MobHappy

One Thing Mobile Search Is Not: Cheating On Your Spouse

Russell's had a lot to say lately about mobile search and its implications and implementations. Mobile information company 4INFO's got a great post on its blog about how people have been using its services... but it's not exactly what you think.

Somebody somehow managed to confuse the 4INFO shortcode (44636) with another persons, and sent a number of messages regarding some relationship issues to it. There's a string of gems, like:

11/16 7:27PM: I WON'T. UR SECRET IS SAFE WITH ME. I'D BE 2 EMBARRASSED 2 TELL ANYONE. HE'S A DUMB ASS. I AM SORRY UR HEART HURTS.

It gets really hilarious when the person includes a city name in one of the messages, and 4INFO's server dutifully responds, thinking it's a request for a phone number or something. After getting a little confused, the person actually starts using the 4INFO Yellow pages lookup:

11/22 6:18AM: 'SURVEILANCE EQUIPMENT ASKEW MISSISSIPPI 38621'

Plenty more hilarity over at the 4INFO blog, check it out.

Key To Reducing Churn -- Moblogs?

A company's come out with a new study saying that moblogs can reduce churn by 70%. Of course, the company behind the survey sells moblogging software, so I'm a little skeptical. I can't imagine that moblogs would give people a reason to stay with a particular carrier ahead of other things like pricing, coverage or service but there's one way I can think of that moblogs could engender customer loyalty -- lock-in.

Carriers are used to locking customers to their service with measures like long-term contracts with high early-termination fees, and locked handsets. They're pretty effective, but don't always apply to prepaid users or because of regulatory restrictions. That's where these kind of "soft" lock-ins come into play. They foster loyalty not because people necessarily want to stay, but because if they leave, they'll miss out on something.

The company says the biggest barrier to operators is getting people to use the blogs. Sure it is -- because the more a person posts to their moblog, the more they've got to lose should it disappear. It's the same idea for carriers that only let users get photos off their phones by uploading them to a carrier photo-album service. If somebody stands to lose photos they care about because they want to switch carriers, they'll think twice.

It's possible to make the argument that this is a competitive differentiation, or something like that. But instead of doing it through lock-in, why not do it by offering the best open service possible? License something like Cognima Snap, or help users get Lifeblog going. Offer them an easy way to post their content to an open system; don't hold their photos, content and memories ransom.

Here Kitty, Kitty

GPS Tracks have launched their GlobalPetFinder, which does what it says on the tin - enable pet owners to find their pets.

GlobalPetFinder works by attaching a 5 oz device (140 grams if you're a. modern b. non-American) to the pet's collar. This enables owners to track their pets and monitor the temperature of the environment, in case they get into danger that way. Maybe hop into the fridge or something.

On small animals it works by rendering them completely unable to move as their collar weighs too much. So you always know where they are - where you last put them. Actually, disappointingly, it's only recommended for animals of 30 pounds or over (13 kilos). But I think that the devices will get smaller and be able to cater for a wider range of pets.

Unlike, child tracking services, that I've criticised many times (eg here and here, this seems a very good use of LBS - actually one of the best I've come across.

Firstly, it offers pet owners a solution to their worst fears. While it's facile to compare a parent's affection for a child, with a pet owner's for a pet (especially gerbils), it is in the same ballpark of emotion. Therefore, you have a motive for people to pay for this.

Secondly, thank heavens, pets go missing much more than the average kid, so there's a very real need for it.

Thirdly, none of the privacy or breach of trust issues apply. I mean, who cares if Fido feels violated?

Finally, whereas kids will find a way to game the tracking system when they want to, pets just aren't up to it.

Nice idea, chaps.

But, the price means you have to love your pet very, very much indeed to get them one of these. $349.99 to buy the tracking device, $34.99 connection fee and then $17.99 every month. Frankly, this seems way over the top - even though they're selling via Neiman Marcus. We're a long way off seeing Homer popping one on Santa's Little Helper but there is certainly an opportunity for a more mass market variant and that's for sure.

Links for November 29

- Orange, Cingular, team up to sell to international business customers (Cellular-News)
- Oh look, an IP mess, in mobile, nonetheless (The Register)
- T-Mobile boss slams mobile Internet cynics (ZDNet)
- Have Vodafone shares become like that of a utility? (CNN Money)
- 3 Italy buys a TV station

The Value Of Cameraphones

I've talked before about how cameraphones are proving their social value, whether it's as sousveillance tools, or empowering stupid criminals, or how they're helping supplant actual memories with digital ones. But, I'm fairly convinced I've been missing the real value of cameraphones: to provide evidence to our friends for otherwise unbelievable anecdotes.

I say this after taking the photo above with my phone last night, as some random guy decided he needed to show my friends and the tattoo he's had inked from his shoulder blades down to the back of his knees, which involved not just taking off his shirt, but dropping his pants (in the middle of a bar's patio) as well.

Full story and marginally NSFW image after the jump.

Sony Pays Lip Service over Parental Control

Sony is the latest console maker to announce parental controls for its platform, according to CNN. The new PS3 will join models from rivals Microsoft and Nintendo that allow parents to veto the machines' ability to play rated video or games.

While the big three need to show that they're doing something to avoid Government legislation or even law suits by parents whose kids have been "corrupted" by this material, I can't help feeling that for most people, this is merely paying lip service to the problem. The vast majority of parents simply won't understand how to activate the controls, even if they know about them in the first place. And I bet that someone somewhere finds a way to hack round the controls and the solution will be all over the net within a few months or weeks.

Even if that weren't true, the kids will find ways to access material if they want to badly enough. I know my son plays GTA at friends' houses, which we won't allow him to own himself, as he's only just 13. It's not that we're down on GTA especially, it's just that there's plenty of material of a similar rating that I do think he's too young for. GTA is the thin end of the wedge.

All you can really do as a parent is keep the home free of this kind of stuff, by monitoring casually what they're watching and playing and hope that this does the trick. But controls like Sony's seem pointless apart from a few geeks who double as parents.

Sony's not getting great press from bloggers, what with one thing and another, are they?

Links for November 28

- 3 Italy Delays IPO (Cellular-News)
- Mobile Optimised Sites No Fun on The E61 When mobile-optimized sites and powerful mobile browsers collide. (All About Symbian)
- Google to replace Vodafone as Man U's sponsor? (News.com)
- Modeling agency to launch handset line (Textually)
- Camera Phone Memories (MyPhoneRocks dot com)
- SMS To Sink A Battleship (MocoNews)
- China Says It Has 383 Million Mobile Users (Yahoo)

Ringtones Are Not Mobile Music, and Vice Versa

A BusinessWeek article about rap group Public Enemy was in my RSS reader this morning, its description saying "The hip-hop group sees wireless music as a way to air its radical views -- and make a little money". The group's Chuck D has been involved in digital music for a long time, through the Rapstation site and other efforts, so I thought Public Enemy might be up to something interesting.

