These adverts – from UK-based electronics retailer, Dixons – have been springing up all around London lately. Take a look:
Read all that? Good. Right then.
Is it just me or is there a MASSIVE opportunity here for a competitor to come along and have some fun with this?
Alright the ads are actually quite well done. Providing a playful spin on the words ‘the last place you want to go’ as well as taking a cheeky swipe at some of the more… stuffier… of London’s largest department stores, these billboards do raise a smile.
But still. If I was a keen-eyed ad man I might be tempted, with the right client, of course (someone like ebay maybe?) to go away, knock up some good-sized stickers and then in one night, do one big hit on them all.
Guerrilla style.
You see what I mean? Bam.
So come on, someone just do it already!
And that was going to be it from me but, when I researched the ads some more it turned out that not everyone is a fan of this new campaign.
“Then there are the nasty Dixons Ads on the tube at the moment. They tell you to spend your time learning about your product from well-trained (threfore ponsy) shop assistants in well-known stores like Harrods, Peter Jones and John Lewis and then buy at Dixons on line. Why do I not find this amusing?
.
Firstly because of the snobbery, and secondly that Dixon’s shop assistants are the diametric opposite of knowledgable and helpful, and a terrible glimpse at what shopping might become if Dixons had its way. Thirdly the idea of checking out the store first and talking about what you want, and then checking out online vendors to get the best price happens all the time.
.
Better not bite the hand that feeds you!”
He makes a good point.
The value of the online shopping market is growing year on year while that of the high street is steadily declining. And while you have to applaud Dixons for attempting to drive traffic to their online store, I for one can’t help thinking that there is a slight danger of them shooting themselves in the foot:
Not because we have to be up anytime in particular…
…it’s just so beautiful up here at Sunrise.
Breakfast can’t go quick enough.
Today I am so eager to get back in the saddle again. I have to tell you, the first time I ever encountered a horse I had the most horrific allergic reaction, I was nearly sick. My eyes blew up, my breathing suffered, I was itching and scratching all over… It was horrible.
So to say I was apprehensive about this particular challenge might be somewhat of an understatement. But today? Up here at the Snowshoe Lodge, some 9000ft up in the Big Hornhorn mountains, I could not be more excited about seeing my horse again.
Marlena, the equine in question, is and I quote: “A real bitch”.
She bites, she doesn’t do as she’s told and if you don’t show her who’s boss, she’ll throw you around like there’s no tomorrow. Heh. We’re having fun, put it that way.
I digress.
Today we’re herding cattle properly. 220 of them. Younglings.
They’re fast and they don’t like horses much.
Our guide, Stewart yells: “Let’s move out!”
And I smile… 🙂
Additional notes, thoughts and sketches: July 23rd – 24th
The predictions themselves make for interesting reading and I would (even now), recommend going back and taking a look if you have the opportunity. To cut to the chase though, it was the thoughts from Mr Brogan that stood out the most for me, mainly around his notion of the ‘velvet-rope social network’.
“I believe we’ll have more focused velvet-rope social networks in 2009 where the tools and the goals match verticals instead of the general commons of Facebook.”
Nicely put. At the time I remember agreeing with the idea, but I wasn’t entirely sure about the execution. Chris himself has returned to the subject a number of times on his own blog (often with examples). However, the reason this particular thought came back to me recently was in large part, thanks to Google Wave.
Google Wave is currently in private beta and the invites only started pouring out into the web just under a fortnight ago. With them came the promise of a new dawn in co-working, a new way of true collaboration on a global scale…Â A brand new vision of the future.
Except that so far, based on at least 99% of my own experiences at least, no one has found any real use for it.
Well that is until I realised exactly what it is.
Ready?
Google Wave is, to my mind at least, one of Brogan’s new velvet roped social networks.
You open your Wave (this is your network) and invite in whoever you like to join you (as long as they are on Wave). This is, of course absolutely by invitation only. One inside you can chat, share and exchange.. basically do anything you would do normally just within the comfort of the Wave.
As Brogan said: “…the tools and the goals match verticals…”
But there’s more.
The answer? They’re both velvet-rope social networks. Why? Allow me to explain.
Not soon after I started thinking about Google Wave, I realised that another service from the big G shares the same commonalities as the velvet-rope social network: Google Reader.
