Link: BBC caps call costs at 15p as contests return after scandals | Media | The Guardian

The BBC is to introduce a cap on the cost of calling premium phone lines as it prepares to reintroduce two of its most popular competitions, it announced yesterday.

From this week, calls to BBC programmes using premium call lines will be capped at 15p, though exceptions will be granted to shows directly related to a charity appeal, such as Children in Need.

This makes a lot of sense I think. I’m pleased to see the BBC re-introducing interactive competitions via phone and I think the 15p cap will be reasonably well received from the public.

Setting aside the obvious cost implications, I wonder what the difference would be in take-up if the BBC introduced 0800 free calls for their competitions, instead of premium rate? 10% increase? 50%?

Link: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Mobile on mobile

Andy Carvin tweets that we can listen to his NPR report on mobile blogging from our phones. Just call: 202-683-7002. This is, indeed, where content and communication merge

Jeff Jarvis just blogged about a service that America’s National Public Radio is offering — since I’m now in the States, I’m taking a great deal of pleasure in being able to simply dial US numbers without the +1 addition and an international sized phone bill.

I decided to phone up that number there — 202-683-7002. Fascinating. I was connected immediately, there was perhaps a second delay and all of a sudden, the report on mobile blogging began playing down the phone. Very, very cool. Particularly when more and more people are getting unlimited voice calls. I really like the idea of being able to listen to shows this way — it works for anybody with a handset (or a landline for that matter). No need to download application software and use your data allowance downloading podcasts.

I’m not saying I’d always want to consume media in this manner, I’d just like to have the choice.

I’ve emailed Andy to see if I can find out more about this service. I’d like to be able to call up the BBC and listen to their podcasts in this way too.

Daniel R. Hesse, who was recently named the new President and CEO of Sprint Nextel, Inc, is going about taking care of other business surrounding his new job. The first of which, apparently, includes resigning from his position on the Board of Directors for our favorite Finnish company, Nokia.

Hesse has served on the board since 2005 and according to Board Chairman (and ex-CEO) Jorma Ollila, will be sorely missed. However, I find this fascinating. I was unaware that Hesse served on Nokia’s Board of Directors. Nokia doesn’t currently make CDMA handsets, and Sprint’s current network here in the U.S. is CDMA, though I suppose that serves to ensure there’s no conflict of interest for Hesse.

However, knowing that Sprint is working on launching a WiMax network soon, and that Nokia’s interested in anything that Qualcomm doesn’t have their paws into too much (such as WiMax) I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing some more Nokia-friendly things going on with Sprint Nextel.

Note: Sprint does indeed currently offer some Nokia handsets, but they are merely outsourced and then get the Nokia brand slapped on them. They’re not *truly* Nokia handsets.

Another entrant in the mobile-video-to-internet phenomenon is Flixwagon. While similar to Qik (which I told you about the other day), Flixwagon’s edge seems to be much higher quality and the ability to upload to a blog.

There’s not much on Flixwagon just yet other than a signup form if you want to be an Alpha tester and their blog. However, the Flixwagon blog gives some good insight into what they’ll be bringing, including this sample video taken by one of the employees as well as one taken by a bunch of boy scouts.

Flixwagon apparently will have a Java version, in addition to the Symbian client, and hopes to also support phone-to-phone video sharing. Personally, THAT will be cool to me. It’s sad that I have an HSDPA capable device here on AT&T, but because it doesn’t have their junky firmware on it, I can’t use Video-sharing.

I’ve already signed up to be an Alpha tester for Flixwagon, and will certainly report back when it’s ready to rock.

Over at the MyStrands blog, they’ve announced the cool news that they’ve hooked it up with MTV for the New Years 2007 celebration in Times Square, New York City. Partiers in Times Square will be able to use their handsets to send messages, answer trivia, and vote on music and videos on MTV’s massive 44.5 foot screen in front of MTV Studios.

