDB is similar to Zoho DB except that it doesn’t offer a free account. There’s only a 30-day trial, otherwise you’ll need a premium account. After kicking the tires with the trial version you’ll notice that it isn’t as easy to use as Zoho’s other database solutions. The interface doesn’t present the data as well as Zoho DB’s useful Tabbed interface. The performance was brisk with the test database, which included a few hundred records. There doesn’t seem to be enough options or features to justify the expense when compared to the free offerings available today.

Blist

Blist provides the best looking interface for any database service. Its Ajaxy look and feel makes the databases you create look rather slick. Unfortunately, the sharing feature still needs some work because it isn’t as easy to share databases as it should be. However, allowing people to view your databases without requiring them to sign up for the service is a great feature. They do need to join Blist if they want to make any changes or contribute anything to the database, which makes sense. Another nice touch is the ability to copy any public database, which is a great time-saver because you can use them as templates.

Strata

Strata from Kirix is a unique kind of database service. They describe themselves as a fusion of a Web browser and a built-in relational database. That’s not a bad way of putting it. It’s important to note that Strata is not free. There’s a 30-day trial that you can download for Windows or Linux to see what it can do.

QuickBase

QuickBase is from Intuit, the people behind Quicken and QuickBooks. They were one of the first online database services. Needless to say, their service is robust with features and the performance very strong. Just like DabbleDB there’s no free account, just a trial version. The least expensive account that you can get is $15 per month for 5 users.

Conclusion

When you want to slice and dice data online and share the results, using one of these online databases could be exactly what you need. Which one is the best database service? At this point in time, if one had to make a pick the edge would go to Zoho DB & Reports because of its SSL and mobile support. However, you can’t go wrong with Blist if you aren’t interested in mobile access to your databases or SSL security. If Zoho ever does merge Creator with Zoho DB & Reports, it will only make their solution that much stronger.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Forget Access: 8 Online Database ToolsMicrosoft’s Answer to Google Gears50 Matches Searches Digg and Del.icio.us for YouITtoolbox Becomes a Social Network20+ Tools For XMLInsoshi: Best Social Network Platform EvarILCU - The Israeli Lovechild of MySpace and Eventful

Source:Mashable!

I took some time out last night before I went to bed to go ahead and take apart the Esquire magazine cover that famously has an e-Ink segmented display. As I mentioned the other morning, I have a bit of experience in working with the e-Ink displays, though my experience was in the programming side (working with the prototyping kit) on the matrix style display, not the segmented display that’s present in the current issue of Esquire magazine.

The video is 20 minutes long, which is a bit much for one of our typical videos, but I give you an up close and personal look at each piece as I take it out, and try to keep you from falling asleep by relating what I know about how the technology functions and what makes it special (and how it can be applied to publications looking to go digital from either side of the divide).

Watch the video via the embed below or download the MP4.

I found a few technical resources around the Web that were particularly interesting - and in these cases it’s a good idea to read the comments and discussion following the blog post.

MAKE Magazine - It’s important you read the comments there if you in any way want to tinker with the cover.  A lot of your work may be done for you.  As I stated once I got my hands on this, from a hardware geek perspective, I was a little disappointed they chose to go with segmented rather than matrix display. You’ll see this reflected in the reaction there. Also from MAKE: some hardware hacking tips for the board.

Esquire Magazine - Don’t bother with the video from Esquire, but the infographics here that talk about how it was made are pretty informative. If you’re looking to do some work with this medium (either as a designer, publisher or ad agency) these are some good crib notes to start with once your prototyping stage is done. When I was working with the prototyping kits, they hadn’t quite worked out the manufacturing chain to a science (and I haven’t talked to e-Ink in about three years). If you’re serious about using this material, you should take any tips you can get on how this is done before you start the prototyping process.

e-Ink Prototyping Kit Store - As I said in the video, not a lot of creative agencies are working with this material yet for a couple of reasons.  For one, it requires some serious technical and programming chops. For another, the prototyping kits are expensive. To work with segmented systems, get ready to drop $1,500 per kit. On the matrix display systems, it’s $3,000 (an explanation of what the difference is available in the video). That said, this is a wide open market, and I for one am ready for some folks to start doing cool things with this stuff.

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—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:The Digital Magazine Vs. the Digital MagazineClipShack: The Flickr of Video, Again!Video Search Summit 2008: Register Now and Save $200Yahoo Follows Google, Releases Search Video AdsNew MSN Video Has Time-Based AdvertisingMSN Video…Same As SoapboxVeotag Gets $750K in Angel Funding

Company Name

UberSpat

20-Word Description

UberSpat is a new online debate community where evidence presented and rated by users allows the best debates to float to the top.

