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SMS Text News PodcasT #4

Hello, I’m Ewan MacLeod, your host. Welcome to SMS Text News Podcast. I’m joined by two other hosts, Dan Lane of Howler Tech.

Hello.

And James Whatley of SpinVox.

Good Afternoon.

Why, Hello. Thank you for joining us. Today we’re going to do something interesting, I hope. Oh, by the way, if you are listening to us in bed, could you please wake up.

Unless of course it’s night time, in which case I hope you have sweet dreams after listening to us.

You are feeling very, very, BANG!

(laughing)

Ok, the reason we did that was because we got feedback, lots of emails from people last week saying that they listen to this in bed.

Do we have any female listeners, just out of curiosity? I’ve just come from a talk about men and women geeks mixing more often because there’s a lot of segregation.

Yeah, yeah right, segregation?

In all seriousness about girl geeks sticking together and not inviting men into, anyway.

All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It happens it goes on. People don’t talk about it.

So, if you’re female, could you email?

Yeah, if you’re female could you email. I’d like that.

So, email, why in fact, if you’d like a show typed, if you’d like us to say, “Hi!” or if you have any questions, whack an email Ewan@smstestnews.com, right!

Don’t all rush at once.

No. Ok, the cream of the emails, what we’re going to do is we’ve got quite a lot of interesting comments from some readers and some listeners and we’re just going to go through them. That’s going to be the subject of our podcast today. First is from a reader, John Badford, who asks, Apple, 10 million units. He states, “10 million units in 2008,” that’s their projection, “will they achieve it?” Yeah, through subsidized tarrifs, chip away phones, is an iphone Nano on its way? So…

I think it’s perfectly feasible that there’s an iphone Nano on the way. I think, we’ve discussed this in the comments on the site quite a bit that the subsidized tariffs maybe coming along and that is a good thing. I personally prefer to be able to go out and buy an iphone and unlock it and use it on any network, but we established, on the comments that, it’s not really the consumer’s target.

They don’t know what they are yet.

No.

No, and to get this mass market, it’s going to have to be subsidized.

See, now that was my real disappointment, my real annoyance actually with that Paul. Last year was, they had big predictions for it and it didn’t quite deliver in the UK.

I thought the lack of subsidy was one of the revolutionary things about the iphone. They were saying that it was a revolutionary thing. I didn’t see that many…

The problem was, it’s extremely frustrating, walking down the shop, walking into Carphone Warehouse in Hartlepool, of all places, right? It’s somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the UK, and walking in and seeing people fondling and loving the iphone and then going, “260, nah, nah, I’ll get my phone for…” and it was really depressing watching them go and get a Sony Ericsson instead. The Sony Ericsson is free or 50 pounds or something like that.

It’s a tricky balance to get right. I think what would be nice is to see, you go into a shop, you buy your iphone, you walk out with it. You don’t have to stay in the shop, sign any contracts, hand over a credit check or anything.

He’s smart isn’t he?

Then you go home and you sign up and if you want it subsidized they give you some cash back or something.

I really like, just to interject here, I really like that and I think a lot of hand set manufacturers could learn from the way that Apple sell their phones. Walk in, buy the phone, go home, you know, plug in and activate it. Because, I may have mentioned this before actually when I did a (unknowns word – 3:41), I think a while back. As soon as you plug it into your computer once, you get used to it. That behavior and making that the center of gravity from where you pull…

A lot of people use their ipods anyway; they’re all familiar with it. Well, ok, ten million units are projected to sell in 2008.

Is that worldwide or?

I think that’s worldwide. I don’t entirely know, this is from John Bedford actually. I think he found that.

They’re launching a lot more territories as well.

True, India’s got it. South America, Asia.

I think with the subsidized tariffs and maybe…

Or the flexibility of a subsidized tariff.

Yeah, some kind of way…

…making the public think they’re getting it for free or cheap.

Well, yeah, free because we perceive it as free in the UK. The handset should be free or nearly free. I tell you, if O2 and Carphone warehouse, you know, free iphone, free iphone. They are going to sell a load. That’s going to be very good news for a lot of people.

I like the rumors going around that they are not going to be network exclusive.

Yes.

Nothing yet in the UK, but there are some rumors going around abroad, there are going to be multiple carriers in each company.

And a lot more flexibility. I’m pleased that they are being flexible.

You know who I’d like to the iphone on?

Yes?

3 I think the iphone and the their network would just be amazing.

They do have, 3 have a fantastic data, did you know what I have a real problem with my Vodaphone data service. It just…

…about your bill last time, can we move on to that later on in the…

Oh, jeez, yeah. I really think 3 in the UK, with an Apple iphone, 3G, could be very exciting. I’d like to see, it would be interesting to see if they launch a Nano version. There’s lots of rumors. Five people from two different operators in the UK have confirmed. They can’t come out on record, but they’ve said, “Oh, yes, a Nano is coming.” I don’t whether to believe that or not.

Well, I’d like to see one.

Yes, yes. Now, Whatley, will you be swapping an iphone?

I may be tempted.

You heard it here first. James Whatley, series 60 evangelist, I mean you could be an ambassador for Nokia, you know.

You know, I’ve been Mac curious for a while.

