The Opinionated Normob

O2 rebrand cock-up shock!

2008-04-09T15:19:00.003+01:00

Just who do these pillocks think they're fooling?

First up is exciting news from the PR department (courtesy of MobileToday):

O2 is spending £5m refreshing its brand, which will include a change to the ‘it’s your O2 – see what you can do’ strapline introduced in May 2006, and made famous by Sean Bean’s unique delivery.

O2’s new brand brief that ‘a more connected world is a better world’ will be reflected in the new strapline ‘we’re better, connected’, although once again it will be delivered by Sean Bean.

The new brand was unveiled this week through a wide range of media advertising including TV, outdoor, cinema and online.

Sally Cowdry, marketing director for O2 UK said: ‘We’ve had incredible success with the O2 brand over the past six years, quickly establishing it as a leading UK brand.

‘But we need to keep the brand fresh, reflecting changing market conditions and customer priorities.

‘Customers are very much at the heart of our business but the role of O2 in their lives is changing. So our focus is now on empowering and enabling them to better connect to people and things that matter.’

Compare that with The Register's news that many (if not most) O2 customers on 3G tariffs don't even receive 3G speeds:

O2 has admitted its 3G customers are limited to 128Kb/s connections, with business users being automatically upgraded to 384Kb/s if they are deemed to warrant it.

3G connection speeds are highly variable, so establishing that the network has imposed a speed limit isn't as easy as it might appear, even though O2 users have long suspected they are being restricted.

384Kb/s is the technical limit of 3G technology, without resorting to HSPDA, but topping out at 128Kb/s is something of an embarrassment for a 3G network. Not that using HSDPA will help the O2 customer, depending on the "profile" O2 has decided to assign to them they might still find themselves allocated only 128Kb/sec.

O2 hasn't been able to explain how they decide who gets which profile, but they did give us a statement explaining that "O2 provides data speeds of 128Kb/s as standard to all 3G customers. Profiles of corporate customers who require higher speeds are modified so that they can benefit from speeds of 384Kb/s." With HSDPA the top speed should be even faster, assuming one is in the right profile group.

The network operator is quite careful on its website to describe 3G as a "high speed network" and makes no promises about specific connection speeds. In fact, the company tells us, 128Kb/s is all punters can expect from 3G, with 384Kb/se being a premium service only available to a select few.

Customers wanting the higher speed connection can, apparently, simply ask for it when they buy their phone, or give O2 a call - though the company declined to provide us with a suitable number or procedure for changing, or finding out, one's profile.

The competing operators we've spoken to don't offer such a tiered service. Once they had stopped laughing at O2's stance they all agreed that 3G should mean speeds of up to 384Kb/s for everyone, and that's what they provide, dependent on network coverage and local environment.

News of the limit should, however, be welcomed by iPhone users. They have been much derided for lacking high-speed 3G technology, while in reality their Edge connections could easily be out-performing O2's idea of what a 3G network is capable of.

Still, I'm sure a new strapline will make all the difference...
Not.

Whatleydude's N95 saga: VF comes out shining!

2008-03-17T22:52:00.001Z

The irrepressible Spinvox blogger, James Whatley’s (that’s Whatleydude, to the universe) didn’t have a great Friday.
His, erm, 'robustly-used' phone stopped working and naturally, as a “Vodafone’s ‘best care’ program” member, he expected it to be replaced quickly and without any hassle.
Of course, if everything had been straightforward, it wouldn’t warrant some comment from me. So, as you'll have guessed, it all went pear-shaped.

You can read James' entertaining tearjerker over on SMS Text News (probably the mobile world’s most widely-read, and massively influential blog…) but, for continuity's sake, here's the final gasp:

If I don’t have a new N95 by the end of the weekend, or at least, on its way to me by the end of the weekend – as I said at the beginning of this post – I’m going to 3.

And I’ll tell every soul that I ever sold onto Vodafone that they made a mistake and that Vodafone don’t care about their customers, nor do they care for their (outsourced) insurance – that’s not worth the paper it is written on.

Fantastic stuff!

So, to cut a long story short, everthing worked out very well in the end, with James getting a brand-spanking new, 8GB N95 in his hand, as he put it:
"Just shy of 12hrs since the original article went live."

The ‘oil on the cogs’ was Vodafone's Amy Rose, who added this comment to the post:

Good afternoon.

Thought I’d drop a quick note in response to some of the comments on the blog, mainly to give a good representative of what I do.

I work for Vodafone and run an online team who are centred around forums, blogs and social media. As well as supporting our own customer forum - http://forum.vodafone.co.uk we also trawl the internet looking for Vodafone customers that have posted on an external sites looking for help.

I have a mixed team of people working for me all from Customer Management background.

I’d like to think that my team and I provide the same level of service for all customers we find, and that James’ experience is not a unique one. It’s a shame that people do have to revert to forums and blogs looking for help, and in the ideal world all queries would be resolved on 1st contact. In reality, we know that doesn’t always happen so my team has a 2nd chance of delivering a great experience and restoring some faith.

