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!

The chaps at Moovera have been busy. Very busy. Fresh from kitting out services for both Stagecoach (Oxford to London) and National Express (Cambridge to London) with WiFi, they’ve just gone live with free WiFi on the First Cymru Shuttle100 bus service between Swansea and Cardiff.

Kudos to First Group, the owners of First Cymru, for introducing the facility at no charge to customers. The 42 mile Swansea/Cardiff route takes about an hour, on average so I am confident that quite a few passengers will leap at the chance to check their email or knock about on the internet during the journey. If I found myself having to travel this route, I’d certainly be more interested in taking a First Cymru bus, rather than other transport alternatives as a result of this new offering. Anyone contemplating having a meeting in either city would do well to take along their laptop for the ride.

Justin Davies, MD of First Cymru, has posted this on their news page:

We now have fitted WiFi equipment to coaches working on the Swansea to Cardiff ‘Shuttle100′ service. We have invested £10K in the new technology which means that you will be able to browse your favourite web sites and check emails free of charge whilst travelling on the coach. We are the first operator in Wales to adopt this technology across a dedicated route and fleet of coaches. The service runs between the two cities up to 16 times a day on weekdays, and hourly on Sundays, offering value for money fares. Shuttle100 also serves Bridgend Designer Outlet. Remember, you can buy your Shuttle ticket on local buses in Swansea, so that your journey to the Quadrant Bus Station is free.

I think it’s a smart decision by First Cymru. The case study (pdf link) on Moovera’s site about the Stagecoach implementation reports that during the first six months of operation, 8,500 unique users accessed the on-Bus WiFi over 40,000 times.

It’s ye olde Big Red — Vodafone — behind the First Cymru (and Stagecoach) services and T-Mobile behind the National Express service (pdf link).

I’ve never actually been to Wales — not once, which is, I think, a sad state of affairs. If time permits, I will get over to Cardiff and check out the First Cymru on-board WiFi service. Has anyone come across similar ‘on-bus’ (or train) services around the world? (I had a look on Greyhound.com but didn’t see any references to on-board WiFi)

Writing this, I was also reminded of BlackAdder’s advice on Wales, perhaps rendered obsolete if you can use your laptop or mobile to look up google maps on-board:

“Never ask for directions in Wales, Baldrick. You’ll be washing spit off your face for a fortnight.”

If you’re reading in London at the moment, get the next flight from LHR to SFO and, theoretically, I’ll see you at Unlimited Drinks San Francisco this evening.

I’m looking forward to meeting everyone — there are more details about tonight’s event here. If you’d like to come along, email me and I’ll send you directions.

James Whatley, newly returned from Mobile World Congress, documents his burgeoning excitement at the social networking possibilities with Nokia’s N-Gage. Sadly, standby for the ‘er, not at the moment’ responses from Nokia…

- - -

MWC - Wow. Cool. Loved it.

I was there on official business with SpinVox and the one KPI I had was to make sure that the headlines on the SpinVox message board were updated constantly. (See pic below)

So off I trotted around the congress to get the latest news and views and convert them, quite literally, into text.

And where did I end up? In all sorts of places… one of those places just happened to be the Nokia hospitality suite, on-hand and asking questions to the product managers of their new devices and services… The one I want to write about today? N-Gage… and what fell out of that particular session.

Here goes:

If we, the power users, (according to Jaakko Kaidesoja, lead director at N-Gage) define how future handsets will be created/designed then please, please, PLEASE allow us to DO MORE.

So - what do I want to ‘do’? Well, me personally? Not that much. I just want to have the option — the ability to do more with my devices.

Sitting in the Q&A with Jaakko, it struck me what was missing.

It was odd that, of the four Product Manager Q&A sessions that I was able to attend at MWC; OVI, N78, N96 and N-Gage respectively, the one I thought I would enjoy the least was the one that had the most potential.

Given that I went into the N-Gage Q&A thinking that I probably wouldn’t enjoy it that much, Ricky ‘Symbian-Guru‘ Cadden and I, have often traded blows about mobile gaming (he loves it and I hate it), I was immensely surprised at a) how much it got my brain going and b) how much untapped potential S60 apps as have as a whole.

Maybe it was thanks to the previous three sessions I attended that this one got my brain ticking over so much. Geo Tagging for example, something I wrote about recently and has been possible (thanks to ShoZu) for over a year, is now ‘as standard’ across Nokia’s new hero handsets (the N78 and N96) but - hey guys, why stop at images?

The three questions I put to Jaakko were as follows:

Forgive if I’m taking this a step too far but given that the geo tagging functionality has been announced recently, wouldn’t it be cool if I could geo-tag my stats? i.e.: “Dude! I was HERE when I beat you!”

Jakko: That’s not possible but a good idea

Can I upload my stats to my OVI?

Jakko: Not yet, but it is something we would look at in the future

Can I sync my N-Gage contacts with the contacts in my phonebook?”

Jakko: Not yet, but it is something we would look at in the future

THIS is when my brain went into overdrive and I started systematically going through the applications on my handset to find which ones would make logical sense to link up. Starting with N-Gage, why can’t I browse my contacts, click on Ricky and send/book him a time to play [insert ngage game title here]? Ricky would then get an invite from me which he could accept, and in the background the handset would place an appointment into his calendar and link my name with my N-Gage username on his phone - synchronicity inside N-Gage and out - it just makes sense.