MyStrands is one of the leaders in music recommendation software and social music. With PartyStrands, they’re all about keeping music social. You can get more information on the MTV/Times Square party at www.mystrands.com/mtv

This is really a killer idea. There’s crazy amounts of people down in Times Square for New Years, and it’ll be even cooler with this social aspect added to the mix.

Verizon Wireless wants your old useless handset this holiday season. They’re calling out to anyone who found a new mobile in their stocking this year to bring their old stuff up to any Verizon Wireless location to donate it. Verizon will use the phones in their HopeLine Phone Recycling Program, which uses handsets and funds to help survivors of domestic violence.

If the phone is still usable, it can be used as an emergency handset for victims. A federal requirement is that all cellphones be able to make a 9-1-1 emergency call, regardless of whether they are active or not. You can also take your handset to any battered woman’s shelter in your area for them to use for the same purpose.

Please remember, if you’re going to donate your handset, to delete all of your personal information from the memory, such as contacts, pictures, and anything else.

Some interesting statistics on the HopeLine program, it has kept more than 200 tons of handsets out of landfills. They’ve collected nearly 4.2 million wireless phones and properly disposed of 1 million of them (it doesn’t say what happened to the other 3.2 million handsets. Hmmmm.) Verizon’s HopeLine has also, since 1999, given more than $4 million in cash grants and over 45,000 phones with airtime to domestic violence prevention organizations.

Parks Associates has released the results of a study they did on mobile gaming. Apparently, consumers still see their mobile games as mere casual gaming devices, even as developers are creating more high-energy and intensive games.

Looks like more than 55% want to play puzzle games and card games, with more than 30% looking for word and arcade games such as TextTwist (I *LOVE* TextTwist).

I think it would have been interesting to know a bit more about these consumers than just their gaming preferences. What phone do they currently own? More importantly, how old are they?

I think this study is somewhat common sense, though. I mean, think of where you would use your mobile phone for gaming? I think that most people game on their handsets during short waits in their day, such as in line at the supermarket, or on trips to the bathroom, and that sort of thing. Not really conducive to getting into a full level of Doom or something, eh?

I’m writing this in the embarrassing little gap between Christmas and New Year. Somebody once described this week-long period as being “the armpit of the year”, but I, personally, prefer to call it the barse, because it’s like that embarrassing little gap between your balls and your arse, simply because it holds no useful or obvious value whatsoever. There’s nothing to do. All of the good TV seems to be on before 3pm, which, given that I tend to rise 4 or 5 means that the only entertainment I’m left with is a slightly random DVD that someone gave me. And please believe me when I tell you that there’s only so many times you can watch the black & white masterpiece of Pierrepoint: Britain’s Last Hangman before the festive spirit leaves you entirely.

This time of year is usually filled with three things; ruminating over the year just gone, or plotting schemes for the year to come, or, my personal favourite, just going to lots of parties and getting a bit smashed. It’s a good time for drinking, given that people are in the mood to let their hair down, and because there’s far more booze around than normal, and also because this week of the year has a strange, confusing effect on peoples’ memories. I put this epidemic of forgetfulness down to the same sort of end-of-year effect that happens with budgets, in that often companies & governments are too busy trying to spend every last penny of their yearly allocation before the calendar ticks over, and therefore aren’t actually too picky about where it goes. The practical upshot of this, for me, is that, once a party is in sufficient swing, I can get naked whilst playing Twister and yet nobody seems to remember anything about it. Least of all me.

Or this amnesia might be due to someone just putting rohypnol in the punch. Who knows. Either way, getting drunk at parties certainly helps the one tradition that I’m sure we all dread, to various extents – which is being button-holed by someone that wants some advice about mobile phones.

Doctors always complain about this. Doctors always, always whinge about the fact that they get collared at any & every social event by people they vaguely know who want to tell them, over a drink, every little thing about their barse-pox, if only because parties have more twiglets & olives than the average common-or-garden waiting-room, and are therefore more attractive a choice of venue for such a conversation than their local GUM clinic (actually, mine does have olives, but only black ones, which I despise). But, then again, doctors get paid six figures a year (that’s a whole seven figures more than me, by the way) and as such their bleatings can be safely ignored. What you cannot ignore, alas, is the way that this disease has moved on, in the last few years, to infect anyone who has more of a clue than most about mobiles.