Google Reader is not too dissimilar. The sharing functionality ‘baked in’ to the UI of the RSS service allows me to one-click push the stories that I’m reading out to my buddies on Google Talk (Google’s Instant Messenger service, aka ‘GTalk’). These stories then appear in my contact’s own Greader – sometimes with an added note from me – and that, is my choice.
I like sharing. I also like, occasionally picking and choosing with whom I share.
Is this the way forward?
Maybe. The point is, Google Reader is cool. I like it. I like sharing stories with my friends and I like them sharing with me. It’s closed (to a point) and I know who I’m sharing with.
Google Wave, while being no replacement for email or IM, is actually really quite useful for actually doing some work. Of the 36 ‘waves’ I have going on at the moment; one is for a specific project, a handful of massive group chats – the IM equivalent of an MMORPG (eesh), – and the rest are along the lines of ‘Is this thing on?’, ‘testing’ and my own favourite, ‘is this actually the future?’
It’s closed, for now. If you have an invite, find the people you want to work with and start a new collaborative project.
Treat it right, and you’ll yield results.
Don’t, and you’ll never see the benefit.
giffgaff, the people-powered network to whom we gave (what we thought was) a fair preview of, has released a teensy bit of news about their pricing. Well, that’s not strictly true, but we’ll come back to that part shortly….
giffgaff loves you
The ‘news’, coming in the form of a blog post from marketing chief, Kylie (no – not that one), explains that based on the feedback they’ve received so far, they’re now not really sure what kind of tariffs to launch with. While this may seem odd and somewhat indecisive on the part of the not-yet-launched MVNO, giffgaff have opened the question out to the blog readers:
“…we need your help. How do you think we should charge? Per minute / per text? Or bundles? Or something else?”
This is pretty much unheard of in the carrier space and we can only applaud giffgaff for sticking to their ‘people-powered’ principles.
While this isn’t actually news about the pricing (it’s more along the lines of ‘um.. we don’t know yet’) what the post does go on to say is that data on giffgaff will be totally and utterly free*.
Yes, that’s right… FREE*.
But not the kind of free* that you’re used to, not the kind of free* that comes along with a ‘fair use policy’, no, no. This is free* until we build the billing system!
“When we launch, data will be free. Honestly, that’s because we won’t have had time to build the bit of our backend system to charge for it, and yet we don’t want to launch without data – so we thought we’d just let you have it.
All we ask is that you don’t take the mickey, and that you do give something back by topping up, making calls, answering some questions, doing some marketing etc.”
That’s not too bad is it? Free data for the period of time it takes us to build the billing system. That’s certainly honest guys. Good work.
So the news from giffgaff:
We (still) don’t know our tariffs and data will be free until we know how to charge for it.
Honesty is the best policy but – with respect – this is still looking vague guys. Admittedly we haven’t come to visit yet, (we really are hideously busy day job wise), but it is on our to do list.
PS. Give us something a little more convincing and we might be convinced 😉
Hat tip to contributor Ricky Chotai for spotting this one.
giffgaff, the people-powered network to whom we gave (what we thought was) a fair preview of, has released a teensy bit of news about their pricing. Well, that’s not strictly true, but we’ll come back to that part shortly….
giffgaff loves you
The ‘news’, coming in the form of a blog post from marketing chief, Kylie (no – not that one), explains that based on the feedback they’ve received so far, they’re now not really sure what kind of tariffs to launch with. While this may seem odd and somewhat indecisive on the part of the not-yet-launched MVNO, giffgaff have opened the question out to the blog readers:
“…we need your help. How do you think we should charge? Per minute / per text? Or bundles? Or something else?”
This is pretty much unheard of in the carrier space and we can only applaud giffgaff for sticking to their ‘people-powered’ principles.
While this isn’t actually news about the pricing (it’s more along the lines of ‘um.. we don’t know yet’) what the post does go on to say is that data on giffgaff will be totally and utterly free*.
Yes, that’s right… FREE*.
But not the kind of free* that you’re used to, not the kind of free* that comes along with a ‘fair use policy’, no, no. This is free* until we build the billing system!
“When we launch, data will be free. Honestly, that’s because we won’t have had time to build the bit of our backend system to charge for it, and yet we don’t want to launch without data – so we thought we’d just let you have it.
All we ask is that you don’t take the mickey, and that you do give something back by topping up, making calls, answering some questions, doing some marketing etc.”
That’s not too bad is it? Free data for the period of time it takes us to build the billing system. That’s certainly honest guys. Good work.
So the news from giffgaff:
We (still) don’t know our tariffs and data will be free until we know how to charge for it.