Mac curious?

Mac curious. My problem is with the iphone. Iphone is about content consumption. My 95 is about content creation. If the iphone addresses the issues I have with it currently or the iphone 2 or the super-techie, whatever we’re going to call it, iphone 2, iphone Nano, iphone vapor wear, you know, if it ever appears, the mystical iphone 2, then I shall have a look. I might be intrigued.

Would you have a Nano 2?

No, of course not. I’m not a fan. Vodaphone 3 pretty much isn’t it, these days.

You’re a big applications guy and I think the brilliant thing with the iphone is every developer I’ve spoken to loves the fact that they can deploy. You can easily deploy to an iphone. So, I think that will really boost take-up. But, I think it will help, purchasing the unit when I can go and get one free at O2, or whoever in the UK, and then I can go and use all these wicked applications, ShoZu for example, if they want to do an application they can. They just download the, what do you call it?

The application.

Not the application, no, the developer kit.

The thing is, when I, I have put some thought into this over about five minutes on the train the other day. Well, the thing that was going to put me off the iphone, aside from it being an Apple iphone, was that it is, probably can be the price. Now, hearing this news that it’s going to be subsidized and the, well, Vodaphone loved me anyway, and if I go into Vodaphone tomorrow and say, “I want the iphone 2 tomorrow. Can I have it?” They’ll say, “Yes, you can have it for free.” Then I’d be stupid not to try it.

No, I’m pretty sure it’s still exclusive to O2.

Oh, the second iphone?

Yeah.

I thought you were just talking about…

That’s just rumors, I think they’re signing, I mean AT&T will have it for five years.

Where am I? I mean we’re in May aren’t we? Yeah, I’m into upgrade time. I’m literally, I’m waiting.

Oh, I know, but that’s never stopped me before.

I haven’t upgraded, the N78 comes out on Vodaphone within the next 30 days or so and I’m really going to fuss.

So, a while ago I wrote a post saying the iphone will only ever be a bit player. I was lamenting the fact that, you know, 10 million units, great, but Nokia’s shifting 10 million a day. You know, let’s be clear. Can you see Apple becoming, you know, killing off, or becoming a number two or three or even a number one in five years?

Do we know where they are at the moment?

Well, they have to call themselves, you know, I think it was the second most popular smart phone.

Yeah.

I think that Nokia, aims it’s handsets at a wide range of people. That’s why they sift so many units every day.

Well, Nokia sells it’s handsets to Motophone who sells, you know.

Yeah, but they design handsets for everyone. Apple design handsets for a very specific set of people.

What about for the ipod? That’s not for a specific set of people.

The ipod’s not, but the iphone, their iphone is. I think. I don’t think the iphone’s designed for everyone to use.

Well, my mother loves it, she absolutely loves it.

Ok, the thing about the iphone, the reason it went down so well is because it’s so easy to pick up and play with. So, they did try and keep everyone, as in the common people. I don’t think the first version of the iphone was designed for everyone. But, I think that that’s where they’re going to be going in the future. I think that if these rumors of an iphone Nano are true, then I think that’s the people that will go and buy an ipod and spend some money on it.

Nano-Nano.

Thanks for that.

Okay, right, I think very exciting.

So, I think 10 million units wordwide, that’s doable, yeah.

Ok, next question. Steve Rowlands of S60blogger.com, now Steve will not be buying an iphone, I’m pretty sure.

I spoke with Steve.

Yep and S60blogger obviously focusing on the Symbian, he asked a question about Orange. Now, Orange, we’ve been having a go at them on the SMS Text News over the last couple of weeks. So, Steve says, “With Orange UK’s obvious inability to foresee the potential of mobile data, due to it’s ridiculous data charges, do you think it will soon become the whipping boy of UK operators?” A title previously bestowed upon 3.

I had just thought that Orange were already the whipping boy of the UK operators.

This is a company who has let mobile data service stray. It’s been down for six or seven days now.

Orange has got a lot of work to do really. I think…

The future is not Orange.

No. From the onset, just from talking to people in terms of, it seems like there’s a lot of stuff moving around internally that looking and trying some stuff out. Yeah, alright, you probably either got the black 89 58 gig, the 58 gig, the black N82, that’s the nice thing. But yeah, they got things to sort out but their (unknown word – 11:12) have got a lot of work to do. You know, 3 invented a phone and you’ve both looking at it.

Yeah, what about O2?

O2 who?

Oh, dear, ok, right.

I think if you wind back, say ten years, Orange was the network. When Hutchinson launched Orange it was the geeks network of choice. You know everyone had an Orange handset back then.

Two hour handset replacement, anybody remember that?

I don’t remember that.

Jonathan Jensen he was telling me, he absolutely loved the fact that he got a two hour handset replacement deal from them.

Two hour handset replacement?

I don’t think anybody can do that these days.

He’s now on a (unknown words – 11:52) a while ago, this is when Orange first launched. They were really, really focusing on service. I think he lost his handset or it stopped working and he phoned them and they shipped it to him within two hours from the Portsmouth branch or something.

Now that is the kind of customer service that we should be having today.