If they are, they didn't share it with BusinessWeek. Apparently they've got an album that's been out for a while, and this week -- get this -- they'll sell ringtones from it. Even taking into account BusinessWeek's generalist focus, passing this off as innovation in mobile music is a bit over the top.

Part of the reason that mobile music has failed to take off quickly has been that people with vested interests blur the definition of what it is. Ringtones may be musical, and they may be played on a mobile device, but ringtones aren't mobile music. And mobile music isn't ringtones. It's more than a question of semantics, it's an issue of purpose. Music is entertainment; ringtones are expression. Kids don't buy ringtones just because they like they way they sound, they buy them because of what they say -- messages like "look, I'm cool, I've got this ringtone like the other kids", or "look, I'm cool, I've got this unique ringtone".

Blurring the two causes problems: take, for instance, Sprint's recently launched music store, which delivers full tracks to phones for $2.50 each. Some people justify the price by saying people will pay a premium for being able to download songs anytime, anywhere, then finish it off by saying, well, if they pay $2.50 or more for a 30-second ringtone, $2.50 for a full track is a bargain. It's hardly a bargain with the standard going rate for PC downloads at 99 cents per song, and $2.50 per track makes $18 CDs look cheap.

But it's not a bargain when you consider the premium price of a ringtone over a PC download is for the personalization aspect -- in essence, it's more valuable to many people to project an image about themselves than to entertain themselves with a song. Treating mobile music in the same regard as ringtones won't work, nor will basing the price of one on the other. They're both musical, yes, but thinking of them as similar media with similar uses and similar goals will result in failure.

RIM: Looking Over the Wrong Shoulder?

There have been plenty of stories detailing why Research In Motion says it's not afraid of Microsoft in the mobile e-mail space. While it's true that RIM probably shouldn't fear MS too much, there are plenty of other companies it should fear -- not the least of which are its carrier partners.

The threat from Microsoft is pretty simple on its face: a recent upgrade to some of its Exchange server software added push e-mail capability, meaning that a Blackberry server acting as a go-between from a corporate Exchange server to its users' mobile devices isn't necessary. But it's really a little more complex. Not every enterprise uses Exchange, and of those that do, not all use the version that supports push e-mail. RIM, with good reason, shouldn't be too scared of Microsoft.

But it's the emerging rivals over its other shoulder it should be worried about, led by mobile operators. Without a doubt, those that sell Blackberries are happy with the increased data spending they bring. But they don't like having to give RIM a decent chunk of change for every Blackberry subscriber, and also don't like having their users locked in to a relatively small range of devices.

Check out the breakdown of Vodafone UK's new business e-mail offering that uses technology from Visto. It's cheaper for enterprises, supports a wider range of devices, and even uses less data than Blackberry. Vodafone's giving up some data traffic revenue in exchange for (presumably) paying out less to Visto than it does to Blackberry, and also hoping for some price elasticity in that lower prices will lead to more customers. Vodafone's also bundled in a hosted low-cost device management system that should be simpler for IT departments to handle than the similar Blackberry solution.

So how does RIM compete with Microsoft's low price? By offering a better service. But how are these new rivals competing with RIM? By offering a better service, and a better price. That, not Microsoft, is what RIM should be scared of.

New Wave Conkers

Blink have just launched a really great sounding Bluetooth game, based on the traditional English game of Conkers.

If you just went "WTF?", Conkers has its own entry in Wikipedia, that sound suspiciously like something Douglas Adams made up. But here are the rules of the original game:

1. Take a large, hard conker [Horse Chestnut] and drill a hole through it using a nail, gimlet, or small screwdriver. (This may be done by an adult on behalf of the contestant.) Thread a piece of string through it about 25 cm long. Often a shoelace is used. Tie a large knot at one or both ends of the string, so that the conker will not slide off when swung hard. 2. Find an opponent. It is to your advantage if you can find an opponent with a conker smaller and softer than yours. 3. Take it in turns to hit each other's conker using your own. To do this one player lets the conker dangle on the full length of the string while the other player hits. To hit, hold the string in one hand with the conker held above it in the other hand, then swipe at the opponent's conker, letting go of your own nut but keeping hold of the string

The winner is the player with the in-tact conker at the end and there's a complex scoring system, which makes cricket look simple.

Fast forward to today and you can now play conkers on your phone over Bluetooth. You tie your phone to a shoelace and hold it up.....

Seriously, players connect over Bluetooth to bash each other's conker in the virtual fashion.

In the original game, there was what could easily be the first variant of the "cheat" which has become so prevalent in gaming. Players would do things like bake their conker in an oven or varnish it to achieve a harder, more destructive and indestructible conker. So it's nice to see this carried over into the virtual game too - you can undertake the equivalent of baking your virtual conker by powering it up by connecting with Bluetooth to other mobile phones.

What a damn fine idea.

A further nice piece of news is that Blink will make the code open source shortly, so others can create new variants of Bluetooth, short range gaming. It could bring a whole new lease of life to the good old British Pub.

Image from the One Brand Group.

Selling New Mobile Phone Features

One of the big issues facing technologists is that most people don’t use most of the inbuilt features, most of the time. As an example, the vast majority of mobile owners, tend to restrict their network use to simple voice and sms (and a few non-network apps like the clock and calculator). Similarly, 70% of MS Excel users don’t know that the application can add up columns and rows automatically – they just use it to line the figures up prettily and still use a calculator.

However, getting people to use all or most of the tools at their disposal is actually a vital issue;

- How can you persuade people that they need to upgrade, when they’re not getting much more than 10% of the potential usage out of their current purchase?

- How can you expect any degree of loyalty towards your brand, when people don’t know how to use it properly?

- One of the ways technology gets adopted is peer recommendation. If your early adopters can’t “sell” your product properly to the next level of potential customers, you’ll find it really tough to get traction.

- In a mobile context, there’s another big issue. If people don’t know about a feature or how to use it, they’re not going to create lots of profitable network traffic for the operators. MMS is a great example.

Despite its importance though, this area is often ignored by technologists, other than to subscribe to the theory (rarely mentioned aloud) that most of their customers must be pretty dim if they can’t work it out for themselves or read the bloody product manual that’s so thoughtfully included.

