In years gone by, expert craftsmen were named Masters. Master Builders, Master Blacksmiths and so on. In this new period of our history, labels are changing. Whatley is one of the only Master Jaikus that I know. He knows and uses the service inside out.  Jaiku is his third eye.

Today we bring you part two of the Joy of Ku — Jaiku Unwrapped. Part One is here.

All good? The Master pulls down the hood of his dark billowing robe, turns toward us as we bow benevolently and…. over to James.

- - -

Ok – so those of you that read my last ‘official’ Whatley on Wednesday a fortnight ago (ignoring all the N95 shenanigans that happened in-between); and were quite interested to read my little introduction to Jaiku, then you’re probably wondering what I’m going to cover this week in part two of ‘Jaiku Unwrapped’ (nice title Ewan).

First up: Are you on Jaiku? If yes, read on. If no, go to http://jaikuinvites.com and get yourself in!

Next: Let’s talk about features

Well, there’s a lot to cover. I first encountered Jaiku way back in the Spring of 2007 as an early S60 app. This first iteration being ‘merely’ the cell tower naming, ‘life stream’ enabled, active contacts book… and breathe.

So what does that mean?

Cell Tower Naming – Each Jaiku user can name the cell tower that is currently in use by their mobile handset. This information is then shared with your [Jaiku] contacts. This is cool.

Most of the cell towers near me are called variations of Teddington; Teddington Station, High St, Home etc… and if any of my Jaiku buddies find themselves in the area, their Jaiku app updates their location accordingly. Can be fun when you’re browsing your contacts and you notice one of your friends is in one of your cells.

Life Streaming – Jaiku was at launch (and arguably still is in some respects) WAY ahead of its time when it comes to TRUE life-streaming. Any and all feeds can be pulled in and aggregated into the one stream. Here’s mine:

Comprising of my Last FM, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Various Blog Feeds.

All of my content in one place. Fantastic stuff. Interesting how this is now the business model for the relatively new ‘Friend Feed’. Something that I’m yet to try out… but I’m told offers a very similar service on the full life stream front. Big deal, Jaiku’s been doing it for ages.

Friend Feed lacks a mobile component however… which means no cool, location based stuff.

That aside, all of this life-streaming is no good if you can’t do anythingwith it. Which leads nicely into…

Active Contacts – Now that you (and your contacts) are all life streaming content or ‘Presence Information’, Jaiku takes on a more interesting role as a replacement for the native contacts application within the handset. Having Jaiku as an ‘Active Contacts’ book allows you to see who is and is not available for calling just from one quick glance. Each contact displays the stream coming from their handset – this encompasses everything I’ve mentioned so far (Location, Life Stream Feed Content) and adds to it calendar info (shared, hidden or just ‘busy’) AND profile information too.

The screens below are taken from the S60 app with my phone set to three different profiles:

The Profiles being General (Green), Vibrate (Amber) and Silent (Red) respectively.

If my Jaiku is displaying a red icon, now’s probably not a good time to call.

Note you can also see my latest ‘kus’ as well as the next event in my calendar; this information is opt-in as part of the sign-up. For the sake of sanity (and privacy) I normally have this set to ‘busy’ but have shared for the sake of the screenshots.

Having this option available for all of my contacts would be excellent.

A quick glance can show me:

Where you are, what you’re doing, what your plans are, what you’ve been listening to, the last photo you shared, the last video you shared, the last blog post you wrote…

It goes on.

All of this stuff comes together to form one S60 app that is truly something spectacular.

Not got an S60 handset? Try http://m.jaiku.com instead. Not as functional as the app but still easy and accessible from your handset.

All this so far has been about the utility. The product. The usability. The benefits.

In my next (and last) Jaiku-themed piece I’ll cover off the final piece of the puzzle.

The thing that, in my opinion, truly makes Jaiku special:

The Community.
First is this piece from Jonathan Greene who gives a rough outline of the features I’ve mentioned above. It’s a good read but the good stuff is at the end with his fantastic video (from last year!) about the (now live) beta client of the S60 app.

Second is this post from co-creator of Jaiku, Jyri Engestrom. Entitled:

“Blind Men’s Baseball – The Social Importance of Peripheral Vision”

This one quote: “phones were designed with the assumption that when a person picks up the receiver to dial a number, they already know who they want to call.” says it all for me…

Next week I’ll be in Las Vegas spreading the SpinVox love at CTIA.

If you’re heading out yourself, come find me and say ‘Hi’.

If not, see you in a fortnight.

Thanks for reading.

Today Skydeck, a California-based start-up came out of ’stealth mode’ and launched what is on the face of it a consumer-focused call log analyser - according to their blog the site daily retrieves calling records from the user’s mobile operator (US only at present) and its main feature tracks usage of inclusive minutes and texts displaying them in a browser toolbar and enables some calling analysis. Useful to monitor tariffs and spending, but so far, so what…? Although new to the consumer space this kind of feature is widely available to businesses already. Consumer use is an evolutionary step that fills the time until all tarrifs are ‘unlimited’… useful for minding the pennies.

What really excites me about this new service though are the other features: the ability to search calls, a ’smart’ address book and the ability to view your ’social network’. Setting some of the buzz words aside, this got me thinking - my phone calls are now the only part of my regular communications that I don’t have any information about… Every month I stare blankly at the meaningless pages of unfamiliar numbers on my phone bill, but I can’t see the detail it hides. For e-mail I have spotlight (Mac) or X1 (Windows) to discover lost content. Tools such as Xobni or LinkedIn’s toolbar add varying sorts of social analysis to Outlook for business or Facebook, Plaxo Pulse and FriendFeed provide news streams for personal use. I can even now analyse my voicemail with my e-mail tools thanks to SpinVox’s delivery by e-mail. However, this data, the analysis I can do on it and all the mechanisms I can use to share it with those who (may) be interested is missing a major component - my phone calls - which for me are almost exclusively mobile. My phone’s call log presents a little of this data, but it’s view is a chronological one and there’s no function to analyse what it records (although possibly Nokia’s Mobile Web Server shows some promise in providing access to this information)

To understand my calling pattern, not by cost but by person is the key: Which client haven’t I updated recently? Who’s being left out of the planning discussions? Who do I rely on for help without realising it? Who calls me most?

Initially, the ability just to tag and analyse contacts would be a huge leap forward… but imagine if this data could be integrated with the existing tools. I could finally have a complete picture of my communication - recalling phone conversations and e-mail exchanges easily and truly understanding my real ’social network’… One based on actual contact, not just the need to politely accept my colleagues friend requests (although I do like you guys!). Daring to dream a bit more widely… this data could be integrated with my contacts list, made available on my phone, used to change ring tones or to inform client billing…. Or it could just help me identify when my boss called me the other week so I can find the right diary notes I made (less exciting, but possibly more career-sustaining!)

So bravo Skydeck! Keep developing the network analysis tools, get integrated with some UK carriers and let’s see what magic happens… this is a rich untapped vein.

—-

Of course, in addition to calling analysis, total communications enlightenment would require call transcription too - a kind of ‘always on’ SpinVox, a personal Echelon. Which leads me to close with an old joke:

Q: How do you let the NSA know you want a job with them?
A: Ring anyone and tell them.

I thank-you

You know how we’ve been getting mobile industry execs to write about how they use their mobile in a day, well SMS Text News Reader Jonathan Jensen has a family, and they all use mobiles. So for a bit of a different take on the mobile day, read on to find out what they’ve got, how they use them, and that age old thing called the generation gap.

—

Chatting to Ewan the other day we got onto the subject of how people use their mobile phones in the real world. What they use, why they use it and how they use it. It started me thinking about my family and the different ways we all use mobile comms.

My first mobile phone was a NEC P3 (anyone else remember them?) and since then I’ve had at least 21 handsets (those are the ones I can remember)! I’m currently using a Nokia 6120 Classic on 3 and a Nokia E65 for Truphone – a must have service in any mobile armoury. 3 insisted I had a new (free) handset from them when I renewed my contract last month, as well as generously discounting my monthly service charge by £8 (32%) – nice loyalty touch. I asked for a bigger discount and no free handset but it doesn’t work like that! The 6120, despite being an inexpensive Nokia S60 smartphone is a great handset; HSDPA 3G data, improved web browser and faster processor make it a real improvement over the E65, plus it’s very compact. I use the 6120 for a mixture of calls, SMS and web browsing plus lots of useful mobile apps (more on those at a later date). A decent browser is vital for quickly entering Twitter and Jaiku updates when I haven’t got my PC with me. In addition I have a business use BlackBerry and Nokia 6230i for the usual business stuff.

Moving on to the rest of the family; my wife also uses a Nokia 6120 on 3, although her focus is on calls and SMS. She’s a prolific texter, sending 500 to 600 SMS a month! SMS is now her primary communication medium, supplemented by a bit of Skype chat, Facebook and now Twitter. My 15 year old daughter uses a pink Nokia 7373 (she likes ‘fashion’ phones) on the Tesco Value prepay tariff. This is a great tariff for light users who just want to text and call. There’s no data or roaming but why pay for it if you don’t need it. My 13 year old son also has a Nokia 6120 Classic on 3 (3 – your marketing people should hire us!). He’s a prolific talker and texter and loves the ability to customise the S60 software. He likes installing stuff – themes, applications, bizarre ringtones he’s created with his friends! My youngest daughter, who is nine, has an old Siemens handset, that’s all pink (very important, as it’s her favourite colour!). I put a spare Vodafone prepay SIM in it which she uses to text Granny occasionally. She has great fun with it and it costs me virtually nothing.

Being something of a mobile geek I’m fascinated to see how each of them uses mobile technology. For the kids, mobiles are second nature and the idea of one, maybe two, hardwired phones in the house (that you needed a second mortgage on to pay the bill) is another world.