The problem is when you scale that, it doesn’t work. But, yeah, Orange used to be the network and they were even the network for data back then, back when data involved actually making a phone call with a cable connected to the handset and you could connect, blindingly fast speed of, what was it, 9.6…

Could you get 28 point…

No, no, no.

No, if you used dual channel.

Not ten years ago, though maybe. I don’t know. Then somewhere along the lines they kind of stagnated and a couple of people took over. Loronze Since then they’ve kind of a bit… I think it’s all down to network planning. I don’t think they’ve planned for this whole data movement to take-off as big as it has and as quickly as it has.

You know what my frustration that I’ve seen with Orange is they keep launching, frankly crap services that are Okay. You know, the keep on trying to second guess what the users want. For example, recently I was at the owners store downstairs from the SMS Text News office. I popped in and asked about the N82 and said, “By the way, data.” So the lady flipped to the data page and it says bebo to pounds a month, unlimited bebo usage. What about myspace? “No, we don’t do that.”

So, what they’re trying to do is sell you specific site access?

Yes, stop second guess me. They really disappointed me.

We don’t do myspace?

Well, no, I mean you can get myspace.

Well you can’t say that…

Ok, ok, ok, one message to all the network operators out there. You’re a pipe, deal with it.

Yes, absolutely and this is never phrase being spoken.

Sorry, I know you guys spoke about this last week and we’re going off topic a little bit, but some of what made take notice was when Vodaphone bought Zyb?

Yep or Zyb.

If you’re listening Zyb/Zyb, can you give us a call and let us know, because we have no clue.

Is it Zyb or Zyb (short i or long i)

Now I’ve saw some twists just recently about bit things they’re up to, but what made me sit up and take notice was that here was a web 2 company or a start-up in a current kind of space. They got bought by an operator. Not Google, not Microsoft…

Completely changed the world that day.

Yeah, no one’s really picked up on this I don’t think, but it’s changed the game.

You picked up on that last week.

Yeah, I know, but you didn’t cover it.

Yes we did.

I listened in, I didn’t get…

You were asleep.

Well, if you could be bothered to turn up maybe you could have participated.

Cumbersome day job.

Ok, so, Orange whipping boy, yes.

And please, can you get your mobile data working?

Unless they do something about it, they’re going to stick with it.

How bad do you have to be as a mobile operator to have your mobile data service that’s down for six days?

That’s pretty bad isn’t it?

It’s been down for six days!

I’ve chastised Twitter and Jankee for being down for 24 hours in the past, but let’s face it those are…

…small start ups.

…as far as all the mobile networks in the UK, it’s one of the oldest.

Interesting, if their mobile data’s down, but 3’s isn’t, I wonder if they could do a deal with 3. Please could you help us manage our mobile data. Ok, so this is from contributor Ricky. Ricky runs the BlykWatch column, now that’s like a…

It’s like Baywatch.

Yes.

Lot’s of running in slow motion.

I think his life guard, little orange thing is green though.

We have some pictures coming, Ricky in some Speedos carrying a Blyk handset.

For all those women listeners that Whatley was talking about previously.

Yes.

Yeah, but rescuing like 16, 24 year olds from the sea with sim cards that he…

There’s an idea there.

Ok, so Ricky, so every fortnight Ricky does an update on Blyk, the ad funded mobile network here in the UK.

Which is a very good update, might I add, I read it.

It’s fascinating.

In all due respect, I don’t read everything you write, because not all interests me, which is fine, and I’m sure a lot of readers are like that, but Ricky if you’re listening, it’s such a great article. I read it every singe fortnight.

I like how, you couldn’t do this with Vodaphone. You couldn’t do a Vodaphone watch in this way, but what Ricky does is document the experience as he sees it, because it’s difficult for everybody else who’s not in the Blyk target market to understand. There’s a lot of analysts and investors who contact me and say they absolutely love his stuff because you can actually experience it and see it.

It’s a window into his world. He’s that well.

And into what Blyk are doing. Now, issue. This is Ricky talking ok? “For the podcast, can you please ask or point out, it’s been 14 days and they still have not fixed the text problem. Customer care have no information when this will be fixed. My rant is on the Blykwatch that Krystal published yesterday.” So, you’ll see that on the site.

So, for the benefit of the listeners you may not have seen this, what is the text message problem even?

When you send or receive, I believe it’s on the receive, the Blyk server is repeating them four or five times. So, you get the same text message four or five times. Extremely annoying, but you don’t get it immediately. You get it across the day. It’s been a recurring problem for two week now and they still haven’t fixed it.

Two weeks and it hasn’t been fixed. Ok, guys, I spend a lot of my career being a syst-admin for Telco’s ISPs and so on, if something is broken, you fix it. Don’t go home, don’t go to sleep, fix the problem. Have your team work as hard as they can to fix the problem. I don’t get why this has stopped happening. Orange, your data services has been down for how many days?

Six days.

Six days, you have more than one techie on site.

We hope.

Work on it, have them work on it. Don’t let them sleep. Don’t let them go home. Work harder. Fix it because your customers are paying for it.

Well, no, at Blyk, a one year birthday party coming up. One hopes that they fixed, fixed, fixed, they fixed, they fixed, they fix, one hopes they fix, they fix, that was just me repeating there.

