Most of you would have heard of the devastating bushfires in Australia this past week, and incredibly, eight days after the initial fire storm, there are still a lot of fires on the go, and other environmental ramifications that are further reaching than the destruction dealt out in the immediate fire areas.

You’re probably thinking right now, “what has this got to do with a mobile lifestyle?” and I wouldn’t blame you for that, but I just wanted to share with you some of the mobile community experience, and how I benefit from my devices, and the services I use.

On Friday night, I realised I had run out of dog food, and Melbourne was covered in a thick smoke haze, as I was running up to the 7/11, I looked up and the moon was blood red. A consequence of the smoke haze.

I only had the Tilt, so I twittered a request, for someone with a high resolution camera to capture an image for me. Credit for the image goes to @neilcreek, a fellow aussie and blogger. Even though it’s serious times here, an example of another mobile networking use that I found tonight, really gave me a good chuckle

I suppose a lot of us discount the use of our connectivity, and others would not think that CCTV has become a personal option. Think about it though, the amount of people kitted out with a mobile video camera/phone, linked to an internet feed via a 3G network connection has quadrupled, so are you a public item in this day and age. Have a look at this well done, amusing Microsoft advertisement for the Indian market that I found at WMPowerUser today.

I wouldn’t be alarmed, but the possibilities are endless these days, and it doesn’t actually need to be a WinMo device. How do you connect on your device, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, how ever you do it, do you find it effective, or just amusing. I’ll leave you with a quote I read tonight, “Facebook is to beer, as Twitter is to crack”. Do you find social networking, useful? or a distraction that you could do without?