I can already attach images and suchlike to contacts; MP3s/Ringtones for example (which is great if you’re away from your phone; Imperial March playing? That’ll be Mum) so, let’s do more.

Given the functionality demonstrated by Jaiku’s presence information, and also some features which are disabled in the current client (but have been seen on the private beta - ie: direct to stream photo uploads and ‘what am I listening to?’ - last.fm-esque scrobbling on the move).

If Nokia can build in Location tagging, (which, to be honest, is a big ME TOO app that everyone will applaud them for, and yet us early adopters will continue to thank ShoZu) then why not put presence in as well?

This whole stream of consciousness leads me into what originally got me worked up. Strategic alignment across S60 (and why stop there?) applications.

Why not link everything up?!

Only by enabling these things from the off and N-Gaging (heh) the consumer with simple and easy to understand education, will you benefit from mass-adoption.

And I’ll leave it there, for now.

I’ve got a lot more that will hopefully filter through over the coming weeks.

So, stay tuned…

- - -

Thanks for that James. The ‘not yet’ responses really irritated the hell out of me because, I like you, think that there are a wealth of applications that could be — or should be — integrated into N-Gage that would make it a fabulous experience.

I’m severely unimpressed that you’re suggesting ideas to the product manager who’s telling you it’s a ‘good idea’. They should be light years ahead of us. Shouldn’t they? Or, maybe not.

There I go again. Me and my huge expectations. I keep setting my expectations at the wrong point with Nokia. My newly acquired management solution for this is to sit down, shut up and think of England, rather than get too frustrated.

More about N-Gage at n-gage.com.

When I met Bob Plaschke, top chap at Sonim Technologies, a few weeks ago, he arrived with two JCB Toughphones. One was for me to play about with — a review unit — the other was for me to smash.

I smiled when he arrived. Anyone else would have done a fake smile, I think — me, I was far too concerned about the possibility of trying to smash a handset (especially with it’s ultimate owner sat opposite me). Sacrilege.

You couldn’t meet a nicer chap than Bob, which made it doubly hard to walk out into the forecourt of the Four Seasons in Palo Alto and have a go at trying to smash up the world’s premiere unsmashable handset. Egged on by Bob, I took threw the handset about 5 ft in the air and made a stupidly girly face whilst I waited for it to hit the cobbled stones.

Nothing.

The handset bounced once or twice and came to a rest.

“Right,” exclaimed Bob, “Switch it on, let’s try it out…”

A few seconds later, the JCB had switched on and was operational.

“That’s fantastic,” I said, astounded at the solid nature of the handset as I made to walk back into the hotel.

“Ok, but really throw it this time,” ordered Bob, handing me back the device.

I did a blank look at him. We’d proved the point. The device worked.

But Bob — correctly — wasn’t having any of that.

“REALLY throw it. I mean REALLY — as hard as you can, I want you to break this one, it’s excellent feedback for our team,” he instructed.

I’m firmly from the school of thought that every time you kill a handset like I’d been trying to do here, a small cute fairy dies somewhere — so this is difficult work for me.

Bellhops, the ladies on reception and the diners at the Four Seasons restaurant were all peering out at me as I took another step forward and three the JCB handset about… what… 45 feet in the air.

It landed with a sickening smashing.

I closed my eyes, expecting Bob to utter a few phrases like, “Er, well… well done…”

Opened my eyes.

No, there it was. Sat on the stone floor, fine. Turned it on. Geez, it’s solid.

“So, no messing about this time Ewan, really, really throw it…” Bob says, as he hands me back the handset.

I’m contemplating just how far I can throw the JCB as Bob starts hunting around for something to slam the handset into that might actually cause some damage.

Determined not to let the viewing public at the Four Seasons down, I summoned a considerable amount of strength and threw the handset as hard and as fast as I could up into the air.

I still couldn’t watch it hit the floor.

It landed — and this time — ah hah! Result!

After an eighty feet fall (I think it must have been about 80ft, I didn’t measure it), the handset came spinning down and smashed open.

“Oh arse,” I thought, thinking of a little fairy popping out of existence.

“Hmm let me see,” says Bob, pouring over the handset’s casing, eager to see exactly what happened. I note that the device itself is perfectly fine apart from mild scratching of the plastic sides (”that rubs off, look,” demonstrates Bob). I look to the floor and see that the battery and it’s casing were on the floor.

“Ah yes,” says Bob, “See here, it came down with such force that the little latch we use to keep the battery in place broke,” he continues, “But the phone will still work fine, watch.”

You know how if you drop your Nokia N95 on a hard floor from about 2ft — if it falls from a desk or something — and it smashes open — battery, battery compartment and device? That’s what happened. Only this was from 80ft. And the device still worked fine.

“We identified that vulnerability a while ago,” says Bob, busy putting the battery and case back on, “It’s already fixed in the next version.”

Wow.

A few seconds later, the JCB screen lights up and it’s making a call. Amazing stuff.

“Ok, again,” says Bob, “I want to prove to you that this thing is indestructible!”

100ft. 150ft lob. Slamming on the ground as hard as possible. All fine.

“Blender?” I asked.