—

Jonathan Jensen writes Sevendotzero - Technology stuff you can use

Bonjour!  Hello from the French Alps, where I’m doing a bit of ‘end of season’ skiing (quite badly). I’ve bought the usual array of hardware with me and a couple of normob friends have added a Blackberry, bog-standard SonyEricsson, Motorola PEBL and a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone between them.  This is our mobile (holi)day:

Leave the house: I’m getting a lift to the airport, but my friend’s TomTom Sat Nav is being slow to get a signal so I check the journey duration on Google Maps; we have just enough time. During the journey as the conversation lulls (it’s 4am by now and neither of us are feeling chatty) I try the location sensing service on the iPhone and even at speed it’s uncannily accurate. I find myself using it much more frequently than I thought - in this case it’s just to check the remaining journey time (we’re dropping the car off at another friend’s house and getting a taxi to the terminal - a brilliant plan for free parking except that we need to be there before the taxi driver to prevent an unrequired wake-up call for our parking host!) but it’s also saved me from getting lost on a few occasions recently.

Gatwick airport: I’m always pleased to get through security unscathed (the chap on the x-ray machine looks twice at my bag, but there’s no extra search). I’ve learnt to divide my electronics evenly between a few trays and it seems to draw less attention… Having checked (thoroughly) that there wasn’t much that needed buying in the duty-free electronic shop, my iPhone automatically jumps onto a Cloud hotspot and I look up some last-minute details - I wish every handset’s connection switching was this seamless. Previously I’ve also used this time before a flight to download new music to keep me entertained, but I’m well stocked with podcasts for now so there’s no need on this occasion. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more tie-ups with hotspot providers and the iPhone networks internationally. I would never have considered a hotspot subscription previously, but having had it for ‘free’ I can really see the benefit now and would subscribe in future.

As we wait normob friend #1 taps enthusiastically at his Blackberry. The device is barely 2 months old, but he’s well addicted. He travels a lot and wanted to stay more up-to-date with his e-mail, but I fear it’s an opportunity wasted as he doesn’t use the phone, contacts or calendar functions. I’d talked him through getting a hosted Exchange server and an E61i, but the T-Mobile lady did a sales job and he came away convinced anything other than a Blackberry would be too hard. Perhaps it’s true but it pains me to see the device so under-utilised.

On the plane: Disaster! No mobile devices to be switched on… even in flight mode. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this, but this is part of the safety briefing script so sounds like it’s a regular feature. No music for me. I get the laptop out to kill the time and wonder what the airline hopes to achieve by this. It seems too inconsistent - I don’t have one, but my laptop could easily contain a 3G card or even have it built-in yet I’m allowed to use it. On landing phones are beeping and chirping long before we’ve taxied in to the stand or the engines are stopped, but the crew (bar scowling at us) don’t say anything. If ever you wanted a clear demonstration of how universal mobile ownership is watch people leave an aircraft.

Collecting the baggage: It dawns on me - for the first time in a while I am without any mobile data. 3 don’t have a network in France so I can’t benefit from using my x-series inclusive data (via ‘Three like home‘ as I do in Ireland) and this airport doesn’t have any WiFi. I double check all my roaming data is switched off on the E61 and the iPhone - I can’t justify the pounds per megabyte 3 (£3) and O2 (£7) want. Normob friend #1 is tapping away at his Blackberry again. I ask him what the roaming costs are - is it inclusive? He has no idea…

On the bus: We have a 3 hour transfer… It’s too tight in here for the laptop and Google Reader doesn’t yet have a version of Gears for Symbian or iPhone so I’m pretty fed up. I’m also unable to settle an argument about whether the other airport we were offered is closer as Google Maps won’t identify its location without data switched on (it seems) and predictably there’s no mapping of France cached so it would be an expensive download. I find myself becoming irritable about not being able to use my devices and worry if this is really a good thing. All I can think of for the next hour is that I’m going ‘cold turkey‘ and it’s not pleasant.

At the apartment: More disaster! They don’t have WiFi as promised (yes, I checked before booking)… it’s only in a nearby bar. Shame - I had Truphone setup on the E61 and was looking forward to keeping in touch with the other half using this cost-effective way. I toy with the idea of getting a French SIM for mobile data, but a quick examination of the local airwaves shows no 3G networks at all so it feels pointless. I consider getting the ski lift to the top of the mountain and making a dash for the Italian border which is barely miles away and where there’s a Three network, but it’s the important weekend of the 6 Nations Rugby so we set off on a search to find a bar showing the games instead. I’m impressed with my 2 normob friends though - in the time it’s taken me to check us in they know which networks are available and where there is (and more frequently isn’t) WiFi…

I top up the various phones using the excellent Proporta USB charger. I haven’t brought any power leads other than for my laptop - the multi-headed adaptor with the Proporta covers all my devices and the battery will probably last the week. This is a big improvement - even from the iGo system I used to have - with its many cables, plug adaptors and transformer which required a travel bag all of its own. This new charger from Nokia is similar and possibly a bit more robust, but the Proporta’s multiple connectors win it for me.

In the bar: No-one can remember the order the 3 games are due to be played in this afternoon - back to the mobiles and the BBC Sport website. GPRS seems unreliable for all the networks we try - we have 1 T-Mobile, 3 Vodafone, 1 O2 and 2 Three handsets with us… The T-Mobile Blackberry gets there first and we settle in for an afternoon hoping English pride can be restored against the Irish. I glance at the E61 from time-to-time and it’s having a really hard time, jumping between networks… still searching for that non-existent 3G signal. It seems to be struggling the most of all the handsets.

Skiing: We all decided to take handsets with us. I swap my main Three SIM out of the E61 and into a Skypephone. I’ve no intention of using the Skype features (I can’t - it doesn’t work on roaming other than on Three’s networks) but it’s a great-sized handset with a decent camera for pictures on the slopes and USB charging means no proprietary adaptor is required. Also at £50 I won’t be too distressed if it’s damaged. The iPhone stays in the apartment - it’s the best phone of all the ones we have with us to use in the glare of the snow with its excellent screen, but I worry about falling on it and the touch interface doesn’t work with gloves on.

During the day I’m further surprised by the normob friends - picture messages are being sent to friends at home and the Walkman phone provides some music when we stop for a break. Once again I’m reminded how useful Spinvox is as I’m able to review my voicemails without incurring any call costs back to the UK. None of them need an immediate reply so I can get on with my holiday - brilliant!

I’m considering if my definition of normob needs to be redefined, but when normob friend #2 takes a picture and the SonyEricsson offers a ‘blog this’ option he wonders aloud what the point of that would be and I feel the balance restored. It’s also notable that neither of them use any features on their phones other than the built-in ones - it’s something I take for granted.

When we get back to the apartment, normob friend #2 connects his Archos video player to the TV - none of us are a big fan of French TV. I’m frustrated that I have a similar amount of video on my iPhone, but it doesn’t yet provide video out as regular iPods do [update: It does - how behind the times am I??? Shame Apple wants £70 for a Universal dock and AV cables though...]. It would have also been cool to watch some of the video clips we’ve taken during the day on our phones - it’s the first time I’ve appreciated the value of the N95’s capability to do this. This new ‘video over USB / WiFi’ technology seems like the next logical step for this - I hope Nokia adopt it across the range.

—-

Overall it’s been strange moving back to a basic device. I just can’t do T9 anymore - I’m out of practice - and it’s been good to see my friends reaching for mobile services routinely at times I never would have expected them to. I worry that we’re in for an unpleasant surprise when the Blackberry bill comes in, but I think this demonstrates that people aren’t well informed about roaming data… perhaps I’m a little closer to understanding those thousand dollar iPhone roaming data bills when they were first released.

On the wish-list for me is definitely a better camera on a handset. The Skypephone’s 2MP is good enough resolution-wise, but the images are often fuzzy or poorly exposed… Also, as it’s not a smart-phone there’s little I could do with them except sync them to my laptop (via OS X’s excellent bluetooth utility which I discovered when I realised I’d brought a faulty USB cable). I really want to stick a few on Facebook so Shozu would do an excellent job here. However, some reasonably priced roaming data would also be called for… I hope Maxroam or a similar service offers this soon - they don’t yet.

I posted a quick summary of James Whatley’s Vodafone experience just a few moments ago — just as this update arrived in my inbox… Over to James…

- - -
First up, if you missed the rant
on Friday, then you should go catch up or else none the following will make much sense.

HOLD MUSIC – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA

Up to speed? Good.

Next up - I’m still with Vodafone.

Why?

Well. You’ll see.

Thing is, this whole episode has really got me thinking about a LOT of stuff. So there’s a lot to cover with this follow up post, it might turn into another long one… So once again, thanks for reading.

First up – let’s pick up from where we left off.

The early hours of Friday morning:

01:30 – I email my rant over to Ewan

01:45 – He hits publish

01:46 – I post on Jaiku

04:52 – Nokia Geek re-posts the story on
his blog

07:40 – The story re-appears over on the blog by iFelix

08:57 – An SMS arrives from a friend within the walls of VF:

“Would you like me to try and escalate your N95 problem internally? Or would you prefer the vanilla experience?”

I choose the latter, (thank you though for your kind offer – you know who you are).

09:30 – Steve Litchfield links back to the story over at All
About Symbian

Then, at 09:39, the phone rings:

“Hello, James Whatley…”

“Hello there Mr Whatley, my name’s Amy and I’m calling from Vodafone. I hope you don’t mind me getting in contact like this, I’ve just been reading your blog…”

[Note from Ewan: We're speculating that 'Amy' is indeed Amy Rose as covered before on SMS Text News]

“I see…”

“Yes, I searched for your name on our system and then cross referenced the notes on the accounts that I found with your written version of events to see which James Whatley it could be and.. well I found you!”