Honesty is the best policy but – with respect – this is still looking vague guys. Admittedly we haven’t come to visit yet, (we really are hideously busy day job wise), but it is on our to do list.
PS. Give us something a little more convincing and we might be convinced 😉
Hat tip to contributor Ricky Chotai for spotting this one.
This isn’t a rant about how much I despise prose and rhyme in all its forms, no, no. Of poetry, I am a fan.
Something else I am a fan of is bloody good theatre and bloody good theatre is something that I saw last night.
Bloody Poetry – a play written by Howard Brenton and currently showing at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington – is not a play I’m familiar with, however I must say that it was thoroughly enjoyable. Good theatre is often difficult to seek out in London. Often you find yourself paying way over the odds to watch a cast that would be lucky to get a walk-on part on Hollyoaks (the West End production of Lord of the Rings for instance). However, with Bloody Poetry, I was fortunate to be entertained by not only a bloody good script, but also a fantastic troupe of bloody good actors.
The piece itself tells the tale of two great poets of our time – Shelley and Byron – and how they first met on the shores of Lake Geneva, then of the subsequent summer of love that followed…
I’ll admit I originally only went along to support my dear friend and old acting partner, Alex Barclay. He’s a damn fine actor and appears in the play as Doctor Polidori, biographer to Lord Byron. I haven’t seen Al in a few months, so I saw last night as a chance to catch up and say hi etc…
But I’m not writing this post for him (sorry Al – I love you really).
I’m putting this post together because the play really is that good. I came out beaming. Byron is perfectly pitched as the horny, swashbuckling cad he no doubt was back in his day. Providing some humorous asides throughout the performance, just think of Rik Mayall’s Lord Flashheart, add in some poetic pathos and you’re there. Ellie Turner – cast as soon-to-be author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley – brings a fantastic realism and stoic worldly-ness to a woman who no doubt would have felt almost on the outskirts of the strange quartet that forms around her. Wise beyond her years, her talent is plain to see and was played perfectly. It feels rude to neglect the rest of the cast (who were all excellent) but I fear I am rambling so will leave you with a piece of blurb from the website and booking details too.
If you’re in London and you fancy something different one night this October, go and see Bloody Poetry, you won’t be disappointed.
“Percy Bysshe Shelley, radical nonconformist, poet, essayist, and committed vegetarian, fled England in 1816 with Mary Shelley and her step-sister Claire Clairmont.
Faced with unrest at home and Revolution abroad, England in 1816 had become a repressive surveillance state; exile was both a choice and a necessity for a poet who advocated for social justice, practised free love and opposed inherited power in any form.
On 25th May 1816, the Shelleys met Lord Byron on the shore of Lake Geneva. Together with Byron’s physician, Dr Polidori, the group spent the summer together, during which Mary began writing ‘Frankenstein’ and Byron and Shelley deepened their friendship. ‘Bloody Poetry’ explores the personal and political passions which drove these young writers and the obstacles they faced. It celebrates their daring while revealing their humanity. As a qualified idealist, Shelley still dares us to dream:
“The great instrument of moral good is the imagination. We must not let it become diseased…We might be all we dream of, happy, high, majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, but in our mind? Poets are the legislators of mankind!—
The play runs Tuesday – Sunday until the end of this month. Tickets are £12.00 (£10.00 concessions) and are available from the White Bear Box Office website.
POST UPDATED 12/10/09 – Scroll to the bottom of the article for the latest…
Vodafone, oh Vodafone, why do you upset me so?
Regular readers of my work will know that I have an ongoing love affair with Vodafone UK, or ‘Big Red’ as I affectionately call her.
A mini Voda-moan
We’ve had our ups, our downs and our fallings-out, but over the years we’ve grown to appreciate our mutual quirks and subsequent relationship demands. Lo and verily, today we have another… hurdle to overcome.
Some of you may remember me wondering just where my handset of the moment, the N86, would land when it reached these shores. I speculated that it would be land on the lap of Big Red, but alas they passed and plumped instead for the N97.
Ah well.
So far, so what eh?
Being the Nokia aficionado that I am however, I wasn’t going to let a small thing like no carrier support prevent me from owning my handset of choice, so I promptly went out and bought one.
End of story, right? Wrong.
Thing is, among the myriad of reasons for me having been a Vodafone customer for the best part of 15yrs, one of them – today at least – is its home portal, currently going under the name of Vodafone Live!