We’ve all been there. You’re at a do, having a drink, meeting new people, and someone you’re talking to picks up on the fact that, when it comes to mobiles, you know what you’re talking about. “Aaaah,” they’ll say. “Aaaah, that’s funny, I was just thinking about buying an iPhone / changing networks / setting a handset battery on fire and then sitting on it. Do you think that’s a good idea?”.

And they’ll look up at you, as if they’re expecting you to be glad about the fact that they’ve been magnanimous & thoughtful enough to let you bless them with your knowledge. The graceless berks! You’re at a party! You’re at a social event! You don’t want to spend the precious five minutes between you turning up & you stripping off to play Twister eroded by banal & pointless questions about which fecking website it’s best to buy handsets from. If you’re an expert about industrial carpeting, you don’t have people at a drinks-do waddle up to you and say “Aaaah, I’ve been thinking about getting a new carpet, but does Lux-Pile Ltd. get better coverage where I live than WeaveCo, Inc.?”. And anyway, if they did do that then you would be perfectly justified in smashing a bottle on a table-top and then flensing their wind-pipe out of their neck like a fleshy bit of calamari. In fact, there isn’t a court in the land that would convict you. So what is it that makes such boring behaviour socially valid when it comes to telephones…?

Tsk. My usual tactic in such situations is just to say, with rather forced bonhomie, “Well, just don’t by an LG, they might just blow up!” which gives me an opportunity to give them a short coroner’s report of that poor Korean chap that got his ribcage caved in when his phone went pop, all of which, if done with sufficient gore, will make them go away to be quietly sick in the corner, thus leaving me in peace. The grim and maddening irony of all of this is that the best bloody party of 2007 that I went to was deliberately, purely, wonderfully dedicated to nothing but people who wanted to talk about the mobile industry, and that was the SMS Text News drinks-bash in London. I was sick in the corner that night myself, but only out of overpowering envy at some of the kit that was being bandied about.

Anyway. I would give you one or two more tips about how to deflect such irritants over the holiday season (“Ah, I’m a bit behind, they wouldn’t let us have mobile phones in prison, see” being another favourite of mine), but alas, I’m fresh out of time – my ferry back to the mainland leaves in…
Oh dear. It really does leave very soon. And I must, must catch it, because my signal here alternates - depending on factors such as barometric pressure, and the number of seagulls in the sky – between Vodafone IE and Vodafone UK and it’s doing my nut in. Civilisation beckons. And I believe there is a saying about time, tide or bastard ferry-captain waiting for no man, so I must be leaving.

Happy new year, boys and girls.

Ewan’s brother might be interested in reading a bit more about the Vertu product line. BusinessWeek took a moment to get inside the luxury mobile phone market and see what it’s all about. While you may think there can’t be too big a market for $6,500+ ‘dumbphones’ (as in not-smartphones), Neil Mawston, the associate director of Strategy Analytics, believes otherwise. He guesstimates that Vertu sells roughly 200,000 units per year, at an average of $8,000 each. That’s $1.6 Billion per year. Quite a bit of green.

And it’s growing. Russia, China, and the Middle East are growing rapidly, prompting Vertu president Alberto Torres to put sales on track for a 120% increase this year. These handsets are not sold based on the number of features they offer. In fact, the first Vertu with a camera was only offered earlier this year. Vertu (and other luxury handsets) are sold based on what they are made of.

In a conversation I had in Chicago at the Nokia Flagship Store earlier this year (which also houses a Vertu area in the back), I was informed that some people want a single handset that they can realistically use for years. By years, we’re talking more than 3-5.