“Right you are.”

“Mr Whatley, I’m dreadfully sorry for everything’s that happened regarding your N95. We’ve investigated it as much as we can this end and it seems the insurers have rather a lot hoops to jump through to process these claims, something we’re trying to rectify. And you see it’s basically a lot of red tape that we can’t really do much about…”

“Ok…”

“However, I’ve been in touch with them and sorted everything out and we should be able to get a replacement phone out to you as soon as possible. Now this normally happens on the next working day, but I’m going to make a few calls and see if we can’t get it out to you today.”

“Oh well, thank you very much…”

“Only thing is Mr Whatley, we don’t actually stock the silver N95 anymore. We only have the 8GB version, is that going to be ok?”

“Well, er… I actually prefer the silver one if I’m perfectly honest, but I can’t knock it I guess. It’s very kind of you to reach out like this. Yes. Ok. I’ll take it. Cheers.”

“Right then, I’ll sort things out with the insurance company. You will still have to pay the £25 excess charge for claiming but I can just pop that onto your next bill. I’ll give you a call back in a bit to confirm delivery.”

Brilliant. Fantastic. Wonderful.
Or is it?

We’ll come back to this one. Moving on.

09:50 – I get an email from Colin over at Nokia WOMWorld:

“Hi James

Your two week trial period for the N82 has finished, therefore we need to organise the return of the device…

Just kidding! Read about your “kaput” N95, so out of the goodness of our hearts we will extend the N82 trial period. How about I send out a bluetooth headset too, make it easier for you to call/pester/complain to Vodafone whilst on the move?”

I very nearly spat my latte out laughing… This did make me smile. A lot. Cheers guys.

10:00 – Steve over at S60Blogger made sure he
mentioned it too – which, incidentally, then got picked up a few more times on some insurance aggregation sites

10:10 – Paul Sweeney of VoiceSage talks about the Expectations
of GREAT Customer Service

11:29 – I come back to my desk and I have a missed call plus one new SMS:

Hi James, it’s Amy calling from Vodafone. Just calling you back as promised earlier. Got good news the phone is gonna be delivered to you today. Should be with you around 2:30. I will give you a call back, I’ll try you again in a little while just so that I can have another chance to chat to you. Thank you. Bye. - Spoken through SpinVox

14:30 you say? Not bad at all.

Lunch time rolls around and the department head out for a colleague’s birthday lunch.

13:25 – The phone rings:

“Hi, is that James Whatley?”

“Yes mate.”

“Alright, I’m just on Marlow High Street, looking for Wethered House (SpinVox HQ), can you direct us?”

“Actually mate, I’m just on the High Street myself. In Chez Gerard…”

“Oh I can see that, I’ll come meet you.”

13:30 – Yours truly takes delivery of a brand new, never-been-opened Nokia N95 8GB.

Just shy of 12hrs since the original article went live.

So – What have we learnt?

First thing: Vodafone have some kind of ‘Forum Intervention Team’ who are happy to step up to the plate whenever things need fixing, (but we knew this already).

This I must say is a HUGE step forward for any operator/network and is something the rest of the industry can learn from.

To have a team in place monitoring the blogosphere for anything of this nature is a great string to Vodafone UK’s bow.
And it’s the exact same thing I used to do 18mths ago for Refresh Mobile, (way back in their Mobizines days).

So kudos to you Red; you came through and you delivered. Nice work.

BUT.

And this is a big BUT that was repeated to me over email, IM, Jaiku, Twitter, SMS and even over the phone from my friends and colleagues alike:

“BUT JAMES?! Well done and everything – But what about the average user? If this happened to your Mum she wouldn’t sit down and write two thousand words on how annoyed she was nor would she know the right platform/channels to use to air said grievances! So, what about your Normobs?!”

Well. There’s a few ways you can look at this.

Ewan bet me £5 that I could’ve got a replacement handset from in-store over the weekend and he was probably right. So did I get preferential treatment? Yes. You could say I did. If I was your average every day customer without access to a reasonably well-read wireless news site, would I have got my replacement handset on the same day? Doubtful, (don’t forget though, I still had to pay the £25 excess, just like anyone else – all VF saved me was time).

This however does not necessarily make Vodafone bad. Later that day I was contacted by another friend of mine, again within the walls of Vodafone. He told me about the Forum Intervention Team and how (in his opinion) they do a good job. Not least because they fix what they can online but because every problem they solve gets put back into the system to try and ensure that the same doesn’t happen again. My contact also told me that Vodafone has a ‘Voice of the Customer’ forum. Everyone within Voda has the ability to raise issues to VOC so they can be investigated.

They don’t take this kind of thing lightly.

The good thing (I’m told) is that this whole episode has highlighted the ‘outsourced insurers’ problem to the VOC which will hopefully mean that the end user experience will improve in the long run.

This is great news.

Short term?

If you’re a normob (or if you know one) then the best advice I could give you would be to never give up. Keep calling back, keep kicking up a fuss and keep on keeping on until you get the level of service you think you deserve.

Now in closing; let’s address some of the questions raised in the the
comments of Friday’s piece::

Quite a few of you mentioned that I should’ve taken the insurance girl’s hints and just told them what they wanted to hear. You’re probably right. But you’re gonna have to excuse my naivety on this one chaps; the thought didn’t even cross my mind. I’ve never had to claim on insurance before and well – I didn’t know the game was played as such. I’ll know for future reference… that aside – it’s still a sorry state of affairs if this kind of behaviour is ‘the norm’.

Hands0n had a cheeky dig at the state of my N95. What can I say? I USE my handset! I don’t care for fancy covers or belt clips. My phone is purely functional. Admittedly I use every function available but that doesn’t mean I should keep it wrapped up in cotton wool. I love the battle scars on my N95. It shows how much I’ve really got out of it, y’know?

Maybe I should send it off to some kind of mobile phone war museum… Hehe.

Joking aside, this whole episode has taught us a LOT about Vodafone.

Yes, their CS sometimes falters but it’s clear they do care about their customers.

Yes, they gave me preferential treatment, but it’s only through people venting their anger (online or otherwise) at poor levels of service that any big company has any chance of learning/changing anything.

And the less said about the N95 4GB variant the better…

We interrupt the scheduled programming to bring you a Whatley on Friday exclusive…

- - -

AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

So – Those of you who follow me on Jaiku (http://whatleydude.jaiku.com) or on twitter (http://twitter.com/whatleydude) may have seen this message appear late last night:

“N95 – kaput :’(“

What follows is an account of two hours of my life from the early evening of last night (Thursday).

Vodafone have pissed me off. Their insurance company more so – they are CLEARLY a 3rd party with nothing to do with Vodafone and as such, let them down on an almost spectacular level.
That aside – VF’s CS has seen better days.

If this issue is not resolved by the weekend, I am off to 3.
You heard it here first.

So - What happened?

Well, over the past few weeks the N95 has taken a bit of a beating… it’s, how we say in the UK, ‘been in the wars a bit’. I’ve dropped it left, right and centre and even tossed it here and there too.

Note – it was camera tossing – see here.

Anyway - The phone has been fine. I went to a meeting yesterday afternoon, switched the phone off. All fine. I leave the meeting. Switch the phone on. All fine. I get to the station and, whilst waiting for my train, I decide to check the timetable… This is not possible. Not properly anyway. Because… every time I clicked one of the right sided centre keys, the screen went blank. Bugger.

Train arrives. I get on. I test it again. Same thing; Right centre keys make the screen go blank. Left centre keys bring it back. Bugger it.

I’m just off into town for a couple of drinks with the lass and all of a sudden I have no phone… Damn.

What next? I do what any other Vodafone-loving man would do, I call Vodafone.

Here I have to pause. Here for a second, if merely for sheer dramatic effect I must take a moment… and breathe…

I have waxed lyrical about Red’s amazing customer service before, quite a lot actually; online and off.
Thing is with GOOD customer service, you become used to it.
It becomes “the norm”.
Anything less than above average is… well… just average.

I make the call. Bear in mind that as a ‘card carrying member’ (remember?) of Vodafone’s ‘best care’ program I have come to expect the following to happen:

“Hello Mr Whatley, how can I help you today?”

“Hello there, my phone is broken.”

“Ok Mr Whatley, we can get a replacement out to you with 24hrs, where would you like it to be delivered?”

And. That. Is. It. Job done.

This is what I expected to happen. What I got was something COMPLETELY to the contrary.

CALL 1 (bodes well doesn’t it?)

“Hello Mr Whatley, how can I help you today?”

“Hello there, I wonder if you can help actually. It’s my phone. The screen really, it started to go off and on earlier and now… well now it won’t even come on at all”

“And what phone do you have Mr Whatley? Says here you have the N95, is it the 8GB version?”

“No no, I’ve got an old school original N95.”

“Ok, and did you buy it from a store or over the phone?”

“Over the phone. I NEVER go in store.”

“Ok Mr Whatley, and what do you think may’ve the problem on the phone?”

“I’m not entirely sure to be honest, I do USE my phone. I mean REALLY use it. But I know I’ve definitely dropped it twice in the last two weeks…”

“Oh ok Mr Whatley, no problem. It sounds like you may have to make an insurance claim but that shouldn’t take a minute… Well I’ve just checked and it looks like we don’t actually have any N95s in stock anymore, but that’s ok. The insurance will just send you an 8GB instead… is that ok?”

Leaving aside my N95-1 preferences for a second…

“Oh.. er.. ok, can’t really complain! Yes, I guess that would be fine, thank you!”

“Ok Mr Whatley I’ll just put you through to the insurance department.”

