I remember being sat in the news studio of one of the biggest mainstream news providers at 5am, a while back, and asking one of the chaps what the ‘stories’ were going to be that day. We were providing live chat services for their 9am show and thus needed to prepare some topics.

The producer chappy turned to me and said, ‘Depends if it’s a tits day or not,’ and walked off.

This left me slightly confused.

Another chap looked up from his desk and beckoned me over.

“This,” he says, “Is the newsfeed in from Reuters, right?”

Perhaps it was PA. I can’t remember.

Anyway, I see a whole ton of potential stories.

“And these ones,” he says, pointing to another list, “Are probably what we’ll be carrying.”

I nod, still a little bit confused.

“But we wait to see what The Sun leads with. If they’re having a tits day — that is, some girl splashed across the frontpage, then we’ll make it up ourselves. Otherwise we usually take our lead from them.”

Right.

So The Sun still sets the agenda for the mainstream press. And they’re talking about Twitter today.

When The Sun stats talking about Twitter in this manner, you now something is about to happen across the country:

That’s right. Forget Facebook! Say bye bye to Bebo!

Twitter is anointed.

The real challenge will be seeing if the mass of normobs out there ‘get’ the concept of ‘ambient community’. Facebook is easy to understand — similarly Bebo — but Twitter?

I think the vast majority will view Twitter as a way of interacting with (or really, ‘following’) celebrities — and use it for that purpose. We shall see.

Big time.

There’s no toe-in-the-water nonsense from Hyundai. Nope. They’re hitting the market with 2, followed by 10 to 15 new handsets this year.

That’s THE FIRST HALF of this year.

Come on!

A little bit of competition, eh? Plus you might get a discount on your next Yaris. Or Taris. Or… Hyundai [something]. I can’t, alas, name a Hyundai car model without resorting to Google. And that would be cheating.

I’m going to do more on this shortly. For now, here are two images to whet your appetite.

This one, unsurprisingly (from the description on the screen), has — as I infer — a touchscreen:

No word on actual operating system specifics. I tell you what, if Hyundai simply HINTED at the SLIGHT POSSIBILITY of manufacturing 200m Android handsets this year, I’m willing to bet half the industry would wet their pants. Some with delight, others not so much.

Anyway, more soon.

You can pre-order a Nokia N97 this morning at Expansys.

Granted, they don’t even have a rough cost yet, but you can sign-up now to be notified the moment they can sell you one.

I reckon it’ll be, what, 700 quid plus initially?

The 6 month wait is really, really annoying.

That’ll fly by though…

A blog post has appeared on the BBC informing of a new iPlayer mobile website in beta trials, plus support for new phones.

Posted by Richard Titus, the new Future Media Controller, Audio & Music and Mobile goes on to highlight some interesting new developments.

We’re probably all well aware the iPhone was the first to be bestowed with access to the iPlayer, then the Nokia 96 back in October and now N85 too.

What some might not be aware is that the new iPlayer portal is now available for the Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. The Sony Ericsson C905 is also being geared up for access to the site by the end of next week, with compatibility for more devices in the next few weeks.

Just aim your phone, the ones listed above, at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and their system should figure out what device is trying to access the site.

Those who already use it will be familiar with the layout and will spot a few new tabs. As they’ve extended the portal with some new features and navigation methods.

They’ve also broadened their support for the first Windows Mobile devices with the likes of the Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, first hitting the mark with good WIFI and 3G.

More can be seen on the blog post here.

Let’s hope other channels follow suit with their on-demand offerings too.

The INQ1 is available today. COME ON!

From the 3UK release:

INQ1 will be available free on a contract tariff from £15 per month offering unlimited free Facebook, Skype, Windows Live Messenger and web access, plus 75 minutes of calls to other networks, unlimited texts, unlimited email and unlimited free 3-to-3 calls*. £20 will get you all of the above but with 200 minutes of calls to other networks. INQ1 will also be available on PAYG at £79.99 (£78.29 actual cost) with internet packages available from £5 per month.