With blogs, we do rely of Google content searches picking up on the key word ‘Vodafone’ so that we’re alerted of the new blog that has been written. This is how we came across James’ blog so promptly.

I was pleased to be able to help James, and I’m hoping to see that my team continue with the same approach moving forward.

All the best

AmyRose
Vodafone
Posted by Amy Rose on March 17th, 2008 at 4:05 pm.

(From SMS Text News)

Now it's great that James got his well-used, Mk1 phone replaced with one of the newer versions. (It’s funny how losing access to our gizmos makes us ~~addicts~~ geeks so crabby?)
And the delivery was probably about as quick as it's gets, without booking it in first. (I guess no insurance would pay out on a claim that could be forecast and avoided!)
And it's true that nothing exceptional was done except speed up the process.

But that’s the big news and the reason I’m tapping away:
Amy’s team actually want to sort out customers’ problems.

And that’s an open offer of assistance, y’know like real customer service?
Which is fucking brilliant!
If it work’s, it'll be a great move by Vodafone.

I’d hazard a guess that dealing with the FIT team is a whole lot less stressful than the usual call centres, and probably a lot more efficient for VF too. And the boost in customer morale will prove invaluable.
If it works…

I’ll put aside my scepticism for now and give full credit to VF for opening this up — damn, that’s the second time I’ve praised VF this week!
An extended outreach for the net? I hope it takes off!

Next time I meet up with a (justifiably) pissed-off VF customer, I'll see if I can put the two of them together. And report back on the experience.

Apple, RM Battle Shapes Up

2008-03-10T03:44:00.002Z

Apple took 28 percent share of the fast growing U.S. converged device (smart phone) market in the fourth quarter of 2007, behind Research in Motion’s 41percent, but a long way ahead of third placed Palm at nine percent, say Canalys researchers.

Apple also finished ahead of all Windows Mobile device vendors combined, whose share was 21 percent in the quarter.

Globally, converged device shipments rose 60 percent to hit 115 million in 2007. U.S. sales doubled.

Nokia remained the global market leader, shipping 60.5 million smart phones, while RIM shipments grew 112 percent to 12.2 million.
Globally, Symbian operating system devices had 67 percent share, followed by Microsoft on 13 percent and RIM with 10 percent.

Apple claims that nearly 70 percent of all mobile Internet traffic is generated by iPhone users. Executives at Google, meanwhile, have confirmed the basis thesis: iPhone users surf the Web way beyond anything seen up to this point.

On the other hand, RIM points out that nearly two thirds of its 12 million BlackBerry subscribers in December 2007 were government or corporate customers.

The observation is that as the smart phone market continues to grow rapidly, the dynamics of the U.S. market--as distinct from the global markets--are shaping up, in part, as Apple going "up market" to enterprises and RIM going "down market" to consumers. That's not to dismiss Microsoft-powered or Nokia devices, but simply to illustrate a dynamic.

We have a market likely to take new shape as devices and users expand beyond the original base of "mobile email" addicts. The iPhone has shown there is a new class of user who uses mobile email but also surfs the Web and uses the mobile Internet in ways we haven't seen before. That's going to get designers moving in different directions as the various segments start to emerge. For some users the current iPhone or BlackBerry interfaces still will work. For others, something else might emerge.

Personally, I like the ability to swap SIMs between devices, which iPhone doesn't want me to do. I like to be able to change my own batteries, which iPhone doesn't want me to do. Small things, of course, but real barriers to me getting rid of my BlackBerry. Other choices will have to be made by music or video afficianados.

Source: Gary Kim, Editor in Chief of IP Business magazine

The Cloud hails iPhone traffic & looks to WiMAX

2008-02-29T23:51:00.001Z

Hotspot vendor The Cloud says the iPhone is making a “huge difference” to its data traffic, while it’s also looking to the future and thinking about possibilities with WiMAX. We spoke to Owen Geddes, Development Director at The Cloud, about the Wi-Fi hotspot market going forward. He told us that devices are a crucial component for ease of access. “It doesn’t matter what you do with the networks.

"At the end of the day if the devices aren’t there - the devices with the right sort of interface - you’re going to get absolutely nowhere. And again, [the] iPhone is making a huge difference to the user experience."

Geddes said that Apple had gained by initially removing operators from the way the iPhone was developed, especially its user experience. “It’s very much an Apple product, he said. It’s very different from everything else on the market.”

Speaking about the impact of iPhone traffic, Geddes said it was “very obvious” that take up of hotspot access increased: “Certainly data increases. We see an enormous amount of YouTube across our network from iPhones. We just don’t see that from other devices…because it is so easy to use.”

Hotspots to support WiMAX devices?

And when we quizzed Geddes about the future impact of WiMAX on out-and-about internet access, he said The Cloud would be keeping tabs on development, especially with Intel implementing native WiMAX support within the next edition of the Centrino platform. “[We] will absolutely be involved in that space,” said Geddes. “We see our business evolving onto other areas including WiMAX. In the end, the user will [do things] the way that they want in a much more open model.”