“We tried that,” Bob grins, “But the handset broke it.”

“Car?”

“Fine. Anything. A tank, if you’ve got one.”

Er. No tanks spare that I could see in Palo Alto, so I took Bob’s word for it. I believe him too.

The handset operates in all sorts of conditions and copes with nearly everything your general sane individual can throw at it. (I’m talking temperature, heat, dropping and so on — not chainsaws and incinerators). This model, the XP1, is even splash proof. There’s another one coming out soon, Bob tells me, that will be entirely waterproof to some ridiculous level. And it’ll float.

Who will buy one? Apart from ultra geeks like me? Well, lots of people who don’t want their regular handset to break at the slightest hint of mistreatment: Builders, sailors, adventure enthusiasts, skiers…

… speaking of which… I’m in Tahoe right now. Outside the mighty Lake Tahoe stretches away — a pale blue expanse of 700 year old water, surrounded by lots and lots of mountains. All of which have snow on them.

So I’m taking the JCB skiing with me. I’m going to subject it to the elements — and I’m going to make a call with it from the top of the mountain and see how it performs.

More shortly.

Ricky Chotai’s back with another BlykWatch column charting his experience of UK ad-funded MVNO, Blyk. This week, amongst other things, Ricky points out that Blyk’s ‘free texts and calls’ model is missing what many youngsters are now demanding: data.

- - -

Monday 11th February 2008
A brand message from Blyk Music today, letting me know a new single by the Long Blonds was being played for the first time on radio one. A good SMS, however I have no idea who they are, and honestly I do not care. However had it been a band/ artist I liked it would have been a really useful SMS.

Tuesday 12th February 2008
No brand messages today, oh well. However I would like to talk about the arrival of the magic E (The what?) Well it’s the first time I have seen the symbol, (it’s a new phone) so I am sure it indicates that I can use the faster internet with EDGE. I thought, ‘that’s great I have never had an EDGE phone before now and never tried the speed.’

However as a Blyk user, I can only browse the Blyk portal at no charge — and it’s really boring — all it tells me how many minutes and texts I have left. Blyk: Please please give me some free data, so I can go on mobile messenger and check my Facebook. I am not asking for loads just a bit of data to do these things. I know Orange Blyk’s partner in the UK has rubbish rates for data but Blyk, come on sort it out, you are missing out on what your target audience want.

Wednesday 13th February 2008
BLYK launches in the Netherlands — that’s what I learnt from the forum today. Thinking about it it’s great news especially if I could use my free balance on other BLYK networks, a bit like Three-like-home. However no plans were mentioned about this as yet. I hope they do, imagine what the other networks would do???

I received a brand message from swatch, telling me I could win a trip to Paris for me and my loved one ( I don’t have one BLYK, I ticked that box saying that I am single). I could enter via the web or by calling into the store in London, great if you live in London I don’t so not very good for me and I couldn’t be bothered going on the site. One interesting points is that it said over 18’s only now did BLYK send it to all its members or only the over 18’s, I wonder???

Another brand message from HEAT magazine, I deleted that one very quickly.

I also received a personal text from Lucy from member care. Last night I tried to update my email (I have just changed email address) and guess what? There was no option anywhere on the site to change it! So I had to email member care, and I got a nice SMS back from Lucy telling me she had changed it. Nice personal touch however a bog standard email reply would have done! I replied back saying thank you, but I suspect I don’t think it actually got back to my friend Lucy.

Thursday 14th February 2008
Valentine’s Day and I got another MMS from Swatch asking me if ‘my moves were hot’? I replied (for free of course) and I got a reply saying they weren’t. Heh. However their advice was to buy a loved one a swatch. Firstly I am bloody single, I filled in BLYKs profiling questions, and the second is a Swatch? Are they being serious I have not topped my BLYK phone up and they want me to buy a swatch. Wonders will never cease….

Another brand message from The Long Blonds, this time telling me locations of their gigs and where I can buy tickets. Another great message had it been about someone I liked, I still have not listened to any of The Long Blonds, maybe I should!!

Finally 2 missed calls from a withheld number, mystery lover perhaps? I have no idea who it was as I missed them. However it could be one of the chief’s of BLYK? Who knows??? BLYK do of course!! J

Friday 15th February 2008
I got 2 messages today, one telling I can reply to certain brand messages for free. Well Duuh, if they bothered to look on the system they would see that I have been doing that. Sometimes I think BLYK know so much about me, so why not send relevant messages, one of the ways BLYK was sold was that BLYK learns and interacts with you…. Well not with me, or maybe it just takes a long time to learn?? Ha Ha

Another Heat scoop, however asking me a question however I was in the pub so I could not be bothered to reply.

The other important thing is that as I am writing this at about 2am Saturday Morning I cannot send any texts. Looks like BLYK’s SMS server is playing up. Again.

Saturday 16th February 2008
Messages are not sending all of today, sometimes they say sent but don’t deliver other times there are delays on the texts. However I have no idea which, so I have been using my main phone to send ALL my texts. Posted on the forum and the engineers are aware of the problem. Why do they not email every member or SMS us??? I am slowly getting used to these problems now but it just means I cannot rely on my messages being sent!

Brand message from STA travel asking if I wanted to go trekking to Thailand, sadly I did not take them up on their offer for GBP 135. However if you willing to pay for me just get in contact with Ewan!