Can you imagine if they haven’t fixed it by then, can we take just a bunch of kids, oh, you can’t sit outside the Universitys and go with a Blyk and bring them along.

And campaign.

Ok, so Ricky, let’s work on Blykwatch and we’ll put a link into that. Ok, next point, and this is Dan we want to talk about. Mobile developers who text links to download applications.

This winds me up because obviously a trial of applications…

I think it sounds smart to me.

You know when you go to try out a new application and there’s usually some kind of sign up involved. Then at the end of it, it gives you the application. There are various ways of giving you the application, you know, they can say, “click this link, download it to your desktop and send it to your handset.” Which is fine but not everyone wants to do that. So, a lot of them say, put in your phone number, we’ll send you a text message with a link and off you go. But so many people get that wrong.

What’s wrong here with just sending…

Sending people, well, a lot of these companies are start-up and a lot of these are in Beta, so, maybe their SMS gateway was down. I had this problem with streaming video recently. I wanted to use Qik and I wanted to use…what’s the other one Whately?

FlixWagon.

FlixWagon, that’s it, obviously I prefer Qik because I can remember the name of it. So, I go to Qik and Qik tried to send me an ident code which I have to put in, doesn’t work. I think ok, that’s not working, I’m going to go and sign up to FlixWagon. I go to FlixWagon, I say, sign me up, it says nope, we’ve got to send you an SMS. Where’s the SMS? It doesn’t arrive. All it is, is a text message with a link in it. If you’re going to do that, fine, do it, it makes it very simple for a lot of people, but give me the link as well in case it don’t get to me. Or just incase I want to download the file onto my computer so I can put it on ten phones. Just please, don’t rely on one method, give me a choice.

Or buy a decent gateway from SMS test responser Clickatell. You see what I did there?

I saw what you did there, it’s very good.

Are they going to pay extra for it?

No.

It’s all included in the package.

We like them.

See, I didn’t think that was an issue, but there’s a clear issue when I requested the application and it doesn’t arrive.

You’ve had that?

Oh, many time, yeah.

I totally agree with you though.

It’s fine, it’s in Beta, we understand sometimes it doesn’t quite work as planned.

But get a text gateway that works if you’re going to offer it.

Yeah, it may not be the text gateway, it’s a Beta, the match with the cues, cuing and it’s not processing or something.

I want it now, I want it within five mintes.

If I want to try your application now, and…

The key point is now. Not in an hour.

Especially if it’s Ewan, because Ewan will write about your application and if he can’t get your application, how is he going to write about it?

Well, usually what I do is I’ll just go out, I need to text this and then never bother.

Yeah, exactly.

Because other things go gone.

Yep, we’re there now, we want to try your application, but we can’t. So, give us the choice. We’re not asking you to change anything. Instead of just texting us the link, post it up on a webpage and say, hey you can download it from here if you want to. So many people do this.

Go to mobile dot site name dot com and then it will identify your phone and just give you, yeah.

So many people get this wrong and it’s not that hard. There are a lot of people getting it right. I downloaded (unknown word – 21:33) earlier and that says, “Hey you can click here to download the sus file or susex file, send it to your phone or you can pipe your number in here and get it sent straight to your handset. That’s how to do it.

Fair point. Ok, our, Mr. Operator, Mr Operator has contacted me and this is our extremely high, and very influential chat.

When he contacts you, is it through a special channel? Do you have a special handset on your desk just for him?

Your very own Deep Throat.

Do they shine a light into the sky and then you have to go to a specific spot wearing a dark coat?

Basically, he leaves his comment under or beside a tree and his comment, basically he doesn’t have any perspective for us. What he’s are some questions and his questions are, what do baby boomers want on mobile? Where are the apps and services aims at the 50 year old plus? Why do developers and mobile network operators almost completely ignore them as a group? Why focus on 20 somethings and tweens who have comparatively zero cash next to the baby boomers?

What’s a baby boomer?

It’s someone age 50 plus, basically. It’s from the baby boom generation.

I don’t know either.

So, we’re looking at phones for people over 50? Why aren’t they…

No, phones and applications and services. Basically he’s saying, why are they ignored? Why make an application and service for a 20 year old or a tween, when they get no money. They have no money. My father would pay for lots, my mother would pay for lot of different applications and services, a lot of money.

Your mom uses an iphone, just kind of the apps?

Well, version two will bring the apps. See, that’s the interesting thing, is if you can bring out a flower arranging app or… Listen, I’m getting sick and tired of this. So, the iphone doesn’t go 3 g, but the iphone two will go 3 g, yeah, ok, but the iphone doesn’t go, yeah, the iphone two will have apps. Ok, yeah, right. It’s like…

I’ve stolen the microphone away from Whatley, otherwise we’ll be here all day.

Applications are coming, right?

The first Nokia handset didn’t have any apps.

It’s coming. It’s coming.

It’s coming. Let’s get back onto the issue at hand which flower rings and applications for the over 50’s before you continue on the flower arranging apps. I have to say there are people out there that are doing things for the over 50’s and I’m probably going to insult some of the over 50’s now by saying that, well, no actually, the applications themselves are generally quite insulting because it’s like flower arranging applications or handsets with big buttons. Yes, that’s useful, but that’s not the only thing that over 50’s want to use their handset for.