Whereas the real problem is that there’s no such thing as a stupid customer, just bad design and bad product manuals. I won’t start on manuals today, apart from to say isn’t it sad that a whole multi-million dollar industry exists to publish better product instructions than the product makers themselves can be bothered to write and print? Can you imagine buying a new car and having to buy a book called Saab 2005 For Dummies? Err, actually, I might have hit on something there!

So, it was nice to read about Samsung’s new Scandinavian campaign, reported by Martina at Adverblog. Purchasers of the D600 handset are invited to participate into, what looks like, quite a compelling interactive game and successfully complete 5 tasks. Each task in cunningly designed to also demonstrate how to use different features of the phones.

And of course, the game is also something cool that owners can use to show off their new toy to their mates in the pub with. This isn’t a flippant comment at all. More mobile phones are “sold” in the pub and other social situations, than in all the mobile phone showrooms combined.

So well done to this week’s Clever Clogs, Samsung for taking user-centric design to the next level. We’re going to see a lot more of this sort of thing as technologists realise that they’re damaging their businesses badly by ignoring post-purchase product feature sampling. Maybe we’ll start seeing a radical rethink on manuals too – about time, if you ask me.

Worst Technology for Girls

Nicolas at Pasta & Vinegar has a great posting, about a paper written by Wendy March (Intel Research) and Constance Fleuriot (Bristol University). Their research has been looking at privacy issues raised by new technologies and the reaction of some of the kids who might be on the "receiving end".

They explored the concept by inviting the girls in the study to imagineer their nightmare technologies, although I think boys would share the conclusions. Their horrors included:

Family Video: A small video camera attached to a flotation device acts as a personal CCTV which sends back a constant video stream to home.

Constant Connection provides a continuous open communication channel for parents and children ( the home audio device, which is ideally suited for a kitchen counter.)

Ticker Text converts all communication from designated cell phones into an easy to read text format. Each text message that is sent or received on the phone is printed out on a paper roll.

Teen Monitor provides a simultaneous broadcast of all your teenager’s conversations through an audio speaker in your home.

Of course, spying on your kids isn't necessarily entirely new. Indeed, some poor lady has left a comment on Nicolas' post saying that when she was 17, she found her Dad had been bugging some of the conversations she'd been having, assuming (naturally enough) that they were private.

While these kinds of imagined devices will probably never happen - well, I hope they won't! - we are beginning to see variants of them already in some of the Kid Tracking software on mobiles, key stroke recorders on PCs, so parents can monitor surfing and IM sessions, and ideas like getting other drivers to monitor and report bad road behaviour by kids.

It's clear from this research that such parental spying, is deeply resented (the commenter on the post called it "betrayal"), no matter how noble the parental motives might be. And if it's hated this much, teens will find a way to subvert it because that's how things happen. Just as there's no such thing as uncrackable DRM, there's no such thing as an unbeatable tracking system and someone, somewhere will find a way to hack any device and quickly spread the word.

Actually, this is already happening with spare decoy phones, dummy email and IM accounts and tinkering with the family computer to get round tracking software - well, at least if our household is anything to go by :-)

Seriously though, wanting to keep an eye on your kids and protect them is deeply ingrained parental behaviour. But spying like this actually can cause more damage, by breaking down trust between the parent and child. The hardest thing about being a parent is letting go at the right time and trusting the child to manage that stage of their life in a responsible way. As spying becomes easier, many parents might be tempted, but just think how much you'd have hated your parents if they'd made a decision not to trust you.

A True Party Popper

Sometimes you come across a gadget that you just have to blog about - while acknowledging it's got nothing to do with mobile whatsoever!

But how cool is this? You attach it to the cork in a bottle of champagne, (or sparkling wine, if you're a cheapskate) pop the cork and watch it float down with its own neato parachute.

Sheer genius.

Available from Hawkins Bazaar.

Carnival of the Mobilists 7

This week's Carnival is at Smart Mobs. Make sure you check it out.

Some fine, fine posts as usual. Shame about the editor.

Have a good weekend y'all.

Russell

MMA Finally Condemns Bluespamming

Justin Pearce* writes in New Media Age about the UK's Mobile Marketing Association finally coming out against Bluespamming - 6 months after we wrote that it was illegal. I wonder what took them so long to decide that sending unsolicited messages was in clear breach of European privacy directives and meant to be against everything they stand for?

Filter, the main company behind these BlueSpam campaigns, have always argued that they are in compliance with the Directive, despite the fact that sending someone a message saying "Oi, can we send you a message please?" is just as much spam as as offering Viagra or Penis Enlargement advertisements. The fact that I may choose to have my Bluetooth settings on my phone as Discoverable is not consent to getting spam, anymore than owning a computer is indicating that I am happy to be sent unsolicited emails.

Better late than never, I guess - which might be a very nice motto for the MMA to adopt actually.

Meanwhile, in a similar vein, German Trend-following site, Trnd.com has been following our coverage of this and polled its readers.

Of the 708 people who responded 62% have a mobile with Bluetooth, 19% have it switched on, as a rule and visible whilst 54% have it switched off. Most interesting of all, 81% consider this form of advertising as "Bluespamming" which loosely coincides with the Coldplay numbers, we wrote about, where 85% of recipients rejected the "come on" message. Only 9% thought advertising this was was "gut" (not a typo - German for good!).

So if you are still tempted to use Bluespamming, either in flagrant breach of the law, or because it's legal in your country, my advice is don't. Pissing off 85% of recipients just doesn't make any sense.

* See Justin? I do link if there's something to link to :-)

Thanksgiving Carnival of the Mobilists

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers!

This week's Thanksgiving Carnival of the Mobilists will take place at the legendary Smart Mobs - don't forget to check it out for the best writing about mobile around.

If you're a blogger, you still have time to enter. Send your entry to mobilists@gmail.com.

Phones to Be Distributed Computers - says Nokia

We've been saying for some time at MobHappy that the future of mobile is as a thin client, with much of the processing, storage and grunt work being undertaken by the network's servers. This is to do with speed and power use mainly, as storage gets ever smaller and cheaper.

So when this line of thinking is confirmed by Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia's Research Centre in an interview with VNU, it confirms that we're on the right lines.

At the same time, they promise more open platforms that we can configure to how we want, with the handset becoming more of a gateway to third party services.

Naturally, the operators might have a different vision about this direction. Much as the handset makers and mobile users want "open", operators tend to want "closed", despite the historical evidence that closed systems tend to crumble and die.