However, he warned that the technology needs to become established in more devices first, “WiMAX doesn’t really happen until it’s integrated in more mobile-orientated devices. For the same reason Wi-Fi [has] only really started to happen in the mobile market with devices like the iPhone. There’s a clear difference between the business traveller market which is PC-orientated and the consumer market which is driven by smaller devices.”

“It’s going to be very interesting to watch that space.”

Geddes also said that services would become more integrated – at least that’s how it would seem to the end use. “They don’t have to worry if they’re connected via cellular or WiMAX,” he added.

He also stressed the importance of intelligent devices, able to make informed decisions about whether to connect using cellular, Wi-Fi or other technologies depending on what was cheapest or best for the user’s needs. “Something we’re doing later this year is releasing some technology into the market that will actually select networks and authenticate you onto a variety of networks. Geddes added that it would “also work hand in hand with the cellular [provider] pf that device” to select the best method. “Whether that’s The Cloud or somebody else - from our perspective it’s [about] a better service for the end user that’s absolutely vital.”

Source: Dan Grabham at TechRadar.

S60 not a Touch on the iPhone

2008-02-15T01:08:00.005Z

Came across a witty and incisive demolition of Nokia's stumbling over the touchscreen interface on Techype. You know it's going to be an interesting and entertaining read from the first paragraph:

S60 + Touch = ...?
Sadly, when the answer to that equation was shown, there were no surprises - if you hack a touchscreen onto a badly designed mess of a UI, you get a badly designed mess of a UI which can be controlled with touch. The iPhone experience was not a game changer in Finland after all.

After a full and frank examination of the S40 and S60 platforms (and landed a laudable sideswipe at the marketing profession), Raddedas moves in for the kill:

Nokia's S60 platform is confusing, obscure, constantly changing and always hugely underpowered and unresponsive, with software to do everything you might ever want to do, but after moving round the menus quite a lot you'll probably give up trying to find out how and just use it as a rather slow poor phone.

Nokia's S60 Touch seems to extend this experience by allowing you to move round the same menus with your finger smearing the screen.

Ouch!

It will take a massive sales hit to understand that this approach will not, in the long term, work out. They must innovate and diversify into handsets that are once again fun and/or efficient to use; even S40 is creaking under the weight of the features loaded into it now. Sadly Nokia have such huge sales volumes that they can coast for a long time without realising this, and their customers will be all the poorer because of it.

Encore!
Couldn't agree more but I shan't be holding my breath...

The future is ad-laden portals. Again...

2008-02-11T15:14:00.000Z

Mobile Today reports:

O2 today entered the UK mobile advertising market with a new service allowing brands to target the operator’s mobile customer base. The new service on O2 Active will enable brands to deliver both display advertising and advertising-funded content models to specific audiences.
For the first time in the mobile industry, advertisers can be provided with the tools to measure how effective their campaigns are and which audiences react well to their adverts.
Advertiser's microsites will be zero rated so that customers who click through will not incur any data charges while they are browsing on these sites.

While Nokia have announced, almost breathlessly, their "premier mobile advertising network":

Nokia enables advertisers to place ads on high quality and brand-safe publisher and operator mobile Web pages, as well as Nokia properties, representing an unprecedented global consumer reach - more than 100 million mobile consumers around the globe.

Not wishing to, erm, "pour" on their parade but we've been here before, with the desktop battles for eyeballs. And similarly it'll doubtless prove difficult enough getting zillions of consumers to visit the ad-laden portals, let alone persuading them of a reason to click on the adverts.

Without a compelling motivation, it could all become mobile marketing's wet-dream. Not that you'd notice from this blinkered puff:

Sally Cowdry, O2 marketing director said: ‘Mobile advertising is the advertiser's holy grail, combining a high resolution screen in every pocket with a customer database which has the power to deliver messages to exactly the people you want.
‘This new service will provide a boost to the market while at the same time ensuring advertising is relevant and non intrusive for our customers.’

Non intrusive advertising?
I reckon they'll need to make it squeeze your balls so hard that you'll simply have to click on the bloody ad!

Shame that neither company find time to mention the enormous (and potentially useful) opportunities of advertising within applications ("can't find that address? Click here to order a CityWide cab now") or LBS ("after all those calls, you deserve a Starbucks - there's one around the next corner").

Study Says Mobile Churn is Approaching 40%

2008-02-03T17:11:00.001Z

Research from Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software shows that customer defection rates (aka ‘churn’) within the mobile telecoms sector have risen from 33.4% in 2005 to 38.6% in 2007 – an increase of 15.3%.

Having studied the phenomenon of churn in Britain for the past four years, the 2007 edition of the Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software Customer Churn Report decided to collect data that compare and contrast the situation in key European economies and in the US. A representative sample of over 1,000 consumers in each country was interviewed by email and telephone questionnaire.

They were asked (1) whether they had switched supplier over the previous year in each of a number of sectors; (2) how likely they were to switch over the coming year; and (3) what the principal reason for switching was/is.
The overall results toppled a number of pieces of received wisdom. The primary findings of the research are as follows:-

Britain is the customer defection capital of the West (22% churn per annum), possibly because of its crowded geography, its national wealth per capita, and its high levels of deregulation across all sectors studied.

