Mobile – Page 6 – whatleydude.com

MIR: Welcome to Three-Fail

Afternoon readers, Whatley reporting in.

My post quota has been a bit low lately, (sorry Ewan), I’ve been working hard on a top secret SpinVox project, (more on this next week – promise), in the meantime however allow me to share with you something that appeared on my radar earlier today care of my friend Roger.

Roger, aside from being a girl, is a good blog-buddy of mine.
She and I write and maintain:

Why Don’t Grownups Get it? – conversations we have had with growdups, by Roger and James.

We tend to take it in turns to post up stuff and normally it’s quite non-techy and it tends to lean towards the ridiculous.

But, as I said, this afternoon Roger posted up something that I felt I just had to share:

Roger – Over to you:

I don’t know if it is just me, with my seemingly magnetic ability to attract idiots, but I don’t have much luck with customer service types.

See my post on Dell. I rest my case.

Or I would rest my case, but I’m afraid I have to shake it into wakefulness for another round, this time concerning those ever-helpful bods at 3 Mobile.

Don’t worry, it’s not a longwinded rant. I’m really not cross about this one. Like Ron Burgundy when Baxter eats the cheese, I’m not angry. I’m impressed. With the sheer level of idiocy.

It’s a quickie. And here it is:

My phone broke. This happens. I took it to the 3 shop (one of those ones in a Superdrug, where you can’t tell if they are shop assistants or muggers, you know the ones). They sent it off on a three day repair on Monday. And credit to them, it came back into the shop, all shiny and fixed, today.

Of course, when I switched it on it went mental beeping away with hundreds of voicemails and texts from lots of terribly important people trying to get hold of me (it’s a social whirl being me, it really is).

And here’s the thing.

One of the messages was from 3.

Telling me my phone was ready for collection.

Let’s see if we can spot the flaw in their logic, shall we?

*sigh*

Roger.

Speaking Freely – Shopping List

“This is my shopping list so I can read it later. Vine tomatoes, whole juicy cucumber, iceberg lettuce, two lemons, lots of fresh mince, need some red peppers, some kidney beans, some vegetarian mince I think. And some herbs. Some eggs. Thank you, bye.”

spoken through SpinVox

The iPhone aka The iBone

Before I hit you up with Part 2 of my Adventures in Soho, a brief comedic interlude:

That up there ^ is my friend’s iPhone, last week after his dog had got hold of it. Ouch.
Cue much laughter, finger pointing and merriment at his expense.
The iPhone’s screen is strong. But it seems it isn’t that strong…

‘Dave’ is a bit upset about this (I’ve changed his name to save him further embarrassment)

*giggle*

Anyway – after snapping that pic I asked ‘Dave’ if I could blog it, “Sure..” he said, “…and I’ll update you too.”

“Update?”

“Yep. Get this…”

Turns out, after the aforementioned mauling, Dave tried to claim on his home contents insurance. Note: ‘Tried’.
He has since discovered that he can’t actually claim ‘accidental damage’ as the dog did it deliberately.

(clearly a Nokia fan then)

After that Dave tried to claim it on his business insurance. Still no dice. Thing is, this policy doesn’t cover ‘phones‘.
It covers PDAs. Dave is trying to claim the iPhone is a PDA –

“…which it is!” Dave tells me…

However, the insurance company have never had a claim for an iPhone before…
(they don’t even know how to spell it look)

…and what with it having the word ‘Phone’ in its name, Dave’s hitting another brick wall.

Double Ouch.

Insurance companies can be tough little beggars at the best of times (trust me – I know) but are they in the right in this instance?

Is the iPhone a PDA? Or is it a Phone?

‘Dave’ sold his dog over the weekend.. and I am really, REALLY not kidding.
He was that upset.

