It’s been doing the rounds since it came out on Thursday last week and — well, frankly it makes for depressing reading.
But I don’t think it’s going to get better any time soon. There are indications from Nokia that they’ve got the message. We’ll get a very good idea of this when we see the next set of Nokia handsets. I’m sure they’ll have a few announcements soon.
In the meantime, super work, Prodigal Fool — I really enjoyed your letter.
Thank you for your patience whilst I’ve been flying.
I packed my massive flight case late on Friday evening after a day of filming at the Symbian headquarters in London (more on that soon). I got to Heathrow and then had to empty some of the contents of the flight case. Here’s a picture of it:
It was brilliant to put all the camera gear and tech inside. Everything was packed away nicely. Unfortunately I had to stand there like a plumb emptying stuff and then weighing the case until I got it down to under 32kg in total.
I ended up having to squeeze my laptop and the two terabyte drives into my other suitcase. The whole point behind having a flippin’ massive sexy flight case is so that you don’t have to do this.
However a helpful chappy at the check-in desk explained that ‘the baggage guys won’t lift anything over 32kg off the belt’. I shall keep that in mind for the other five flights I’ve got this month.
Thank you to everyone who’s been demanding to know where the newsletter is. I actually wrote it on the Nokia Booklet 3G on the flight over. I just need to transcribe it into the newsletter system and send. Given the timezone difference I’m thinking of holding that ’til Friday so that you don’t end up getting two newsletters this week.
If you’re in New York and would like to meet, I’m here until Thursday and I’m at the ‘W New York – The Court’ at 130 East 39th Street. Come and have a drink?
I’m delighted to be able to bring you the first of what I hope will be a series of perspectives from leaders around the mobile industry. Starting us off is CEO of MOFILM, Andy Baker. Given MOFILM’s focus on providing a platform for independent filmmakers to submit ads for some of the world’s leading brands (on a competition basis), I thought it would be good to see how they view the introduction of the iPad into the marketplace.
Over to Andy for his perspective:
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Everyone’s talking about books, newspapers and apps for the iPad, but not many people are talking about film. At MOFILM we’ve built an entire business around the idea that user-generated video content is and will continue to be big on mobile, and we think the iPad’s just going to accelerate that, and in the process, create a new advertising model.
Firstly, the iPad is unique in the mobile world in combining two things: a big, beautiful, touchable screen and the ability to choose, stream and download video content. Yes, it’s nice watching video on the iPhone and iTouch, but video on the iPad is going to be in a different league. And with a nice long battery life, video is going to be one of the major apps.
But filmmakers and advertisers are going to have to rethink the kind of video they push out. iPad users aren’t going to have time for content that bores them. We’ve already seen it happen with You Tube on the iPhone/iTouch: people are hungry for videos that they get a quick hit from, that make them laugh or make them think, the sort of videos they want to pass on to their friends.
This means traditional TV/cinema ads are going to have to change. I can’t imagine that people watching 4 On Demand, for example, will want to sit and watch ‘brand experience’ TV ads endlessly repeated. In fact this kind of content is just going to annoy them.
So what can advertisers do? They have to find original, well made, engaging content, and lots of it, to fill the many available ad spaces without repetition. This is where independent filmmakers come in. MOFILM specialises in attracting ‘user generated content’, but what we really do is put ambitious, creative filmmakers in touch with the brands that need them for their advertising.
The deal is that the filmmakers pour their talent into making a film (they’re well compensated) and the advertisers get several completely original ads. And hopefully, iPad users get video that is a joy, not an annoyance.
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Ah well here’s hoping Andy. Here’s hoping. Thanks for taking the time. I think you’re absolutely right and I hope that now there will (I imagine) be a common, easily accessible platform, we’ll see a ton more of this kind of entertainment-cum-advertising. I also hope we’ll get a lot more off the wall and exciting messaging, rather than the usual ‘it’s a perfume ad’ or ‘it’s a car ad’ bland creative.
By the way, in case you need a quick memory jogger on MOFILM, here’s a quick overview:
MOFILM believes that in the age of accessible, digital filmmaking, an independent filmmaker with just a camera and an idea can produce high-quality, commercial ideas. We want these ideas to be seen. Our competitions provide the platform for filmmakers to make ads for some the world’s leading brands, winning money and prestige in the process.
MOFILM filmmakers are valued by brands. Our competitions give our partners a chance to tap a huge reservoir of international filmmaking talent, as well as developing a wealth of content to be distributed online and via mobile devices. Our partners discover a whole new advertising model.
And if getting stuck into the world of independent advertising floats your boat, head over to www.mofilm.com to view the current competition briefs.
I think I got to age 17 having spent a long time professionally worrying about things before I realised — perhaps in quite a male manner — that worrying about things is a ridiculous waste of time. Stop worrying about everything, I told myself, and start doing.
So I’m calm, generally.
That is, until you put a video of somebody demonstrating a touchscreen mobile phone that doesn’t actually work properly.
I simply CANNOT stand to see it.
I’ll give you an example.
Many a time I have been at a launch party or event when a manufacturer has had cause to show off a video of their touchscreen device(s) working. Usually the videos are pre-packaged — which winds me up even more.
The videos generally feature a spokesperson showing off the product and marvelling at how good the touchscreen is — what they’re usually doing is telling us (not directly) that they’ve managed to make something that’s as good as — or close to the iPhone.