What’s even greater for those of us not quite ready to trade in our cars for a cellphone, is that Nokia owns Vertu. That means some of the construction materials and ideas will trickle down to the other Nokia handsets. For example, the 8800 Arte and Arte Sapphire, announced earlier this year, use real leather and a sapphire in the d-pad.

My only question is when will we see some of this unbelievable build quality trickle down into Nokia’s Nseries handsets?

I saw these USBCell AA batteries and got to thinking, how come more handsets don’t come with the USB cable built-in? I mean, how cool would it be for your phone to have a USB plug on a short 3″ lead that pulled out of your handset? You could easily plug it directly into any computer as a mass storage disk or to charge.

Obviously, you’d still need a wall charger to be in the package, but it could just be a USB extension cord, really, which plugged into the phone.

Makes you wonder what other little things could potentially be built into a handset, doesn’t it? What about that patent (I think it was for Sony Ericsson) to have the Bluetooth headset built into the phone? Why not put a solar panel on the whole back of a handset? Or a pop-out stand to prop the phone up for video viewing?

I wonder if someone in some lab somewhere has already tried this, or if they’ve even thought of it before?

I’ve had this article on InformationWeek starred in my Google Reader for a while now, and wanted to post some commentary on it. I absolutely *hate* when people ask this question. “Are cellphones replacing landlines?” Um, yes, of course.

I mean, seriously, is this even still a valid question? I’ve not had a landline number since I moved out of my parents’ house. Even then, none of my friends had that number. I’ve used my cellphone exclusively since I got it. That’s *why* I got it, isn’t it?

The article goes on to list the reasons why cellphones are more popular than landlines and such.

I’d like to pose this question: Other than pure laziness in cancelling it, or the fact that your DSL provider requires it, how many SMStextnews readers even HAVE a landline anymore? Do you actually USE it?

The question then becomes, why in the heck are we paying so much for our mobiles? Why will $40 in the U.S. only get you ~450 minutes in the daytime, albeit with unlimited nights and weekends on your mobile, when you can get unlimited landline service for $20-30?

I just recently found this new service called Bloove. Love those Web 2.0 randomness names. Bloove is a service that lets you easily manage your phone’s contacts and messages online. And it’s dead easy. Remember how that’s important?

With Bloove, you get to their website and register for an account. Then send your phone to the mobile version of their site for a quick and easy download of the Bloove Agent. As soon as you open the thing, it sniffs out an access point and hops online, syncing your contacts and messages. You can then easily manage your entire phonebook and inbox in any browser window.

The best parts? 1. it’s free (with premium features coming soon) and 2. it works with any recent Nokia or Sony Ericsson handset. Rock on. There’s also a few other cool features, such as the Bloove Contacts Archive, which lets you temporarily delete a contact from your handset and keep the information safe on Bloove’s servers, so that you can re-enable it when needed. That way if you only talk to 40 of the 250 names in your phonebook, you can safely trim things up a bit.

They also keep a snapshot of the last time you connected available anytime on the site. Thus, if something happens to your phone, you can easily just login to get all your contact information. Currently, you can only read it, but coming soon is the ability to send it to your new phone, or export to whatever else you may want to export it to. Easy peasy.

This is fantastic. Wired has listed out their Top 10 Gadgets of the Year, and making the list as the only mobile phone isn’t the Nokia N95 (which I would have voted for, fanboy that I am), nor is it the Apple iPhone. It’s the JAILBROKEN Apple iPhone. Yes, that’s right. According to Wired magazine, the iPhone, as Jobso intended, is nothing to write home about. In fact, direct quote, “Out of the box, Apple’s iPhone is horrifically crippled.” Horrifically. Great word.

No, no. The iPhone is basically useless, unless Jailbroken. What’s that say to me and everyone else? Um, Mr. Jobs? Your precious phone could have been SO much more had you given this SDK out a few months (~6-9) ago. I also love that finally someone big is coming out and publicly acknowledging that the vanilla iPhone isn’t all that and a bag of chips.

I’ve just gotten my 4GB iPhone from a pal to play with, and haven’t really touched it yet, but I’m excited to give it a good going over.