Links for November 23

- Actor berates woman being too stupid to use a silent profile in a theatre (BBC via Mobitopia
- Vodafone hangs up on Man Utd shirt sponsorship, backs Champions League (Bloomberg)
- You Just Don't Understand Me, Man, Says 3 (Techdirt)

Social Navigation - the Ultimate Mobile Search

Jan Chipchase works on User Research for Nokia and also writes a pithy blog - Future Perfect - posts normally just consist of a photo and a line or two that make you think.

Yesterday, he wrote a typical post about Wayfinding, which is finding out from a location feed on your mobile where you are and getting a map showing where you want to go.

As he says: "It's easier to just ask someone".

Asking someone the way has been termed as Social Navigation and is yet another barrier to the implementation of mobile local search, I posted about yesterday. For all the high tech available, it is indeed simply easier to ask a colleague, friend or stranger how to get somewhere or where the nearest x is.

Actually, it's easier to phone someone on your mobile for this info, thatn use the phone itself to get it.

This will change as phones get better, but right now Social Navigation is the best form of local search there is, in terms of accuracy, speed and usability. This needs to be taken account of when we're thinking what successful mobile search will look like.

Links for November 22

- Europe's Mobile Market Penetration is Set to Breach 100% in 2006 or Early 2007 (Business Wire)
- FOCUS: 3G Breakthrough In Europe Not Seen This Christmas (Yahoo)
- Takara Phone Opener flips your lid for you (Engadget)
- Huawei Signs Global Supplier Deal With Vodafone (Cellular-News)
- Huawei to fund Smart Telecom's 3G network (ThePost.ie)
- Crazy Frog Cleans Up its Subscription Services (Cellular-News)
- Cellular Retail Experience Unsatisfying: Survey (Yahoo)

SIM Applications -- Huge, But Largely Invisible, Market

Last night's Mobile Monday Austin featured a couple speakers on smart and SIM cards, and they turned out to be far more interesting than I expected. Bill Muscato from Axalto talked a lot about how SIMs are marketed in other parts of the world, and in particular about operators that use SIM applications. I'd heard of this before -- Radiolinja had one called DJ Esko when I lived in Finland many moons ago that sold ringtones and operator logos and such -- but I'd pretty much forgotten about it.

These are pretty basic applications, really, but they're interesting and important because they're a way to get data applications to emerging markets where low-end, basic handsets are the norm. Operators can preload the applications onto SIMs, then they can be updated using SMS as a data bearer. Applications can't necessarily be added over the air, but content can be added via SMS, so if the right kind of application was put on the SIM, it could act as a framework to create the appearance of new applications. These are typically very basic apps, typically storefronts for mobile content or basic information services, though Axalto's come up with quite a list (PDF alert).

Although most phones these days have Java capabilities, it's still not uncommon for new handsets in emerging markets to not support it, or any data services beyond SMS. SIM applications can give developers and operators a way to introduce content services and applications to these markets -- the very markets that are driving the industry's growth.

Anybody know of any examples of particularly cool or successful ones?

Is Mobile Search About Local?

There seems to be an assumption that Mobile Search will be all about trying to find local information. Is this right? I'm not so sure.

For instance, Marketing Week's Technology Weekly, features an article by Terry Parsons, CTO of Touch Local. Touch Local are apparently "one of the UK’s largest online search directories".

The article starts off by saying the penetration of mobile is much higher in most developed countries so:

"The ability to locate a nearby pharmacist during your lunch break or a corner shop on the way home from work to pick up those last minute grocery items for dinner is very attractive. It becomes even more attractive if you can not only locate businesses by type or name, but can also find specific products or service providers with particular personnel skills."

In other words, there's a big leap of logic here and I wonder if he's actually right.

Firstly, lets take his two examples and let me ask you a few questions:

1. Where's you nearest pharmacist to work and to your home?
2. Ditto your local grocery store?
3. Have you ever used Yellow Pages (the non-digital equivalent to local search) to find either a pharmacy or a grocery store?

If you know the answers to questions 1 and 2 and responded "never" to the last question, you see my point. Most people actually know the area they live and work in pretty well and don't need our assistance to find out everyday stuff like this.

Could it be that Mr Parsons is so convinced that local search is the answer to how we use mobile search that he's some up with some poor examples?

Well, that's certainly a possibility. But I think mobile search will be driven by another variable altogether and that's N2KN - or the Need to Know Now factor. The N2KN factor may indeed have a local element to it from time to time, but Local won't be the factor that actually stimulates the Search. In the short to medium term, when mobiles are so much slower and clumsier to use than computers (or even Yellow Pages), being motivated to use mobile search is going to depend on how urgently you need the information and how important it is.

As this graph shows, the upper right quadrant is the true home of mobile search. As an example, this could be "find my nearest" local search, but bear in mind my point that most people don't need these things most of the time. But it could as easily be nothing to do with the local environment at all - you may need to know what specific track of music you've just heard is (Shazam is still mobile search), what the names of the 7 Dwarfs are to settle a $20 dollar bet or what price pork bellies are trading at.

The left hand upper quadrant shows where computer (or non-digital) search will remain strong. You're still motivated to find the answer, but it can wait until you get back to your computer. Whereas the lower two quadrants will probably result in you forgetting to do anything about searching at all, as it's just not important enough.

Obviously, these scenarios assume that when you get the urge to search for something, you're out and about at the time and not sitting in front of your computer. We can also assume that the picture will change as mobiles get easier and faster to use.

If this analysis is right, companies looking to enter mobile search had better take note, as focusing on location, rather than user motivation, could well be a blind alley. It's also vital to get the focus right if Mobile Search is to be monetised successfully. This is because, if the Need To Know Now Factor is crucial to motivation, the business model is much better exploited by the user-pays model, rather than trying to shove a square advertising peg into the round hole of mobile search, just because it works online like that.

I'd welcome some debate and feedback on this, as I'm not aware of this issue being raised elsewhere (though it probably has been!). Please leave a comment and have your say.

Assess My Breasts Goes 3G

UK lad's mag, Nuts, is launching its Assess My Breasts website over 3G. Girls are invited to submit videos of their err.....bare, naked jiggly bits, for viewers to vote on, along the lines of an adult version of Hot or Not?

Initially it's only available on UK network, 3.

Not safe for work.

It's remarkable how this kind of thing has moved from "adult" to "a harmless bit of fun" in the eyes of so many people - including the girl contributors, without whom this just wouldn't be possible.

I still can't see this happening in the US, but stand by for loads of copycatting in the UK and parts of Europe.

Via Brand Republic.

