Tag: SMS

Ringtones, Wallpapers & SMS in the UK

On 29/04/2008

English newspaper The Guardian published the results of a couple of recent surveys on mobile content, including the quarterly “Orange Digital Media Index” and a study carried out by TNS and, alas, no real surprises here:

Ringtone and wallpaper downloads are slowing and are on the decline and, frankly, who in their right mind with a phone that plays MP3s, has a good camera as well as multiple connections to a computer, would spend money on such little gimmicks anymore? Ringtones were down more than 10%, whilst wallpapers still grew but at a meager 3%.
Full-track downloads of songs though were on the rise — 292,000 in January on Orange UK compared to only 100,000 ringtones.
SMS are going strong (up 21% or 1.3bn for the month in the UK) according to Orange, a number to which I, through my 12-year-old son’s phone bill, contribute no small share…
TNS believes mobile IM is on the rise but this is not really the big thing. What IS the big thing is that, according to TNS, more than 1 in every 3 messages a user sends from either his/her mobile OR computer are SMS (38%), and that shows how ubiquitous the whole thing has become. Again, judging by my son’s communication patterns, I believe that: his choice of messaging is – in order of relevance: 1) SMS, 2) IM, 3) (and I mean a very, very distant 3) e-mail.

So pretty much all as expected. Unfortunately, no news on mobile video, games or applications in this one although this is there might actually have been interesting things to report. I am actually wondering now why I even bothered recording this at all… Apologies…

Twitter's pains & (chance of) gains

By Volker

On 06/04/2008

I have been dealing with Jaiku and Twitter, the micro-blogging machines, a lot recently (see here, here and here). Today though, I stumbled across an article that put a rather different twist to it, and it makes you wonder… The piece is written by a mother of 3 daughters who tries to use Twitter as a mass communication tool (broadcast SMS) only to be utterly frustrated as none of her “super-communicating” daughters takes it up – too complicated, too onerous, too cumbersome, too – as one academic has it – surveillance-style.

Now, is that so? It would counter my (borrowed) argument of the intrinsic attraction of objects to social circles around such objects. It doesn’t seem to work with daughters though… Well, I wonder: The mom, a tech-savvy NY Times journalist, tries to put Twitter to a use, namely to shorten communication with her 3 daughters (no need to having to tell each of them – separately – that she is on the way to XYZ). However, the object of interest to each of the daughters is very different to the ones of the others (cardigan, pizza, shopping, …). So, no stumbling block after all: Twitter, et al are for people who group around a common object, which must be of common interest (e.g. the status and availability of black cardigans in the NY youth scene), not around one that only seems to be common (mom). Mom only happens to be at a point of interlinking circles, different objects that all touch her; she is not – at least not in the examples elaborated upon in the article – the central object herself.

Adoption-wise, this does of course not make things easier as the Twitters of this world need to migrate user behaviour: fans of Cheshire golf clubs or the NY indie music scene, Parisian vernissage goers and Seattle jazz fans will all have had ways to communicate prior to Twitter’s entry on stage; they need to be convinced that this is a superior tool to keep the community buzzing. And because there is slightly less vanity space involved (Twitter doesn’t allow you nearly as much room to put your wares on display), the communication bit must be utterly compelling to pull people across. It is the only USP the concept has. And this explains why the take-up is not as quick as for other social media: this is the raw core of it, and the simple truth is – as we know never simple.

I am hopeful though that they’ll find a way: object-centered sociality is the way!

But waiter, please, I did not order this (SMS)…

By Volker

On 03/02/2008

Now, this has been puzzling me for years: the US carrier policy (I am not sure how many still do it) of charging the recipient of a text message for that message. How odd is that? You sit in a restaurant, the waiter brings you a bottle of wine that you did not order. You do not drink the wine (because you did not order it and you do not like wine) but you are being charged nonetheless. There is even a bolder version of this: the same waiter works for a winery, and they send you that bottle as a marketing trick, say to lure you into booking travel to the Loire wine region. Yet again: you did not order it, you did not drink it, they charge you. No, you say, this is surely not possible. And I agree.

However, the US arm of T-Mobile (and I am sure others before them) is doing just that: if users that do not hold a special data plan (something like a don’t-pay-for-wine-you-did-not-order-plan) are being charged for every SMS they receive, be it your teenage son telling you that he didn’t make it [home/to school/to your appointment 3 hours ago], be it your partner announcing that he/she is on the tube and will be home in 10 minutes or be it the tourism authority of the Loire region working hard on improving travel to their area – you pay.

This now seems to backfire as there has been a class action filed against T-Mobile US seeking redress for exactly that. According to the report about it, “the plaintiffs allege T-Mobile USA’s texting policy violates federal telecom law and Washington state’s consumer protection-unfair business practices act” but, quite frankly, I would have thought it would also violate a string of other, more mundane laws about contracts and invalidity of coercive business practices, etc. Unfortunately for all of us who like to drool over those incredible sums in US law suits, “the suit did not contain a dollar figure for alleged damages.”

It is about time that this stops: it estranges your customers, it provides for horrendous customer experience, and, really they shouldn’t say they didn’t see it coming…