Google and NTT DoCoMo, Inc. will be sharing handsets soon. The search giant has landed a deal to provide internet search and email services on NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode handsets. Google lags behind Yahoo! in Japan, so this is a really big move for them. NTT DoCoMo is Japan’s leading carrier and will give Google a quick way to really increase market share.

Personally, I don’t much care for Yahoo!’s services, I find them too cartoonish and, well, I just don’t care for them. There’s a large concern growing, however, with Google’s massive store of personal information on consumers. As Google makes it deeper into the mobile arena, I can imagine those concerns become quite a bit bigger.

This is so easy it’s stupid. Robert Scoble blurbed about Qik a few weeks ago and it took me that long to get my invite and actually try the service out. Qik is a new video service designed to allow you to stream live video from your mobile phone to the internet.

The name seriously could not be more appropriate. Currently it’s only available on S60 handsets such as my N95, but there’s no reason that WinMo couldn’t be added eventually. Qik is an application that you open on your handset, and it uses your phone’s data connection to stream live (well, with a 5-second delay) video to the internet. It then automatically saves said video so that others can view it later.

It’s so easy my mom could do it. There’s no setup. You give them your cellphone number and are texted with a download link. Once installed, open the app and there you go. Press the center button on your d-pad (or the softkey labelled “stream”) and you’re live. Press it again to stop. That’s it.

There’s literally nothing else to do. It’s uploaded, online, and you can give anyone your URL (mine’s www.qik.com/rcadden) and they can watch you semi-live or see your past videos.

It’s awesome to see someone making sharing multimedia so dead-easy. Try uploading photos directly from your handset to the web as easily as this. It can be done, but not with a bit more setup. Think about handing your elderly parents (or other stereotypically tech-illiterate person) a handset and within 2 clicks they’re streaming live video.

In a recent interview, multimedia guy Anssi Vanjoki of Nokia offered an open door for Apple to join up with the Finnish handset manufacturer. “In Finnish, Ovi means door, and our door is open. Of course, Apple can get into our portal. We even invite Steve Jobs to do so” says Vanjoki.

Ovi was announced earlier this year (and won’t be ready until probably mid-2008, which I think is really stupid, but whatever) and aims to be a single web portal through which Nokia users can organize their online lives.

I think inviting Apple to be a part of Ovi is a bit of a jab, personally. While it shows that Nokia isn’t scared of competition to their existing music store, it also somewhat points out that Apple is an incredibly closed system. I think this was Vanjoki’s way of subtly pointing out the difference in the Apple lifestyle and the Nokia lifestyle. Apple’s iTunes, which also serves as a PC Sync software for the iPhone, does not allow other services to tie-in. Nokia’s Ovi, on the other hand, has been advertised to offer a single place where users can access a host of other services such as Flickr, YouTube, and Skype.

Before the fanboys come out all foaming at the mouth, please note that Nokia and Apple are the only 2 handset manufacturers actively advertising a full “lifestyle” around their products. If Motorola were looking to offer a full lifestyle experience, I’d talk about them, too.

I’m fascinated with the idea of mobile gaming, and fully believe that it’s a massive market opportunity. I’m seeing more and more ways to game on your mobile, and I wanted to highlight two of them today - NokMote and PSX4iPhone.

NokMote was released right around Christmas by an independent developer. He’s doing some really cool stuff for S60 devices with the accelerometer built-in. Nokmote is mainly for gaming, and allows you to use your handset like a Wii controller for games, but it also works throughout the various menus. Paired with TV-Out on the Nokia N95, NokMote turns any N95 into a motion-controlled gaming system. There’s tons of videos, but the one that I like the most is here, showing off a guy playing Quake, running off his N95 with NokMote installed.

PSX4iPhone is a Playstation emulator for the iPhone, for PS1 games. Most all games work, and you can control them right there on the touchscreen of your iPhone. This is the first PS1 emulator that I’ve seen for a mobile handset, though I’ve used emulators for NES, SNES, and Sega systems on my S60 for a while now.

