Stop everything you’re doing and fly over to this page at Gizmodo. They have a seriously smart video of the (apparently new) Microsoft Courier tablet.

They report that it’s a real device and it’s in the ‘late stage’ prototype.

If it’s anywhere near accurate — and if it works *like* they show in the video, then it’s going to really change the marketplace.

Bring it on!

If you’re brave enough, take a look inside. Here are some samples awaiting your delectation…

That’s a shit phone
Because, let’s face it, you’re hardly likely to ever be outgunned in the handset department, right? You always have the top of the range. Now you just need a T-Shirt to remind everyone of that.

- – -

S60 users do it in the background
Your friends aren’t likely to get this one — at all — in fact, you can sit back with a satisfied smile whenever you encounter an iPhone user. There ain’t an app for this. Oh no.

- – -

(RAZR > ROKR) < iPhone
@kgutteridge suggested this formula which, again, will be lost on anything but a properly seasoned mobile geek. Who will smile broadly and nod in agreement after reading. With a barely perceptible nod, you will ensure you are correctly identified as a card carrying (or T-Shirt wearing) mobile genius.

Which leads me to this one…

Mobile Genius
This design is guaranteed to subtly and quietly assert your mobile genius status to all and sundry. Does what it says on the tin.

- – -

It’s not about the megapixels, dude
As any true mobile geek will tell you — whilst, generally speaking, a 12 megapixel piece of joy from Sony Ericsson will probably take better pictures than a 0.3 megapixel $11 LG monstrosity — it’s not actually all about the megaxpixels. Wear this to sort the men from the RAZR sporting boys.

- – -

My other phone’s a Nohkeeyah
Yes you have an iPhone. Or an Android device. You might occasionally carry a Sony Ericsson (for the camera — see above T-Shirt) but if you’re a serious mobile user, your Nokia won’t be too far away from you, right? Whether you’re an E71 man or an N82 (‘it’s all about the Xenon’) chap, I’ve yet to meet a certified trumobilegeek who doesn’t have a top of the line Nokia in his pocket. This T-Shirt reminds the Great Unwashed of this. But it will also cause 100% of them to take multiple glances at your manly chest whilst they try and work out what the hell a Nohkeeyah is.

Unless they’re American and they should get it pretty quickly.

All the T-Shirts retail via Zazzle for a whoppingly good value 13.95 pounds plus 2.98 pounds shipping. Or the equivalent in US, Australian or Canadian dollars.

You can also buy a mousepad and a page of 20 circular MIR stickers to put on every device you own. They conveniently also fit nicely over the Apple logo on your top of the range MacBook Pro.

Coming soon: The infamous Mobile Industry Review embroidered jackets.

This is a money making exercise. MIR gets the default 10% commission from every purchase. It doesn’t appear to be possible to change this in the Zazzle options. Ergo I undertake to distribute the eight quid in gross revenues over the next 12 months toward the next Mobile Industry Review Unlimited Drinks event.

If you fancy buying something, unlock your impulsive side and click-click-click. Zazzle uses PayPal so all you need to do is knock in your address details and boom.

The links you need:

- UK Shop
- USA Shop
- Canadan Shop
- Australian Shop

And it is.

We’re live. And the mobile industry is changed for good.

Finally you can deploy an application, easily, for Nokia customers. It used to be an absolutely torturous process — now, the discovery is much, much improved.

Similarly, if you’d like, for example, some Star Trek wallpapers on your Nokia, you can now click-click and be done. No more arsing around. Fantastic.

Here’s a screenshot from the desktop:

The store is wholly sluggish this morning because the whole world and his dog is checking in, downloading and playing around.

You can already see just how massively successful the store is going to be. I’m looking at a ‘futuristic‘ Star Trek Ringtone — that’s priced free. On the right hand side I’ve got these options:

And it’s free? I’ll have that.

As for billing, well your operator will take care of your purchase processing in Australia, Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore and Spain. So it’s just one click to buy. Magic from a mobile developer standpoint. I’m going to give it a try in a few minutes.

And for revenue sharing? Well 30% revenue share is fast becoming standard across the app store world and Nokia is keeping to that — there are a few questions over exactly how the splits will work but I’m sure we’ll see some further clarification on this soon.

Here’s what store.ovi.com looks like on my Nokia N82 browser:

I’ll download the app and take you on a tour shortly.

For now… the Ovi Store is live… let’s see what everyone thinks about it!

The address you need: http://store.ovi.com

I popped by the Flirtomatic London offices today to meet with founder Mark Curtis and the team. I’ve long been a follower (and fan) of Flirtomatic (check out the MIR archive coverage) and particularly fascinated with how they’ve managed to build such a massive base of users via the mobile web.

Flirtomatic is, as you might have guessed, all about flirting — not necessarily dating in the traditional sense. Mark and his team are uber-smart. They’ve got the sign-up time down to approximately 45 seconds via mobile. So if you click on an advert or if you visit via an operator portal link, you’ll be able to become a member extremely quickly. This fastidious and razor-sharp focus on the sign-up process has helped them garner a massive, massive user-base.

Mark was telling me that when they started, they used to convert just over a third of sign-ups into active users (and by active, they mean ’sends a flirt message’, not just logging in). They’ve now got that ratio up to 70% – a simply phenomenal figure.