Mobile telecoms retain the highest average customer churn at 38.6%

The industries experiencing the highest levels of growth in customer defection rates since 2005 are supermarkets and general insurance providers, with both seeing a 7.6% point increase in churn rates. Both of these, however, look small compared to the 15.3% increase seen in mobile churn.

The three key reasons why people change supplier are consistent across Europe and the US. These are, not being recognised as a valuable customer (all countries average: 55%); unhelpful staff (47%); and ineffective call centres (42%).

According to Group 1, the findings indicate that the UK consumer is becoming more mobile and that companies’ retention strategies need to improve to deal with this phenomenon.

“The world is becoming generally more mobile and less loyal,” says Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software VP, International Marketing, Andrew Greenyer. “Yet despite all the effort and investment going into customer retention and loyalty, the effective strategies implemented by well known success story companies are not yet the norm.

Commenting specifically on mobile churn, Greenyer says:

“Mobile Telecoms remains a very fluid area. Here, strong brands are evidently having an effect, with the issue of content provision likely to be a key factor in future churn (or indeed inertia) patterns. 3G provision has initially disappointed consumers, leading to massive churn. Nevertheless, the sector is so volatile that this situation may easily reverse after its initial customer relationship difficulties.
“The US experiences far lower rates of churn, but this probably reflects the closer link in North America between cellphone carrier and handset. In Europe, the two are independent of one another, allowing the SIM card to be fairly portable between models. However, this also helps network operators use attractive handset ranges to persuade customers to switch. Also, number portability is relatively new in the US. The UK got portability in 1998, Spain and Sweden in 2000, and Italy in 2001. Americans didn't get it until the end of 2003.
“Finally, there are the factors of overall mobile penetration and pre-paid penetration. Mobile penetration in Europe now exceeds 100%, with 666 million connections. The US has 70% cellphone penetration compared with over 80% in France, more than 100% or more in Germany, Spain and the UK, and over 120% in mobile-mad Italy. 25% of US cellphone users switch plans each year. However, there will only be 40 million pre-paid customers in the US in 2009 (17% of forecast total market). This compares with over 50% pre-paid penetration in Europe, and pre-paid churn is on average three times higher than post-paid.”

Source: Mobile Marketing Magazine

Do you want fries with that?

2008-01-19T00:51:00.000Z

Engadget reports:

Guess what? It's yet another rock bottom sale day for Toshiba's HD-A3 HD DVD player. This time it's Amazon serving up the HD-A3 with 7 HD DVD titles and free shipping for just $129. The deal combines the extended 5 HD DVD "perfect offer" with Warner Bros' 300 and Universal's The Bourne Identity HD DVD titles thrown in for kicks. That's two extra discs and $21 less than the official $150 dealio. Crazy, we know.

Can you smell the desperation in the air?

Google's Xmas iPhone traffic was "Huge"

2008-01-15T02:18:00.001Z

Just about hidden by the announcement of the latest release of Google’s iPhone client suite, was this amazing statistic: over the Christmas period Google received more hits from iPhones than S60 users.

In Google betting big on mobile market, CNET.com’s Elinor Mills writes:

On Christmas Day thousands of people opened up boxes with something cool and functional inside and wasted no time logging onto Google.com through their brand new iPhones.
As a result of those gifts, the number of global queries to Google's search site from iPhones surpassed the number of queries from people using market-leading Symbian-based phones for the first time. Google calls it the "Christmas cross-over."
That is huge given the fact that the number of iPhone units shipped is tiny compared to the number of Symbian-based phones out there. The cross-over only lasted a few days or so, but it shows the impact the iPhone is having on the telecommunications industry and provides a glimpse into its future market potential for the Web.
"It's about usage, not just units," Vic Gundotra, vice president of mobile and developer at Google said. "The data proves that people are using the browser on the iPhone."

Maybe the countless millions of Nokia smartphone users tend to be more likely to use a computer when at home than those with iPhones? Perhaps the burst in traffic was from proud iPhone users enthusiastically showing off it’s potential to friends and relatives? Even taking these factors into account, the impact this incredible “rush” to the mobile internet could be enormous.

Miguel Helft spells it out in Google Sees Surge in iPhone Traffic for the New York Times:

The data is striking because the iPhone, an Apple product, accounts for just 2 percent of smartphones worldwide, according to IDC, a market research firm. Phones powered by Symbian make up 63 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, while those powered by Microsoft's Windows Mobile have 11 percent and those running the BlackBerry system have 10 percent.

It’s no surprise to learn that Google’s development team have been working at fever pitch to produce the slick, approachable and visually stunning iPhone-only applications. Miguel paraphrases Vic Gundotra:

Google, which developed the first version of Grand Prix in six weeks, is introducing a new version on Monday, just six weeks after the first one. That is a speed of development not previously possible on mobile phones, he said.

It has the feel of a gold rush to me: both exciting and a little edgy.

Why so?

Given the prospects of future growth, how will Google allocate their terribly clever people between projects for the iPhone, the Symbian family and presumably Android? Neither interview with Google’s Vic Gundotra contained a hint of current or future S60 development. And only the vaguest: "This app will work great on Android."