Links For November 21

- The SK Telecom PT-S170 flipping, sliding, and swiveling nonsense (Engadget)
- Vodafone Germany offers free SMS, MMS on 6 December (DMEurope)
- Q&A with Kumar Gopalakrishnan of nThrum mobile camera search (Goobile)
- Little Britain on Little Screens (Cellular-News)
- Sony insider: DRM is discredited at Sony (Boing Boing)

Book Review: Nokia Smartphone Hacks

Nokia Smartphone Hacks is something of a misnomer as a title -- a better one would be "the manual Nokia should have included with your phone". The tools and tips included in Michael Yuan's book may not be hacks in the most traditional sense of the word, but they will help you wring every last bit of usefulness out of your phone.

The stuff that is covered in the Nokia manuals is made clearer and easier, but the bulk of the book are tips not found anywhere near an actual Series 60 handset manual, for whatever reason. Things like how to unlock a GSM handset, how to avoid malicious software and how to maximize a phone's RAM. Michael even steps into the breach and clearly explains how to set up data access settings, as well as even how to establish a Bluetooth connection with a computer -- two key topics where handset vendors and mobile operators haven't done an adequate job of educating consumers. There's even a section solely about dealing with the Nokia PC Suite software. For that alone, Michael deserves some sort of medal.

The book's written in a very easy-to-read style, and is illustrated with plenty of helpful diagrams and screenshots. You probably won't sit down and read it cover to cover, but it's sensibly organized and has a comprehensive table of contents listing the 75 included hacks.

If you've got a Series 60 device, you should get this book -- at some point, it will come in handy. In the meantime, there's plenty of other stuff to keep you busy and make your phone more personalized and more useful. In a word, better.

Shopping by Mobile Java App

I've been looking at the UK-based mobile shopping engine, Reporo. The app is free to download to Java-compatible phones, but if you want to see an online demo, there's one here (click on "What Does it Look Like?").

Once you've opened the application on your mobile, you can either search for a product or browse one of their retail partners. Retailers are split between Bricks and Mortar (eg Boots, Currys, WH Smiths, PC World, Oddbins) and established online retailers (eg CDWOW.com, Firebox.com, Figleaves.com). Once you've made your selection, you order via Reporo's payment engine (PIN protected) and the transaction is deducted from your credit card details that they store for you.

It seems to be nice usability, pretty easy to navigate and intuitive to use. If I have slight criticism, it's that the app perhaps tries to be too comprehensive in terms of choice, leading to too many options in the drop down menus at times. As a user, I'd expect it to be a "lite" version of what I could do online, rather than the full monty.

Reporo's business model is that it's free to use and Reporo take a commission on every sale generated.

This concept is one which has been tried online many times - a shopping portal or virtual mall. BarclaySquare springs to mind, as one example, started back in the late 90's, which in turn started a rush to build similar sites. This was funded by Barclay's Bank and never really took off, perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively. After all, bringing together a bunch of retailers in one place works offline, so why wouldn't it work online? Shoppers didn't see it this way however, seeing no rationale for using the site in an age where distance was suddenly dead.

So the two big questions about Reporo are; can the virtual mall concept work in mobile, when it's already largely failed on the fixed-line internet? Secondly, will people use their mobiles to shop like this, when it's always going to be easier to wait and use your computer, when you have access to it?

My take on the mobile virtual mall is that it might just work, although it might only be a short term thing. If you've got the app on your phone already (ignoring that this will be a significant challenge for the company), Reporo will be easier to browse and buy with than any alternative - the start point for other shopping on the mobile is to find a retailer's WAP site in the first place, assuming they have one and assuming that it works. It's just much easier to fire up Reporo and go from there.

In the longer term however, retailers will have a WAP site and it will work, which might just leave Reporo with a BarclaySquare #2 on their hands, unless they can change their model to suit that new climate.

The second question though is more fundamental. Are people ready to shop via their mobile? I can certainly see a niche developing for impulse purchase of things like books, CDs and gadgets. You read a review in a magazine, brochure or via RSS on your phone and want to order it before you forget. You don't need to see a picture or find out much more about it, as a book is a book is a book. So you open up Reporo and order with a few clicks.

The question really is, how big is this niche and how quickly will it develop?

Because revenue generation is only one half of the battle for Reporo - in order to be successful, they need to keep their retail partners happy. And the only way to keep companies of this size and calibre happy, you're going to need to shift real volume or else they'll simply withdraw from what they'll see as a distraction.

Like any start-up, Reporo faces its fair share of challenges. But I think they might be on to something here.

Links for November 18

- TuYo Mobile Says Hola to Metro Markets (WirelessWeek)
- Virgin Mobile reiterates FY targets after solid H1 (Forbes)
- Virgin Mobile Hasn't Been Approached Over Takeover (Dow Jones)

What Have They Learned? Jamie Oliver, Round Two

Back in July, I wrote about a Jamie Oliver made-for-mobile series of recipe videos. I had two main points: first, there needed to be a mechanism for people that actually wanted to make the meals to get the recipe and ingredients; second, there was a hugely missed opportunity here for some company, like a supermarket, to sponsor the clips. It was announced today that a new set of videos will be made available on Vodafone's 3G network -- so what have they learned from the first installment?

The first series was supposed to include a facility for the recipe to be sent to the user via SMS at some point, and the producers' site hasn't changed to reflect whether or not this has actually happened. However, with the new service, the videos will cost 75p to watch, and a message with the recipe will be a further 75p. I'm glad to see the functionality is there, though I think the price is a bit high. I do, wonder, though, if consumers can just get the recipe without the video. For many people, that's the real value, not the entertainment of watching a guy cook for three minutes. Users should also be able to get the recipe first, then order the video afterwards should they need it. But, I guess then there's a chance they'd never watch the video and not spend the 75p. Typically backwards telco-think.

It still doesn't appear that this content is sponsored -- and it's still a hugely missed opportunity. As Russell's post earlier today (and Scott Shaffer's excellent comment) say, there's got to be a trade-off for mobile marketing. In exchange for placement on somebody's mobile device, the advertiser has to offer something of value -- real value -- in exchange.

Think about the people watching these videos and especially getting the recipes: clearly they're at the very least thinking of cooking something, so they're in the market for ingredients. Why not charge them to watch the video, but have a supermarket sponsor the recipe message? In exchange for an ad on their mobile device, users get the recipe and ingredients list they want. The supermarket could even tack on a coupon for the ingredients to increase the possibility users would visit their store.

Here's a perfect opportunity for permission mobile marketing, and it goes wanting.

Wither Mobile Marketing?

One of my predictions for this year was that despite a lot of chatter, mobile marketing still wouldn't really take off in 2005 and this seems to have been born out as we approach the end of the year.