“Thank you very much…”

HOLD MUSIC – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA – BA BADADA BA BA BA DADA

“Hello you’re through to Vodafone In-sure-antz… *giggle* …”

Note – the giggling – the girl that I was put through to was clearly having some kind of joke on the other end of the line and was finding it hard to control her laughter. Hilarious.

“…Before I go on.. *giggle* stop it *giggle* ..can I just tell.. *giggle* …can I just tell you that callsarerecordedfortraininperposeees…” *muffled laughter*

I’ve worked in a call centre myself. This happens. You just get the giggles sometimes.
However, I wasn’t in the mood.

I hung up and re-dialled 191.
I get through to the woman sitting next to the first woman I spoke to the first time round.

“Oh, sorry to hear what’s happened Mr Whatley, I’ll try and put you through again…”

HOLD MUSIC

“Hi Mr Whatley, I’ve explained all your details and told them what the situation is, I’ll just put you through now…”

“Hello you’re through to Vodafone In-sure-antz, can I take your name please?”

“Haven’t you got it…? Ok. James Whatley”

“And how can I help?”

“You mean you weren’t told?”

“You want to make a claim sir?”

“Yes. The screen on my N95. It’s broken. I need to get it replaced.”

“And when did it break sir?”

“This afternoon.”

“As a result of what sir?”

“Well, I’ve dropped it recently.”

“When sir?”

“A couple of times. RECENTLY”

“Oh. So the screen was working today then sir?”

“Yes.”

“Did you drop it today sir?”

“No, but I think it’s an issue of overall wear and tear if you will…”

“But you didn’t drop it today sir?”

“Well, no but…”

“Well then the screen failure can’t be down to you dropping it Sir, *sigh*, it’s a warrantee issue. I’ll pass you back to customer care.”

Turns out ‘pass you back to customer care’ is a euphemism for ‘hang up on you’.

If you’ve made it this far – thank you – I applaud your reading efforts. By this time I had travelled from Oxford to Paddington and I’m now at Paddington Station when I make call number 3.

“Hello there, I don’t have time to go through this again. I just want to complain about the poor standard of service that your insurance company provides. First they lack professionalism and second they show no real willingness to help and/or cooperate…”

“Of course Mr Whatley, what is the problem?”

I explain. THIS TIME ROUND I’m advised that I will have to take the phone IN STORE to have it examined…

“Look. I don’t have time to do this now. I called to complain. I need to get on the tube. I’ll call back later…”

By now I am seething. I get off the tube at London Waterloo and the lass is running a little late. “I’ll try again” I think… CALL 4

“Hello there, I’ve had a rough time with CS so far this evening. I understand this isn’t your fault so I won’t scream and shout. My N95. It’s broken.”

“Ok sir, which one do you have? The 4GB or the 8GB?”

“Pardon?”

“Which N95 do you have sir? The 4GB or the 8GB?”

“Er… There isn’t a 4GB.”

“Yes there is Sir, it’s ok, you’ve probably got the 8GB, the black one right sir?”
(this time in a slightly condescending kind of ‘it’s ok sir, you don’t know about your silly little broken phone’ voice)

“Look, I don’t have the 8GB version of the phone. I have the silver one…”

“..The 4GB.”

“NO! THERE IS NO 4GB N95! I work in the bloody industry and I know this phone inside and out and unless you’ve started shipping them with a 4GB MicroSD card as standard then it does not exist. The original N95, the silver one, the one IN MY HAND, comes with 160MB internal flash memory and 64MB RAM. Not 4GB.”

“I’m sorry sir but…”

“Look, let’s no split hairs. I know I’m right on this. It’s not why I called. I called because my phone is broken…”

“Yes Mr Whatley, says here you’ve been advised to take it in-store to have it examined?”

“Yes, that’s right. But that’s not good enough. I need a replacement as soon as…”

“That’s ok sir, if you hand it over in-store they will pop it in a jiffy bag, send it off to be repaired and it will be back with 7 days tops.”

NOTE – I’ve been here before – it NEVER takes seven days. THIS is why I stopped going in-store.

“I doubt that. Plus what am I to do without a phone?”

“They’ll have a phone you can borrow sir…”

“Have you ever had to borrow one from in-store before?”

“They have the Sharp device range sir…”

“Yes. I know. Horrid devices. They’re not nice. Listen. You don’t get it. I’m a mobile phone blogger. It’s what I do. Not having a decent handset in this business is quite frankly a ridiculous notion and I REALLY need to get this sorted ASAP!”

“Yes sir, if you take it in-store tomorrow I’m sure they’ll be able to…”

At this point I gave up. I am SO mad. The phone, FOR WHATEVER REASON, no longer works. Actually, that’s incorrect. The screen no longer works. The phone works fine. In fact, I know my N95 THAT WELL, I’m able to send texts and make calls… in the dark if you will.

Fortunately I am lucky enough to currently be in possession of a Nokia N82 (kindly supplied by those lovely folk at WOM World (http://www.womworld.com/nseries), this device however I have been using as my work phone. That reluctant was I to give up my N95 as my main device I opted to switch out the E61i for the duration of the loan period.

While I’ve been typing up this tirade I’ve been backing up/restoring/sync-ing each device to switch the N82 into my main device and the E61i back to my work device.

Incidentally – I’m not even touching upon the review of the N82 yet, or the amazing differences between the Nseries and the Eseries range of devices that I uncovered by making this switch… they can all wait for another post.

This post - THIS ONE THAT YOU’RE READING RIGHT NOW – is about how disappointed I am with Vodafone. You may call me fickle, but have a read of it again. See if you’d settle for this kind of ‘service’.

I am NOT a happy customer.

And do you know what makes it worse? It’s happened before http://whatleydude.vox.com/library/post/rip-n95.html - same problem(s) http://whatleydude.vox.com/library/post/my-faith-has-been-tested-1.html

This time though there has been no resolve.

The issue is still open.

I genuinely do not know what to do next. My instinct tells me to call VF again - To keep on keeping on. This issue has happened before and I got a replacement within 24hrs.

Why is it any different now?

Why is Vodafone’s customer service so inconsistent?

Why do they allow such a shoddy experience when it comes to their mobile insurance – which, by the way, I PAY EXTRA FOR!

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.

With that, I am spent. If you made it to the end, thanks.
If you’ve got a spare N95-1 lying around, let me know – I’m open to offers.

- - -

I have, incidentally, bet Whatley five pounds that if he takes his handset into a Vodafone store tomorrow, they will replace it there and then for him.

But the more I think on it, the more I wonder if actually, that’s not how things work. I wonder if the handsets in store are for ‘brand new customers only’ and not for replacements? We shall see.

James Whatley lives on Jaiku. I don’t think they’ve got a more prolific or exacting user. He really does spend a lot of his real time existence living through the service — which is why there is, perhaps, no one better qualified to give you a perspective on the Joy of Ku.

- - -

I’ve been meaning to write this piece for a while now. In fact, ever since Google made that purchase last year the whole blogosphere has been falling over itself trying to figure out exactly what Google intend to do with their now five-month-old purchase.

I had an eye on eventually contributing to this but by the time I got round to it, most of the good stuff had already been covered. Notably this piece by Jonathan Mulholland (”What Google has planned for Jaiku“).

Then there were the series of posts at the beginning of the year regarding the spate of errors/downtime that Jaiku kept throwing up – (downtime, by the way, is merely par the course for your average Twitter user… But we’ll leave that one there for now).

Again – this was aptly covered by someone else here (”Jaiku users flee to Twitter as a result of Google neglect“) and yet again ably kicked back by our friend Mr Mulholland (”Think Jaiku is loosing to Twitter? Wait ’til Android devices start shipping“).

(Damn he’s good)

So, what am I going to write about?

First off – without presuming too much – a brief explanation:

What is Jaiku?

* Micro-blogging (like twitter)
* Limited to 140 characters (like Twitter) to your first ‘Jaiku’
* Jaikus start threaded conversations (unlike Twitter) with no character limit (unlike Twitter)
* Jaiku also enables ‘Presence’ from your S60 handset: Location + Phone Profile + Latest Jaiku
* Jaiku as a feed aggregator – pulling in all your feeds into one single ‘life stream’
* An ‘active’ contacts book, when futurists debate the address book as being key to any user’s daily life, Jaiku is often looked upon as leading the way
* And above all, a community…

That’s that covered. So what now?

Right, well – and there’s definite sleeves rolling up going on here - thing is, since the Google buy-out, Jaiku has become ‘closed’ – aka ‘invitation only’.

Rubbish.

However another thing is – every user gets ten invites. EVERY user gets ten. If you’ve been there since the beginning or if you signed up an hour ago, ten invites is what you get.

So some clever chaps over at Weeno Media cracked onto this and thought that they’d play Google at their own game (remember Gmail invites folks?).

And their variant of this game? http://jaikuinvites.com.

What’s it for?

Well the clue is in the name. Jaiku Invites.

You need one? Let them know.

You got some to share? Let them know.

They do the hard part in the background and link up those that need them with those that have them spare.

Supply meets Demand. Magic.

Why the big fuss? Well this is kinda cool.

I’m using this space to tell you about this website because I want YOU to go and sign up for Jaiku RIGHT NOW.

Over the coming weeks I’m going to be going into what it is exactly I love about this service.

There are many, MANY reasons.

Is it the community? The threaded nature of conversation maybe?

What about the ‘presence’ enabled S60 application? Ahead of it’s time when it comes to true life-streaming.

Then there’s the different ways to contribute to the site itself, (text/app/web/m.web), every one of them having their own plus/minus points. They each deserve a mention too.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I’ve been trying to write a piece about my love affair with Jaiku for some time now.

Each time getting halfway through and realising I’ve gone completely off-piste and spend the next 15mins fighting my way back to the point, (see this post on my VOX for a perfect example).

