Now she’s not the most graceful walker and she’s still learning. She prefers to have something close to balance on, but she’s also not afraid to let go and really try walking without any help. Seeing a child attempt to walk is both hilarious and moving. Most importantly, it’s a inspiring.

Despite frequently falling, she always gets back up. No help, she wants to walk by herself. She’s determined to get from one side of the room to the other, all by herself. It truely is a blessing to watch how persistent she is.

This isn’t a new or ground breaking. In the social space, there’s been a recent conversation about needing to fail before you succeed. For the most part, to me, that’s all it’s been – chatter. It’s been words and a pep talk. But to see that inspiration right in front of your eyes, it really changes your perspective on the concept.

I wish we didn’t lose the fear of failure. We need more people who show determination and are continually getting back up despite falling down.

Size

The first thing that obviously came to mind was the size difference. The Droid X features a significantly larger screen than both the original Droid and the Droid Incredible. I found the 4.3 inch screen slightly bigger than it probably needs to be; however, when placed in my pocket, it felt a lot more comfortable than my smaller Droid. Additionally, as you can see from the picture below, the Droid X is quite slim (dimensions are: 2.6  x 5.0  x 0.4  inches). It took 5-10 minutes for me to get used to the size difference, and after that, I was wishing my original Droid was slimmer. As I mentioned above, despite the screen being a tad too big, overall, the new dimensions of the Droid X are a great update in my book.

Camera/Video

While the Droid X features an 8.0 megapixel camera, to be honest, I didn’t see much of a difference from my original Droid. That being said, I think the camera on both the original Droid and the Droid X put out some pretty solid photos. While it’ll never rival an actual digital camera, for someone who takes the occasional photo on the run or while I’m out at various social events, the Droid X will get the job done. The camcorder was the same thing – comparable to Droid, quality video for a mobile device, I’d still use my Flip. One thing that did bug me about the camcorder was that it was difficult to use. At least for me. The beauty of the original Droid is there’s a little on-screen button on the bottom right of the screen that you tap to record and to finish. Unless I missed it, the Droid X was completely different and not clear on how to start or stop the recording. Again, maybe it was me.

Display/Menu

This was another update/change that I thoroughly enjoyed. The menu or homescreen on the Droid X was a great change and the ease of use was a welcomed change. Not only do they add more screens to sort and seperate for quick-touch access to apps, the menu was more appealing in general. They also added a few more background and wallpaper options that were pretty cool. Small things like this make my review non-technical!

Audio

One of the apps I use the most on my original Droid is the Pandora app. I stream music from my phone quite a bit. The audio on my Droid is fantastic. However, on the Droid X, it’s one feature that I was not impressed with at all. The Droid X has more speakers, yet the audio from both the Pandora app and from YouTube was a bit muffled and not quite as high quality as the original Droid. Please note that I only found the audio inferior in terms of music. The microphone and speaker that are used while making calls produce high quality audio. I didn’t have any issues hearing others talk and according to the phone calls I made, my voice quality was excellent as well. So it kind of surprised me that the audio was drastically worse for music and videos.

Battery

 As a heavy phone user, I did not see any issues with the battery life on the Droid X. I had a bunch of apps constantly running and never needed a mid-day charge. For the average smartphone user, you’ll easily be able to go quite a while before needing to charge.

Final Takeaway

Unfortunately my model didn’t have the Android 2.2 OS. I was really hoping to get a sneak peak at Froyo, but it looks like I’ll have to wait until later this year. Despite that, my overall opinion on the Droid X is that it’s clearly the best Android phone on the market.

If you are looking to buy an Android phone, this is  the one you need to be looking at. Is it enough to get me to upgrade? No. While the biggest draw for me is the size and absence of a physical keyboard (I never use the physical keyboard on my Droid), and the display is high quality, it doesn’t do anything that my Droid can’t do. The improved camera (according to specs) is likely appealing to those who actively use their mobile for pictures and video.

Again, I clearly think the Android is the best phone on the market. I’d take my Droid and the Droid X over the iPhone any day. The Droid X delivers nearly everything you need on a smartphone. I don’t need a front-facing camera, the Android market has more than enough apps and you have the Verizon network. For anyone other than original Droid users, the Droid X is the phone to get.