Mobile marketing is nowhere near mainstream yet, despite some big brands flirting with the medium and a load of specialist agencies attempting to corner the market. We've even had Andrew Robertson, CEO of the world's second largest ad agency, BBDO, with his headline-grabbing claims that mobile will soon be the most important channel....as he settled back into selling yet more 30 second ad slots.

It's hard to argue that mobile isn't potentially important - two billion people carrying what are essentially Personal Media Players, capable of receiving calls and messages in real time, playing music, watching film, streaming Tv and radio and hosting games. Not only that, but we're promised that these devices will soon be self-aware enough to know where they are in the world, and in relation to other users - and let interested parties know this information (with the user's permission).

So it's not the medium itself that represents the challenge for marketers. It's bleeding obvious that it's attractive. At least if you don't work in a traditional agency.

The problem that everyone's struggling with is what the marketing itself might look like.

The marketing industry itself is still wedded to the interruptive marketing model - whether we're talking about interrupting your TV programme, your film, your web surfing, your email time, your shopping trip (with in-store displays, on-pack promotions et al), your life (direct mail) - I could go on, almost endlessly. All these techniques work on the premise of grabbing your attention as you're doing one thing - and then trying to get you to do something else. The way they interrupt you may vary from entertaining you to pummeling you into submission and all variants between, but interruption is the name of the game.

The breakthrough with online marketing came, not with (interruptive - again) banner ads, but a spin off of the dear old Yellow Pages business model. Yellow Pages offers a free listing for all businesses, so it can claim to be comprehensive, but it allows businesses who pay them money, to increase their prominence in the publication. And millions of small businesses throughout the world have made that decision to upgrade their presence and largely benefited from it. This was years before the Long Tail was ever mooted, excellent concept though it is.

Google borrowed and adapted that idea and allowed businesses to get in front of people when they were searching for information that was relevant to a need that the business might be able to help them with. This meant that Google were offering a channel that no longer interrupted people as they went about their daily lives, but helped them get more from what they were doing at the time - namely a better search experience.

I believe that this points the way to how marketers will need to treat the mobile channel. Simply bombarding people with interruptive messages, via sms, mms, video or even voice recordings at the start or middle of a phone call, is going to be a very short-term strategy indeed.

Even when initial permission is given for these types of interruption, when it doesn't take into account what the recipient is doing or where they are, it quickly becomes unwelcome spam. For instance, I might give my favourite band permission to let me know about forthcoming gigs and album releases. But if I happen to be on holiday in a different time zone and the incoming message wakes me up, or even in the middle of an important business meeting, I'm suddenly going to see it as interrupting and annoying.

This is even more so than other forms of permission-based, push marketing. If I get emailed from the band, generally speaking, I get interrupted when I choose (ie when I'm doing my email -unless I'm on a Crackberry), not when they do, so the interruption isn't nearly so extreme.

While the promise of location-based marketing can overcome this to an extent, I still might not like to receive a message when it arrives - I might just not be in the mood, or might have just purchased the ubiquitous Starbucks' Latte when asked if I fancy one.

So is Pull-based marketing the answer? In other words, should marketers wait for customers to ask them for a marketing message? Well, this certainly sounds cool, but I also know from ZagMe that the majority of people simply forget, even though they would dearly love to communicate at that time, if they had remembered and remembered how to. So to rely solely on this technique seems to be doing a disservice to both user and marketer, as far as I can see.

These annoyances will (eventually) lead to permission being withdrawn and then that means for ever. Mobile Marketers can't even ask for a second chance, as they've been banished from the mobile channel altogether, as far as that customer is concerned.

So the key to success in this new channel will be for marketers to ask themselves how they can add value to what the user is doing at that time. In the same way that AdWords help the searcher, how can the marketer help the mobile user or enhance their mobile experience or indeed, their lives at that moment?

Further clues lie in the increasing ease that users will be able to pull down information with their phones when they want to, via virtual graffito links (whatever the underlying technology) and the fact that most people still use their phones primarily to make voice calls and do sms - in other words, it's still first and foremost a communication device for person-to-person interactions.

The marketers who take the time to understand these important issues will inherit the mobile channel and thus, the most important medium to emerge since TV, over 50 years ago. Those who seek to merely apply outmoded interruptive advertising are doomed from the start.

Links For November 17

- Rock Star's Bum Appeal (Picturephoning)
- RIM unruffled over Nokia's Intellisync buy (Mobile Analyst Watch)
- Google opens London GooglePlex for mobile push (Silicon.com)
- Alltel To Buy Midwest Wireless (Yahoo)
- UK Data Users Tend to Switch Networks Regularly (Cellular-News)

Carnival of the Mobilists 6

Carnival of the Mobilists 6 is up, with some great posts as usual.

Thanks to this week's host, The Pondering Primate - you'll find the entries here, so head on over and check them out. This week's haul includes one from the legendary Emily at Textually and it's great to see her join the Carnival too.

Next week, we are Smart Mobs - one of the first mobile blogs and still one of the biggest. So if you're a blogger, get those posts in.

Can I Phone a Friend?

One of the lifelines offered to contestants struggling to answer a question in TV's insanely popular "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" is to Phone a Friend. The friend, if chosen wisely, will come up with the correct answer and the lucky player is on their way to riches.

It struck me that life's increasingly like that. Sure, we've heard of people phoning their mates in the middle of pub quizzes and the like. But, how about this:

".....two teen girls surveying the cosmetics aisle in Portland, Maine's Target store. Low-slung jeans, tiny purses, standing hand on hip, consulting each other about colors and brands. Then one flips open a sparkly cellphone, speed dials, and asks someone in the know: "So does Almay test on animals?" They move down the aisle a little. "How about Sonia Kashuk?" " Iconoculture on Teen Ethics.

A more formal way of doing the same thing is Cellphedia, whose founder Limor Garcia (yet another NYU graduate) and I shared a platform at Wikimania (pictured).

You use Cellphedia by smsing a question to a central server, which then distributes the question to a group of volunteers. If they know the answer, they sms the server, which sends it on the the person asking the question. Limor calls it a cross between Wikipedia and Google.

You can see examples of the type of questions here and they range from things like "Whats the word 4 injection under the skin. not into vein" Answer: Subcutaneous to "Is lamb red meat?" Answer (just in case you were wondering): Yes.

Currently, the the system works by offering the questioner the first answer received. Some would argue that this makes the answer potentially flawed. However, counter-intuitively there seems to be little evidence that many wrong answers are actually submitted. If you are the first to reply, you have to be pretty confident that you're right and the kinds of people who subscribe to these services are probably knowledgeable enough and aware enough of their own limitations to hold back when they're in doubt.