I spent a few hours with Mark discussing his take on mobile development. The resulting interview is fantastic food for thought. Firtomatic have built a solid foundation of decent, healthy and increasing revenue through mobile web. Why? Well, he explains in some detail on camera and makes some super observations.

If you’re after some highlights, try these snippets for size:

* They users bought 14,000 virtual engagement rings in 72 hours to celebrate the leap year back in 2008.
* Don’t write off credit cards as a method of payment. 10% of Flirtomatic’s revenue is derived from credit cards — details of which are input via the mobile browser!
* Vodafone UK’s ‘free data’ day on May 1st for PAYG users boosted sign-ups 13 times.
* iPhone users are by far the longest to validate (i.e. confirm) their accounts — in some cases it takes four days for a user to login to their email to validate their account.
* The N95 remains one of their most popular handsets by traffic.
* On average within 2 hours of signing up, males get roughly 4 flirtomatic messages from other users. Females get about 20!
* They money is in visibility (i.e. users paying to improve their rankings/ratings). That point is probably one of the most incisive takeaways.
* It’s not necessarily about apps. I think a lot of developers will be very interested to understand why Mark and his team simply haven’t bothered with mobile applications as yet.

We also did a walk-about of Flirtomatic’s Towers, indeed they’re now a proper tower since new additions have led them to expand on to a second floor. Mark did a quick introduction to the staff before we sat down and got talking.

Mark’s video(s) should be up shortly. If you’d like a reminder, we’ve got a nifty function that will update you by email every time we post. Subscribe here.

(That screencap above of Mark is from the video import.)

For years I’ve been screaming with utter annoyance at the absolute rubbish Sony Ericsson has been vomiting into the marketplace. Their devices are amongst the nicest engineered on the planet. They’re well built, stylish, reliable and the cameras are simply amazing.

But the dumb operating system (or, more accurately, the stupidly limited UI) is — literally — from the 1990s.

I positively loved their K800i handset — a class leading device in it’s time — and I’ve continued to admire the workmanship of their more recent models — but actually using a Sony Ericsson is akin to jumping in an Ashes to Ashes style timewarp back to 1990.

It’s pretty accurate to refer to a Sony Ericsson user as a Mobile Caveman. Just like a human caveman, a Mobile Caveman (”MobCav, anyone?”) is able to manage life’s various transactions (fire, food, sex) but when it comes to anything more enlightened or connected, no dice.

Your Sony handset will browse the ‘mobile web’. Cool. It will — with quite a bit of persuasion — synchronise your address book. You can play music on it. You can even play game(s) on it.

But put a top of the range Sony handset next to other class leaders (iPhone, G1/G2, Palm Pre, Nokia N-Series) and it’s immediately clear it’s not in the same league.

Don’t get me started on developing for a Sony Ericsson.

Besides from a degree in Nuclear Physics (with hons and some fannying about with the Dean’s List), you’ll need a massive budget and the patience of a demigod to develop for the current range of Sony Ericssons.

The Xperia device is … well, let’s put it this way, have you seen anyone with an Xperia recently? Hobbled by a ridiculous, ridiculous Microsoft bollocks operating system, the Xperia was never, ever going anywhere.

“Why won’t they go Android?” I used to scream, “Can you imagine how brilliant a Sony Ericsson would be with Android?”

Well… it’s happening.

Finally.

It had to happen. It was inevitable. Just like Apple bringing out an iPhone (they had to make the move or surrender the mobile music market to the likes of Nokia).

Slashphone reports that at a recent showcase in Taiwan, Peter Ang, the Sony Ericsson VP of Marketing, confirmed Android is now a key operating system for the company. Along with Symbian and Windows. Gah.

Sony’s Android handset(s) are due to arrive with Android 2.0 — and there’s speculation (from Chris Davies over at Android Community.com) that the devices will sport a proprietary UI along the lines of the Xperia UI.

The upshot?

Upgrade Android in your estimations. With the consumer giants such as Sony Ericsson (and Samsung) jumping in, it won’t be long before high-end (and shortly after, mid-tier and low-end) normal mobile users (”normobs”) will be shopping for their Apps via the Android Marketplace.

Exciting news.

Now and again I’ve found myself on some obscure blog post from 2005 only to discover a genius application for uploading screenshots or something like that.

Indeed I think that’s how I came across ImageWell (uploads screenshots via FTP) and Mailplane (run Gmail / Apps as a proper application) and more.

I didn’t sign-up initially because, well… so much of my desktop usage is browser based. Looking at the applications I have open at the moment, it doesn’t really make for shocking or surprising reading:

* Safari
* Firefox
* Microsoft Word
* Skype
* Mailplane
* Spotify
* ImageWell
* MarsEdit
* Terminal
* Adium
* TweetDeck

Hardly earth shattering, eh? But then… you never know. So I signed up this afternoon and I’ve added two chaps already, Geetarchurchy and Ricky Chotai. Aside from the basic ‘what’s he using that for’ thoughts, it’s really quite interesting. I can see how this will/would really help with discovery of new applications.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. I’d really like to see something like this for mobile handsets. I’m sure the Wakoopa creators are considering something like this. Of course it wouldn’t work very well on an iPhone in real time (no background apps on an iPhone… yet) but it would work reasonably well on Android and Symbian.