Disclaimer: The Droid X I tested was courtesy of Albert Maruggi. My review was based purely off my experience with the Droid X. I did not receive any compensation and my device was returned.

While quality is a major part of a product’s success, a great product or brand can go unnoticed if there’s no buzz around it. A large factor of P90X’s success is the fact that, for the most part, the product delivers what it says it does. However, there’s a bigger reason for P90X leading the health and fitness space right now. The reason? Community.

It’s common sense that word of mouth is the greatest form of marketing. Sure, P90X has those sweet infomercials on television, they’re running ads in magazines. That helps. However, the biggest benefit P90X has going for itself is the ringing endorsement from its community.

P90X’s community is loud, they’re vocal and they are supportive. It’s the type of community every brand wants. This isn’t anything new, as Slim Fast, Jenny Craig, South Beach, etc. all have communities as well. So what is P90X doing so differently? What have they done that’s allowed them to create evangelists? Like any product, it works for some and it doesn’t for others. Is it the product that’s created the community, or the community that’s created the product?

The thing that I like about P90X is that they encourage you to be social. They encourage you to get involved with your workout, take pictures, share stories, and really make the workout a part of your life. They want you to be completely emerged with their brand. And it works.

P90X is the first workout routine that, in my opinion, has capitalized on its community and created “fanboys.” The majority of people that I know that have used the P90X product swear by it and have made it known that they’ve used the product. I know that I’ve openly shared my experiences with it and will continue to endorse the product. We haven’t seen this much buzz around working out since Billy Blanks and Tae Bo. The real question is will the P90X community last longer? In today’s social environment, I think the buzz will continue to spread and evangelists will continue to preach “Just Bring It.”

What do you think? Can you have a community if you don’t have a quality product? With P90X, what impact do the actual results have on the product?

Let’s take a moment to go back and look at life in social media as it was last year. What were the buzz words/phrases?

• Engage
• Community
• Listen
• Trust
• ROI – yet few knew how to measure
• Crowdsourcing
• Transparency
• Organizational adoption

While this wasn’t the entire bucket of buzz, it’s a good sample. So now, early into 2010, what are the buzz words/phrases?

• ROI – now we think we know how to measure
• Collaboration
• Mobile
• Location
• Cases studies
• Humanize

While all this is fine and dandy, it’s purely talk. We like to talk in social media and public relations. However, as social continues to evolve, very few are actually producing. So again, I ask, let’s “do.”

But “do” what? I don’t care. Do something, anything, everything, it, work…take off your thinking cap, get off your rump and let’s start doing something productive with social. How about we stop advising and start implementing. Right now there’s a lot of chatter, but not much action.

Stop spending your entire day on Twitter socializing with your “friends” and focus on putting together something useful for your company or clients. Dig a little deeper and put together a useful plan that leverages social in a meaningful and profitable manner.

If you’re in this because it’s “cool” and you think you have to, that’s alright. Step aside, please. If you’re in this for the “feely good” people you can meet and for socializing, that’s cool. Again, step aside. But if you’re serious about this, step up to the plate and “do.” If not, I’ll be glad to take your clients and produce.

So I found another host that appears to be fairly reasonable in pricing, had similar options as my current host and had gotten great reviews. I decided to move forward and started filling out the required information. When I got to the checkout, I decided that it wasn’t worth it for me to move my hosting. I’m a convenience guy. I’ll pay more to have all my services with one provider. So I canceled my order and moved on….

That was on Friday evening. On Saturday afternoon, I receive an email from a product manager at the company I canceled my order with. In the e-mail, he noted that I “didn’t complete an order and experienced some difficulties.” OK? So for my “difficulties” he was offering 50% off hosting, but I needed to click the attached link and that link was only live for 24 hours.

Hmmm..first, I didn’t experience any “difficulties” and why are you assuming this? More alarming, you never inquired why I didn’t complete my order and you automatically gave me a 50% discount. This baffled me. But I ignored the e-mail.

That was Saturday at 3:30 p.m. By Sunday afternoon, I received another e-mail saying the exact same thing, this time from the vice president of the company. Again, 50% discount. No inquiry why I didn’t complete my order.