The outcome is very similar to Wikipedia - with so many people contributing in a largely unsupervised way, you'd expect it to be riddled with inaccuracies, both accidental and deliberate. But somehow, it just works and this is the spirit and result that pervades Cellphedia.

But whether you rely on your friends or a service like Cellphedia, you've never been closer to instant knowledge about anything you need to know, even when out and about. This has profound implications for society, not just for makers of animal-tested cosmetics and producers of quiz programmes.

ROKR II, Son of ROKR: 1000 Songs, But No iTunes?

Motorola's talking to BusinessWeek about its plans for the ROKR line, and says it will introduce a the next model in the first quarter of 2006, "updated to address the main criticisms of the first release," with a megapixel camera, standard headphone jack and 1,000-song capacity in a slider design.

It's not clear, however, if the phone will be compatible with iTunes, with Motorola saying it's up to Apple and Cingular: "We will definitely do an iTunes version if that's what Cingular wants," says Ron GRQS, head of Motorola's phone unit. But what will Apple want? The arbitrary 100-song cap of the original ROKR was apparently at Apple's behest, as they didn't want to cannibalize iPod Shuffle sales. If they capped the first ROKR to protect sales of $100 Shuffles, why would they let Motorola put iTunes on a phone that would rival the nano in capacity? Moto's in a rough spot here -- if they release another ROKR without iTunes support, they'll probably get railed for it. Release another 100-song phone, and it'll be just as dead as the ROKR.

The article doesn't do much to restore confidence in Motorola, or Cingular, for that matter. The carrier's exec in charge of consumer data services says, "What we're doing with Apple is the first simple means for people to carry music around with them," which isn't at all accurate (either in the context of phones, but particularly in the context of devices like, um, the iPod, or hell, even the Sony Walkman), but that can be dismissed as PR grandstanding. But things take a slightly curious turn when BW says Cingular "is also hard at work training retail sales people to present the ROKR as something other than an iPod phone." Without the iTunes capability, what else is there? An uncompelling, ugly old phone with Motorola's famously horrible user interface?

It's as if both companies expected the iTunes brand and the iPod association to be some sort of magic tonic, but buyers are smarter than that. The success of the iPod isn't just because of its brand, it's because it's a great product. The ROKR, simply put, is not. Motorola needs to focus on building great phones, not just on creating handsets that can have the iTunes icon stamped on them.

The Mobile is the PC of the Developing World

As we sit with our broadband connected computers, surfing the web, rattling off email and IMs, Skyping Intercontinentally and publishing our ideas and opinions all over the world with blogging software, it's easy to forget that much of the world just isn't like that. Broadband connections (or even dear old dial up connections) are a rarity in much of the developing world, including (but not limited) to the massive populations of China, India and Africa.

So in these countries, the mobile phone combines the functionality of the telephone and the computer, for many people. This is just one of the driving factors that will see the mobile replace the computer as the primary device that most people use most of the time to access the mobile internet - including us in the West, by the way.

An important stakeholder in these countries are NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) and charities, who often need to keep in touch with remote workers or indeed, whole communities who are completely cut off from all other sorts of communication. SMS can be used to quickly and efficiently disperse messages and information that would take days or weeks to disseminate in any other way.

One company trying to develop a solution for these organisations is FrontlineSMS, who have contacted us asking MobHappy to help find them some non-paying trial customers to help test their PC-based group SMS management system.

So if you are involved in an NGO or charity, please contact them via their website here. Or, if you know anyone who might be interested, drop them an email now, while you remember.

Links For November 16

- Cell phone bandit caught (CNN)
- RIM 'very comfortable' with NTP patent workaround (Reuters)
- Nokia Buys Intellisync For $430 million (Bloomberg)
- T-Mobile USA Explores Expansion Options (Phone Scoop)
- Symbian Boasts 131% Shipment Increase For Q3 (Mobile Pipeline)
- INTERVIEW: Symbian CEO Says Targeting Mass Market (Cellular-News)
- Toilet-disposed mobiles menace Helsinki's sewers (The Register)

And, because I forgot yesterday's, here they are in a bonus section:
- Nokia, Grameen Foundation In Mobile Phone Financing Pact (Cellular-News)
- Facebook Mobile on Amp’d (MocoNews)

Welcome Our New Widget Overlords

I like a good widget, and I've been waiting for them for my mobile. Looks like that's getting closer, with the new Opera Platform. Many of the headlines got hung up on how this will enable the current Web Development Buzzword AJAX on mobile; more perceptive people saw the widget angle.

Opera Platform is significant because it represents a development environment for small, task-focus applications (ie widgets). While most of what will be done with it could probably be accomplished with a J2ME app (see Google Local Mobile), it's important to create a simpler, less intensive environment in which widgets can flourish (as Erik pointed out, sorta like Flash Lite). Check out the available Apple Dashboard widgets to see where this can go when development is made easy.

Things like Opera Platform and Flash Lite are significant first steps. What would be even more impressive, though, would be to see a handset manufacturer adopt one of these tools and dumb it down even further to the point where people could easily create their own widgets. Not only would the number of applications greatly increase, people would have an opportunity to really customize their mobile devices to access the services and information they want, by letting them develop widgets themselves. More open development environments foster creativity -- and ultimately success.

Homebrew Handsets

If further proof were needed that mobiles are the new rock n roll computers, CNet has this feature on how a select few are starting to build their own mobile handsets.

It's not cheap (parts cost c $400) and you have to be highly technically literate - writing and installing your own Linux operating system is the name of the game here. Though, for the marginally less talented, I guess it's only a matter of time before this is available as a download.

What you end up with though, is a programmable phone that does what you want it to, not what an operator or a handset maker thinks you should be able to do with it.

However far from mainstream this might appear at the moment, it's at the edges that real innovation occurs and the move to mainstream can happen remarkably quickly. Computers were very much the realm of geeks until really the early to mid-1990's. And blogging (both reading and writing blogs) was a very marginal activity even 3 years ago.

I also wonder how long it'll be before smaller players start to build handsets to order and when the larger players will start to follow them.

PlaceSite WiFiSoSo

Many successful commercial projects spin out of academia (Google and Netscape spring to mind, but there's loads more), so it's interesting to look at what's happening there, from time to time.

I read on Cheese Bikini about a new service starting at Berkeley called PlaceSite in the next few weeks. It's a WiFiSoSo (my acronym, I'm afraid) or WiFi Social Software. The idea is when you log onto a participating wireless network, you get a screen looking something like this

which gives you profile info on other people in the same cafe - or more accurately, people using the same node and who have completed their profile. You can hide your profile or aspects of it too, should you feel the need for more privacy.