It’s through this portal that I find music, games and mainly, my train times. I don’t drive and when I make plans, I keep them. I often plan my journeys with an almost military-like precision and Vodafone ‘My Trains’ is an invaluable service that I use pretty much every day, without fail.
From here I may choose to visit different parts of the Live! service… but this particular saved bookmark is nearly always my jumping off point.
Now, look at these two pictures….
Something’s wrong with the one on the right, right? Of course there is.
Even worse though is this, the Vodafone Live Homepage:
Both pages are from http://live.vodafone.com, both are connected using the Vodafone Live APN. The only difference is the handset I used; my old N95 8GB is on the left and on the right, my beloved N86.
Using the WAP access point will give you best chance of it rendering properly however it maybe a case of it not being Vodafone Live! compatible if it’s not rendering normally through the WAP access point. It may be worth posting your settings on the eForum to make sure everything is set up as much as it can be bearing in mind the N86 isn’t a phone we stock. Thanks.
The first part is fine. Naturally I’d check to make sure I was using VF Live as the default access point. I did. I am. The latter part, ‘bear in mind isn’t a phone we stock’… hmm. This was backed up and re-iterated by a couple ofVodafone staffers who also said ‘we don’t support phones we don’t range’.
This is also fine. A perfectly justifiable reason for not rendering your web pages. However, to me at least, this is EXACTLY the reason that you should be doing just that for these devices. Here I am, with a T-Mobile exclusive device (for argument’s sake) and I’m looking for a new network. I decide on Vodafone and sign on for a SIM-only deal. Then I discover that my phone isn’t supported on their webpages, so I decide to go somewhere else.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
The N86 is a similar screen size, build and design to the not-too-shabby (and Vodafone supported) Nokia N85. If it’s a simple case of switching the user agent* sniffer to present the N85 screens for the N86, then this is not a big job. Nor is it complex. Quick fix. Done.
*For the uninitiated, a user agent is basically the identifier string for the browser that you use when you browse the web (mobile or otherwise). For instance, the user agent string for the N85 looks something like this:
(Thanks to friend of Really Mobile Richard Hyndman, CTO at Mippin for that extra detail)
A final thought…
Back in my youth, while working through college, I had a friend who spent a his time working at a rather large chain of fast-food restaurants. The Manager of which had a policy that meant that for any food voucher or special offer coupon presented at the counter, no matter for which chain (be it for McDonald’s, Burger King, Wimpy etc), if they could fulfilit then they would honour the voucher.
As he told me at the time:
“It is better to please someone else’s customer who might come back another day than to tell them you’re not interested and never see them again.”
————- UPDATED – 12/10/09 ————-
A member of @VodafoneUK’s PR team has literally just been in touch to let us know that the Vodafone Live! pages have now indeed been provisioned for the Nokia N86.
Here’s a screen shot to prove it…
Huzzah! It's a-Live!
Congrats Vodafone, you’ve just earned 20 ReallyMobile points.
As the title suggests, it is indeed, time for a new adventure.
Today I’m doing just that by joining 1000heads as Engagement Strategy Director.
I’ve been aware of and worked alongside many different people from 1000heads (aka ‘the word of mouth people’) over the past four years, and they’ve always impressed me with their ideas, professionalism and more than anything else, their ethics. We’ve often shared stories about our respective projects & conversation ideals and very recently I had the opportunity to talk to them much more openly about my long term plans and ambitions.
It was the synergy that came from these meetings that made me realise that working with 1000heads was clearly the next logical step in my career. When it transpired that they felt the same way, everything just fell into place…
Even if you don’t know of 1000heads, you might not be surprised to hear that they are word of mouth (WOM) specialists. The company works with a range of clients from various industries to understand and engage with their consumers, from Nokia and 3Mobile to Canon, STA Travel, Sky and the BBC.
I am absolutely over the moon about joining the ‘heads and can’t wait to sink my teeth into the work ahead. I’ve already been into the office to meet some of the team and I’m going to spend this coming week getting up to speed with the accounts, campaigns and overall strategies I’ll be working on in the coming months.
After an eventful summer (where I really feel like I’ve been getting my hands dirty again), this move makes complete sense to me and well, I look forward to telling you all about the new adventures, as they happen.
Ten days ago reports were coming in that Nokia had purchased the super smart online travel sharing service, Dopplr. The one liner that I dedicated to it in my last post ended with ‘apparently’. This was an addition which, at the time, made perfect sense.