(Which is another pet hate: Can’t we please have some innovation beyond Apple?)
As the spokesperson is demonstrating, there will come a time when they swipe their finger(s) over the screen and… nothing will happen.
Because the touchscreen is a piece of shit.
The spokesperson things they’ve flicked the screen on. So does the rest of the audience. But the screen hasn’t moved. The spokesperson will notice this a few seconds later and quickly flick his/her finger again. Deliberately. And the screen will move.
And everyone in the sodding room thinks, ‘Er, so, yeah, not quiet up to Apple standard yet.’
This isn’t flucking rocket science, it really isn’t.
I’m going to make an effort to actually call people out on this. I’m going to actually highlight every sodding device that doesn’t WORK properly.
I don’t give a toss about the underlying technology or excuses like that. Either it works like the iPhone or it’s broken.
There’s no arguing here. The flick-and-it-works iPhone model is fantastic. I don’t care who made it or programmed it though. Either the flick works… or it doesn’t.
I understand that if the spokesperson doesn’t TOUCH the screen properly, yes, the device can’t be expected to perform. But 99.999% of the time, it’s the technology being shit.
Would you like a case in point?
Good, I was hoping you’d say yes.
Here, then, is Michael Arrington bumping into another titan of the tech world also called Michael: Michael Dell.
Yup. Even Michael Dell’s technology is inferior to the iPhone. How depressing.
Have a watch:
Near the beginning you’ll see Dell swiping through the new Android handset he’s showing off… and you’ll see him flick-and-… yeah, it doesn’t work.
There is no middle ground. Either it’s a touchscreen (and it works). It can’t be an almost-touchscreen.
Rubbish.
Absolutely rubbish.
Won’t somebody please make touchscreens that work for all phones. Fix the hardware, the software, whatever the hell it is that continues to make fools out of spokespeople everywhere.
There’s only one absolutely ridiculous agency that I’ve actually sent straight to my trash bin automatically. Everything else, I glance over.
Then I star it — because, to be honest, as long as it’s half interesting, I may well use it.
Then I usually go and get really busy earning money elsewhere.
Then I panic because I thought I had some things lined up I was going to write about (those starred items).
Then I write my own stuff because it was quicker and because those starred items are now on my third page of Google Mail (the equivalent of the graveyard) because I’ve had even more half interesting press releases come in. That I star.
And I think about…
Then I go and make proper money advising investment banks, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and building my own businesses.
The one hugely misplaced assumption that most PR make about me is that I’m here to provide a service level to them — like the chap at the mainstream media publication is. Obviously he’s paid to bang out five pieces a day. About whatever.
I reckon about 15% of the stuff I publish originates from a press release sent to me by someone I don’t ‘know’ or have some kind of relationship with. I’d then go so far as to suggest perhaps 25% comes from PR that I know and trust.
The balance — around 60%, I make up myself.
I’d love a lot more assistance from PR. For example, I thought of sending out an announcement to the various PR lists asking them to send me some feedback on the iPad. The concept is sound — they would go back to their clients and ask them to pen 250 words on the iPad. They’d then send that to me. I’d integrate into a wickedly interesting piece. Everybody wins. I haven’t had to do a ton of chasing to 20 odd executives directly, they look good in front of their clients, their clients are happy because they’re published — and I’m delighted because I can deliver good stuff to the audience.
I didn’t bother doing this because the sad reality is that, despite spelling out what it is you’d like to read (at my best guess), I’ll either be sent nonsense, or nothing at all. Or I’ll get it next week. Not because of the PR being slow, but because the client doesn’t bother responding. Worst is when I’m sent something almost irrelevant. For example, a comment on the iPad by someone who manufacturers paper towels. Not quite in the zone for Mobile Industry Review.
It’s such a frustration watching more public relations professionals do their jobs.
Do you remember we used to do a newsletter years ago? In that newsletter, I liked to put in little bits of news. Every week I’d email perhaps 300 PRs asking ‘have you got any news’.
I used to expect being sent wholly irrelevant stuff as a result but goodness me. The amount of PRs who simply wrote back ‘no, nothing, sorry’ used to shock me. It was generally because they’d hit their press release quota for their client contracts and were sitting pretty. Or they’d finished doing the ‘hours’ for that particular client I was emailing about so they didn’t need to do any thinking.
They’re very good at being proactive. Try asking a PR if they’ve got any news. 95% usually respond ‘no’. The smart 5% will generate something. They’ll rustle up something within 10 minutes: A new hire, a bit of product feedback, an anecdote for one of their clients.
I used to keep a list of PRs who wrote back ‘no’. Most of them worked for agencies who routinely bill 7,500+ month to their clients. So whenever anyone needed a PR company recommendation, I’d know precisely who suggest avoiding. If you need a recommendation, let me know.
Now, though, the newsletter is just me. Speaking of which, I had a break last week. This week the topic is — predictably — about the iPad.
Following on from my earlier post about Vodafone 360 woes, I can really see what the consumers populating the Vodafone 360 forums are experiencing. I tried to update/upgrade the firmware on the H1 and this is the screen I got:
I did the usual rubbish Windows restarts, reconnects and so on. No dice.
This could well be because my device is pre-release, but I doubt it — the error appears to be with the Samsung PC Studio.