Nokia’s already doing this with the upcoming Ovi Store (just WHEN is it actually, actually launching?). Peer-to-peer recommendations. I should, theoretically, be able to see what my Ovi friends are buying/using/consuming via the Ovi Store. I’m looking forward to seeing how people react to that feature, I think it’ll be a winner.

I certainly find the iPhone application discovery process a little bit haphazard at the moment — indeed, it’s positively lonely when you’re sat looking at the App Store on your iPhone. I tend to hear more about applications when I’m not actively browsing, when I’m out-and-about or when I’m working. That’s fine, but it’s not necessarily when I’m most receptive to looking at new things.

I can imagine opening up the App Store on my Nokia with the intent of finding out what my friends have checked out recently.

I’m hoping that once all the kinks are worked out, the Ovi Store will reinvigorate the desire to install new apps… We shall see.

The where-are-you question is very, very relevant in the context of business so I’ve been trying to solve that with the use of a Where Am I function on my personal site, Ewan.net.

I was previously using BlogLoc for this function… but it was getting a little bit annoying having to manually update every time I remembered.

So instead I’ve decided to try out Google’s Latitude facility. Latitude allows you to see the locations of your friends on a Google Map (either on your phone or online) and it works pretty well.

Recently the Google Latitude team announced that they’ve added a public ‘badge’ facility that you can place anywhere on the web to show off your current location. This definitely isn’t for everyone, especially if you’re a little bit suspicious or concerned about your privacy. But I like the concept myself and I thought it was worth a try. Google have been particularly direct with their warnings — which I heeded — so I haven’t displayed by actual street level GPS location. Instead I’ve displayed my general ‘city level’ location.

Here’s what it looks like on the blog:

Nifty.

If you’d like to do the same, get your Google Latitude Public Location Badge here.

Fluck me sideways.

From June 1, pay as you go and pay monthly consumer customers can talk, text and send picture messages from over 35 countries across Europe this summer for the same price as at home.

From May 15, calls from the UK to friends and family overseas from as little as 5 pence per minute.

Businesses also benefit from cost savings on roaming.

What a challenge to the industry. I’m really pleased to see this rather sweeping, surprising and exciting move from Vodafone:

So much so, I’m going to post the whole release:

Vodafone UK is abolishing roaming charges this summer and bringing in great value prices for international calls, making it easier for customers to phone home while abroad and make calls abroad from the UK. There are cost savings for business customers too.

From 1 June to the end of August, Vodafone Pay as you Go and Pay Monthly customers will be able to call, text and send picture messages to friends and family back home from over 35 countries knowing that it will cost exactly the same as if they were in the UK. For example, a customer on a plan with 600 minutes and unlimited texts who opts in to Vodafone Passport would use these minutes and texts when they are on holiday with no extra charges.

Existing Vodafone Passport customers automatically benefit from the three month promotion. From May 15, customers who don’t currently use Vodafone Passport can sign up for free by texting the word ‘Passport’ to 97888 if they pay monthly or to 2345 if they use Pay as you go , or they can visit vodafone.co.uk/roaming.

In addition, from May 15, Vodafone Pay as you go customers on the Simply tariff, will find that calls they make from the UK to friends and family overseas will be even better value. International calls will cost from as little as 5p per minute to both landlines and mobiles. Customers can opt in to the new Vodafone International call plan by calling 36888 or texting the word ‘international’ to 2345 from their handset, visiting vodafone.co.uk/international or speaking to an adviser in one of Vodafone’s 400 stores.

“These are two great value offers for our customers this summer. With our Vodafone Passport promotion you can sit on the beach with your phone switched on knowing you can take and make a call just as you would if you were in your back garden,” says Ian Shepherd consumer director for Vodafone UK. “Vodafone International is good news for the millions of UK pay as you go customers as they can now make calls to family and friends around the world from just 5p.”

Reducing the cost of roaming for businesses

Vodafone UK business customers on Anytime or Your Plan price plans will also benefit from the same three month Vodafone Passport promotion from June 1. Customers on these plans and already on Vodafone Passport will automatically qualify for the promotion. Non Vodafone Passport customers can opt in by calling their account manager or visiting www.vodafone.co.uk/businessroaming for further information.

And the countries included?

Countries included in the Vodafone Passport summer promotion: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Vatican City, New Zealand, Australia.

More thoughts and analysis later!

We’re putting on an event this month in Paris, France. I’ll have more details soon — but I can say that the event will be in the last week of this month and it’s set to feature some of the hottest mobile developers in France.

Much like the previous Developer event we held back in January (at Mobile Industry Review), we’ll be interviewing every single attendee, doing some show-and-tells demonstrating their applications and publishing those in a special edition of Mobile Developer TV.

France has always had a pretty decent mobile development industry — but it’s been severely hamstrung by the day-to-day realities of the European market (e.g. working with the likes of Symbian, trying to generate revenue via premium rate text). The iPhone changed all of that, though. At Mobile Monday Paris in March, I saw a community of 300+ developers electrified by the opportunities offered by the end-to-end iTunes platform.

It’s most certainly not all about iPhone, especially in such a Nokia-centric country and continent, but iPhone is, of course, garnering the lion’s share of attention and support from newly revitalised investors.

So I’m looking forward to visiting Paris. I’ll have more details up soon, we’re just confirming the date and venue.