I’d been hoping that later this Spring Google would reveal some gorgeous S60 mashup of SocialStream, GoogleTalk and Jaiku with a smattering of MyLocation thrown in for fun. Or maybe even a sexy java version of Grand Prix but now I’m beginning to wonder what’s in store for us S60 hordes.

Somebody tell me to pull myself together?

SuperSexySoaraway: Now with added QR codes

2008-01-14T21:50:00.001Z

This is really great news -- fancy the most popular mass-market (read: downmarket) comic in the UK evangelise cutting edge, mobile technology?

I'm hardly suprised that major companies are falling over themselves to get on board. Are News International producing all this inhouse or are there some superheroes lurking behind the project?

New Sun service merges print with mobile video

The Sun newpaper’s new mobile content service has achieved early success with around 11,000 users registered so far.

The barcode-based technology enables users to scan their mobile phone over pages of the newspaper, which in turn uploads relevant information onto the device. For example, a football fan could read a match report and use the technology to upload video highlights of the game.

Readers must download a piece of software onto their mobile to use the service, but new Nokia handsets come with it pre-installed. The application uses a barcode technology called QR (quick response) code.

It is thought that 3 has so far been the most active network in the uptake of the technology, with Orange also known to be interested.

Ian Samuel, group head of mobile advertising for News International, said: ‘There is an educational process that needs to be done. In the next few months we’re looking to do another pull-out (supplement in The Sun) to further inform people on how to use QR codes.’

The Sun hopes the service will help to boost printed editorial and advertising content in the publication, and help print to become a more profitable medium.

The format has already proved popular with advertisers - Ladbrokes, Sky and Twentieth Century Fox have already signed up. The Sun is looking for more advertisers and says the service has generated significant interest from other parties.

From Mobile Today

Radiohead's success proves industry and Trent Reznor very wrong!

2008-01-07T16:51:00.001Z

Now we know that an album can still be very successful despite widespread (and encouraged) filesharing. I hope Trent Reznor, and more especially, the RIAA/IFPI) are listening carefully...

Radiohead top UK album chart

Thom Yorke proved right about physical 'artefact'

Radiohead's In Rainbows has climbed straight to the top of the UK album chart in the week following its physical release on CD and vinyl, apparently proving frontman Thom Yorke right in his assertion that fans want a tangible "object".
The album was released online last October on a "pay-what-you-like" basis (ie, generally nothing, according to reports), but Yorke last week dismissed the idea of not backing a net release with a hard copy as "stark raving mad".

He said: "We didn't want it to be a big announcement about 'everything's over except the internet, the internet's the future', 'cause that's utter rubbish. And it's really important to have an artefact as well, as they call it, an object.
The object in question is either a bog-standard CD or a deluxe "diskbox" containing In Rainbows on CD and two 12-in vinyl disks, plus an "enhanced" CD, lyrics, digital snaps, and other goodies - all for £40. The downloadable version of the album is no longer available. ®

Source: El Reg

Hugh MacLeod tipped as next Microsoft CEO?

2008-01-06T12:00:00.001Z

Steve Hodson notes Robert Cringely’s prediction that Steve Balmer (as well as Bill Gates) will leave Microsoft during 2008 with some enthusiasm:

All I can say for this one is I sure frikken hope that of all of his crystal balling that this one actually comes true. I don’t care if he flunks out on every other one as long as this vision of Ballmer comes true - and it couldn’t happen soon enough.

Ballmer has become a blight on Microsoft and the sooner he takes a long walk off of a short pier all the better for the company. Now while Robert didn’t want to go out on a limb and complication the law of averages for this prediction by suggestion who would replace the sweating doofus I have two possibilities that could really make things interesting.

Steve Clayton
Hugh MacLeod

Chances of happening - slim to none but damn it would sure make for an interesting company in the aftermath.

I guess that either of the guys would probably present the company in a better light than Ballmer. Maybe Hugh’s Blue Monster will end up as the official Microsoft emblem!?
Now that would be a sight!

Source: WinExtra

Google hails success of iPhone

2008-01-04T20:18:00.000Z

Will the iPhone lead to the mass-adoption of the mobile internet?
Online usage of the iPhone (as detected by websites) seems to be doing very well but I have difficulty seeing anything like the US adoption rates being mirrored here in the UK.