Sunday 17th February 2008
Sunday the day of rest, for most of us, not if you are BLYK engineer fixing their SMS server which has been intermittent all day.

Some messages are still not being sent and you have to resend it. Delivery reports are still not operational so you never really know. I have just sent another test and they are now delivering with a small time delay.

BLYK also has a new SMS tag for outgoing texts, it reads ‘Discover Cooling Crystals with Colgate Max Fresh’ now the previous ones advertising BLYK were not so bad but this new one does not make much sense. Imagine texting your friend about what time you are meeting and finding that tagged on the end!

That’s another week of me using a BLYK. The only thing I wish to add is that if BLYK are trying to contact me (I am convinced they are watching me), email Ewan who can gladly forward any emails to me. The only question is what do they want from me????

- - -

Just a little love, Ricky

Another interesting week on the BlykWatch. Data could very well be a key offering for many of Blyk’s target audience…

The elephant in the room: Have Google missed the mark with Android so far?

Now Mobile World Congress is over the flood of news is slowing enough to step back and assess what we’ve seen. S60 got a pretty consistent ‘C-’ grade for their Touch demo, but I’m a bit surprised no-one has taken Google to task for their poor Android showing… OK, we saw a few prototypes and even a demo running on some production hardware, but aside from some gripes about the interface the reviewers singularly failed to call Google out on the biggest issue… Android at the moment is looking like ‘just another mobile platform’.

This C|Net piece hints at the problem, asking if we really need 4 mobile platforms: Windows Mobile, Symbian, Mobile Linux (not sure I’d include that one yet) and now Android? But the question should be “What innovation are Google offering over the competition?” I’ve no doubt it will be a great open platform, making it easy for new hardware to come to market and encouraging a whole raft of applications, but that really should be a given… With the hind-site of watching Symbian’s development alone over the last few years it should be possible for a half-competent organisation to produce something more elegant and Google has the brains to do a cracking job. But I was hoping for so much more. Where’s the support in ‘the cloud’ that Google excels at that would make an Android phone more appealing than the alternatives?

Take a look here. It’s the ‘Google APIs and Services’ section of the Android site. What do you see? A Google Maps interface and (effectively) a Google Talk interface… and that’s it. Where’s the advertising, calendar, contacts, online storage or YouTube interfaces? Certainly all of those things will be available via the browser for the consumer, probably customised like the current iPhone ones, but that’s not new. Android could have really shaken things up by providing interfaces so that application developers could utilise these services right from the start.

I appreciate Android phones purely tied to Google services would lack appeal, but there’s no reason for any of this to be either mandatory or exclusive to them. Google just need to capitalise on what has already made them world-leaders in so many other areas. Still, here we are - Google are giving away $10 million for the best applications developed for Android and they seem determined to do this with one hand tied behind the development community’s collective backs for no apparent good reason…

I wouldn’t go so far as to say Android is dead, but someone needs to shift it up a gear.

I asked our resident 15 year old, Issah, to talk to a variety of students at his school in East London, UK, to establish their viewpoint on Sony Ericsson vs LG. I find it absolutely fascinating to read how the normobs (”normal mobile users”) — and in particular, the young — view mobile brands.

Issah’s also given us the age of each respondent. We’ve got a good selection. Here we go:

Saif Janab, 14: “The thing about LG phones is that I don’t think that they were targeted at people my age, I wouldn’t buy one personally.”

Osman Abdul-Moomin, 12: “I don’t think that many teenagers know enough about LG and so they don’t bother buying them.”

Sonia Krakowiak, 15: “LG phones are great they are really durable and have great memory. I think that if they were advertised better they would be really popular among people my age.”

Nasir Mahmood, 15: “LG seems to be aimed more at adult business types and less to teenagers.

James Torrence, 18: “I would not buy an LG phones because they tend to break too easily and they don’t suit my needs. If they improved my problem and aimed some more of their good advertising to people my age, then maybe.”

Sean O’Shea, 17: “I previously owned a Sony Ericsson handset and I was happy with it. I think Sony Ericsson has a great image and is really popular with younger people.”

Sadik Kamara, 13: “I like Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series, it puts lots of emphasis on music and that is what I use my phone for mostly after calling and texting.”

Owen Willoughby, 19: “Teens want everything served to them on a plate. I reckon that is the key to Sony Ericsson’s success, their great advertising.”

Niranjini Thureyesan, 16: I love Sony Ericsson phones because they are stylish, very easy to use and have lots of memory for storing pictures and music.

Nina Smith, 15: “They (Sony Ericsson) do amazing phones, because they have extremely good cameras and the walkman means I don’t need to buy a separate mp3 player.”

John Hagg, 16: “I think that [my] Sony Ericsson is overrated, it is a mediocre phone and everyone owns it. I would go for a more exclusive phone.”

Thanks Issah!

Happy Valentines day one and all. Instead of sending a virtual gift to your mates on Facebook, how about sending a Mars Bar? The Light Agency, working on behalf of Mars Snackfoods, have come up with a Facebook application that lets you do just that.

Here’s how, according to the news release I got this morning, the process works:

Celebrate, an innovative application that allows Facebook users in the UK to send friends real gifts launches on the 14th of February. Celebrate is the first application of its kind to be built on Facebook Platform that will allow the website’s UK users to choose from a range of Mars confectionery gifts from the Celebrate Sweet Shop.