Who’s buying one? Eighty quid! Eighty quid! I’m getting one later today.

Wandering out of a blizzard is the latest version of the Android based mobile to appear, now in the colour of white from T-mobile’s online store.

As it’s been around in black now for a while and since they’re dealing with ‘negative’ press coverage all the time, why not produce a negative colour version.

The handset that will be now lost in the snow comes at the exact same specifications as before, with no difference apart from the colouring.

The screen is still at an annoying angle when you’re typing from the keyboard, meaning you have to tilt your head slightly to get in alignment. Yes, we’ve actually seen people do this – it looks much akin to a dog recognising its name.

Its keypad is still a large block, where you have to curl the palm of your hand around to type on the keyboard. Or reach over that unsightly block, both of which causes a hunched shoulder. We’ve also witnessed people do this too just so they can type, it all looks very weird.

In a generations time you’ll be able to spot the people that first used the G1, as their head will be permanently be at an angle from typing and they’ll all have a semi-Quasimodo stance.

The phone is around from now in white and black from T-mobile, enjoy.

** UPDATE**

It’s been confirmed that T-Mobile had their wired crossed yesterday after all.

The albino handset has JUST gone on sale in the US of A, and not the UK.

A T-Mobile spokesperson dropped us a line late yesterday, after the fault was officially confirmed/rectified.

It’s always good to uncross the wires that were crossed, now can T-Mobile and HTC fix everything else wrong with the handset

As we reported the other day, Vodafone’s Storm Blackberry is launched officially today in the UK.

That means you can pre-order it, here.

You can have one free on £35 a month for TWO YEARS (yikes) which includes 600 minutes and ‘unlimited’ texts.

Here’s Ian Shepherd, Consumer Director of Vodafone UK talking about the device:

Who’s getting one?

I’m not sure about the screen as yet. I’m really enjoying my Vodafone Blackberry Bold…

It’s most certainly beta. You don’t NEED to have a WiFi capable Blackberry — but I reckon it helps. Provided you’ve got the right version of the software, you should be Truphoning in record time by pointing your Blackberry to http://www.truphone.com/blackberry.

One point: If the Blackberry SIM has already been used for Truphone on ether Symbian or iPhone, then you will get a Customer Service message. Talk to them. They’ll sort it out…

Posted by email from MIR Live (posterous)

To be clear this is the…er.. ‘Smartphone Show‘. Although it’s referred to as the ‘Symbian Smartphone Show’. Are they the sponsors now? I originally thought it was all about symbian only. But Blackberry are exhibiting. So are Motorola, Sony and Samsung. Nokia’s unusually nowhere to be seen. Not quite a full turn out, it seems.

Apart from my incessant wails about the innovation coming out of Helsinki (I’m looking at you, Nokia), the Symbian operating system is one of the world’s most influential platforms.

Some would say that it’s lost the initiative — that the attention, the buzz, the future is all about the next generation of systems. Think Android, think iPhone, think Qualcomm (well, if you screw up your eyes tightly).

What of the behemoth from Redmond? Microsoft, however you look at it, is making continued headway with the likes of Sony Ericsson turning to them with the Xperia. And Blackberry, rushing headlong for the consumer whilst defending it’s business heritage isn’t letting Nokia away with much.

Nokia and Symbian are one, their futures are highly intertwined on a downward slope. Can the operating system and the manufacturer — both the steeped in *telephones* as apposed to the instant consumer focused connectivity of the next generation — turn it about?

UIQ anyone? NEXT!

Nokia certainly pulled Comes With Music out the hat. It’s almost comparable to iTunes in terms of user experience. Is it enough to always play second fiddle to the innovators? 10 million handsets a day says yes. The dire, dire user experience compared against the likes of the iPhone says no.

Nokia had this year to get it right. They’ve got, what, another six months before the innovation of their competitors and the market impetus begins to move sweep them into the big-but-also-rans — the dangerous territory of the Motorola RAZR syndrome.

Even now I can hear the avalance of hate mail gathering at the gates like the proverbial barbarians.