Google has predicted that the Apple iPhone will be the catalyst for mobile internet to open up in 2008.
The search engine also expects that the collapse of so-called walled gardens on operator portals to accelerate usage further. It will bring its Android project to the market next year, with ‘openness’ for developers the key.
Speaking to Mobile, Shannon Maher, a senior director at Google, said: ‘2007 has been a big year for the emergence of the mobile web. The highlight of the year has undoubtedly been the iPhone, with its combination of search, mapping, images, and videos integrated into the communications capability of a phone, proving that the right combination of a well-engineered device and reliable services can deliver an exciting new set of experiences to consumers.’
He added: ‘For us, the most exciting part of the iPhone is the experience of browsing on a mobile phone, enabled by it's compliance to web standards. The Safari browser on the iPhone has enabled new ways of delivering and consuming data on a mobile device.
‘Twelve months ago, very few people were talking about openness in mobile; now it's difficult to pick up a newspaper without seeing some mention of it. That trend looks set to continue in 2008. We think that this is important for innovation, and will ultimately benefit the users of mobile services.’
‘One last exciting point that continues to be proven out is the effectiveness of highly targeted advertisements on mobile devices. Poorly targeted ads are spam and will not be accepted on a device as personal as a mobile phone. However, when targeted and relevant, advertising is a key piece of information that can improve the user experience greatly. Our initial trials in this area have shown, for instance, that a well-targeted search ad for a local product or service is likely to be precisely what the user wants when conducting a search on a mobile device, and, as such, are extremely valuable to the user and the advertiser.
‘We believe mobile devices represent the future of the internet, and the field is still nascent. There's still a lot of unrealised opportunity in the mobile internet.’

Source: Mobile Today

Iphone flops at Christmas despite hype

2008-01-04T19:03:00.001Z

O2 enjoyed a major spike in iPhone sales in the week before Christmas, after disappointing sales from the much-hyped 9 November launch.

Most stores are believed to have missed iPhone targets by some distance, with a typical-sized O2 store selling just one iPhone per week. However, that appeared to change in the final seven days, with O2 staff reporting a big upturn, with many stores selling one per day, and even more in large city centre stores.

One O2 source said: ‘It seemed like people started buying them even if they were already in a contract, especially as they realised they wouldn’t start being billed until they registered online.’

O2 staff said that despite the moderate interest there was a much lower percentage of returns on the iPhone than had been anticipated.

Carphone staff were less bullish on iPhone sales, reporting plenty of interest in the device, but with a very low rate converting into sales, with the price tag being the main stumbling block.

One Carphone staffer said: ‘The iPhone was poor. We work in one of the bigger stores in our area and only sold one or two over the Christmas period. Our target last week was to sell 36 and we only sold one.’

A price cut is rumoured to be taking place in the coming months to bring the cost of the iPhone down from £270, or an improvement in the tariff to give more value than the 600 minutes and 500 texts for £45 currently offered.

Source: Mobile Today

I already bought you a cell phone

2007-12-29T09:59:00.001Z

kwout: html screengrabs with clickable links

2007-12-27T02:29:00.000Z

"Kwout is a handy web-based quote maker that allows you to quote a webpage (or part of it) as an image with an image map. Basically, screenshots that can have links in them."

Imagine a graphic of part of a webpage as normal, except that highlighted links are valid, clickable urls.

SMS Text News via kwout

The procedure once you've selected the area of the page to grab, requires some work -- it's basic and cumbersome. But there's already some user control and I hope more to follow.

SMS Text News via kwout via kwout

Did I mention that you can also send a normal graphic file of your screengrab straight into your Flickr or Tumblr accounts, like this.

I reckon kwout could significantly assist anyone trying to explain any browser-based process. I'm thinking of website support, installation instructions, walk-thrus. But I'm sure that's just the beginning.

Grab one of the bookmarklets and give it a go!

Congratulations to the folks at kwout and thanks to Orli Yakuel's great Go2Web20 blog for the heads-up.

Worker runs up £27k mobile bill

2007-12-25T16:00:00.000Z

Sure, the guy's been a complete plonker for not checking the terms of his contract, which quite possibly had been sold on the basis that it was "unlimited." But I'm staggered that Vodafone didn't bother to alert their customer (let alone, suspend the service) before he hit £27k.
That's the real story here, I feel.

[ I guess it would be way to unfair to point out that Three's Mix & Match 900 plan which costs £24/month includes 900 minutes or texts and 300 3-to-3 minutes, free Skype, IM, email plus X-series Silver for £5/month with a download allowance of 1GB of data? Admittedly, you're not supposed to use your phone as a modem but I wonder if Three would even have noticed. ]

It's good to talk... unless you fail to read the smallprint on your new mobile phone contract and end up with a bill for £27,322.
Ian Simpson, 29, was sent the bill for four weeks' service after wiring his mobile up to a laptop to download TV shows - and only then found out his £41.50-a-month deal didn't include unlimited web use.
Last night the factory worker, from Darlington, Yorks, said he feared he could be made bankrupt.
He said: "I just laughed out loud. How on earth could I afford to pay that?"
Ian signed up for a Vodafone Anytime 800 contract and added a £7.50 inclusive internet deal to let him use his phone for surfing the net.
But his first bill had hundreds of extra charges for online use - some at £18 a minute. He said: "My mate told me how to wire my mobile to my laptop as a modem. It meant I could download faster than on the handset and get a proper internet connection in my flat.
"I probably downloaded 20 or 30 TV shows and four albums. I assumed it'd be OK, but they cut me off. I rang up and they said I owed them nearly £30,000.
"If I'd known it would cost so much I wouldn't have done it."
Vodafone said rules state the web package has a limit of 120 megabytes of downloads - designed for casual use to check emails, browse and download the odd song. A spokesman said: "Few customers exceed the fair usage. But it seems clear Ian has run up these charges legitimately."
A source added: "The rules are clearly stated. Mobile web pages use fewer megabytes. That package is not designed for large-scale downloading or computer-speed web use."
But last night Ian blasted the firm, saying: "I cannot believe they would let me run up such an enormous bill - £27,000 would almost buy me a flat where I live. I can't even afford a mortgage so I rent a room.
"Unless they take a sensible approach I don't think I'll have any choice but to go bankrupt."
Vodafone added last night: "The intensity of Ian's downloading was such that by the time our systems flagged anything up he had already racked up a massive bill.
"Our advice would be to never use a mobile as a modem. We will try to come to some sympathetic arrangement. And we hope he won't make the same mistake again."