So I’ve decided to break it up a bit. Consider it a bit like a book club.

I’ve told you about Jaiku, I’ve told you I love it, I’ve told you how to go and get it.

Next week I’ll tell you what is so bloody great about it… (if you haven’t worked it out already)

- - -

You can add Whatley as a friend by visiting him at http://whatleydude.jaiku.com — and you can get SMS Text News updates at http://smstextnews.jaiku.com.

In addition to the iPhone, the E61 and my ‘pub phone’ (a little-used Skypephone) there’s another couple of phones in my life and I’m coming to resent them more and more. It’s my home phones.

They’re rubbish.

I didn’t want to buy a new landline handset. I want to be the kind of person who doesn’t do landlines at all - they feel pointless. Personal communication shouldn’t be tied to a location - I don’t want someone to have to think about where I am before they call me. But there’s a couple of services we can’t have without it (the entry phone to our apartment block, for example, calls our wired phone when someone presses our buzzer) and it still feels rude to ask overseas friends to pay higher rates to call our mobiles (not everyone has discovered the joy of VOIP) . So I can’t yet reach this state of nirvana and having resigned myself to this, I paid £70 for a pair of Panasonic DECT handsets with a simple answer machine and received them this week.

Being the nerd I am I did, of course, start to read a load of reviews before I bought them, but I grew bored of the limited feature-set and ended up just buying something that looked passable and featured somewhere near the top of Amazon’s sales ranking. It’s not that the budget was terribly tight… it’s not unlimited by any means but I would have spent more for something exciting. It’s just there really doesn’t seem to be much out there. Particular complaints are:

• Ni-MH batteries (I didn’t realise they even still existed).
• No contacts synchronisation (and no, similar models with a ‘copy from SIM’ feature don’t count… who keeps their numbers of the SIM any more?)
• Three (yes three!) wallpapers (one usable) without any option to disable it on a ‘glorious’ 1.5″ screen.
• A UI that makes my first ever mobile’s interface (the Ericsson GH868, since you ask) look like that whizzy glass / touch thing Tom Cruise had in Minority Report.

OK, so we’re a couple of hundred words in and I’m still not really to the point. Sorry about that.

What I’m driving at is not just that I want more a more capable handset, but that the existence of such a big gap is ludicrous - my Skypephone has a feature set that’s far superior, can be extended further, attaches to my computer for syncing and cost about the same - but that there’s no need for a difference.

I’m ready for my femtocell now please that makes my mobiles usable at home. And none of this dodgy BT Fusion rubbish either - something that works with all our phones, no lock in. Perhaps even with the girlfriend’s non-smartphone.

Or a GrandCentral-eque service that allows geographic and mobile numbers to be added, calls to roam and hunt whilst still retaining the better pricing that’s typically available for consumer landlines.

Sure, I might be able to cobble something together with existing services or ‘roll my own’ with an Asterisk box at home or similar, but this has to be reliable and normob-friendly. At least I’d like proper spec handsets with bluetooth and contacts syncing… that’s not too much to ask. Is it?

Why can’t all my phones be like my mobiles?

I am absolutely loving the fact that I can talk to people … on the phone… on the go… it really is just brilliant.

Obviously you can do this with any mobile phone account, just not consistently in my experience. My 3UK account is generally reliable, but my two T-Mobile accounts are nothing short of disastrous when it comes to audio. So much so that I have spent — on reflection — years waiting until I got ‘home’ or ‘back to work’ to make phone calls that I could ordinarily have made on-the-go, were it not for the ridiculous audio quality.

I really abhor people telling me ’sorry, this is, er, a very bad line’ when I’m phoning their office landline from my T-Mobile account. It is such a pleasant change to be able to transact business continually and without issue via my Vodafone handset.

I’m delighted too with the unlimited landline calls option on my price plan. That is pretty neat indeed. Hugely neat. I call a lot of landlines, particularly when it comes to public relations professionals who very much operate from their desks. I haven’t looked to see what the terms and conditions are relating to this. There’s probably a fair use policy of a few thousand minutes.

As for text messages, I signed up with a paltry 250 text messages.

I always do rough mental arithmetic when faced with a text bundle to work out how ‘good’ it is. I try and divide by 30 to see how many texts are available daily. So in the case of 250, that works out to about 8 text messages per day.

Shit.

The arse with text messaging is that when you text someone, they usually text back — and it’s often only polite (or required) for you to text a reply. To which you might get another reply. That needs a reply. So one ‘Are we on for today’ interaction could actually ‘cost’ 10 text messages. No problem when you’re on a T-Mobile Flext 75 price plan that let’s you use as many texts, MMS or minutes as you wish. Serious issue when you’re using Big Red and you’re about to get whacked for 12 pence per text.

Vodafone continually tell me that this isn’t a problem. They paint an idyllic picture of text message usage and always immediately counter with ‘Ahhhh yes, but Ewan, listen Ewan, old-chap, that’s the OUT OF BUNDLE price… No one ever pays that, no one ever goes over their bundle, you see… it’s fiiiiiiiine.’

Bollocks, is it.

The first thing I thought I’d do when I got my new handset was text everyone in my address book with my new number. That’s at least 800 people. Not only would that wipe out my 250 ‘bundle allowance’ but it would actually cost 550 x 12p (66 pounds). Ridiculous.

Firstly why does Vodafone not do a ‘move in tell-your-friends-your-number’ text service?

Secondly, why don’t I just increase my text bundle and stop whining? Good idea.

I popped into a Vodafone store, back, actually, to the place where I originally purchased the account. Saj remembered me. Good man. “No problem,” he said, when I asked for a text bundle, “You can buy them in 500 or 1,000 chunks,” (I think it’s about 6 or 7 quid for 500, and roughly double for 1,000 texts).

I asked Saj to hit me for 500 extra. That’d give me 750 a month. Good enough, right?

I waited a few minutes.

Saj began to look more and more pained as he operated the Vodafone terminal showing my account details.

Eventually Saj phoned the call centre and found out that, since I’ve got ‘unlimited landline calls’ on my account, I cannot purchase more text messages in a bundle.

Both Saj and I were a little confused.

“Would you like to swap to unlimited texts?” came the question from the call centre.

“No,” Saj explained, “The customer wants unlimited landlines and wants to add extra texts,”

We both waited. I rolled my eyes. I could already see what was coming.

Welcome to Vodafone, land of the binary. It’s one or zero. One or the other. You can’t have both. You’re either screwed for 35p/minute calls (after your bundle) or you’re nailed for 12p texts (after your bundle).

So came confirmation.

“Sorry,” said Saj, shaking his head.

Ridiculous.

I phoned up the call centre at the weekend and upgraded to pay the highest possible monthly tariff, which, unbelievably is sixty odd quid (excluding VAT). That gets me unlimited landline calls, 3,000 cross network minutes and … 500 texts.

Can’t upgrade my text bundle any more. I’d have to swap to unlimited texts and give up my landline calls. Gah.

I am going to absolutely 100% NUTS if I am charged twelve pence per text message by Vodafone. Absolute NUTS.

Last Friday I made the ultimate switch over.

Oh yes indeedo.

After quite a long on-off love affair, I have committed to Vodafone.

I decided that, whilst I am a huge fan of data services, and in particular, 3UK’s X-Series Gold/Silver offerings, I prized call quality and the Vodafone spectrum above all else.

The sham that was the X-Series blog really struck home to me. Yes 3UK were always just a mobile operator — but the blog there gave me the impression — the absolutely false impression — that the people there ‘lived it’ — that a small dedicated ‘X-Series’ team really believed in open data, smart applications and so on. Then, come January, they just switched the blog off, catapulting them from my ’shit hot’ to ‘how not to do it’ slide on my How To Do Blog Relations presentation I regularly give. So I was freed from the dilemma of switching to 3UK full time.

The only other decision in my head was whether or not to consider the other networks. I gave serious consideration to o2. I didn’t bother thinking about Orange.

T-Mobile… meh… well, I think it’s only fair that I finally dump them after the amount of ridiculous, ridiculous reporting that I’ve done on the site here over the years.

Data is good and it’s really nice to have unlimited data — but the nail in the coffin for T-Mobile came when I phoned up to ask how I could get a proper unrestricted all-ports-free data service (I wondered if Web’N'Walk Max would let me use IM, properly), and the helpful yet entirely, entirely unknowledgeable customer support lady mangled the issue. She didn’t understand what I meant by unrestricted. Not her fault at all. Network policy. Next.

My decision was ultimately made when, sitting in front of the very helpful Saj, in the Vodafone Oxford Street store, I discovered that my credit check with Vodafone had been approved. After three or four years of wrangling, the system has finally forgotten the issue we shared. I paid up fully after running up a 1,200 data bill … my attempt to object to it caused goodness knows how many problems with Vodafone’s credit people — so much so I was persona-non-grata for years. All fixed now.

Instead of getting a 30-day rolling contract, as I originally intended, I made an executive decision with Saj and hopped on to an 18 month contract. Unlimited landline calls. A paltry 120mb of data per month. 250 text messages. We. Shall. See.

This wasn’t a half baked switch. Oh no. I even took out a 15 quid a month USB broadband modem (3gb allowance). Done.

Here’s Saj sorting out approval for my new modem:

I am lock, stock and barrel Vodafone. And I love it. You can actually PHONE me and you will, provided I’m around, be able to speak to me without crackling, hissing or my calls inexplicably dropping.

I didn’t bother taking my existing number. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see just how well Plaxo works. If you’ve got me in Plaxo, you’ll already have my new number (Add me to your plaxo by searching for ewan@smstextnews.com, I’ll approve you).

If you don’t have my new number, here it is: 07769 658 104

Or, if you’re international, you want: +44 7769 658 104

And what handset did I get?