Ok, I’ve got an actual user case for this. So, the recent post about actually talking to your appraiser man, working with (unknown word – 24:36) response, I mentioned about the N81 8 gig user test focus group I went to. I’ve been to one like that before and this was for the Nokia 6630.

The simple handset.

It’s just, I think it’s the last one before they went into the N series. Yeah, with the kind of round bottom that had the desk top stand. First 3G phone with no front-facing camera.

Good work, Nokia.

Yes, I remember being in Nokia’s focus group and there was an old woman there, and far be it from me to guess her age, but she was older than me, and she used the phone to go to the flower market and to go to flower shows, took photos of flower shows and in the morning go to the flower market not knowing the name and just showed the photo and say, “Have you got these flowers? I want to sell them today.”

Ok, so, I was wrong there’s a big market for flower arranging application.

Can I just one for my example then right? So, what I’m thinking, if my mother had sufficient, I mean she’s using the iphone, that’s great, the applications will arrive soon in the iphone. It will be really easy, we understand to buy an application or use an application. She can just go into itunes applications and go to flower arranging applications and click, download, it works. But, she wouldn’t think twice of spending 10, 20, 30 or what, she’s massively insensitive to price.

One question, does she explore the iphone? Would she find the app and install it without your prompting here to?

No, she’d need to see it on a program. She likes, I’m just thinking about the things she watches on TV for example, she like all of that programs and she likes the house programs. If someone can say, if you have this particular application that will let you do X or Y, I can see her actually doing it and using it., there is no way on earth that she would do it with a Motorola, that’s my point. She wouldn’t do it with a Motorola or just download a text message and stuff, rubbish, actually, no.

So, could it be that the reason that there aren’t many applications designed for the over 50’s is because they’re harder to market to than the tweens.

Because it’s rubbish, the user interface is appalling. It’s just appalling for any handset.

Ok, but given most of the market place at the given moment is dominated by 20 to 30 somethings, making…

Dominated in what context?

…say creaters making content for themselves and people like themselves, that people they might enjoy.

Yeah, but making something that’s really difficult once you’ve made it on your phone, what do you do with it?

So, maybe it’s the fact that there just aren’t people 50 plus people, coming together and making applications for stuff that they need or they don’t have the platform to do it.

Well, nobody’s making it for the…

What I’m saying is, the stuff is made for us by people like us. There’s no one over 50 making apps for people in their age group.

Right.

Because they don’t know what they need.

Is it a chicken and egg situation? There are no apps because there are no people buying the apps, there are no people buying the apps because there are no apps.

Making applications is inherently, it was a total loss making an application. You know this.

Why is your Rock Talk, why is that only available on Nokia? It’s a brilliant application, I absolutely love it, it’s fantastic, I use it daily. Why is it not on Sony Ericsson?

It will be.

No, no, no, why is it not on Sony Ericsson right now?

Ewan’s actually pointing at Dan.

He’s pointing at me. He’s looking at me with these evil eyes.

Answer the question, why is it not on, why can’t I have it on a LG Secret? Why are you as a developer of applications, why haven’t you, why is it not on an LG?

He’s kind of upset about this.

Because it’s in Beta at the moment on sus 60.

That’s a bullock’s answer.

There goes the clean tag on itunes.

Ok, my issue here is, I suspect the reason you don’t have it on Sony Ericsson is because it’s a total arse, you guys, you’re very good at Nokia, you could have invested your resources to make a Sony Ericsson application, because you’re extremely smart, you and Jay and the rest of the team there. You are very capable, but you chose Nokia.

You and Jay are the smart ones right?

I’m scared of him, I’ve never seen him like this.

You chose Nokia, ok, then Nokia Symbian.

Yes.

…and you’ve done that. I want to know, you haven’t made them for Sony Ericsson and you haven’t made it for LG or Samsung or anybody else, because it’s a total arse, right?

This would be a commercial decision and I refer you to our PR company.

(laughing)

Right, but so for developers it’s really difficult, really difficult at the moments and that’s why I’d like to see the iphone come along and make it simpler. That’s not going to help if…

I don’t think the difficulty in developing the applications is, or stopping there being applications for the over 50’s market. I think it’s just a case of…

Well, okay, who is making money off applications at the minute?

Is anyone making money off of applications?

Clearly you guys when you come out and beat up with I’ll pay for that service.

I saw a tweet Bena Roberts who was at something recently where someone asked the same question, I think…

Bena Roberts of GoMoNews.com.

Thank you, who I think she asked a questions at a conference and one person put their hand up. I think.

They’ve got to distinguish between service and applications. I mean, what we do is a service, which just happens to be done with an application as an interface to that. If we’re talking about services, then there are plenty of services out there for the over 50’s, but you just consider them part of using a mobile phone, things like voice mail. If you think about voice mail, it’s part of the service that you get for a mobile phone. But, it is something that the over 50’s use as, see where I’m going with this?

Yeah, I’m kind of getting it.

We just assume that’s all part of using a phone.

Can I put in my obligatory SpinVox plug? No, it’s a true story.

SpinVox.com

Shut up, hand on. No, it’s genuinely contextual, makes sense.