Facebook currently allows users to send friends virtual gifts but the Celebrate application takes this premise further by allowing them to send a real and tangible gift through Celebrate.

The new service is quick and easy to use. Users simply select the gift they wish to send, select a friend, add a message and pay for the gift via tokens on their PayPal account. A message is sent to the gift recipient and they are then requested to provide their mobile number to receive a unique Celebrate Voucher ID and details of the gifts via SMS text to their mobile. To collect the gift, they simply visit a participating PayPoint retailer/stockist and show the Celebrate Voucher ID where it is scanned at the terminal.

Details are sketchy… I have no photos or even a Facebook Application link for you — and the above text reads to me as though the recipient is sent some sort of barcode to their phone. If that’s the case, then this is quite an innovative use of the technology. I’ll try and find out more soon.

UPDATE: Here are some screenshots:

While I’ve been nodding gently and with reasonable excitement at the likes of Samsung’s new handsets, Nokia’s announcements (the N96 does look gorgeous) and Yahoo’s oneConnect strategy.

But nothing new or totally unexpected has really caught my attention. At least that was the case until I came across Readius from Polymer Vision. I didn’t get an announcement, a release or anything about this! In fact I almost missed it!

Versions of the device have been around since last year’s 3GSM — however the current version looks very much ready for production. Here’s hoping. I’ve no word on whether you can buy one yet.
The concept is pure genius.

Readius is a small device, 115 x 57 x 21 millimeters (when closed). It’s principally an e-Reader, although it also functions has a tri-band handset allowing worldwide calls — and of course, ‘high speed instant updates’ from ‘personally selected news sources’ (like SMS Text News!).

You can read for up to 30 hours on one battery charge (no word on call time). The fold-out screen has ‘twice the surface area of the current largest phone display’ (the iPhone is 3.5″ in case you were wondering). Bluetooth 2.0, 256mb of internal storage (up to 8GB with MicroSD), and it’ll function as a mass storage device when connected to your PC.

I’m sold. I really like the concept.

A few sites around the world are reporting that the Readius should be available to the public mid-2008. There is, alas, a dearth of current information. I’ll try and find some more soon.

Yahoo really are pushing forward with their mobile efforts — it really is gratifying to see.

Let’s hear from Marco Boerries, Exec VP of Yahoo’s Connected Life:

“Last year we set out to reinvent mobile search with Yahoo! oneSearch, and today with 29 operator partnerships around the world covering more than 600 million subscribers, we believe we have certainly succeeded,” said Marco. “Now, we intend to reinvent mobile communications through Yahoo! oneConnect, a revolutionary new mobile communications service that will combine integrated mobile messaging with a socially-connected address book.”

The architecutre is open — plus it’s aiming to offer an entirely connected experience, whether your friends are on Yahoo, MSN or beyond. I think this ‘new level of convenience’ could be a real catalyst to converting hte normobs (”normal mobile users”) to use their handsets for more than just calling and texting. Provided, that is, they’re not being stiffed for unreasonable data rates.

Some of the key features of oneConnect include:

– Socially-connected address book - Provide users the capability to integrate activity from popular social networks, professional networks, and communities into their address book, keeping it always in sync. Consumers will be able to view status updates, photo uploads, and the recent activity (”pulse”) of contacts across all their networks.

Interesting, interesting. This could be rather smart, particularly given Yahoo’s ownership of the likes of Flickr.

– Integrated mobile messaging - Offer seamless integration of IM and SMS, including threaded conversations. Any messaging service will be able to use Yahoo! oneConnect’s open APIs to plug into the application’s messaging feature - enabling consumers to access a wide range of popular services, such as Yahoo! Messenger, Google(R) Talk, AOL(R) Instant Messenger and MSN(TM) Messenger.

I wonder how the application will function. I’ll definitely check this one out.

– Status - Give consumers the capability to view their contacts by their most recent status updates on popular social networks, as well as update their own status on their favorite social networks - in one easy step - and automatically broadcast it to their friends.

If they pull together Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, it could be rather compelling.

– Pulse - Provide consumers the functionality to see a dynamic overview of what friends are up to, including recent photos, their status, profile updates, and recommendations based on their most recent actions on popular social networks.

– Favorites - Keep the people consumers interact with most at their fingertips. Users will be able to set up messaging shortcuts to make reaching out as quick as possible.

– Social contact card - Allow users to aggregate the most relevant information on any given contact, including archives of past communications, detailed pulse history, and one-click ways to initiate communication.

I like Yahoo’s strategy of aiming to be the spoke in the middle of the myriad of services out there.

– Innovative location-sensing technology - Provide new ways to locate, chat with, and exchange contact information with nearby Yahoo! oneConnect users. Proximity alerts will notify consumers when a contact enters their vicinity.

Proximity alerts? Coooooool! Can’t wait to see that working…

– An open communications platform - Give users the functionality to communicate via multiple communications tools - such as IM, SMS, and social networks. Widgets will provide users the capability to access their email across major email providers, such as Yahoo! Mail, MSN Hotmail(R), Gmail(R), and AOL(R) Mail. Additionally, Yahoo! is in discussions with DataViz(R), a company that allows mobile users to access their corporate Microsoft Exchange(TM) email accounts and Microsoft Office(TM), documents, to work together on widget versions of its industry-acclaimed RoadSynch(R) and Documents To Go(R) applications.