What confuses me is why neither people reached out to ask why I didn’t complete the order? They automatically assumed I had a problem or issue. And their remedy? Discount. What this tells me is that had I signed up, they probably wouldn’t take the time to get to know me as a customer. They don’t care about my input or experience. Their solution is to give people discounts. They’re on the right path by measuring conversion, but how valid is this research if they don’t seek out more in-depth information?

Additionally, why do they simply throw out discounts like they’re a vast commodity? Now, if I ever decide to purchase anything from this company, there’s no way I’m paying full price. I’ll simply fill out my order form, cancel it and await a discount. Or I’ll seek a discount out via other channels. This simple mistake automatically discounted their brand by 50%. Their $20/month service is only worth $10/month to me. Bad business management from a product manager and a vice president.

Get to know your customers. Ask why they made a purchase, seek out why others did not. Quit throwing discounts around, it cheapens your product. People are willing to pay for good service and good business. Hosting is a cheap product, it was less than $5/month, so clearly price wasn’t a deciding factor. Saving $2.50/month isn’t an incentive, it’s almost offensive. Wake up and build relationships and quit trying to discount your product.

I think a large reason why we constantly look toward the next thing is because very few understand what’s currently in front of us. All the buzz at SXSWi was trying to find the next “Twitter.” Yet, how many brands have grasped Twitter as it stands today? The mentality to focus on the next and newest trend is simply an excuse and a way to try and not hold oneself accountable.

While I agree it’s important to continually be striving to improve and expand your knowledge, let’s take a step back and focus on delivering results with the tools we currently have. We get bored, we want to be “cool” and popular, and an easy way to achieve this is by being an early adopter. I understand this. But you’re not fooling anyone and the time is running out. The time is coming when you’ll be forced to stand up, show your value and provide concrete results. I hope you aren’t on vacation when that day arrives.

I invite you to take a look at our interview where Albert shares his insights on audio as a medium and what opportunities/obstacles location-based marketing present.

Keep in mind, I’m the same guy that said your customers aren’t your number one priority. So now, this group of people who I feel aren’t important, don’t care if you’re listening?

I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I recall a few occasions (ok, most of my childhood), where my mother would lecture me on why I shouldn’t be causing mischief. And, like most “conversations” it went in one ear, out the other. Sure, I was listening, but there was no action on my end. Nothing got resolved. Same mischief, same lecture. It never got resolved. And folks, that’s what matters. It’s the action. It’s the follow-up. It’s taking input and turning it into something productive and resourceful. Toyota is doing a great job listening right now. But do they care? Are they doing anything about it? That’s what customers want.

The action, the follow-up – that’s where most companies fail. It’s not that they don’t care enough to hear their customer’s opinions. Hell, people complain about a company every day on Twitter – it’s become the hip thing to do. Those complaints are meaningless, because companies don’t care enough to resolve any of these issues. Often times, it’s too expensive. Often times, it’s going outside of an established comfort zone. News flash: companies don’t like to spend money and they don’t like new, untested waters.

So who’s the fool? Is it the customers who continue to voice their opinion? After all, social media has allowed us to finally have a voice! Evangelists have preached that the business model has evolved and now companies aren’t in control. Again, like most of the stuff that comes from these evangelists, it’s complete garbage. I appreciate the feel-good vibe that everyone wants, but in reality, none of that matters.

But what about the many examples of online backlash that has caused companies to change? What about those who’ve seen the power that is social media – United, Dominos, Burger King? The only thing that they’ve learned is that they need to tread a little lighter. But it’s going to be just enough to ensure they don’t overstep your fragile ego. Nothing’s changed. And you don’t care that they aren’t listening. We simply want to feel like we matter. We don’t really care if it’s true or not. We’re content with putting up some fuss, having a company say they’ll “look into it” and then moving on. We want to think we made a difference, but don’t care if we make a difference.

Nothing is going to change this. It’s been this way since the beginning. Until we hold ourselves accountable. Until we stop feeling good about simply speaking up. Nothing is going to change. And it’s not company A’s fault. It’s your fault. It’s my fault.