“Just to be clear: You’ll be billed for sending MMS messages to anyone else. It’s only free to Radio 1 on that day. Which, frankly, is a fat lot of good for the wider consumer”.

Radio 1 reaches millions of people every day, a majority of which you may describe as “Normobs”. There are of course some smartphone users, who like myself, have been emailing photos and uploading to the web for years – some of those long before the arrival of the iPhone and Android devices (are they “Abnormobs”?), but a lot of those folks (as you recognise in your post) don’t know if they have the right settings and often don’t even how to send a photo over the air.

As a public service, the BBC has to do it’s best to reach the widest possible audience – and helping show the less-technically savvy what is possible from their phones, beyond voice and SMS seemed like a pretty worthy thing to do. Throughout the day on Radio 1 we had presenters explaining how to send MMS and how to check their settings, and with any luck, there’s now a lot more people in the UK starting to unlock a little more of the ‘potential in their pockets’.

“but when I take a 5 megapixel image and transmit it to your bollocks shitty small-screened Nokia 3600, yeah… the experience isn’t going to be very good at all”.

Most mobile phones will give you the option to reduce the image size when sending an MMS to ensure it will be receivable at the other end. Sending 5 megapixel images is a bit pointless if the intention is to view on a screen that’s less than 1 megapixel, no? Sure, it might be worthwhile if you’re uploading to a photo sharing website, but that’s a whole other level from the basic digital literacy this initiative was trying to help. “Bollocks, shitty Nokia 3600″? if all you knew how to do was call people or drop them a text, then actually this might seem an ideal little handset. Battery lasts way longer than an iPhone, it’s far simpler to setup and make calls and much less likely to shatter when accidentally dropped. It’s also a lot cheaper – and price is the most important factor when choosing a phone for a lot of people.

“Most reasonably modern handsets automatically acquire and select the relevant MMS/data gateways. But I meet too many normobs who ‘haven’t got MMS setup’ or who tell me that ‘it’s never worked for me’.”

Settings are still a problem for many. Take a previously contract handset and swap in a PAYG sim for instance and chances are your settings won’t work anymore. Getsettings.org is a great idea therefore (although disappointed to see it’s not really functional from a basic mobile browser).

What was really interesting about the day, was watching the 10s of thousands of photos arrive and reading the comments that came with them. If you send an SMS to a friend or family member, then they know you, and don’t need to see your face to understand your sentiment. For me the greatest learning of the day was to see how much more powerful shortform communication can be when you can see the sender’s face. It’s obvious really, mankind has had millions of years of communicating face to face, as opposed to more like 12 years of relying on 160 chars of thumbed abbreviations to get your point across.

Maybe this was too late for those who’ve already purchased flat-rate data tariffs and are happily seeing their mobile devices as an extension of their online experience – but not every one sees the value in that yet, and I like to think we (and the MDA) might have helped just a little bit.

“Just to be clear: You’ll be billed for sending MMS messages to anyone else. It’s only free to Radio 1 on that day. Which, frankly, is a fat lot of good for the wider consumer”.

Radio 1 reaches millions of people every day, a majority of which you may describe as “Normobs”. There are of course some smartphone users, who like myself, have been emailing photos and uploading to the web for years – some of those long before the arrival of the iPhone and Android devices (are they “Abnormobs”?), but a lot of those folks (as you recognise in your post) don't know if they have the right settings and often don't even how to send a photo over the air.

As a public service, the BBC has to do it's best to reach the widest possible audience – and helping show the less-technically savvy what is possible from their phones, beyond voice and SMS seemed like a pretty worthy thing to do. Throughout the day on Radio 1 we had presenters explaining how to send MMS and how to check their settings, and with any luck, there's now a lot more people in the UK starting to unlock a little more of the 'potential in their pockets'.

“but when I take a 5 megapixel image and transmit it to your bollocks shitty small-screened Nokia 3600, yeah… the experience isn’t going to be very good at all”.

Most mobile phones will give you the option to reduce the image size when sending an MMS to ensure it will be receivable at the other end. Sending 5 megapixel images is a bit pointless if the intention is to view on a screen that's less than 1 megapixel, no? Sure, it might be worthwhile if you're uploading to a photo sharing website, but that's a whole other level from the basic digital literacy this initiative was trying to help. “Bollocks, shitty Nokia 3600″? if all you knew how to do was call people or drop them a text, then actually this might seem an ideal little handset. Battery lasts way longer than an iPhone, it's far simpler to setup and make calls and much less likely to shatter when accidentally dropped. It's also a lot cheaper – and price is the most important factor when choosing a phone for a lot of people.

“Most reasonably modern handsets automatically acquire and select the relevant MMS/data gateways. But I meet too many normobs who ‘haven’t got MMS setup’ or who tell me that ‘it’s never worked for me’.”

Settings are still a problem for many. Take a previously contract handset and swap in a PAYG sim for instance and chances are your settings won't work anymore. Getsettings.org is a great idea therefore (although disappointed to see it's not really functional from a basic mobile browser).

What was really interesting about the day, was watching the 10s of thousands of photos arrive and reading the comments that came with them. If you send an SMS to a friend or family member, then they know you, and don't need to see your face to understand your sentiment. For me the greatest learning of the day was to see how much more powerful shortform communication can be when you can see the sender's face. It's obvious really, mankind has had millions of years of communicating face to face, as opposed to more like 12 years of relying on 160 chars of thumbed abbreviations to get your point across.

Maybe this was too late for those who've already purchased flat-rate data tariffs and are happily seeing their mobile devices as an extension of their online experience – but not every one sees the value in that yet, and I like to think we (and the MDA) might have helped just a little bit.