Mike, a regular SMS Text News reader, proposed in a comment last week (in the context of considering swapping to Vodafone) that I should consider getting a handset on every UK network sequentially to try out the whole experience. He suggested that I could get a month-to-month contract (which, I’m sure is available on every network) and swap my number every three months, narrating the joy and the trauma as I went. I liked the concept.

So much so that when I found myself in Oxford Street, one of London’s oldest thoroughfares (and, perhaps obviously, one of the original roads to Oxford), I had no small amount of opportunity to consider the possibilities of Mike’s idea as I walked past Vodafone shop after Vodafone shop.

Instead of giving into Mr Capitalist, I decided to give my business to Vodafone’s official reseller, Phones4U.

First, a quick bit of historical context:

There are two large mobile phone chains in the United Kingdom — Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U. Carphone Warehouse, whatever your own experiences, are generally recognised as a shining angel in the historically dodgy industry of mobile phone retailing. Phones4U, on the other hand, regularly encourage their jackal-like sales people to hang around outside their stores brandishing special offer flyers and a rough line in high pressure sales pitch. The customer service, no doubt good under their previous owner and now uber billionaire, John Cauldwell, has taken a serious nose dive — if the experience of many an SMS Text News reader is to be believed.

Until recently, both Carphone and Phones4U offered handsets and price plans from all networks. That was, until Vodafone decided to part company with Carphone and awarded Phone4U the exclusive gig for their new connections.

So, Phones4U = not good, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve only ever walked past their shops. I’ve never gone into one for more than a few seconds lest I get harangued by their dedicated team. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any customers in Phones4U shops just… shopping. Their strategy appears to hijack your independent thought the moment you hit the shop floor and force you to a seat and a desk and begin the sales process. No doubt an effective strategy. Not something I want if I’m just browsing. You get no such hard sell from the generally helpful Carphone lot.

But, it can’t be all that bad, right? Most of our coverage here on SMS Text News has tended to the negative with Phones4U and I’ve never done a direct ‘experiential’ evaluatory post on them before, so I thought the time was right.

Walking along Oxford Street, I confirmed my objective: I will pop into a Phones4U and get myself a 30-day Vodafone contract!

Vodafone was in my mind for multiple reasons, in particular since I’d recently got off the phone with my brother, Martin (of Bladewatch) — he was telling me he’d just done away with his T-Mobile account in favour of Vodafone so I was wired and ready.

A lay of the land — here’s the Phones4U store:

I took a deep breath, put on my best neutral face and set my expectations to normal.

Here’s what I expected:
- I expected to be greeted-and-seated within 30-60 seconds
- I reckoned there’d be an attempt to discourage me from getting a 30-day contract and up-sell me to an 18-month contract
- I reckoned I’d be dealt with by pleasant chaps (or ladies) with perhaps just a hint of high pressure, high concept, well practiced salesmanship

In I went.

I only had time to notice the confused and unhappy looking Russian couple in the corner and the bewildered looking foreign student being ’served’ at various desks around the store before I was greeted. How long ’til I was seated?

“How can I help sir?”

Good. Pleasant. There was a slight tinge of Del Boy about the chap, brown suit, ever so slightly fake smile, but hey, he was friendly.

“I’d like to get a 30-day Vodafone contract, please,”

“Excellent, take a seat sir,” So, what, five seconds? Impressive, “KEIIIIIIFFF [Keith]… KEEEEIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFF,” he yelled after seating me. He was addressing a colleague across the store. Keiiiff, wasn’t paying full attention.

“KEIIIIIFFFFFF,” eventually Keith turned round, “This gent wants a Vodafone contract,” he explained, pointing at me.

There was a bit of a delay whilst my chap walked over and briefed Keith. I managed to whip out my iPhone and take this picture of the other chair next to me:

Functional.

I pointed the iPhone across the store quickly whilst I saw my chap and Keith huddling. I didn’t want anyone to see me with an iPhone, not in a Phones4U store.

I think my guy wanted to get rid off me and catch the other gent (left in the above photo, browsing the stalls). So I was handed over to Keith.

He came bounding over. Big smile. Think: Slightly better looking Gareth-from-The-Office. I immediately got the impression that he was a Class-A know-all. Just by how he was sitting.

“So, how I can I help you?” He asked. Big smile. Did I see a drop of snake oil dribbling down his temple?

Give him the benefit of the doubt, Ewan! I couldn’t help feeling like I was participating in a human version of a Turkey-shoot — that I was one large walking dollar sign.

“I’d like to get a Vodafone 30-day rolling contract please,” I began. I was about to explain that ‘I didn’t need a handset’, when my chap interrupted me. He did the know-all, inclined-head, slightly raised right eyebrow, “Let me stop you there,”

Although his version was a bit more direct.

He machined gunned, “They don’t do that!” at me.

“Sorry?” I asked, a little confused. I know they do 30-day rolling contracts. My brother just signed up for one and I was declined for one a year or so ago (billing issue, now rectified).

“They don’t do that,” he repeated, as though I was the thickest arse on the block.

“Are you sure?” I had to be sure that this was his position.

“Yup,” he said, swinging on his chair, twiddling his pencil.

“Oh. Ok,” I said, leaving a pause, expecting an up-sell.

Nothing. He didn’t try and up-sell me to anything else.

“Well, thank you for your time,” I said, getting up and walking out.

Perhaps it’s Phones4U policy not to sell 30-day contracts from Vodafone. Strange response from the sales chap though — I thought he’d be straight in there with an up-sell, particularly given the fact that I was 30 feet from a Vodafone store across the road. Which is exactly where I headed…

Having mentioned Ovi in passing with Donna and Richard from WOMWorld at Whately’s Mobile Geeks meet-up this week (he’s uber-connected, don’ t ya know!) I’ve been thinking about it some more, having not looked at it since launch, and I have to say I’m confused. So this is an audience participation opportunity - please post your thoughts in the comments.

When announced, Nokia’s Ovi seemed to me to be an excellent idea… a suite of services that would add another ‘power of the cloud’ dimension to smart phones, whilst simultaneously giving the network operators a wake-up call. It consists, currently, of:

Nokia Share - A free online media gallery with (surprise!) sharing features as well as options to publish to Flickr and Vox.

Nokia Maps - A mapping application with a pay-for routing capability.

Nokia Music - A straight-up iTunes music store competitor. The store is available via full browser or mobile device and music can be downloaded over-the-air or ’side loaded’. Also provides a streaming option.

N-Gage - A mobile gaming platform with an online catalogue of games to buy and some social networking features.

Nokia Sync - An over-the-air sync utility between your phone and computer with the option to manage contacts and calendar data via the web.

However, beyond the Ovi launch page the entire effort seems disconnected and unfinished. There’s no single user-profile or identity between them and no interfaces between the applications. Share and Maps are probably the most mature, but Share still directs users to the Twango URL - the service Nokia acquired - and Maps still wears its beta tag prominently. Music is actively being marketed (see right - this was London’s Waterloo station) with free music codes being distributed and demo handsets, but whilst on the spec sheet there’s much to recommend it (it uses Microsoft’s DRM solution so supports other capacble devices and adds streaming and re-downloading options, which are missing from iTunes) it’s a Windows / IE-only affair at present and even the Nokia reps I spoke to couldn’t explain what it could and couldn’t play. N-Gage again looks promising with big-name games firms behind the platform, but is in ‘first access’ mode supporting only the N81 handset at present. Sync is not launched yet.

Has Nokia cast its net too wide? Are they trying to do everything and achieving nothing?

Certainly the individual services will mature, but what is the aim with Ovi? Will it be a just a catalogue of services or is it destined to become more integrated? Can they be usefully integrated? Will gaming consumers, for example, be interested in mapping? And just how is Nokia going to explain to what Ovi is when most of its sales are via network operators many of whom offer competing services already?

[UPDATE: This is obviously a very current concern as The Register reports today that T-Mobile in Germany are banning Ovi-capable handsets]

Another consideration is what’s not in Ovi: Widsets (Nokia’s widgets platform), Search (on-device and internet searching) and Mosh (a sort-of mobile content sharing social network thing…), Podcasting (a podcatcher / player) and Sports Tracker (a training diary with location features). Are these destined for the scrapheap or is it Ovi that’s been left behind?

My take:

1. Nokia needs to get some focus quickly and deliver some of these products finished to the market - nothing here is ready for the Normob and so they’re not really contributing to the brand or sales.
2. The difference between free and premium features needs to be made more consistent and a single billing relationship created for all applications.
3. The Ovi brand needs some explanation or an early bath…

What do you think?

====

I’m going to take a hands-on look at the Ovi services over the next few months drop me a line at if you have any questions or suggestions you’d like included.

Ever since I returned into the UK, I’ve been suffering from a mild to semi-annoying panic issue regarding what mobile operator to standardise on.

It’s an excellent opportunity, I feel, to reexamine my mobile network of choice. When I left the UK, I maintained accounts on every UK operator except Orange and Vodafone. I’ve been no particular fan of T-Mobile UK when my calls were actually dropping regularly in the centre of London. That just wound me up more and more — and recently, I’ve been going nuts at the way their billing system works. The biggest issue that’s causing me to consider swapping from them is their data offering. Brilliant prices, yes, but they block instant messaging and various other arbitrary ports. Can’t hack that. Just can’t hack it at all.

I used to be a heavy Orange user, especially with their SPV Windows Mobile handset range, but the moment they launched a piece-of-shit ‘iTunes Killer’ service for their Windows Mobile devices (300,000 tracks at really crap quality and expensive prices — why even bother? — the service was ‘retired’ quickly), I recognised it was time to take a break from them.