CEO’s Pitch

UberSpat is an online debating site that allows users to input a debate of their choosing. What separates UberSpat from its competitors is that users can add evidence to support or oppose a debate. The evidence can then be rated by other users. All of this information then becomes extremely beneficial to people who want to know more about both sides of the debate. They simply read all of the best articles from either side. This focus on evidence makes UberSpat a research tool as well as a debating site. That’s what makes this an amazing site. It is something of a cross between Digg, Wiki, and Google.

Mashable’s Take

Nearly two months young and launched out of Richardson, Texas, near the cities of Dallas-Fort Worth, UberSpat is a startup intended to provide a forum for debaters of all stripes to challenge one another on a myriad of issues, from politics to science to sex to sports to comedy to conspiracies.

We recently offered up a group of several online debate services and resources, all of which prove valuable in their own way. There is also the name-brand Debate.com domain, whose owners too promise to deliver a platform on which users may spar against one another. It is somewhat incomplete in its design, but it’s there all the same. What UberSpat manages to offer to its users, however, is both an efficient and well-detailed design. This means that while it presents a Digg-like ease of use and an intuitive framework, as its creators suggest above, it is very accommodating of discussion - and lots of it.

Granted, at the moment, submissions for topics listed aren’t flowing in fast. Given the site’s age, the place is moving at a decent clip, but still has long to go before it really hits its stride. Yet it still makes for an interesting visit. Some of the traffic it receives is banal and does little but flatline. Other items catch the eye. And those which do manage to grab a good bit of attention are enhanced by UberSpat’s hybridization of commentary so-called supporting evidence. The user’s ability to attribute articles to a discussion on one side or the other exceeds the usual he-says-she-says structure common in online debate.

Furthermore, the ability for users to not only comment and vote on subjects posited by members, but also to rate comments as well allows the community the option to act as a collective moderator to the space. This gives UberSpat the ability to maintain a sort of civility. As much as such a service with user management features can allow, anyway. (Naturally, the political stage is home to the most vehement chatter at present.)

Of course its name, admittedly, isn’t the choicest one to emerge from the niche it inhabits. UberSpat. It might suit you, it might not. And there are a few strange quirks in the sign-up process that will puzzle some registrants. It is required that you submit a birthday and marital status, for example. But my sense is that these points aren’t particularly important. Deal breakers they are not. The substantive impression the site itself can make on the visitor is key, and the way in which UberSpat operates is engaging and provoking, and ensures that the service stands among the top of its class.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

AT&T introduced a development this week, assembled by  mobile social networking software specialist Intercasting Corp, that allows its wireless subscribers to employ a new MEdia Mall option called My Communities, a $2.99/month extra, to connect with friends and other associates through services like MySpace, Photobucket, LiveJournal, Xanga, and Rabble, as well as niche and specialized networks like AsianAve, BlackPlanet, MiGente, FaithBase, and GLEE.

Only a few months have passed since we witnessed AT&T provide its mobile subscribers with a social service operable via the MEdia Mall storefront. Dubbed JuiceCaster, it enables users to share media with people on the Web across hotspots like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter. My Communities, meanwhile, which is a product of a platform called ANTHEM, broadens the user’s list of choices for interacting with others. In addition to media sharing, run of the mill message-based communication, comment postings and friend requests are made possible through the My Communities application dashboard.

To put it concisely, My Communities is merely a checklist of partnerships established by Intercasting. Intercasting, the proprietor of ANTHEM, operates in a way that binds carriers, content providers, social networking services, and advertising networks together into one channel, in order to reach a large audience in relatively uniform fashion. Indeed, Mashable previously touched on ANTHEM’s integration with Rabble, Piczo, and MTV. Still, given the volume of handset sales that tend to inhibit free-form exploration of third-party software designs, AT&T’s bridge with ANTHEM, regardless of its somewhat generic nature, seems a sensible way to attract that pool of consumers to bring some of their social services off the PC screen.

It is of course not guaranteed that the average subscriber’s ability to manage multiple connections with multiple services is a convenience that will attract a lot of buyers. Much depends on whether those potential users think it necessary to spend $2.99 per month on options that are otherwise free to use via their desktop-based Web browsers. But if the cost of a smartphone laden with a Mobile Web access plan is too much of a premium, this alternative is quite cost-effective, and could well convince non-power users to grab hold of the extra features My Communities delivers.

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