Hi, Christina.

So, anyway, some people were using SpinVox, younger people were using SpinVox to text their grand, so grand has SpinVox, no, no, sorry, other way around. So, for instance I have SpinVox, my grand can call me, leave a message I get it as a text message and I can text her back.

That’s cool.

She can read the text message and then call me and kind of recite her text message as it were. Do you know what I mean? It kind of enables text messaging for the older generation who aren’t used to it, which is really…

We need to go and find an old person. I think an old person would really keen on doing a quick video.

I think we need to find a couple of different old people, because Whatley’s talking about grandparents there and that…you’re going way beyond the over 50’s there.

My fathers, 50, towards 60, and he would use streaming video if it was easy and simple. It’s too much of an arse. It’s just too much of an arse for him and what’s more easy than using a Blackberry? So, will even bother using, so this is the problem.

So, why is he using a Blackberry?

He’s using the Blackberry because that’s what he’s given from work. This is the fundamental art of the mobile industry is it’s screwed because of this.

We need to slip you a Valium to be honest.

(laughing)

That’s the difference with these applications. If you create an application you can’t get it out to market easily.

I think you hit the nail on the head that none of us are over 50. None of us are this target market. I think we need, the thing is to get someone who is over 50 and say, “What do you want?”

Let’s do that.

Can I just say we’ve hit the 30 minute mark now.

We’ve got some shout out’s to do, shout out to Ricky Cadden, our other favorite Ricky.

We’re doing shouts, shout outs?

It’s just like a pirate radio station now.

I’d like to say, “Yo” we could wack, put up the London massive.

Yes.

We’re getting wild in your face with the bass, wa-da-wa-ba-oooh.

So, Ricky Cadden of SymbianGuru.com, who says, “Now who wouldn’t want a shout out?” So, there you go, that was his shout-out. Hi Ricky, were is he? Is it Arizona he is.

No, no, in Texas.

Texas

You see that? He genuinely made the effort to connect and put the effort into typing out an email and sending it out to you and we just mocked the whole concept.

Eventually, eventually, a long way down the road, I foresee this podcast being live, all right? So people can tune in and actually phone up with questions or send use mass text, phone in.

Yes, let’s do that next week.

Oh, by the way, there’s a service, I’m going to post it shortly.

You’re missing the point, I suggested cheesy jingles.

There’s a service that’s been launched that will allow you to dial in and listen to this podcast.

Really?

Yes. I will give you the details shortly. A shout out to Mark, no, how do you say this? Guim? Mark? Guim.

It is such an informative blog, I read it all the time.

That’s Mark Guim of theNokiablog.com. He says, “Shout out.” So, hello. Stefan Constantinescu, did I get that right?

He only wanted a shout out because he knows nobody can pronounce his surname.

Stefan Constantinescu.

He’s a character.

Yes, he’s a wicked guy. He’s reporting from ThumbReport.com, that’s his new site, launched last week. It’s genius idea. SMS, or mobile industry news in 160 characters. So, ThumbReport.com has a lot more traffic he’s saying, so good news of him. And a shout out Opera Mini 4.1, there’s no excuse for anyone to have shit browser any more. Have you used 4.1 Opera?

No.

All right, well Stefan, big fan of that.

I’ll give it a try.

Anita Berezanska, it says, “Ha ha, I expected a can of plug worms would open here.”

Anna?

You mean Anna.

Did I say Anita?

Yes.

It says, “Anna, AKA (unknown words – 34:39)

Okay.

She’s the one that came up with, she’s the one that took much merriment out of someone saying, “James Whatley can do this but my mom can,” and Ben was going to get bracelets made with that written on or something. She did that on a comment of yours, if was just very funny.

Ok, all right.

Hi Anna, and then Gerry Moth show typed in NokiaAddict.com. Good blog, great blog.

You read it?

I started reading it a couple of days ago.

Right.

Yeah, it’s pretty good.

Nice one Gerry, good work.

Can I do a little shout?

You have to talk into the microphone if you want to contribute.

Hello, can I do a little shout. Basically, CRM programs, right? Customer Relationship Management, so, EQO, with that service. I signed up to try and use it ages ago, someone invited me on as a Beta and I was using the program and so and so forth. Didn’t really like it, it wan’t, you know, didn’t really float my boat. I got an email today from them just saying, “We miss you.” And it made me open it and I’ve looked. I think I might try your service again, that was just a really nice email. I like that a lot.

It’s them, we miss you.

Isn’t that sweet?

You’re doing it again. You’ve gone, it’s there, look.

And this is a podcast.

I’m pointing.

People are sleeping James.

Okay, the service by the way, I was talking about is by Greg Farrel. Now, Greg Farrel writes, “Greetings from San Diego. Hope all is well London. We are religious readers of SMS Test News and we’re thrilled with the addition of the podcast last week. Here’s an idea, have listeners take the podcast with them anywhere they go.” So, he says we can set up a number of SMS Text News and listeners can call in and listen to the podcast any time. “We’re working with National Public Radio here in the States. Where a listener can call and listen, just dial in.”

Is that a local rate number?

I think it’s local rate.

Yeah.