Meantime if you’d like to come along to the event, just drop me a note (ewan@mobiledeveloper.tv) and I’ll keep you updated.

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I’ve been using my Android G1 a lot since I arrived in America because, conveniently, my US T-Mobile sim works perfectly with it (even though it’s a UK device). I didn’t have to do any configuration since HTC thoughtfully included the T-Mobile US web settings on the device already.

So I’ve been taking pictures.

As you do in a city as nice and as varied as San Francisco.

I’d like to send them directly to Flickr. Since there’s no ShoZu service on Android at the moment (and I haven’t re-installed Pixelpipe yet) I thought I’d have a look around the Marketplace on Android.

Unlike others, I take it upon myself to buy as many applications as possible. I did a certain amount of evaluation on ‘Flickr Upload’ when I came across it. From memory it was $0.99. Or perhaps less.

I scrolled down to the comments.

On the 28th of April, ‘Matthew’ commented:

Works wonderfully. Well integrated.

.. and he gave it five stars.

I suspect Matthew is referring to the share option. When you take a photo on Android, there’s a button that pops up called ‘Share’. Click on that and you get the choice of sharing by Email, by Google Mail or — to Flickr (enabled by this application). Smart. I was warming to the concept.

I noted that it’s had between 100-500 downloads. Ok. Not a brilliant well-trodden path. I continued with the comment review.

On the 21st of April, ‘z0mbix’ commented:

Will not authorise with flickr on t-mobile/G1. Can’t get any reply from the developers em[ail]…

Er.

I’d gone off it right away.

The final comment on the app’s frontpage was a day before z0mbix’s one from Benjamin:

Exactly what I was looking for works perfectly

Hmmm.

Z0mbix’s comment put me right off. But I reasoned there must be a reason, maybe he/she didn’t know what they were doing? Afterall if Benjamin and Matthew each had a good experience, I should be ok?

Right?

As I walked out of the Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco I spotted an advert I wanted to write about. I decided to download Flickr Upload there and then, configure it and get moving.

I paid the money, the app downloaded and within seconds I’d got to the main prompt, asking me to authorise my Flickr account to work with it. Fair enough.

I typed in my Yahoo account username and password and hit ‘login’.

Nothing happened.

Nothing.

The screen went blank.

Er.

‘I’ve just paid a dollar for this,’ I thought, rather disappointed. I was experiencing the pain of fellow user, z0mbix.

I tried again. Maybe I typed my details wrong?

Again it failed. The app just sat on a blank screen like this:

Rubbish!

I ended up sending the photo to my email account and walked home, rather annoyed with myself.

I was annoyed because I thought I’d obviously got my Yahoo password wrong.

What self respecting developer would allow an application to go live — a chargeable application at that — which doesn’t actually work?

Then I reasoned that it must be a Yahoo screw-up and spent a good few blocks cursing them in my mind.

I got back to my desktop and immediately changed my Yahoo password to check I had it correct.

Again I tried authorising the app.

Nothing. Nada.

I’ve bought a dud.

I don’t know who is responsible. It COULD be Yahoo, entirely. But one assumes that the two other recent commenters on Android Marketplace aren’t lying and they got it to work.

I’ve tried a few times over the past few days to activate it to no avail.

So I looked up the developer online.

They’re called Macrospecs and they’re a privately-owned startup in the bay area.

Ah hah! They’ll have a GetSatisfaction page, right? Or a forum or something?

No.

Nothing!

It’s a one-page website and — ultra annoyingly — the ‘contact’ page goes straight through to their email address.

Confusingly there is absolutely no reference to the Flickr Upload application on their site.

I then had a look back on the Android Marketplace and saw that the ‘developer site’ is listed as FaceofMobile.com/Flickr. Ah hah!

No, hold your excitement.

This is the entire site:

Yup… it’s one page. It consists of three screenshots and a macrospecs logo, with no link. No contact details. No support option. Nothing.

In fairness to the developer, one wouldn’t expect that many support enquiries from an application that simply sends a photo to a Flickr account. It’s not rocket science and there’s hardly any failure points.

Except the authorisation process.

And, of course, macrospecs don’t control that, Yahoo do.

Tough luck for me and z0mbix, right? If it ain’t working, you can try contacting macrospecs but it’s rather clear they don’t want to know — and are not expecting to support any enquiries.

I hunted around and I found a support forum for macrospecs’ Face of Mobile application, a $1.99 Windows Mobile Facebook app.

I suppose I could try posting there.

But I’m not feeling very welcome — or smart for buying the app. Indeed I’ve paid a dollar for the privilege.

It’s perfectly fine for it to happen to me, I have a good understanding of the trials and tribulations of mobile development — but if this is the experience of your average consumer who’s just picked up a G1 or G2 and is expecting 100% friction-free total quality-assured service from the Android Marketplace, they’re not going to be at all impressed.

Like the ringtone marketplace a few years ago — you’ll pay once and if the experience sucks, you definitely won’t ever pay again.

What’s the right response?

Is this a FAIL on the part of the team at macrospecs? Is it a Yahoo FAIL?

Or is it an Android FAIL?

Would this have happened on an iPhone?