“How dare you make such a statement. Nokia/Symbian is [amazing|brilliant|the best] and you know [flock all|nothing|nothing at all].”

To those people who email (I had over 100 flames last time), I pick a random Nokia function out of the air and point to just how stupidly conceived it is now. It was acceptable in 1999 to have a handset that came out of the factory not working properly (that could only be fixed by a tortuous update). It was acceptable to have 5 different APNs. What the flock is an APN, anyway? I know. I just… what the hell is it doing in front of the consumer? Much of your average Nokia device operation is flatly appalling. A historical ball and chain.

We’ll take a measure of the positivity of the marketplace tomorrow.

I’ll be your Nokia cynic. The rest of the MIR team will, I suspect, be at their Nokia/Symbian rocks heights, ready to be neutered by a ‘Connection required?’ message from the operating system.

Looking down the list of attendees, there’s quite a lot to see.

Let’s have a look down the names that catch my attention from the list.

Accenture? Uh huh. What exactly are they doing with smartphones? We’ll find out.

Interesting to see Blackberry have a stand.

We’ll pop by Mobile Industry Review favourites, DeviceAnywhere and say hi, definitely.

F-Secure’s chaps will, I’ve no doubt, be trying to tell us all about how our Nokias are about to get nailed by viruses. Would this be the right point to yell ‘AS IF’ very loudly?

Fujitsu? Aye. Well known developer of innovative Symbian phones since 2002, it says here. I wouldn’t know a Fujitsu handset if it slapped me with a 100ft wide kipper.

Handango will be there. I wonder if the mobile operators across the planet are falling over them hunting for their very own application stores?

Who else? LG. Aye. They’ll be there with the Renoir I’m sure.

Microsoft? No. No show. That’s a conspicuous omission.

Motorola are there. They might as well put up a big sign saying WE HAVE NO MORE INFORMATION ON THE ANDROID DEVICE. SORRY. We’ll nevertheless see if we can stick the camera in somebody’s face and get some news on that.

NEC will be rubbing everyone’s noses in the fact that they don’t really manufacturer 2/3G devices anymore on the basis that it’s hugely old (compared to the trilobit speeds that Japan operates on).

Interesting to see that Orange are making an appearance. No Vodafone. No other operators.

- – - – -

Hi Ewan,

Just to let you know we passed 15 million questions – from 2 million customers, this morning.

It helped over the weekend by Graham Norton texting us ‘are baboons evil?’ live on his show. Which of course resulted in thousands of other people texting us at once.

If you’re interested the 15 millionth question was:

“After the 8:06 to Brighton from London Victoria, what time is the next train and what time does it arrive?”

AQA 63336 texted back with:

“AQA: The next train after the 08.06 from London Victoria to Brighton departs at 08.20. It arrives in Brighton at 09.22. The next train after that is at 08.36.”

As an aside Graham isn’t the first one to have caused peaks in the service, if you recall Paul O’Grady did something similar last year, as have Jo Whiley, Stephen Fry, Chris Moyles, Chris Evans. Celebrities certainly help to promote a service!

Regards,

Paul
AQA

- – - – -

Thanks for that Paul. Congratulations to everyone at AQA. I’d be keen to find out what AQA’s answer to Graham’s ‘Are Baboons Evil’ question was!

By the way, check out AQA on video here:

Congratulations to CEO & Co-Founder, Alex Meisl and the team. Here’s a note from Alex:

“The growth Sponge has seen over the last two years has been immense, and gaining recognition as one of the Tech Track 100 is a great achievement,”

“Sponge has evolved into a company that not only supplies mobile technology but offers creative ideas to brands and media owners from Barclays Bank to Birds Eye and Vodafone. As mobile internet sites are becoming crucial to a wide range of businesses, we are already working with the likes of Auto Trader and Daily Star to allow them to provide valuable cross-platform services to their customers.”

In case you’re wondering, Sponge achieved a growth rate of 60% in 3 years to the end of 2007.

Drinks are on Alex.