We just set our number, the link to the SMS Text News Podcast, try it. He says, “Dial +1-206-438-4026.

Is that a happening now? Is somebody calling it up?

No, he’s writing it down, sorry.

I can’t make international calls on my phone. Oh, I can on my free handset.

Let’s do it.

Just my Vodophone won’t let me do it. You know, it’s +1, so everybody together. +1-206-438-4026. Apparently, it will give us streaming, let’s just see, all right, calling. Okay, I’m calling, oh wait, wait, wait. (podcast starts playing through phone)

So, people are actually listening to a recording of last weeks SMS Text News on this week’s SMS Text News.

That’s pretty cool.

Talk about content is king.

Greg, that is Greg from CommerceTel.com. Greg, he’s VP of marketing there. Top work! Thank you very much sir. So, we’ll put that up. And you’re a fan?

Is this a serve they’re actually offering us or this something they set up for their phone?

It says, “This took us about 15 seconds to link the podcast into this number. It would be great for your readers to have access to the audio information whenever, and wherever they want.”

I should chuck the audio file onto my phone.

Right, but I like the idea of just dial it. If fact, you know where that’s going to be really useful is showing people.

…call in?

Why, internationally it’s a bit of an arse.

…sorry, it’s a great idea.

Yeah, but if you’ve got local, yeah free local calls, most people in the States have got unlimited or something like that.

That’s fine, it’s perfect. If you’ve got your headset on, Bluetooth headset and you’re in the car and you want to just listen to it, I think it’s excellent.

It’s a simple concept and I’m glad, sorry, what was the guys name?

Greg.

Greg. I’m glad Greg said it took about 15 seconds because it’s a very simple concept and it’s good to give people a choice of how to listen to it. I don’t think it’s something I’d use though.

Actually, fair pay to Greg for actually getting in touch and letting us know the same.

Top work! Greg from CommerceTel, we’ll put the number on the site. Nice one!

Okay, applications of the week. Dan, what’s your application of the week?

Okay, I think we should rename this segment to things of the week or things that I’ve seen I like this week, because this isn’t really an application, it’s more of a service. It’s called Ping.fm It’s hard to describe actually. It’s a very small website, you go in and set up, basically it consists of putting in username/password for each of your social networks. So, you go in and you put in Facebook, JQ, Twitter, there’s a whole load of them. It also allows posting to blogs as well. So, what you basically do is whenever you’re ready to update your status across all the networks, you pop onto their website and they have an iphone and mobile sites and you just type in your update. If it’s over 140 characters, it will be truncated, but the full text will be posted to your blogs and that’s pretty much it. It’s just a very easy, quick way of updating all of your social network statuses or blogs in one go.

And I use it.

Yep. I have to say I started out using Hallowtext, which is a very, it’s pretty much the same thing, but I found that Ping.fm has a lot more features and the guys who use it or who run it are very approachable. That’s good. You can go there, Ping.fm and you can sign up using the Beta code Ping Source. Not sauce as in ketchup, rather than code.

And that’s what I did and I was delighted with it. My application of the week is not an application.

The thing of the week.

It’s a thinky, yes. It’s Flip. The Flip is a small dedicated video device. It’s about the size of your Nokia and it just does video. It does 60 minutes of video, about 640 X 480. You literally, it’s got a red button in the back saying, go, record. Just press a button and record. It’s fantastic, really.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of these. I was at the food thing that I talked about recently and a couple of them there, they’re quite sexy.

The interesting thing, I thinking, I’m pondering, is that you can really put a lot of mobile phones, a lot of mobile phones have video. The problem is getting the video off. With this thing, it’s got a USB integrated into it. To get the video off it’s brilliant for a normal mobile user.

Yeah, we were playing around with this before we started the podcast.

In fact, I’ve just uploaded a video.

Yeah.

There’s a USB socket, or USB plug that flips out of the side and it’s not a cable or anything, so you’ve got nothing to lose, you actually can plug the device its self into your PC…

Or Mac.

Or Mac, and it pops up as a mass storage device. It should really work on any platform. There’s also some software pre-installed on the device that will run on your Windows PC, which will automatically do uploading, things like UTube. So, obviously for early adopters and techies, it’s not the best thing. But for normals who want to take some video and upload it to UTube when they get home, it’s fantastic and the price is perfect as well.

99 quid I think it is.

99 dollars?

Yeah, 99 dollars in the States. They might do the usual.

So, let’s say it’ll go for about 80 quid over here.

Yeah, or more, we’ll see. But either, it’s a brilliant value I think, because what it does. It’s simple, file and forget.

60 minutes of VGA quality video, but in a 35 second.

Yeah, and it’s great, it’s raw. I love it.

Sorry, I wasn’t listening.

VGA I think.

James, your application of the week, please.

Again, non-app feature. I wrote about this, this week already. Sequence mode, it’s just completely changed the way I’m looking at my 95 and there are lots of projects I’m looking at now that I hadn’t even thought about. I used to make a lot of stop-motion when I was a kid.

So, tell us about sequence mode.