Interesting, interesting. We just did a group test between Dataviz’s RoadSync and Nokia’s Exchange service. I know contributor Ben Smith is a huge fan of RoadSync so this news could be good.

It really does look like Yahoo have sat down and worked out a key selection of features that will appeal to the mobile majority. Let’s see how it actually functions, then… we’ll hopefully have more news from them soon.

Despite the organisers’ less than enlightened attitude to bloggers at last year’s 3GSM, absolutely everyone who’s ever put keyboard to Wordpress is off to the newly re-christened GSMA Mobile World Congress this year. Except me. I have to stay here and work.

Humph.

Still, the mobile news will be pouring out of Barcelona like un-released Nokia product specs from a German website so here’s a quick round up of a few of the major themes and products that we’re likely to see this year.

The handset manufacturers:

Nokia will probably only announce a couple of handsets as they have other S60-fish to fry this year, so we may see an N96 (the next increment of the N95 line) and possibly the E71 (an E61i successor). An N78 (replacing the N73) and an E66 (an E65 replacement) have also been rumoured.

SonyEricsson have hit the ground running and already announced a pile of handsets that develop ther range with G-series ‘touch-screen organisers’, splash resistant and GPS-enabled C-series camera-phones, W-series high-capacity Walkman-phones, Z-series web and e-mail phones. Much of the coverage, though, will go on the attention-grabbing X1 - a new Windows Mobile-based touch screen and QWERTY keyboard web / multimedia device that is going to make you very happy if you got the phrase ‘QWERTY iPhone’ in the MWC buzzword-bingo draw. For the first live pictures see here.

Motorola have hinted at mobile TV-related launches, but little else.

LG has already launched a high-spec Symbian QWERTY device, possibly a Nokia E90 competitor, but so far have forgotten to release any pictures of it.

Samsung are bringing an additional mini-touch screen for navigation to their existing small form-factor slider handset range and may also be launching a premium, high-spec, Symbian-based N95 competitor.

Modu will also unveil their tediously over-trailed mini-phone thing with ‘jackets’ for differing functions. We generally try to keep the tone fairly positive round here, but can I be the first to say that if this is innovation the world’s gone mad. An easy way to access you phone’s data contents or access mobile data? Bluetooth. Welcome to the 1990’s.

New technologies and first looks:

S60 will give more details on its ‘Touch’ user interface for Symbian phones with a Nokia demo and more details on support for a wider range of sensors for movement and orientation.

Android, Google’s entry into the mobile OS world, will be demonstrated for the first time publicly on a prototype device from ARM. We may also hear more details on possible enterprise uses from the likes of Cisco.

Femtocells will be everywhere with Motorola and Netgear demoing 3G femtocells, demonstrations of up to 3.5G cells connected only to ADSL and products intended for consumer residential use. A GSM ‘in a box’ solution that takes 5 minutes to deploy will also be demoed.

Full web browsing on mobile devices will als obe a hot-topic with Opera making their new 9.5 release mobile browser available for the first time. Nokia too will be updating the native S60 browser, promising a more ‘full web’ experience.

Trends:

Microsoft could well be everywhere as they make eyes at Nokia, launch handsets with SonyEricsson and the continuing Yahoo saga unfolds after what seems the now-inevitable rejection by Yahoo’s board of their offer.

Britain will be well reprented with 150 firms attending - the largest number from one country.

Location services will stay in the limelight with richer mapping / location guides and ‘pedestrian modes’ being common themes. The Nokia Maps beta release features updates in both these areas and Navteq has announced location guides and information for pedestrians (including public transport). Improved location sensing via A-GPS (or something better) will also feature as will WiFi-based location sensing and location-based social networking.

For more reading take a look at the predictions made by the Head of O2’s R&D lab to Mobile Today. And finally… if you damage your phones a lot take a look at a tough phone with a serious guarantee.

Oh yeah and Whatley’s there with SpinVox so watch out for ‘news from the front’ from him if he can drag himself away from the free tapas… Humph.

Left: The famous Gaudi-designed Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona - under construction for almost 150 years, but it will be nice when it’s finished…

I’ve received a terrific amount of feedback from readers on the first post (”The USA Series: Prelude to buying a mobile phone in America“). The vast majority of comments have been shock (from the European readers), frowning acknowledgement (from the Americans) and quite a few flames (from the know-nothings who refuse to recognise or exist in reality).

Do get a good cup of coffee for I am about to dispense with my experiences. Before I do, for the ultra outraged flamers who believe I’m denigrating the good ‘ol United States with my posts (I’ve had a few hothead communications since the first post), let me answer their accusations with an illustration:

George Bush and Tony Blair are at a White House press briefing. It’s being beamed round the world in real time. I’m sat watching on CNN. Blair steps up to the podium and takes multiple questions from the press. A few curveballs but he manages well. It’s te first time he and Bush have met so the last question (if memory serves, I’m paraphrasing in these examples) is “What common ground have you and the President discovered?”