Noppler?
You see, at the time of writing, the story itself had come from a source that TechCrunch described as ‘close to the deal’ but, no had yet come forward to confirm.
Then, one week ago, a rather short but sweet blog post appeared on Dopplr confirming the sale but not really releasing any further details on the intricacies of the deal.
However, there were some nuggets of information given away. The final paragraph in particular is key:
The acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service which is available at Dopplr.com and on platforms where Dopplr is integrated, like Flickr and Twitter. As always, if you so wish, you can get a copy of your data from your account.
See that?
First up. ‘The acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service…’. So this is good news right? Of course it is. I mean, you wouldn’t expect them to suddenly shut up shop right? All the users that currently exist aren’t going to all be poured into one large Nokia silo… are they?
The next thing to take away is the ‘…on platforms where Dopplr is integrated’ part of the sentence. Dopplr, my friends, is available on the iPhone.
But will it remain so?
According to the post from Dopplr themselves, we’re leaning towards ‘Yes’. Time will tell.
Soon after the sale, Nokia also announced that Dopplr’s CEO, Marko Ahtissari, was to head up a new design and consumer experience unit within the Finnish HQ.Curiouser and curioser.
The big thing for me here is that as a service on it’s own Dopplr has never really proved that useful. Yes it’s fun to load in your trips on one of those dull days when there’s nothing going on on twitter and you’ve got a spare moment between emails, but has anyone here ever used it for what it is? Your ‘Social Atlas’?
Today, probably not.
But, in the future maybe? Yes. Maybe.
You see when the announcement was first made and the release landed on my desk, the first thing I instinctively said was ‘Makes perfect sense‘. Why? Well, you all remember Nokia announcing at Nokia World about their Social Location ambitions right?
You don’t? Let me remind you with the words from Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo:
“Automatically lets you avert traffic jams or crowds. By putting together your location, your contacts, you get mashups. I love this idea. Imagine what can happen when we mash up social networking and your location, when your device knows where you are, where your friends are and what they are doing. Your social location, or SoLo will become your here-and-now-identity.â€
Combine that (ok admittedly rather vague) way of thinking into Ovi Maps (that’s the Ovi Maps that’s shipping on every mid-to-high-end Nokia device from now until forever by the way) which also, is now including their latest feature ‘Good Things’. You can begin to see where Nokia are going…
Good Things for those that missed it, is Nokia’s new way for Ovi Maps users to share their favourite places around the world. This is from the Nokia Conversations blog post:
It’s made up of three key elements. The first is the ability to spot Good Things on the map, where you can click on each one to find out more information, add it to a route or to your favourites. There’s also a live Good Things feed which shows the latest good things, as they’re added. And of course the key part is the ability for you to add your own Good Things. Once you’ve found where on the map you’d like to add, you just drag a Good Things pin onto the map to add it. Fill in a couple of details, walk through the security check and you’re good to go. You’ve made the mapped world a better place.
Make sense? Of course it does. User generated reviews populating your navigation. It’s all coming together nicely. Now let’s compare that to the contents of Dopplr’s about page:
Dopplr is a service for smart international travellers. Dopplr members share personal and business travel plans privately with their networks, and exchange tips on places to stay, eat and explore in cities around the world. Dopplr presents this collective intelligence – the travel patterns, tips and advice of the world’s most frequent travellers – as a Social Atlas.
What else can we add into this? Well, one of the really useful parts of Dopplr – one that I’ve been paying attention to of late, is the Carbon Calculator. Once your trips are complete, Dopplr, powered by AMEE, gives you an overview of your carbon emissions for that trip. Admittedly while there is no option currently to immediately recompense the climate for your travel, this information is handy for when you get round to doing it yourself.
It’s at this point that I’m reminded of several Nokia false start applications: Nokia viNe, Friendview and also, WE:OFFSET.
The former is a life-streaming service which was bascially a jazzed up version of Sports Tracker. Friendview, Nokia’s very own Google Latitude and of course WE:OFFSET, an application that monitors where you are and works out your emissions based on your methods of travel.
If Social Location really is the future as Nokia insist (and I’m leaning towards agreeing with them), what other mobile applications/services/experiments can they bring into the mix to really spice things up?
Your thoughts and comments as always, are welcome.
Ten days ago reports were coming in that Nokia had purchased the super smart online travel sharing service, Dopplr. The one liner that I dedicated to it in my last post ended with ‘apparently’. This was an addition which, at the time, made perfect sense.