So much for man’s best friend…

Speaking Freely – The Rickmob

“I’ve just been to the Rick Astley Flash Mob at London’s Liverpool Street and it was frigging hilarious. I should be uploading a video as soon as I get in front of my laptop. Fantastic.”

spoken through SpinVox

_______________________________________________________________________________

EDIT – As promised, here’s the video:

http://qik.com//player.swf?streamname=573b322fb035442fa47201cb74490c6e&vid=54001&playback=false&polling=false&user=whatleydude&userlock=true&currentUserName=anonymous

EDIT 2 – Thanks to the immediacy of this post – I ended up appearing on The BBC’s ‘Pods & Blogs’ programme. I’ll see if I can get my hands on the audio and put if up for you…

Whee! 🙂

MIR: Dump S60 on your N95 and install the Facebook OS instead?

Foreword by Ewan Macleod: Maybe 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 it comes to S60, Facebook and phone user interfaces. Hit it, James…

– – –

Before you all call “April Fool”, this idea came around when I was invited along by Debi Jones of Mobile Jones to attend a roundtable discussion hosted by Airwide and MobileMessaging2.com entitled:

“Web 2.0 comes to Handsets – New Issues and Upside for Monetizing the Mobile Web”

It started with a brief overview from Steve Bratt, CEO of the W3C about Web 2.0 and the similarities with the Mobile industry etc… And then we broke out into four separate groups to each discuss particular questions.

Our table had the not so easy task of answering the following:

“What are the three capabilities consumers will want in the future and what can the mobile industry do to help enable this?”

So, aside from the obvious “Consumers have NO IDEA what they want!” rant I could’ve launched into, I was sitting there with a few folk chucking around such themes as personalized UI, location-based services and, my personal favourite, passive contextual awareness, (I’ll come back to this one at a later date).

Chatting away, sharing ideas, brain working overload… I had an epiphany:

‘Scrap S60, give me facebook!’

The people at the table looked at me a little dumbfounded and I went onto explain it further…

“Rip out the standard UI in this handset (waving N95) put in facebook!”

The comments came thick and fast:

“Well, I like MySpace. Can’t I have a MySpace phone?”

“Didn’t Helio do that already?”

“Yeah. But you customize the UI couldn’t you? Give users that choice…”

“Ok. Give users the choice to customize their UI…”

“Blah blah blah…”

And that was cool and ok, it answered one of the three things we had to find and stuff… However, I think this is something that bears further thought.

What is Facebook?

By its own definition it is a Social Tool.

(Not a Social Network – You and your friends are the Network, not facebook – remember that one kids).

What is a mobile phone?

Also a Social Tool.

So my question is this: Why not converge the two?

I’ve spoken about facebook in the past and how the users can be segmented in different ways etc. But fundamentally, at the most basic level, facebook is when you think about it an extremely active contacts/address book, right?

Right.

Pour that into a handset and what do you get?

I’ll show you:

Your Contacts? Sync’d with facebook Friends.
But not only do I get numbers I also get pictures, updates, status etc.

Your Calendar? Sync’d with facebook Events.
But you get more detail, who’s coming etc (all linked across the different apps etc)

Your Games? Scrabulous anyone?!

What about SMS/Email/MMS? You’ve all sent a facebook message before right?

Your Camera? No change here. Oh, aside from photos being stored to your facebook gallery.

And Fun apps? If you read this blog I’m going to assume you’ve installed an app onto your phone before. You may well have even installed an app on your facebook too… see the link?

Don’t forget the Internet? Ahh… Here’s the killer see.

Facebook currently has no internet per se. No search. No Google box etc… That would be your link off and out of the facebook garden as it were. But hey, you never know with fb – they may well have Search on their roadmap.

Thinking about mobile search, searching the handset, like the current desktop search on the N95 or ‘Finder’ on any MacBook, would be like facebook!

Searching for “mobile geeks” and i’d be shown the event, the group and also any and all of the contacts in my address book that are part of said party.

What about my favourite app, Jaiku? Build it in.