Source: Daily Mail via TorrentFreak

“We are a broadband service provider”

2007-12-22T22:28:00.000Z

Om Malik's description of a truly dynamic ISP is great reading.
Now, why aren't there more ISPs taking on the Free.fr model?

Illiad is the brainchild of 40-year-old Xavier Niel, a self-made billionaire (a rarity in the Old World). Its flagship service, Free.fr. (it also owns One.Tel and Kertel, a calling-card operation) isn’t the biggest broadband service provider in France – that honor goes to incumbent France Telecom, which has over six million of the country’s 14 million broadband subscribers — but it has taken the French telecom market by the scruff and given it a vigorous shake.

How? By offering a flat-rate, high-speed Internet connection for 30 euros ($43) a month. That gives Free.fr’s three million subscribers a connection speed of roughly 28 megabits per second over DSL, free IPTV (and a free set-top box), a free Wi-Fi hub, and unlimited voice calls to some 70 countries.

From GigaOm

Rumor: Apple Hopping on Board with Intel's Ultra-Mobile Platform

2007-12-22T13:13:00.000Z

According to AppleInsider, Apple plans to adopt Intel's ultra-mobile PC platform for a new generation of portable devices. Rumor has it that Apple has decided to use Intel's upcoming 45-nanometer "Silverthorne" chip in multiple new devices in 2008, with the most likely candidates being a next-gen iPhone and a UMPC.

Silverthrone was specifically designed for cellphones and UMPCs, using a mere tenth of the power consumption of a typical laptop chip while retaining the speed of a second-gen Pentium M. In addition to it being super-efficient, it's also much cheaper to manufacture than current mobile chips, which should lead to lower prices (or higher profit margins) for any devices it's placed into.

In any case, Apple seems pretty dedicated to the platform, and with "multiple devices" promised, that's gotta be more than just the 3G iPhone we all know is coming. Could it be a new tablet? An ultra-portable laptop? It could be something like the image up top, which is a prototype created by Intel that can run for 24 straight hours without needing a recharge thanks to the efficiency of Silverthorne. MacWorld is in a couple of weeks, so it's possible that something using the platform will be announced then. Time will tell, but it certainly hints at pretty exciting things.

Source: AppleInsider via Gizmodo

Commissioner red-faced as data tsar has details swiped

2007-12-06T13:44:00.001Z

When Alistair Darling prompted wide-eyed panic after announcing the lost discs palaver, there were few more concerned voices than that of our information commissioner, Richard Thomas.

At the time, Mr Thomas, the data tsar who, in the wake of the crisis, has spent the past few weeks issuing warnings about the danger of ID fraud on the internet, described the Government's blunder as "unprecedented and deeply disturbing".

So it has just come as considerable embarrassment to Mr Thomas to learn that he has recently been exposed as being just as vulnerable as the rest of us. In an experiment carried out by an internet security consultancy called SecureTest, it took just half an hour to discover the details of three bank accounts held by Mr Thomas, as well as his age, his home address and his work email.

"What hope have we got if Mr Thomas can't even protect his own identity?" says a spokesman for the company. "I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see if Mr Thomas practises what he preaches. It was easier than I could possibly have imagined."

SecureTest say that they were able to glean most of the information on Mr Thomas from Freedom of Information requests, and from a register-of-interests declaration he submitted when he took the governmental position in 2002.

Which makes you wonder whether Mr Thomas has double-checked his bank statements recently. His office insists that Mr Thomas "uses secure passwords for his accounts".

Source: Independent Online

95 percent of all VOIP traffic is caused by Skype

2007-11-30T13:18:00.001Z

Skype's slowing growth has recently raised some concerns about its future and the price Ebay paid for the VOIP provider. Ebay numbers may show that Skype users aren't really talking as much as the company wants them to, but they still talk a lot more than anyone else in the VOIP world: German traffic management company Ipoque estimates that 95 percent of all VOIP traffic is caused by Skype.

Ipoque published a report that analyzes P2P traffic trends this week, and Skype continues to be a noticeable factor in this space. From their press release:

"Voice over IP (VoIP) only accounts for one percent of the Internet traffic, but is used by 30 percent of all users. Skype is by far the most popular Internet telephony application."

30 percent of all German users, to be precise. Ipoque measures data at ISPs that use the company's traffic management applications, and the study is based on measurements from ISPs based in "Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany, the Middle East and Southern Europe."