Blair, ever the Statesman, opines about the ’special relationship’, the commonality of spirit, the shared values of freedom, decency and peace — and so on. A good, off-the-cuff reposte. Whatever your politics, Blair can definitely hack it on the world stage, no problem.

The journalist poses the same question to President Bush (”Have you and Mr Blair found common ground?”). Bush does a blank stare for a few moments, smiles whilst thinking hard. “Well,” begins Bush, “I found out we use the same toothpaste.”

Right.

My point? Your Government is doing fine trashing the American reputation. Doesn’t need any help from me.

Me? I’m a big fan of America. Particularly the West Coast — because it’s a lot warmer. So, to be clear before anyone else thinks I’m trashing America: It’s the lack of innovation I’m trashing. The general spirit of the industry. The backward nature of the medium from the consumer viewpoint. Not the country, not the country’s values, not the flag.

Now, a step back about a month. It’s December and I’ve just arrived in America.

- - -

Here I am then, twenty-four hours in San Francisco. I’ve moved, temporarily, to the city by the Bay, to explore the mobile industry and meet with some innovative mobile companies. I’ll be here for just under three months. The first thing I did yesterday was go and get a car. You can’t do anything, really, in America, without a car. It’s possible to walk to places here in the city, but if you’re planning on going anywhere, seeing the sights, doing some mobile-company-drop-ins, then you really need a car.

A visit to Enterprise and we were sorted.

The next problem? No mobile phone. This particular issue had been eating me up since I arrived at the airport. Yes, I had my UK T-Mobile, my 3UK handset and my trusty MAXroam SIM (never leave home without your MAXroam), but I wanted to experience the whole ‘call me on 415…’ thing.

For decades I’ve been watching American movies and television shows featuring 10 digit mobile numbers (”212-555-5555″). In the past few years I’ve been trying to test out American-made mobile applications but have often had to apologise to eager entrepreneurs, explain that my UK mobile number is 11 digits (or more with the international code) — and generally, the sign-up boxes for many American mobile applications only allow ten digits. I’ve thus been reduced to peering in the window.

I wanted to see what it was like. I didn’t want to just look and empathise. I wanted to live it. Pay as you go would be fine of course. But I really wanted a contract. I wanted the full experience of buying a contract handset in America.

So after getting the car, the first thing I did was drive to the Stonestown Mall nearby. I’d done some research and found that it contained a Sprint store. Now there’s quite a few mobile phone shops around San Francisco but none that I was comfortable driving to, yet. Swapping to driving on the right is unnerving enough without having to arse about with a reverse park on a busy road, just so I could visit a phone shop.

Arriving at the mall, I made a bee-line to the Sprint store. I’d heard one or two comments about Sprint in the past but, crucially, none that I could remember.

The store looked bright, it was clean, there were quite a few special offers in the window. I looked in. It was empty. Just the sales chap typing away on his computer. There were quite a few handsets on the walls and a few laptops setup showcasing services.

“Fine,” I thought, “Let’s pop in.”

I walked in and had a look around. The chap looked up and said hi. Friendly.

As for decor, well, think ‘upscale hardware shop’ in yellow. We’re not talking Vodafone or 3UK flashy graphics, pumping sounds, 50 inch plasmas or the like. A quiet, sedate, bordering-on-functional store. Lots of yellow (that’s Sprint’s colour).

“Can I help you?” asked a chap.
“Er,” I thought, “Yes, I’m looking for a phone.”

We had a conversation. The chap was polite, attentive and friendly. I explained I was from the UK and I needed a phone to use for three months.

He pointed me toward their Boost Mobile stand. For some reason I went with the flow and thought, ‘Yeah, Pay as You Go. Fine for me. Let’s try it out.’

“These are our pay as you go services,” he explained. He detailed the prices of the handsets. I picked one for $50 and asked him what the call charges would be to the United Kingdom.

“Let me just check,” he said. He went into the back of the store and brought out a new shiny Apple MacBook Pro and logged on to Boostmobile.com.

As he navigated around the website I caught sight of the Sprint PCI Express data card sticking out of the laptop.

“Are you on WiFi?” I asked him.
“No, Sprint,” he replied, finding the right page for Boost’s international mobile charges.

He was navigating around the web faster than I’d ever seen. I was supremely impressed. The data speed was just phenomenal, continuous, reliable. I was immediately taken with the card. Even more so when the chap pointed out the fantastic tariffs.

But focus. Focus MacLeod!

“It’s 25 cents a minute,” the chap explained.

“Right, give me two of those Boost mobiles,” I declared, my mind still lingering on the data card. [One for me, one for the other half]

I forgot the data card as the chap demonstrated push-to-talk working with Boost. Really, really smart. I’d never actually seen it ‘live’ in the flesh before. We don’t have anything like that in the UK unfortunately.

I walked out the store with two Boost Mobiles (or ‘mobils’ — that’s how Americans seem to pronounce ‘mobile’) and felt good. I’d initially thought about a contract but, screw it, Pay As You Go is fine, right?

Yes.

Or no.

I spent a day winding up my other half by making push-to-talk ‘calls’ every five minutes. It’s an acutely annoying medium if you get a push-to-talk message whilst browsing in a very quite upscale boutique shop.

Quickly I exhausted my credit. I logged on to Boostmobile.com and looked for the credit card recharge option.