This is all fascinating to me because it shows how far mobile gaming has come. From the first Nokia’s that sported the black-and-greenish-yellow version of Snake, to being able to play games that were designed for a full desktop computer. The fact that our handsets are starting to now detect movement, and be able to project their displays onto a TV (via cable) is really mindblowing when you think about it.

I still imagine a future of gaming where I’ll be able to play against you while I’m in line at the grocery store and you’re sitting at home on your console system. The connection of console and mobile games into one platform, I think, is something that will really take the mobile gaming scene to a whole new level.

What do you think? When was the last time you played a game on your mobile handset? Did it impress you at all?

I spent this past weekend in Abilene, TX, at my fiance’s grandparent’s house. They live slightly out of town, on the lake. I was warned on the way out there that I would be without service, as they live out of town, but I shook that off, since Christina previously had a Sprint cellphone, and hadn’t been out to their house with her new AT&T phone yet.

She was right, somewhat. I didn’t have signal *in* their home, though walking outside I was able to get 3 bars on my N95 8GB. It became interesting to me how my usage changed without a signal. First off, I could care less about having a voice signal. I was overly concerned about not having data. We spent 3 days with them, and not being able to check email or read RSS was nerve-racking for me. It should be clear that I wouldn’t have simply sat the whole weekend glued to my phone. Afterall, that would be rude when visiting someone else. However, it would have been nice to be able to check email/RSS before bed and when I woke up.

I noticed that I lost all interest in my handset entirely. I even kept it powered off on the 3rd day. On the first day, I was mostly concerned with waving it around the house, desperately seeking at least one bar to calm my nerves.

I’ve always been one to say that technology should enrich and enable your real life, and I firmly believe that. Spending 3 days with no cell signal (unless we went ‘into town’, that is, at which point I certainly was glued) really tested that. At one point, NOT having technology (specifically, cellphone) inhibited real life. After a short period of time, however, I was actually (gasp) able to function without even having my phone ON, much less having signal.

How does this affect the way that I use my phone in other situations with full service? Were you subjected to any withdrawals on your holidays?

Yesterday I went to the gym.  To the sauna, though.  Not to do any excruciating exercise (that starts again tomorrow).   While I’m here in San Francisco, I’ve made an arrangement of the gym at the Fairmont Hotel.  Very nice, good service, all is good.  I picked up a complimentary copy of the FT as I walked through reception and proceeded down to Club One via the shower and into the sauna.

I am well disposed to the sauna experience — I like the dry heat — plus I do enjoy reading something, anything, whilst I’m in there.

There were two problems with my experience yesterday though.   The first was some absolutely donkey reporting from the Financial Times relating to o2 and the iPhone — the kind of reporting that makes my mouth drop open in shock.  The second problem was the guy who joined me in the sauna.  I don’t have an issue with naked men per se.  However this chap came into the sauna, laid his towel down on the top bench, laid face down upon the towel and … slowly… ever so slowly, proceeded to hump the bench.  Thoroughly off-putting.  An exception, though.  I want to be clear that this isn’t something I witness there regularly.

THANKFULLY I was able to use the FT to avoid the action scenery.

And that’s when I read this piece of joyous nonsense:

Link:  FT.com / Mergermarket - iPhone users raise network hopes

Matthew Key, who becomes chief executive of O2 Europe next month, told the Financial Times that 60 per cent of the company’s iPhone customers in the UK were sending or receiving more than 25 megabytes of data a month, the equivalent of 7,500 e-mails without attachments or 25 YouTube videos.By comparison, less than 2 per cent of O2’s other UK customers on monthly payment contracts use more than 25MB a month.

My problem with the above text?  Well, I nearly yelled ‘OBVIOUSLY’.  (I didn’t want to put off the humper opposite or call unnecessary attention to myself, hence ‘nearly‘).

OBVIOUSLY less than 2% of o2’s other UK customers use more than 25mb a month of data. OBVIOUSLY!  Because they’re WHACKED for FOUR QUID a MEG.