Here’s a pic:

I was Palo Alto for a few meetings, one with a mobile titan (ID not public alas). The chap was running 30 minutes late (”Don’t worry, I’ll hit up* the Apple store”, I told him). I’d arrived in by the rather efficient ‘CalTrain’ early anyway so I strolled up University Avenue toward the Apple store.

I was having a look in the shop windows during the stroll and realised I was passing the Verizon Wireless store.

“Screw it,” I thought, “I’ve got some time, let’s go and have a look at Mr CDMA’s offerings.”

I arrived into the store and was immediately greeted by a lady with a clipboard. This is the way things work in America. At least, it’s been my experience with Sprint as well as Verizon.

(Conversations paraphrased from memory)

“How may I help you today?” the nice spritely shiny lady asked, clipboard and pen poised.

“Er I’m British,” I said. Best to get that off my chest.

She did a slow knowing nod.

British = Useless to Verizon. They either want to spend a good 20 minutes selling you a two-year credit agreement (and a handset) or get you out of the shop as quickly as possible with a prepay deal.

But if you’re foreign it’s a no-go. They don’t want your business. You need a US social security number to get started with them. This is fair enough — there are 303 million folk in the country, enough to be getting on with.

Even if you offer to prepay a 2-year contract in advance (e.g. $200 for a Storm on $80 a month is $2120. Offer them $3,000 up front and they’ll decline. Their system, I’m told, doesn’t ‘work that way’).

Anyway. I explained I was British and the lady put down her pen and let me pass.

Normally she’d have been ticking various boxes relating to what I was looking for. Then she’ll hand the resulting form to a sales chappy who, suitably briefed, will help me out.

I took a stroll about the place. I admired a few handsets. I glanced once or twice at the Storm, their handset du jour. Well, actually, their handset du year.

I had a look at the LG Versa.

“Can I help you, sir?”

I turned and found a helpful looking sales chap on my elbow.

“Er,” I said with continued embarrassment, “I’m sorry, I’m British, so… er…”

“Oh,” the chap said, eyes widening.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding, “It’s prepay or nothing, I know.”

I hung my head slightly as the chap nodded with me in sympathy.

With a tough of benevolence, he said I should ask him if I needed any help.

I thanked him.

“Alas, I’m a pariah,” I mumbled to myself, gazing over at the Samsung Omnia on the shelf. Windows Mobile, I know, but it thought it’d be worth a look. I went back to the Storm.

$199 on a 2-year contract.

I started selling it to myself.

“You have a duty to, you know, play about with these things,” I reasoned, calculating whether I really wanted to spunk something like $2,000 on ‘playing about’.

I only found out later that you could get a Blackberry Storm for $449 up-front on a month-to-month agreement. That, provided Verizon would have done a deal with an alien like me, would have bee interesting. I’d still have had quite a problem swallowing $449 unless I was aiming to use it as a primary device.

My key issue is that I’ve never actually used a Verizon handset for more than a day or so — and they’ve been rubbish prepay handsets. I’ve never really tried out the Verizon data network, for example. So I was warm.

But luckily for my bank balance, nobody tried to sell me a month-to-month Storm.

In fact, they’re not selling the Storm in Palo Alto. Although it’s on display, it’s not for sale. The sales team will do their best to avoid selling you one.

Is that a sweeping statement? Yes. Of course Verizon are selling Storms — by the bucketload by all accounts. Just not to me. And definitely not to the customer who came in after me.

I was pondering the possibility of a Windows Mobile handset when I heard a chap come into the shop. I glanced round as he approached me and the salesman who’d (sensibly?) given up on me.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m after a G-3 phone, the Blackberry Storm?”

“Right,” said the salesperson, “Well…”

“This is it here, is it?” the buyer said. He’d walked straight to it and was ready for the sale. He’d clearly seen it on television or been recommended it. The fact he got the ‘G-3′ (”3G”) bit wrong indicated an element of normob (”normal mobile user”) in his makeup. He knew what he wanted. He knew 3G, however you said it, was the way ahead. He was fondling the device and wanted to buy one.

“Er, you don’t want the Blackberry Storm,” said the salesman to the surprise of the buyer, “It’s buggy,” he continued.

“Buggy? Ah yeah..” said the buyer. He’d heard of that too and asked, “When will they bring out a software upgrade?”.

“Errrrr,” said the salesman, “Is it a touchscreen phone you’re looking for?” he said, beckoning the buyer to the other side of the store.

I missed a bit of their conversation — but I could make out the fact the salesman was trying to sell him some type of LG touchscreen.

The buyer did some quick evaluation before walking back to the Storm.

“Nah, tell me about the Storm?”

“It’s buggy, you don’t want that,” the salesman said.

“Right, but it works?” said the buyer. He clearly *just* wanted one. He was giving all the I-don’t-mind hints.

At that point I left the store.

I couldn’t handle it.

I was having a lot of trouble keeping my mouth shut and not slapping the salesman with a handy wet fish a few times.

As I left, the buyer was fondling the Storm clearly in I WILL BUY THIS PHONE mode. I think the salesman had relented at this point as I just caught, “Well, the touchscreen clicks when you press on it, the iPhone doesn’t have that,” as I walked out the door.

Well I never.