Arse. You can’t do it online. You have to phone them. How stupid. I phoned up customer services to setup my credit card. We got into all sorts of trouble together unfortunately. First off, the line was really bad. Think VOIP running over a 9k/sec connection whilst someone is downloading a 100 meg file. Boost itself was fine when calling other numbers. But calling customer services was painful. Secondly, they didn’t quite get the international ‘thing’, repeatedly asking me what State my credit card was registered to and getting severely annoyed when I refused to give them a numerical zip code (”It’s a BRITISH POST CODE”).

Eventually I gave up. I went to Walgreens — a ‘pharmacy’ similar to Boots in the UK — and purchased a $20 credit for both phones. Logged on to Boostmobile.com and … well, my credit upload worked. Hers didn’t. The card had already been used. I couldn’t be arsed phoning customer services. I bought another card only to find that we couldn’t login to Boostmobile.com because she’d forgotten her PIN number and customer services were… well, you’ve guessed it, yes? They were distinctly unhelpful.

Screw this.

I need to transact business internationally. Although I’ve got my MAXroam, I would like an ‘American’ handset — and by this time after messing around with Boost — I decided it was time I got a contract handset, whatever the cost.

I’m going to be here for three months. Might as well.

I went mobile phone shopping. And that’s where the nightmare began.

I’d had good service at Sprint but I thought I’d check out the other mobile operator stores and see what they were offering. Obviously my demands were quite different from your usual American. This became immediately clear when I walked into the Verizon shop on Market Street, one of San Francisco’s main thoroughfares.

I didn’t bother looking at the handsets, instead I headed straight up to the sales desk. I’d spent the whole night previously working out the best possible introductory pitch to the shop salesmen to make things as easy as possible. Here’s the pitched I decided upon:

“I’d like a contract. I’m here for three months and I’ll be returning to America regularly. I am a British subject therefore I don’t have a social security number and thus cannot pass a credit check. I need to call the United Kingdom regularly so I’d like an add-on that lets me call the UK cheaply. Money, within reason, isn’t an issue.”

I thought that initial pitch would tell the salesman everything he needed to know. I also reckoned that it would be a good comparison to put that to each mobile operator salesman and see what they come up with.

My experience of Verizon was severely limited. I knew it’s linked to the Vodafone group, that it’s CDMA and that it’s supposedly ‘Americas Most Reliable Network’. There are billboards all over the place announcing this to all and sundry.

So after delivering my pitch, I stood back slightly and waited.

I was surprised. Very surprised.

“Well er, your best bet is to get a calling card sir.”

“Sorry? No, I want a contract. Could you tell me about your international rates to the UK?”

I was staggered by the chap’s immediate animosity. I was prepared for an engagement — a discussion — a bit of ‘discovery’ and, frankly, I was expecting him to get out a brochure and start walking me through price plan options.

Instead, he folded his arms and repeated, “Just go and get a calling card in Walgreens across the road.”

“Listen, it’s ok, I’ve got money,” I explained, “Can’t I just get a contract?”

He grimaced at me. I was, clearly, a piece of shit, as far as he was concerned. I should point out I was dressed reasonably smartly. Jeans, jumper, iPhone, Nokia N95 and SHOES. I wasn’t even wearing trainers! (”sneakers”).

He stared derisively at me, then uttered, “It’s 400 bucks.”

“What is?” I asked. A sign! Movement!

“400 bucks deposit, to get an account,” he explained.

I did some ultra quick, ultra simple maths. 400 dollars is 200 pounds. Steep, but with most US Pay as you Go networks charging upwards of $1.60 per minute to call the UK, I’d have gone through 400 dollars worth of credit quickly. Plus, it’s entirely a business expense.

“Ok, that’s fine,” I said, taking out my passport and credit card. Your move, PUNK!

The chap’s pupils enlarged. He was clearly annoyed that his ploy hadn’t worked.

“It’s a two year contract,” was his next stupid statement. Take my money already!

“I understand, that’s perfectly fine,” I replied. At this point I’d had enough. I’d already looked up all these details on the internet and knew that I could terminate my contract — yes there’d be a fee — but all the termination and deposit fees in the world would be nothing compared to the costs of making 120 minutes worth of international mobile calls to the UK each day. I needed a work-horse of a phone to transact business while I was out here.

“I’m fine,” I explained, “with a 2 year contract, that’s no problem at all.”

Could we get on with doing business? No.

“Just, go and get a calling card,” he snapped and promptly turned his back and asked another customer if they needed help.

Transaction closed. OOOkay.

So, that’s Verizon, eh?

Coming shortly… my experiences trying to buy a phone at T-Mobile USA, AT&T, Sprint and Helio.

I’ve been an avid follower of Flirtomatic for a long time. It’s one of the best examples of a tightly integrated mobile and web service I’ve seen. It’s extremely popular with the youth audience, particularly in the UK. If you haven’t tried it, I strongly recommend taking a look at it, particularly at the sign-up and registration process which is very, very well thought out.

Mark Curtis is CEO of Flirtomatic. Not only is he a friendly and approachable chap, he’s intimately familiar with the mobile platform. So I wondered what his average mobile day would be like. He was kind enough to keep a note of his mobile usage across the 31st of January — so here we go, over to Mark.

- - -