Status updates on facebook? The mini-feed? That becomes your life-stream right there.

It could work.

Think about it.

The number one thing that people hate about changing handsets is relearning the UI: “Aww man, I’m still getting used to it” etc…

What if the UI was the same?
What if you knew how to use the UI before you took the thing out of the box because it’s the same UI that you use every day on Facebook?
And all that’s before we even begin to talk about the trusted relationship that the consumer already has with facebook as a brand…

…

Ok, so – taking a breath – maybe the web UI is not built to work on a phone. Maybe having a “facebook phone” would be almost as bad as Helio’s “MySpace Phone”.

But why not have the facebook engine running underneath a very basic UI. With all the information embedded and layered underneath each contact or event or picture, creating context sensitive content…Makes sense huh?

I guess what I’m getting at is the ideas and principles behind the semantic web, on your mobile.

It doesn’t have to be facebook. It could be anything. Just join the dots.

What do you think?

MIR: Jaiku Unwrapped – Part 2

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

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

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

– – –

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

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

Next: Let’s talk about features

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

So what does that mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A quick glance can show me:

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

It goes on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If not, see you in a fortnight.

Thanks for reading.

MIR: Whatley Wednesday – Mobile Advertising

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.

Reminder: Mobile Geeks of London III

Wotcha!

Mobile Geeks of London III is less than a week away and I am ridiculously excited…
It really is looking like it’s going to be the best one yet… 🙂

If you’re reading this and unsure of what the hell I am talking about:

DUDE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!

First – Get yourself off to the facebook group, sign up and then add the event to your diaries folks!

Just so you know – the event is happening THIS Thursday evening, Feb 27th, upstairs at the All Bar One on New Oxford Street (closest tube – Tottenham Court Road).

Stuff you may expect to see:

– Nokias from WOM World
– Mobile gaming from Playyoo
– VoIP from Truphone
– Super SIM Cards from MAXRoam
– Internet made Mobile from Mippin

^ Those are all – to date – confirmed attendees.
I’m pretty certain there’ll be a lot more on show – all you’ve got to do is ask the the right person/s…

Remember –
You’re not coming to buy, you’re not coming to sell it. You’re just coming to use and play.
…and strictly NO BIZ/DEV!
😉

So yeah – looking forward to seeing you all there and if you can’t make it – SHAME ON YOU!
Maybe I’ll see you at the next one…

J.
PS – I’m TRYING to get me an uber-exclusive SpinVox Mobster that I can give away as some kind of raffle prize.
If anyone else is reading this who has anything they’d like to contribute to this little ad-hoc prize draw then do get in touch and we’ll go from there.

Top Banana.

Speaking Freely – Barcelona

“Greetings from Barcelona. I am loving Mobile World Congress seen a lot of cool stuff. Hanging out at the SpinVox stand and hanging out at the Nokia stand. Going out for dinner with the SpinVox crew now. Make sure you check out spinvox.com because we’ve re launched the website. I haven’t got internet access in my room so hence me blogging through SpinVox.”

spoken through SpinVox

Nokia Webcast – Live Post!

I’m sitting here RIGHT NOW at the Nokia Webcast in Hall 8 of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona…

Soundbites so far:

“35millions GPS devices to be shipped in ’08.”

“Nokia Maps 2.0 launched – Now includes ‘Pedestrian Navigation’ …Barcelona tours already planned via Nokia Maps…”

“Nokia N78 – follower of the N73 – shipping Q2 2008… includes FM transmitter.. Geotagging included..”

“The N95 user’s behavourial activities define the changes of consumers. The phone reinvented convergences… “

“N96 introduced. Iconic slider included… Kick stand included [like the N82] – shipping Q3… 550e.”

This last one is a bit pants if you ask me.
Looks too much like the N81, which is a horrid device… Meh… Full flash supported which is lovely but to be honest I’m not a fan…

More to follow…