Vodafone, well, historically, we’ve never got on eye-to-eye when it comes to pricing. I’m happy to pay for quality, but not stupid rates. 35p a minute to another mobile handset in the UK (after bundled minutes) doesn’t work for me and never, ever will.

Sat on the plane to Dublin this morning I was contemplating just who I should standardise on.

Truth be told, I don’t actually want to buy services from a single mobile operator limited by geography. I found it just plain stupid that I went to America and that Deutsche Telecom, owners of T-Mobile UK and USA couldn’t get their shit together to continue taking money from me. Instead I swapped to Sprint (and was delighted with service). T-Mobile UK and T-Mobile USA are individual group companies — and for some ultra DICKHEAD reason, even though my T-Mobile UK sim card is roaming on T-Mobile USA — the SAME GLOBAL COMPANY — I’m being billed international roaming rates. I’m passed that. I’m passed all that geographical rubbish. I recognise that roaming to another carrier costs money. It just does. So if I roam on Orange Italy with my T-Mobile UK handset, I get that — I get and recognise I should pay a (small) premium for using their infrastructure.

But T-Mobile? Stupid. The executives should sort it out. But why bother, eh?

For about six months or so I’ve been feeling and thinking that I don’t really want to define myself by a small, geographically limited and technologically limited mobile operator.

I’d like to have a relationship with one operator. A global operator. It’s something I’ve been mentioning now and again to Pat Phelan at MAXroam (also SMS Text News sponsor). I want one primary phone number and a series of localised numbers. Tick. MAXroam does this. I don’t want to pay to receive calls wherever I am. Tick, generally speaking, with MAXroam. I want mobile data, wherever I am — and I want 5c/5p/min calls to anywhere at any time. (Not quite possible as yet). Or I want to pay someone $100 or £100 a month for my basic mobile and data requirements, no incremental billing or surprises. Again, not quite possible from a global perspective.

So I swap back and forward in my mind.

Then on the plane I think, Vodafone. It’s about time, I reckon. Let’s hit the Vodafone frequency and swap to them.

That works for a few minutes while I work through my mind with the possibilities. Last year I felt that Vodafone was playing a smart strategy. While the rest of the industry is going Flext-style and beefing up price plan offerings, their billing team have steadfastly stuck to their guns. Yes it’s still 60p for a video message, 36p for a picture message and 12p for a text message (out of bundle) — and of course, 35p/min to other mobile networks. Last year this felt like they were dragging their heels. Stop the clock. Yeah. Vodafone Family. Yeah. The odd innovation. But when your average Vodafone customer opens their bill each month, there’s always a ’shit… shit…’ moment when they’re reminded just how expensive the service is. Now, however, I think it’s just cheeky, if anything I think it’s dated. Smart strategy though. If customers are silly enough to continue to pay outrageous 35p/min charges to call another network in the UK… take their money. And their wife.

So that’s the broad issue I have when I’m flirting with buying service from Vodafone. I don’t want to be too much of a mug, especially when you’ve got good innovation and excellent offers from the likes of 3UK… and even o2.

I arrived back at my parents house (a strategically located lay over). They’re in Billericay, Essex. Billericay is the archetypical London city commuter town. Lots of people mortgaged to the hilt, Porsche Boxters, a High Street filled with Estate Agents and one of the first commuterville towns to get it’s own gents personal grooming salons (it’s opening next month, I gather… back, sack and crack, anyone?)

I’ve been in the country 10 hours and I still haven’t made the call to T-Mobile to get a proper price plan and data service put in place. Why? Well… every time I phone up customer service, there’s a menu item on the IVR asking “if you are thinking of leaving T-Mobile press 3″ right in amongst the “press 2 for price enquiries”. I’ve called three times, heard that IVR item and wondered if I should be connecting to that department and working out a wicked deal. Hmmm.

As I marched up the High Street hunting for the Waitrose, I flirted outrageously with the concept of walking into a Vodafone shop and signing up there and then. I almost did. I spotted the Carphone Warehouse (opened in Jan 07) and crossed the road toward it. Only when I was nearby did I remember that they don’t handle Vodafone any more. Then the reality hit me. I couldn’t get a Vodafone account anywhere, for love nor money, in Billericay. I’d need to drive to a bigger town nearby. So that put a spanner in the works.

I did look extremely closely at the iPhone in the Carphone Warehouse window….

So what to do?

Well…. in the cab back from the airport this afternoon I actually found myself NOT making phone calls because I was worried about the call quality. I can’t stand calling people when my audio signal is patchy and I’ve always regularly had an issue with T-Mobile call quality on the train, in the car, or even walking down Euston Road in Central London. Strange, though, it was perfectly fine in the car today. GAHHH. What to do… what to do…

(Update: I had a few enquiries about the term “All over the shop” — it’s a British way of saying “All over the place” or “in disarray”.)

I read this article last week entitled “Why 2008 won’t be the breakthrough year for Mobile Advertising”. It was originally published in the middle of Mobile World Congress.

It makes for very good reading and clearly outlines the one caveat that is currently preventing the mobile advertising boom that has been promised for the past seven years: Advertisers simply don’t have the money to buy mobile ads. Nate Elliott also goes onto theorise that interesting things may happen in 2009 and the real (European) breakthrough will come in 2010.

After spending a few days digesting, I have to say that it is one theory that I buy into… It’s nearly here and the recently announced Mobile Ad deals laid out in that piece show this. Combine that with the consistent month on month growth rate of companies like Blyk - who have bet the farm on this particular return of investment - and you can see that we’re almost at tipping point. But, again, as the article points out, we’ve been almost at tipping point for just shy of a decade.
By way of comparison, in the UK there’s a TV programme called Skins, (it’s young, a bit good, knows its audiences and once you’ve watched a few you’re hooked) and recently E4, the younger, digital sister channel of Channel 4, started airing Season 2.

This in itself is really no big deal. However the amount of cash spent on the blanket marketing is.

You can’t get away from it!

And not in a bad way either. The TV spots are stylised; hinting at character development and yet still keeping the dark, surreal undertone that flows throughout the show. The ’skincasts’, Podcasts containing interviews with the cast members are there for you to download to your MP3 player of choice, the community is there.

One of the interesting side effects of the first season, and something the UK media like to jump when there’s a slow news day, is the amount of young teenagers throwing themed ’skins parties’ and, if you’ve ever seen the show, they don’t leave much to the imagination.

The new campaigns around season 2 are aimed at these people. Tapping into this (youth) market, this mindset is a genius move that has (probably) done wonders for their ratings. And it’s not just TV ratings these days either. Other KPIs include web hits, unique visitors, content downloads, podcast listeners, community members etc… There’s a lot to be measured.

So what about Mobile? Is all the money in mobile ads? Probably not.

Is there money to be made from mobile ads? A little, although not the billions that everyone thinks. Not yet anyway. Not without some joined-up thinking around context vs content etc…

2yrs ago I was told ‘Content is King’, I said then what I still say now. Context is King. You can send me as much content as you like but if it doesn’t speak to me, I ain’t buying.

I digress.

Taking a look at the E4 mobile proposition.

Simple, optimised content which is easy to consume – Basic Mobile Web 101 (but I’ve talked about this before)

Taking a closer look – There are three tabs: Telly, Goss and… SKINS!

Brilliant - Not only that but you can watch a clip from Skins Episode 3 right now – one click away.

That’s great. Not just for the end-user experience but it speaks shedloads about the level of internal buy-in from all parties within the offices of E4.

Skins is clearly their ‘hero’ show for this season and is one of the channel’s better IPs.

This is a fantastic example of a blanket marketing campaign.

Mobile advertising needs to adopt similar thinking. You can’t just throw something into the mobile web and just expect it to work. You need strategy and process. Without this mobile advertising will never be the goose that will lay the golden egg. But it could well be a part of a few select bronze egg laying battery chickens.

The point I’m trying to make with the Skins example is that agencies and big media brands are finally coming to realise the amount of potential that lies in digital media. Mobile is part (albeit a new part) of this space.

And it won’t be long until they catch on. It just needs someone, or something, to make that first leap into the unknown.

With apologies to those seeking analysis or a product review (what are you reading my rubbish for anyway?), this week’s piece is a self-indulgent rant about a mobile payment service gone wrong… a ‘how not-to’ guide if you like. My interest in the matter? An £80 ( $160) ‘penalty charge’ notice sitting on the table in front of me for just over 2 hours of parking that I paid for in full.

—-

Let me explain…

Central London is a place where, frankly, you need to have suffered a serious head-injury before driving around it seems like a good idea. However, in December it was unavoidable and I found myself crawling through the West End traffic, the streets thronged with Christmas shoppers. Having taken several hours to make only a few miles progress we decided to drive directly to our destination rather than parking at the hotel as planned.

Unusually quickly we located a road-side parking space close-by and I braced myself for the cost… £12 ($24) for the 3 hours we needed. My heart sank - we had enough money with us, but not in the coins usually required for on-street parking. Good news - this street was within the area where Westminster Council had replaced traditional parking meters with a ‘pay by phone’ system. This, surely, was a genius idea… and where it all went wrong.

Problem 1 - Register by text: The nearby signage presented two options… pay by call or text. However, paying by text required sending a message including the full credit-card details and car registration. I decided against this, unhappy with the security implications. It was also disappointing I needed to use a credit-card at all - why couldn’t I pay by ‘premium text’ like I do for other services? I rang the number instead.

Problem 2 - The call’s not free: I’m about to pay out for parking that’s about the most expensive I’ve ever seen, but to register for it or speak to customer services an ‘0870‘ number is provided - that is a number that is charged at a premium by most network operators (20p a minute by O2) and cannot be taken from bundled allowance of minutes.