Noppler?
You see, at the time of writing, the story itself had come from a source that TechCrunch described as ‘close to the deal’ but, no had yet come forward to confirm.
Then, one week ago, a rather short but sweet blog post appeared on Dopplr confirming the sale but not really releasing any further details on the intricacies of the deal.
However, there were some nuggets of information given away. The final paragraph in particular is key:
The acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service which is available at Dopplr.com and on platforms where Dopplr is integrated, like Flickr and Twitter. As always, if you so wish, you can get a copy of your data from your account.
See that?
First up. ‘The acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service…’. So this is good news right? Of course it is. I mean, you wouldn’t expect them to suddenly shut up shop right? All the users that currently exist aren’t going to all be poured into one large Nokia silo… are they?
The next thing to take away is the ‘…on platforms where Dopplr is integrated’ part of the sentence. Dopplr, my friends, is available on the iPhone.
But will it remain so?
According to the post from Dopplr themselves, we’re leaning towards ‘Yes’. Time will tell.
Soon after the sale, Nokia also announced that Dopplr’s CEO, Marko Ahtissari, was to head up a new design and consumer experience unit within the Finnish HQ.Curiouser and curioser.
The big thing for me here is that as a service on it’s own Dopplr has never really proved that useful. Yes it’s fun to load in your trips on one of those dull days when there’s nothing going on on twitter and you’ve got a spare moment between emails, but has anyone here ever used it for what it is? Your ‘Social Atlas’?
Today, probably not.
But, in the future maybe? Yes. Maybe.
You see when the announcement was first made and the release landed on my desk, the first thing I instinctively said was ‘Makes perfect sense‘. Why? Well, you all remember Nokia announcing at Nokia World about their Social Location ambitions right?
You don’t? Let me remind you with the words from Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo:
“Automatically lets you avert traffic jams or crowds. By putting together your location, your contacts, you get mashups. I love this idea. Imagine what can happen when we mash up social networking and your location, when your device knows where you are, where your friends are and what they are doing. Your social location, or SoLo will become your here-and-now-identity.â€
Combine that (ok admittedly rather vague) way of thinking into Ovi Maps (that’s the Ovi Maps that’s shipping on every mid-to-high-end Nokia device from now until forever by the way) which also, is now including their latest feature ‘Good Things’. You can begin to see where Nokia are going…
Good Things for those that missed it, is Nokia’s new way for Ovi Maps users to share their favourite places around the world. This is from the Nokia Conversations blog post:
It’s made up of three key elements. The first is the ability to spot Good Things on the map, where you can click on each one to find out more information, add it to a route or to your favourites. There’s also a live Good Things feed which shows the latest good things, as they’re added. And of course the key part is the ability for you to add your own Good Things. Once you’ve found where on the map you’d like to add, you just drag a Good Things pin onto the map to add it. Fill in a couple of details, walk through the security check and you’re good to go. You’ve made the mapped world a better place.
Make sense? Of course it does. User generated reviews populating your navigation. It’s all coming together nicely. Now let’s compare that to the contents of Dopplr’s about page:
Dopplr is a service for smart international travellers. Dopplr members share personal and business travel plans privately with their networks, and exchange tips on places to stay, eat and explore in cities around the world. Dopplr presents this collective intelligence – the travel patterns, tips and advice of the world’s most frequent travellers – as a Social Atlas.
What else can we add into this? Well, one of the really useful parts of Dopplr – one that I’ve been paying attention to of late, is the Carbon Calculator. Once your trips are complete, Dopplr, powered by AMEE, gives you an overview of your carbon emissions for that trip. Admittedly while there is no option currently to immediately recompense the climate for your travel, this information is handy for when you get round to doing it yourself.
It’s at this point that I’m reminded of several Nokia false start applications: Nokia viNe, Friendview and also, WE:OFFSET.
The former is a life-streaming service which was bascially a jazzed up version of Sports Tracker. Friendview, Nokia’s very own Google Latitude and of course WE:OFFSET, an application that monitors where you are and works out your emissions based on your methods of travel.
If Social Location really is the future as Nokia insist (and I’m leaning towards agreeing with them), what other mobile applications/services/experiments can they bring into the mix to really spice things up?
Your thoughts and comments as always, are welcome.
This isn’t a rant about how much I despise prose and rhyme in all its forms, no, no. Of poetry, I am a fan.
whatleydude.com 