OBVIOUSLY.

So either it’s the reporter who didn’t quite get this.  Or it’s Mr Matthew Key, newly crowned Chief Exec of o2 Europe, who thinks our heads button up the back.  And clearly they do if you’re an FT staffer.

Come on!  The only reason o2 iPhone customers are ABLE to enjoy using the web is because it’s unlimited.  Their other customers — the CHUMPS who’re sat there paying stupid amounts per meg for their data — are trained not to use the internet via their handset because of bill shock.

In fact I don’t quite know if unlimited data is available to non-iPhone customers on o2 as yet.  I think it might be, if you really, really complain to customer services.

Did you catch this story recently?  This poor chap in Darlington, North of England, got himself a Vodafone Anytime 800 contract and also purchased the 7.50 ‘unlimited internet’ option.  All was good until he received a bill for £27,000 from Vodafone.

Why?  He failed to read the small print.  He thought, like any normal person, that ‘unlimited internet’ meant unlimited data.  It doesn’t.  It means unlimited web browsing from the handset, not plugging in your mobile to your laptop and downloading TV shows from it.  Oh no.  Deary me.

Link:  The Opinionated Normob: Worker runs up £27k mobile bill

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.

Don’t worry Ian.  I’m pretty confident Vodafone will come to an arrangement with you.  Too may of these sorts of headlines in the mainstream media will seriously damage the UK’s adoption of data plans.

What did Santa bring you? Any mobile related gizmos? Share!

Me? Well, Santa, in the form of Caroline at Sprint, brought me a Motorola bluetooth wireless headset and Sprint PCI Express data card to try out.

Regular SMS Text News contributor and SpinVox employee James Whatley gave me a nudge this morning telling me that the SpinVox blog may be down for a few days over the Christmas break for a facelift. Don’t fret, it should be back up in short order come New Years, which is great, but then I realised I hadn’t actually read it for a while (sorry Dude!).

Anyway - why am I sharing? THIS made me laugh A LOT. Stick with it to the end - the video is hilarious.

James said there was something hidden in the post, though. I didn’t find anything, but leave a comment and let me know if you did.

Airwide Solutions has announced their forecast for this year’s New Years messaging bonanza. The US is set to lead the pack in the Western World, with 730 million messages to be sent to ring in the new year. The UK comes in close behind with 280 million, roughly 4.5 per person.

The Eastern World, however, makes us look like a joke. Regardless of the Chinese New Year being later in the year, Airwide is guessing that China will beat us all out. A typical day in China has 1.6 BILLION (with a ‘B’) messages going back and forth. The Swiss, apparently, do more messages per person, followed closely by Greece.

Interestingly, the French seem to send about the same number of messages as any other day during the holidays.

I still say that this is the year that the SMS greeting is passe. Let’s see those MMS fly around. Surely you can come up with a fun photo to send to everyone in your phonebook?

Yahoo! has announced a partnership with America Movil to bring mobile services to customers across 16 countries in Latin America. America Movil will be using Yahoo! OneSearch as the default serach service across its wireless services, and Yahoo gets big access to Latin America.

With 143 MILLION wireless users throughout Latin America, America Movil is definitely a huge player, and it’s about time Yahoo! did something to get in really IN the mobile arena. This agreement puts them at the forefront of 143 million users’ mobile web experience, and will go pretty far in securing a large foothold in that market. Good job, Yahoo!.

Zed Group has created a special app for the holidays, dubbed ‘XmasMaker’. It’s simple, really. Instead of writing a “Merry Christmas” SMS and then sending it to everyone in your phonebook, the Zed XmasMaker allows you to send an MMS. Not just any ordinary MMS, mind you, but a photo - taken with your phone - and then customised with Christmas-y graphics.

Cool, right? I thought so, too, except for that you need to be a Zed premium member, for 3 GBP/week. If you’re game, sign up here. If not, send an MMS anyways. SMS aren’t greeting cards!