Problem 3 - “Press 2, then 4, then 3, then something else”: I navigated through the interactive system’s voice menus in the usual fashion. It was slow, but not the worst I’d used. Then came the worse bit:

“Enter credit card number” tap tap tap… [16 digits]

“Is that correct?” [1 digit]

“Enter expiry date” [4 digits]

“Is that correct?” [1 digit]

“Enter the car registration plate.  For A to C press 1.  For A press 1, for B press 2… etc” [14 digits]

“Is that correct?” [1 digit]

“Enter the location code” [4 digits]

“Is that correct?” [1 digit]

42 key presses, just for the basic information for the transaction! With only one correction for a typo, I’d now been on the phone for just over 10 minutes listening to prompts and entering information.

Problem 4 - You’re charging me for a receipt!!?!: The next question surprised me. Did I want to pay for a text confirmation? Well, no, I didn’t want to pay, but I certainly wanted to be sure the transaction had completed so I opted to pay 10p each for a confirmation and a warning towards the end of the paid period. Not much I agree, but I’m not in the habit of paying for a receipt from any other organisation! Oh and the call’s cost me almost £3 by now too…

Problem 4 - It needs to be simple, dummy: So having paid my 3 hours, spent what felt like a good portion of that time negotiating the payment system and been charged premium calling cost we headed off, my iPhone buzzing in my pocket as the confirmation came through. When we returned to the car I was surprised to see it had been ticketed… It turns out the location code to be entered is quite specific to the group of spaces it is posted by and in this case is only on one sign. I’d not seen it (8 feet in the air and facing away from the pavement) and misread a second sign entering the example location details in error. The system accepted this without any apparent validation and so I paid for a space that doesn’t exist. Excellent… and I’m not the only one.

In summary: A mobile transaction should be quicker, more simple and cheaper than a cash-based system. This wasn’t and hasn’t paid much (any?) attention to the user experience. It’s likely much of this may sound familiar to people far away from London too - the suppliers of this system appear to operate similar services around the world and although I’m not sure I can blame them for any / all of this, it is a stand-out case of how not to provide a mobile service. Westminster Council’s press information bangs on about ‘ease of use’ and ‘encouraging e-government’ but in one go it’s put me off using mobile payments for anything (financially) important in the future. Note the numbers here: over 200,000 people use this system and over a third of those surveyed were not satisfied or did not find it easy to use.

I have, of course, lodged an appeal, but 2 months of letter writing and form filling wasn’t what I anticipated when I decided to ‘quickly pay by phone’.

Have you come across Funambol recently? I’ve been hearing their name quite regularly for a while now (they’ve been giving RIM quite a run for their money recently). Just last night, I found Funambol on my installer.app list on my iPhone so downloaded it to take a look. Very smart. Anyway, first, quick primer on the company:

Funambol provides mobile 2.0 messaging software powered by open source. The company is the leading provider of open source push email and PIM sync solutions for the mass market. Funambol open source has been downloaded more than 1,500,000 times by 10,000 developers in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed at service providers, mobile operators, portals, device manufacturers and ISVs including customers such as 1&1, Earthlink and Computer Associates. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, CA with an R&D center in Italy.

Now, let’s take a look at the Mobile Day of Funambol’s CEO, Fabrizio Capobianco (that’s a small picture of him, above):

- - -

7:05 - the radio starts, somebody is talking about something stupid as usual. Why can’t I set up a system that wakes me up with the sound of waves like in the movies?

7:10 - wife is back snoring, better get up and prepare breakfast

7:15 - daughter (4 years old) asks for Topo Gigio, an Italian cartoon. I play it for her in my hacked DVD player, which plays movies from every region. The region thing is insane. How would my daughter learn Italian in the US, otherwise? Give us a worldwide open DVD system, please”¦

7:25 - Cappuccino is ready. It is the only thing I do around the house, but I do it with pride. Everything else in my life is done by my wife, who is just putting the finishing touches on my bag (I am flying out to Europe tonight). I would be in Frankfurt walking around in shorts in February, without her.

7:40 - I am in the restroom, where I substituted the classical magazine with the iPhone. I check email and read feeds via Netvibes (I have two tabs, one called mobile with the feeds I care most about. Otherwise, it is too slow on the iPhone, even with wi-fi)

7:45 - daughter comes looking for my iPhone. She wants to check the weather. Swipes it off, asks “is this Menlo Park or Pavia?” (she can swipe but she can’t read yet”¦). Darn, weather is going to be great in Menlo Park this week, why am I flying to freezing Germany tonight?

7:50 - Daughter disappears with the iPhone playing some crazy Mika music. I wish I was still four.

8:00 - On my laptop, connected with my external keyboard and monitor, I check email with Outlook and Skype away with colleagues in Europe (with one-ear headset and microphone, looking like a customer support representative which will be with you in a moment).

8:30 - daughter comes again, this time asking to see Sesame Street on TV. I fire up my SlingPlayer on the laptop, connect to my TV in the other room and select Sesame Street on my TiVo. Without moving from my chair. Laziness forever.

9:00 - drop daughter at the childcare where she tells me I should not go on a business trip for 10 weeks because it is too long. I tried to explain it is 10 days but she still claims it is too long. I promise I will videoskype her the next day and she tells me she can’t hug me through the computer. I shut up and sadly kiss her bye bye.

9:05- get on 101 just when the carpool lanes open. I love my seven minute commute, especially later in the season when I can take the top off my New Beetle (in California, I can do it for seven months in a row”¦).

9:10 - in the office parking lot I check new emails on my Windows Mobile Treo 700w with Verizon (on EVDO, which is 3G). I know it is stupid, because I can walk upstairs and read them on my laptop, but this is my only addiction (together with Nutella), so please do not bother me.

10:00 - I spend some time installing the new Funambol JavaME email client, with mobile advertising powered by Amobee, on my RAZR. I use it only for demos, linked to my Gmail account. The guys in Italy delivered the client this morning (time zone difference rocks!). I see it for the first time. It shows me an ad with La Sagrada Familia and beeps when an email is pushed to it. Awesome, I am ready for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week!

11:00 - meeting in the office, no mobile devices but great coffee. My Lavazza coffee machine delivers the best coffee in Silicon Valley.

12:00 - quick Capri panino at AG Ferrari in Belmont. Love the place and the food. They mix up the orders at least 50% of the times. I feel like home.

12:30 - I leave the office for a meeting at a customer site. To get directions, I take out my iPhone and try the Location feature and get direction to their office. It works smoothly. Who said you need GPS for location-aware services? Can Google give us that API on every phone where they have maps? Yes, they can and they will.

13:00 - I show off the JavaME client to the customer, and I get an “ahhh, if you do it like that it could work: it does not look like spam, the ad is not in the face of the user!”. Bingo, we are on the right track. Open source will finally be free.

15:00 - I am back in the office and I play a foosball game. I haven’t lost one game this year so far. This one is close, gets interrupted by the arrival of my next meeting, but we finish anyway (priorities are properly set at Funambol). Nope, streak still good, maybe next time, sorry Ata.

16:00 - I realize I am missing the notes for my iPhone (which I need for the trip) and I left them on my desktop at home. I use LogMeIn and take control of the remote computer, then use Skype to send a file back to my laptop. Just when I am done, my wife buzzes me on Skype and tells me to leave the computer alone. She got scared when the mouse started moving by itself. That’s life in the technology lane”¦

16:30 - The Windows Mobile phone won’t work in Europe (it is CDMA), so I sync contacts on my iPhone with the Funambol iPhone client. Works like a charm. I am ready to go.

17:00 - time to leave for the airport. Halfway, I decide to use a different long-term parking than usual. Anza parking is nice, with the free valet, but their bus never shows up. I am going to try Fasttrack, because I always use it when I leave from Oakland and their bus is there right when I land. I search for it with the Google Maps application on the Windows Mobile. Found it, got directions. When I need to know where to turn, the damn thing shows an http error and the application quits. Didn’t they hire only PhDs at Google? I want to meet the guy who designed the map application sitting in his office with the lava lamps all day, assuming my phone will keep the connection when I am driving. I bet he lives in London. Dude, here the network sucks. Carrier ads are about “lowest dropped calls””¦ The connection will drop. And do not tell me I should not use the application while driving. The iPhone Google Maps works perfectly, because Steve Jobs tried it while driving and yelled at your team”¦

18:00 - despite missing the exit, I get to the airport on time, and while I check-in, it appears I do not have a ticket for my second leg of the trip (London to Frankfurt). But my email said “Booked and Confirmed”! “Sorry Sir, we’ll fix it”. I am sitting on the luggage scale and I open my SlingPlayer on the Windows Mobile. I am watching the news I taped on TiVo about last night’s election. I won on every proposition, that’s good. I feel I could vote for any of the three candidates left for President. That’s even better. A sad thought goes to the future Italian election, but then the BA lady gives me my ticket and I am off to the lounge (Tip1 for entrepreneur: never keep miles for pleasure trips, always use them to upgrade to business. Tip2: if you want to be Gold on BA, just switch your country of residence to Italy. It requires half the miles than if you reside in the US. Odd). I realize that watching TV on my phone for free, I am violating my contract with Verizon. Why did they give me a 3G phone with unlimited data? For email??

19:30 - I am on the plane. I forward my cell calls to my SkypeIn number. From there, I will forward them to my local cell phone in Europe and I will save a bundle (yes, Funambol is a startup, roaming charges are a rip-off). I call my wife to say good bye and turn off all my mobile devices. In a near future, I will be able to keep them on. My flight will be a nightmare. Flying is about a book, a movie and lots of silence. Please do not allow me to keep the mobile phone on. You know, I am addicted to it.

20:30 - Dinner is served. British are not really famous for food. There is a reason.

22:30 - I am ready to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a short day.

- - -

Genius stuff Fabrizio — thank you for taking the time to record the diary!