Skype's popularity seems to vary significantly in these different places. The company estimates that 30 percent of Germany's internet population uses Skype, but only one percent uses SIP-based VOIP services. Skype's market share in the Middle East is just 7 percent, but SIP services don't seem to be any more popular there than in Germany.

Source: P2P Blog

Global cellphone penetration reaches 50 per cent

2007-11-30T00:49:00.001Z

Worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion -- equivalent to half the global population -- on Thursday, 26 years after the first cellular network was launched, research firm Informa said.

Since the first Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) networks were switched on in 1981 in Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Norway, mobile phones have become the consumer electronics sector with the largest volume of sales in the world.
"The mobile industry has constantly outperformed even the most optimistic forecasts for subscriber growth," Mark Newman, head of research at Informa said in a statement.
"For children growing up today the issue is not whether they will get a mobile phone, it's a question of when," Newman said.

In recent years the industry has seen surging growth in outskirts of China and India, helped by constantly falling phone and call prices, with cellphone vendors already eyeing inroads into Africa's countryside to keep up the growth.
The Nordic start for mobile telephony was the basis for the success stories of Finnish Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson.
Fast growth in Asian wireless markets has since helped Korean Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics as well as China's ZTE take their place among the top six cellphone vendors globally.
But although mobile subscriptions have reached the equivalent of 50 percent of the population, this does not mean that half the people in the world now have a mobile phone, since Informa said 59 countries have mobile penetration of over 100 percent -- where some owners have more than one phone.
"The economic difference between the more mature markets and those in developing countries is highlighted by the vast differences in operators' revenues per user," Informa said.
Hutchison Whampoa's 3 operation has an average revenue per user of just over $70 a month in Britain, while Hutchison's Sri Lankan operator counts revenues of below $3 per user.

According to the International Programs Center of the U.S. Census Bureau, the total population of the world reached 6,634,294,193 on Thursday.
At the same time 2,571,563,279 people were using the most widely used mobile technology, GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), according to global trade body GSM Association.
The second largest mobile technology, CDMA, had 421.4 million users at end September.

Skypephone sells out

2007-11-14T02:15:00.001Z

3 has been caught out by high levels of demand for its prepay Skypephone, with many stores selling out of handsets within days of its launch.

The prepay device, which allow users to make free Skype calls in exchange for a minimum monthly top-up of £10, is 'flying off the shelves', according to staff in 3 stores across the country.

Staff in a central London store said their initial allocation of 10 prepay handsets sold out a few days after the handset was launched. They added that their next delivery of 25 had already been pre-sold.

One of 3's Newcastle stores reported selling its stock of six prepay Skypephones in a day and a half, with half of its next batch of 10 handsets already reserved.

'Loads of people have walked in and asked what it's all about. I think it's the “wow” factor when you explain it and tell them it's free,' said one staff member. 'The reaction has been good,' added another.

A spokeswoman for 3 said demand had been high. She said: 'A number of stores have sold out, but there will be plenty of stock in for the weekend.'

© Copyright 2007 : Noble House Media Ltd

From MobileToday

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Google Android OS 'no major threat'

2007-11-06T13:34:00.001Z

So potentially the most profound upheaval the mobile industry has ever seen (duelling with the UI of the iPhone), is almost casually dismissed by the major incumbent.

What an arrogant prick!

Symbian, meanwhile, believes that without Google's presence in the Open Handset Alliance nobody would be giving two hoots about the project. "We take it seriously," said John Forsyth, strategy chief at Symbian. "But we are the ones with real phones, real phone platforms and a wealth of volume built up over years."

Still haven't produced an easy-to-use operating system that everybody loves tho, John?

Source: Tech.co.uk

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3 launches new Skype mobile phone

2007-10-29T13:11:00.001Z

Mobile phone provider 3 has launched a new handset that will allow users to make free calls over the internet via telephony service Skype.

Users will also be able to use Skype's instant messaging service, 3 said. But while people using Skype on their computers are able to make cheap global calls to any phone number, this will not be possible via the new 3 handset.
Skype has about 246 million registered users worldwide and is one of the firms reshaping the global phone industry.

Mobile potential

To date, mobile phone companies have been unwilling to let users freely access Skype via their handsets for fear that it would hurt their business.
While it is possible to access Skype from a number of handsets, this has involved downloading third-party software, something that has put off the majority of users.
The Skype-phone will be the first instance of a phone operator launching a mass market device that is designed to allow free calling over the internet from a mobile, 3 said.
"It takes an innovative operator... to challenge traditional thinking and offer the kind of product other operators are still shying away from," said Skype's acting chief executive, Michael van Swaaij.
"It's is now truly mobile. Skype has now taken a giant step forward in the mobile arena.

And chief executive of 3 UK, Kevin Russell, said the firm wanted to make mobile internet more accessible.
"Services need to be simple to access and affordable," he said.
"Mobile has the potential to massively increase access to internet calling."

Global reach

The service, launching on 2 November, will be accessed by a button on the handset.
As well as the UK, the 3 Skype-phone will be launched in countries including Australia, Denmark, Italy and Hong Kong.
Pay as you go customers will have to top up their account with at least £10 each month to qualify for the free Skype-to-Skype calls, 3 said.

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