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What do mobile consumers really want? It’s a question that troubles me and, when I’m sat in interviews or conference calls with service providers, a question that I continually pose myself. Would someone use this? Can I see my normal mobile user (”normob”) friends using this? Could I see it gaining [...]
Continue ReadingMaybe it’s the 24 hour sound of money being well and truly spunked up the wall as you walk through the casinos or the plastic nature of Las Vegas that gets to you after one or two days — whatever the catalyst, James Whatley has found himself undergoing several epiphanies this week, most notably when [...]
Continue ReadingSo I’m sat in the CTIA keynote hall and it’s a bit of an arse, frankly. Firstly, everyone and their dog was already here at quarter to nine in the morning (for the 9am start) so every single seat was taken. Hundreds of folk standing, and, well, there must be a good three [...]
Continue ReadingSir Richard is giving one of the keynotes at CTIA Wireless this morning. I’m heading off early to make sure I get some sort of seat. I hope there’s power for the laptop
I wonder what he’ll be saying? If there’s a chance for questions at the end, I am definitely [...]
[UPDATE: April fool! So, it's past midday in London therefore, I'm afraid to report that, as per the text below, this was an April Fool]
Google, the world leader in search, has, this morning, announced the purchase of Vodafone’s entire business, in a deal valued at approximately $200 billion — a substantial premium over Vodafone’s [...]
I managed to miss most of the launch coverage of O2’s new combined backup and blogging platform ‘Bluebook‘ (technically a re-launch, as another service had existed under that name previously), but spotted the beautiful advert on TV and decided to try it out.
The marketing majors on the backup feature - all your text and picture [...]
Continue ReadingJonathan Jensen, fresh from wrestling with handsets for his son and daughters, has been pondering on the (I suspect, rather large) gulf between Normobs and … well.. us…
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Ewan has blogged about Normobs (”normal mobile phone users”) before. What fascinates me is the gulf between us mobile geeks and the Normobs in terms of [...]
For those of you who may not be a regular reader of our dear blog, I’ll catch you up to speed.
My name is Krystal, I live in Canada, and our Mobile Industry sucks.
Now that you’re all caught up and sitting comfortably, we’ll begin.
When I heard that Bell was offering unlimited data, I got excited. Super [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Continue ReadingYou 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, [...]
Continue ReadingBonjour! 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 [...]
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…
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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 [...]
We interrupt the scheduled programming to bring you a Whatley on Friday exclusive…
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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 [...]
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.
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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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
Continue ReadingHaving 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 [...]
Continue ReadingEver 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 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 [...]
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 [...]
Continue ReadingHave 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, [...]
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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 [...]
Bensmith on 