Palo Alto, spiritual home to Silicon Valley (and actual home to, amongst others, HP’s worldwide headquarters). By all means discourage the good normob people of Shitsville, Middle America, to avoid getting the Storm (they’ll only return it when they can’t figure out the keyboard). But in Palo Alto? When the chap strides in demanding a Storm? Give him one. Be pleased he’s aiming to swap from T-Mobile (he was) to Verizon instead of T-Mobile or, worse… the iPhone collective that is AT&T.

An interesting experience.

In the interests of fairness I am going to see if I can swim the myriad Verizon Wireless PR channels and get a hold of a Blackberry Storm to use for a month or so. I’ll keep you updated.

Meanwhile I encourage you to pop into your nearest Verizon store and ask for a Storm and report back your experiences. My experience today must surely have been an exception.

* “Hit up” — a fancy wanna-be-cool American way of saying “visit/talk to/connect with”.

Latitude, if you’re not familiar with it, is an add-on to Google Maps that (amongst other features) overlays an avatar of your friends on Google Maps. So if you’re out-and-about you can see their location. Or if you’re on your desktop you can see a large Google Map of your friends.

Typically innovative, Google decided to take things to the next level. Wouldn’t it be neat that, if you had sufficient friends each with a T-Mobile G1 (for example), you could position them on the map to spell out a message.

Granted, you’d need to have quite a bit of spare time. But it’s doable, right?

Right.

The Google Latitude team stuck their money where their mouth is and had a bit of fun, thus:

That there is a screenshot of a Google Maps screen spelling out ‘Hi Mom’ across central San Francisco. Each little square you see is an avatar representing a physical Google team member with a phone standing in the corresponding physical location in San Francisco.

The enterprising chaps also made a video documenting the process of setting this up:

There is, I suspect, limited value in spelling out messages using your friends on Google Maps / Latitude. But it’s a super proof-of-concept for the technology.

And a reminder to get on Latitude.

Latitude, of course, isn’t yet available for the iPhone so that’s most of San Francisco ruled out. But for everyone back in Europe sporting your common-or-garden N-Series Nokia device, perhaps it’s time you and your friends spent this Saturday spelling out ‘Hello Your Majesty’ across a map of London.

(You’ll need about 10-12 friends per character.)

Of course AdMob are also hugely active in the application monetisation space with well over 1,000 iPhone applications carrying AdMob inventory. What’s good to know is that in many cases, AdMob is writing cheques (or ‘checks’) in excess of $10k+ to a lot of developers. (Indeed, some of the more popular apps are knocking back hundreds of thousands in AdMob revenue.)

So this evening’s event was both an introduction to AdMob’s iPhone related services, a panel discussion on the hot topic du jour (iPhone App Discoverability) as well as the opportunity for developers to network with each other.

The panel featured the following luminaries:

Mike Kerns, CEO, Citizen Sports (Sportacular)
Jonathan Zweig, CEO, Jirbo / Epic Tilt (ESPN Cameraman, many others)
Ben Lewis, Founder, TapJoy
Alan Wells, Zynga

Here’s a pic:

The always reliable and informed Richard Wong (far right in the blue shirt), General Partner of Accel Partners was moderator. If, by the way, you’ve come up with a genius mobile service, you should be talking with Richard. Right now. They’re hunting.

My evening began on the boulevards of San Mateo — a rather picturesque series of boutique shops and pizza restaurants (I think I walked by about 10 pizza outlets on the walk from the station). I used the always reliable Google Maps on my N95 8GB to navigate the 10 minute walk from station to venue. (In a show of solidarity I thought I should bring my UK iPhone to the event — but in an uncharacteristic effort to avoid being nailed for £7/meg in data from o2 UK, I’ve had it set to Airplane mode, so I’ve been using my TMO USA sim in my N95.)

I arrived about 15 minutes early so the Benjamin Franklin Hotel wasn’t quite ready. I spotted a chap standing outside with his iPhone and I theorised he might well be one of the 150 developers attending the event. I struck up a conversation. Turns out that the chap — Steffen Frost has been working with iPhone app development since May 2007. He came up with the concept 1st of May 2007 and had $100k+ seed funding within two weeks. Nice. His product? Carticipate. They’ve basically fixed car-trip-sharing by iPhone.

Here’s a pic I snapped of Steffen:

“Show me!” I said as he described the concept. Within seconds he was showing the functions. You can browse the trips already being made in your area and ask to ride-share. Or if you’re heading somewhere yourself, you can advertise your trip and see if anyone else wants to join you. Smart. They’ve had some substantial interest from a lot of big companies wanting to sanitise their employee commuting traffic (amongst other applications).

“What’s your next platform?” I asked Steffen, “After iPhone?”

“Android,” he replied. “How about Nokia?” I asked.

“Yeah, well…”

Suffice to say he was severely unimpressed by the current Nokia offering.

That wasn’t a unique viewpoint. I’ll come to that later.

The venue opened a few minutes later so Steffen and I popped in. Jeff from 148apps, (the iPhone review site) had written his Twitter ID on his label — so I promptly copied and began marching around the room thrusting my hand out and asking questions left, right and centre.

Goodness me it’s iPhone, iPhone, iPhone. Obviously this was an iPhone developer meetup — but I was fascinated to see how insular, how wholly-iPhone the development community is here in Silicon Valley.

“What’s your next platform?” I asked another developer.

“Er… probably Android,” he replied, after a bit of thought.

“Right… and, after that?” I prompted.