So, I wrote about it earlier this week, sequence mode is when you turn the camera on, scroll down the side options, get to sequence mode. You can just set your camera to take a photo every 30 seconds or 5 seconds or minute or five minutes and it’s just great. If you’re, you know, this weekend, if you’re listening to this every weekend, if you’re putting up a bookshelf or something, you’ve got a 95 or an N series. Put it somewhere safe, put sequence mode on, switch it into off-line mode just so no one calls you. Switch it into sequence mode and just take a few shots while you put your bookcase together and play it back. I use Windows moviemaker to put it together. Who needs a Mac? Yeah, it worked perfectly. It was great!

Okay, can we, are we done with the applications of the week now.

We are. There’s one final thing I’ve got and that is, I had an email from Billy Potter. Don’t smile. Billy Potter, he writes, “Hi! I’m Billy the Pot Prince, have a look at my site.”

Was this a legitimate email or was it spam?

I hope so. “Have a look at my site www.whatsbehindthepot.com. I wonder what’s behind the pot.”

Just for the readers benefit, just all move to Ewan’s desk to take this for real, because none of us believe him.

“A new mobile social network launching in the next week or so. Please if mentioning me, could you use my full title, Billy-Pot Prince.

Is this person…

There you go, let’s play the UTube video.

Again, we’re standing around watching a video on a podcast.

It’s very dark. So, if you want to know what’s going on, you can go and look at What’sBehindThePot.com.

(laughing)

I love it! I love it, I love it, I love it!

I’m hoping it’s not compete nonsense. Oh, dear.

Is this some kind of attempt at vial marketing or?

I don’t know. So, there you go, you’ve heard it here first.

What’sBehindThePot.com

Good luck with that Billy.

Right, any final notes?

Your application of the week, last week was Power Ringer.

Yes.

I tried it, I didn’t get a chance to try it until Thursday. It is, I’m very tempted to go, it is really, really good and get very excited about it. I haven’t used it in-depth yet. Initial response if very good.

Do you agree with me, terrible interface isn’t it?

I can’t, I’m a big fan of interfaces that look like the handset they’re running on, so. I was running on Sirius 60, I’d like it to look like a Sirius 60 application. It doesn’t, but it’s not the worst interface I’ve seen. If you look at the mobile IM space, you’re really looking at competing with Agile Messenger, and their interface is appalling, it really is. But, I was impressed with how simple it was to…

Did you try the audio and the video?

Yep. I tried the audio. I tried the video. It just all worked very seamlessly.

It was very quick as well.

I want to get it out. It’s fantastically fast. It really is.

Yeah.

You tried that, did you get other people to use it with you so you could play with it?

No, I was using…

All of the people I’ve spoken to were using desktop client.

Right, ok, it’s really smart, but there’s like a massive problem with the interface. I’m talking to the chief executive, Carey.

Who used to be the managing director of Vonage in the UK.

Or Vonage.

Yes. Talking to Carey on Tuesday I think, I’m going to put some questions to him about how the development’s going, because I think it could be amazing, Power Ringer. Absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it’s definitely, it shows a lot of promise.

All right, everybody, thank you for your patients. Sleep well.

Thanks for listening.

And we’ll catch you soon. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Thanks to the guys from Ping.fm who have given us the beta code ‘smstextnews’ so you can try it too!

Listen now using the player below or see the links below for other options:

[Annotated on-line version coming soon, but not right now courtesy of Three Ireland's blistering 100kbs 3.5G connection speed which makes sending 20MB of audio onto the interwebs impossible]

Episode link and feeds:

[Link] Direct link to this episode’s MP3 to download
[iTunes] Subscribe or listen in iTunes
[RSS] Subscribe via your feed reader or another podcatcher
…or listen by phone on +1 206 438 4026 thanks to Greg Farrell and his team at CommerceTel.

—-

Sites mentioned in the podcast:

Dan Lane’s blog is at http://invalid.name. He’s CTO at Howler Tech.
James Whatley’s blog is here. He works for SpinVox doing clever social media stuff and their blog.
Steve Rowlands blogs at S60blogger.com.
Jonathan Jensen is sevendotzero.
How do you pronounce Vodafone’s latest acquisition Zyb?
RickyC writes BlykWatch.
Qik and FlixWagon are the mobile video sites that SMS sign-up links.
Ricky Cadden writes the Symbian Guru blog.
Mark Guim writes The Nokia Blog.
Stefan Constantinescu‘s 160 character blog on all things mobile is Thumb Report.
Opera Mini 4.1 is available here. No excuses – get it.
GerryMoth writes the Nokia Addict blog.
Eqo (the mobile VOIP service) misses James Whatley – don’t we all.
Palringo is an innovative mobile-based IM service with voice and image sharing.
Ping.fm is our favouritist universal status and micro-blogging tool thingumy. Use the beta code ‘smstextnews’ to share our love (metaphorically).
The Flip is the ‘normob-friendly’ video camera with built-in USB connection.
James wrote about Nokia’s camera sequence-mode here.
Billy Pot Prince’s wierd (and possibly viral marketing, but we’re not sure) site is at http://www.whatsbehindthepot.com/. Go there. Do potty stuff.

We’re really keen to get your feedback on the podcast – please let us know in the comments.

“If you’re female, please e-mail…” or if you’re over 50 please tell Ewan what you want – ewan@smstextnews.com