PlaceSite also allows you to post a message to a forum, exclusive to that node and obviously, read messages too.

The obvious question here is why you need to use technology to facilitate communication, when you're in the same place as these other people anyway. Why don't you just talk to them?

However, most people don't behave like that, most of the time. How do you know the other person is open to an approach? How do you know they won't shout "Piss off, you stalker!!!" at the top of their lungs? How do you know they're not tied up right now, but actually would love a chat in about 10 minutes?

So, the technology allows people to explore an interaction ina low risk, safe way before needing to pop their head above the parapet and perhaps getting it blown off. People use texting and IM the same way - exploring the convenience of going nuclear, which is the communication equivalent of a voice-to-voice call.

In many ways, this kind of system is a pre-cursor how we'll be managing interactions on our phones in the years to come. Our phones will become our gatekeepers for communication and others will be able to check what kind of interaction we're ready for at that time and if there's a better window later in the day. Maybe, they'll be able to find out our moods (you need to be in the right fram of mind for a "luvikins hearts babycakes" after all) and the level of busy-ness and stress we're currently feeling.

I can't see PlaceSite being the next Google (and I'm sure it doesn't aspire to be either). But it could teach some very important lessons to companies aspiring to move into Mobile Social Software and Presence Management, which when you start to think about it, could be the next mega-success story of our times.

SIM Card As Web Server?

SIM card company Axalto says it's got a new product that allows mobile users to publish a blog on their SIM cards, which then acts as a Web server, allowing publishing "with a single click" and immediate access by others to view the site.

Huh?

From the company's press release:

Now this multimedia content can be easily published as it is directly stored on the new SIM which acts as the user’s web server...Users do not need a PC nor do they have to upload their content on a remote web server, making the whole process much simpler. Once the photo has been taken, it only takes one click for the user to decide to publish it on his/her blog. Then his/her friends can have immediate access to it from a PC or a mobile phone. This breakthrough was made possible by an innovative implementation of the web server onto the SIM card which supports large memory as well as the USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol. The tremendous card capacity allows to store large amounts of multimedia content while the TCP-IP protocol enables connectivity between the SIM card and the Internet world."

My technical advisers are skeptical of the claims and suspect some miscommunication between the engineers and the marketing department. My question is this, though: even if you could put a Web server on your SIM card and publish a site from there, via your phone, why would you want to? I'm hard pressed to think of a single situation where it would be preferential or advantageous to just simply sending photos and blog entries to a remote server.

The Right and Wrong Way to Treat Your Customers - Sony Vs TypePad

I spend quite a bit of my time these days advising companies about blogging, which is a subset of engagement marketing. Engagement Marketing is about treating your customers with respect and as equals in a conversational relationship. This is harder than it seems, especially for large corporates who tend to be wedded to the old model of interruptive advertising.

A critical element of corporate blogging is the monitoring of blogs and reacting to them, especially in a crisis. So, I can't help being struck by the contrast in the last few days between Sony, in the old-fashioned, "don't get it" corner and TypePad, who certainly do seem to get it.

In case you've been off-planet for the last week, Sony (boo, hiss) upset a lot of people by introducing DRM to its CDs. This proved wildly unpopular, for a variety of reasons - TechDirt has got a good summary of all the issues, but the bottom line is that they screwed up and were eventually forced to swap out "infected" CDs for non-DRM protected ones.

Now, you could argue that they did the right thing in the end. But they've done so with startlingly bad grace, denying all along that there was a problem and never once apologising. Result: An awful lot of pissed off people, who are customers and potential customers. Moreover, it'll be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for Sony to make moves in this direction again - so at least something good might come out of it.

A further piece of good news is that the poor folks at Kryponite bike locks might just give up their Number 1 slot as THE case study for poor new wave, crisis management.

TypePad, make blogging software - we use it at MobHappy. To be honest, it's a little (in Tom Peter's words) ho-fucking-hum but it generally does the job. However, they recently had some technical problems, resulting in less than stellar service.

Typepad should be very aware of potential bad PR, as all their customers are bloggers. And sure enough, they did the right thing very quickly.

Firstly, they wrote to everyone, acknowledging the problem. Secondly, the apologised. Thirdly, they offered compensation.

Their customers are offered a choice of compensation, depending on how they perceive they have been affected. They can choose to say "shucks, it was nothing, don't worry about it" up to claiming 45 days credit to their TypePad account.

Now, this isn't a hagiography of TypePad, by any means - they shouldn't have let their customers down in the first place. But mistakes happen, people understand this and are generally forgiving if you apologise and correct the mistake and/or offer compensation.

But there's more to it than this actually. Ironically, if you screw up and do the right thing next, you can end up better off than you were in the first place, as it's still so damn rare that people start lauding you for it. Just take a look at this, which is practically a petition to canonise Ben and Mena Trott (pictured) of TypePad, albeit mixed with a few sceptics.

So, weirdly TypePad may actually come out of all this better than if they hadn't let their customers down in the first place. This is not an isolated incidence, by any means. Looked at opportunistically and positively, any customer complaint is a chance to create a powerful word of mouth advocate, by following this simple mantra:

Sorry. We fucked up, we fess up and we'll fork out.

Though you might want to think about changing the language.

Beware though. It'll only work once.

Just When You Thought Mobile ESPN Was Expensive...

What with the $500 phone and the $65 to $200 per month charges, you'd be hard pressed to find a more expensive carrier than Mobile ESPN. But a new MVNO's been announced that takes the crown.

Japanese mobile content company Faith will soon launch its Voce MVNO in New York and Los Angeles that's aiming to be "exclusive": the $1500 sign-up fee and the $500 monthly charge for unlimited voice and data should see to that. This is totally bizarre.

For those big fees, customers will get new high-end handsets every 4 months, as well as a concierge service. If you can afford the $500 a month, you can buy your own phones, and you've probably already got a concierge, in the form of an AmEx Centurion card or a personal assistant. It's a strange attempt at differentiation -- but one I wouldn't be surprised to see work.

While commoditized mobile service as a luxury item is a bit of a stretch, this is one of those things whose luxury status is really derived solely from its price, and there have been plenty of those that have been successful at separating rich folks from their money. The point of MVNOs is to market to niches, but this is the first one I've seen whose niche is people that love conspicuous consumption.

Links for November 14

- Motorola's New Mission in China (BusinessWeek) "China chief Michael Tatelman on how the handset maker is integrating the country's consumers and designers into its global strategy."
-