“Well,…” he replied, the conversation trailing off to the point that we both stood there in silence for a few seconds.

I remembered myself and spluttered out “Blackberry?”

“Well…” he replied again. A nice way of saying no.

Ok.

“What about Ovi?” I asked. Hopeful. I was expecting either a venomous “GET OUT” or a knowing nod.

“Ovi? What’s that?” he looked at me confused.

“Er, the Nokia offering — their app store?”

He and his two colleagues who’d now joined us looked horrified. As though I’d taken their iPhone and nailed it to the wall.

“Nohhhkeeaaaa?” They asked. I’m sure their minds were drifting to the $29.99 bollocks-handsets they see on display in the mobile operator stores. The rubbish ones — the glorified mobile telephones complete with alarm clocks. (Think the Nokia 2100 series).

“Er LIKE NO,” said the chap’s colleague, as the other two nodded vigorously.

Interesting!

I thought I’d try out a killer stat on them.

“So 17m iPhones on the planet — Nokia reckons they’ll have the Ovi Store on 400m handsets by the end of 2010.” (I was paraphrasing — this is more or less accurate.)

Blank looks.

Nobody cares.

It’s a fascinating experience walking amongst these developers. They’re the cream of the cream. They’re the Stanford drop-outs (or not – “I did my first and second degrees at Stanford” said one chap”). They’re conditioned by the Silicon Valley mentality to think big, BIG BIG. This is where the innovation is. It’s easy to see why the Valley is the centre of everything.

At least it’s the centre of iPhone development.

There’s only so much you can do when you’re sat in a dark office in London waiting for the ‘your app has been accepted’ email from Apple. Compare that to one panelist’s throwaway comment, “We’re really tight with the Apple guys.”

And tight is good. Tight is the way ahead. Almost every chap I met has a friend-of-a-friend who works at Apple. Or knows a ‘guy’ at Google. Or whose dorm mate knocked out a $10k/day Chess app for the iPhone.

As I walked around the venue, I bumped into Omar, AdMob’s founder. I’m still ridiculously embarrassed — I haven’t got over sitting next to Omar in a dinner in San Francisco last September and asking him ‘what he did at AdMob’ only to find out he was the founder. OH THAT OMAR!

I found Omar in good spirits. He was on his way up to commence proceedings. It says a lot when the CEO and founder of AdMob took the time to pop along and introduce the event. He outlined his company’s commitment to mobile developers and platforms such as the iPhone before swiftly handing over to colleague Mike for a quick AdMob FAQ, namely:

Q: Can I monetise my app with AdMob?
A: Yes. Lots of people are already (1,000+ apps using AdMob).

Q: How much money can I make?
A: It’s very dependent on the application and it’s use case, but, for the sake of argument, assume $0.15 net revenue per customer.

The audience sat in silence, gobbling up the information as Mike delivered it. It was very smart to give some basic revenue examples. Some apps are clearly making a heck of a lot more than $0.15 per customer, but if you’re looking for a ready reckoner of what you might be able to achieve, having this information is really valuable.

Next? The panel. It would be fair to represent the panel as iPhone Developer Rockstars. They’re operating in the mythical space of more or less continual Top-50 App Store billing. As I sat taking in the panel debate I was mentally calculating just how many application downloads the four guys accounted for. If you’re looking for confirmation of rockstar status, witness this panelist quote:

“We worked out the other day that one of our applications has been played by our users for 2,000 man years so far,”

Shit.

Moderator Richard Wong did a super job of asking a series of pertinent questions to the panel around the issue of application discovery. Once you’ve got your app accepted, do you blow a load of money (on, for example, AdMob) to get your app discovered on the launch day? Or do you play a longer game? Can you really monetise with ads? (Yes).

One point I really liked was, I think, made by Ben Lewis of TapJoy. He explained that customers had emailed in saying they were finding it difficult getting above level 30 in one of their games. So they responded by making levels 30-40 easier. In doing so, they found that their ad-impressions flew off the charts. If you’re displaying ads at the end of levels, it makes sense to ensure that the majority of users can progress to an array of levels.

Panelist Ben caused me to rethink my stance on Apple’s micropayments. if you recall, Apple’s next OS version, 3.0, introduces the capacity to extract micropayments from consumers using your applications. Ben commented that whilst a 30% revenue share for the hosting of the App Store, credit card processing and so on was fair enough, taking the exact same share for micropayments ‘just wasn’t cricket’, as we say in Britain. The point being that Apple aren’t doing any more work, other than the transaction processing.

Now to the good stuff.

For months — possibly even years — I’ve been banging on about the iPhone platform finally unlocking the opportunity for developers. Not everyone has been agreeing with me. Indeed quite a few purists in Europe have continued to assert the apparent superiority of the Symbian/Nokia platform for development. And whilst there’s certainly an argument to be had there, it’s — fundamentally — all about money. And there’s a reason Silicon Valley is going nuts for mobile. (Where ‘mobile’ equals ‘iPhone’). It’s the 800 million iPhone downloads, 70% of which are revenue generating. It’s the fact that you can, theoretically, become a millionaire overnight by developing a successful iPhone application, even though there are only 17m iPhones in existence.

So having been a diehard make-it-easy-for-developers chap, it was rather exciting to be surrounded by a few hundred of the Valley’s iPhone geniuses.

Panel questions arrived. I’d already been mentally willing Richard to pick me when he eventually opened the panel up to audience questions.

“Right, any quest..” he began. I shot up my hand.

“Ewan!” he said.

“Hi, I’d like to ask you about…”

I was getting stuck in.

“Wait a moment Ewan, introduce yourself for the audience,” prompted Richard.

Ah. Yes.

I couldn’t wait to ask my question.

“Given that Nokia expects to have their Ovi store on 400m handsets by the end of 2010, are you looking to develop for that platform?”

The moment I mentioned ‘Nokia’ I could feel the audience bristle.

One of the chaps on the panel looked at me — that ‘what the fluck’ look.

“Er, no,” he said.

He passed the microphone.

“No,” said the next chap.

“Er, we’re thinking about it,” said another.

“Errrr NO,” said the next.

Geez.

I felt like a pariah as the panel began to dissect their reasoning. The path to cash is unclear. It’s a massively fragmented handset population. It’s not centrally controlled and beautiful like the App Store. The Ovi Store doesn’t appear to be that ‘easy’ to work with. The capabilities of the development platform are unknown (at least within the Valley)… and so on.

Judging by the response of the audience and the other developers I spoke to after the panel, the ambivalence to Nokia’s Ovi offering — and the offerings of the other manufacturers — is echoed across the Valley.

Blackberry was mentioned once or twice. Surprising, given the amount of Blackberries in use across the States. But when you consider that a whopping amount of devices are corporate devices that are locked to prevent downloads — and that Blackberry App World isn’t pre-installed as yet — you can see why it’s getting little attention from this community.

Another surprise was the lack of Windows Marketplace discussion. Yes this was an iPhone developer meetup but you’d expect — or at least I expected — most developers to be reasonably platform agnostic or at least looking at other possibilities. Out of the 150 developers there, a show of hands revealed only one chap who had worked on the Windows platform.

This will change. Effort is driven by monetisation. If Ovi, Blackberry and Windows Mobile deliver on their promise, I’m sure the majority will give them the time of day. But right now it’s iPhone, iPhone, iPhone and I don’t blame them.

Blyk frustrated me; in return for receiving adverts matched to my preferences, and and every other user received 217 texts and 43 minutes per month. No data. No data AT ALL. The regular readers of Blykwatch will know I complained a lot about the lack of some kind of inclusive data along with competitive data rates ‘out of bundle’.

Well, to my delight this evening I received a SMS from Blyk;

You asked, Blyk listened. Blyk will be changing to a free monthly refill of £15 for you to use however you like.

*Fantastic* a company that listened to what the users want! Of course, having ‘a balance’ means you can use it on voice, sms, mms and data. The quid pro quo is immediately a lot more credible in my eyes.

However it comes at a price. At the same time prices on Blyk will now increase with call charges rising to 24p a minute from 15p. That’s STEEP. However text messages fall from 10p to 8p.

Now while this is fantastic for me — I can use my balance just on calls, or data — since I use Blyk as my secondary sim, for those using Blyk as a primary operator of choice, they’re now getting a bit of a raw deal.

The old system gave every user £28.15 credit (which made up the 217 texts/43 minutes). So if you’re used to using 217 texts and 43 minutes each month, that will NOW cost you £27.68.

But now, you’re only getting £15 ‘credit’ as thanks for receiving ads. If you wanted to maintain that same level of minutes/texts, you’d need to spunk out £12.68 extra per month.

That is a 46% percent decrease in credit and in return you get flexibility. I think the 46% is rather expensive for the value that flexibility brings. I understand that for a flexible plan you would expect to lose some credit ie 10 – 20% but certainly NOT 46%.

To me this suggests Blyk simply do not understand their user base. If you use the credit all on minutes you are better off than before the changes, however if you are a SMS user you lose out big style. Blyk is a MVNO only available for those who are aged between 16 and 24, users in this bracket (which I am part of) Text, MSN and Facebook each other. They are prolific texters, not callers.

As soon as I got the message concerning these changes I did a search on twitter to see if anyone had said anything (Ewan if you are reading this twitter IS useful).

Here’s what I sent out to my followers:

“You asked, Blyk listened”: 43 min 217 txt -> £15 +data,mms possibility.43min 217 txt=27.68.Cost of flex: 46% for mms, data. More flexible?

I received many responses — I don’t want to list them all so here’s a good summary one:

Am annoyed Blyk has decided to give £15 credit per month instead of free calls and minutes. It’s basically a guise for giving less.

I also jumped onto the forums, and I realised that Blyk had not sent this message in one go but had done a phased roll out, as a result the forums were very active on this topic. The main bulk were contained in two topics one was ‘bring back the old Blyk’ with 150 replies and a petition as well with 104 posts.

Not only that there are also two online petitions on sites on the internet:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?217_43
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-blyk-bo.html

The first has 92 names, the second has 99 names.

Checking the posts on the forum the first post on the change was on the 15th January at 4pm, so in less than 5 days this has been the response. I have been a user of Blyk for more than a year and a half and have never seen so much response on the forums. I think it clearly shows the opinion of the Blyk members.

I dropped an email to both Jonathan MacDonald and Alistair Crane (both part of the team who set up Blyk) to hear get their views on the changes.

“Businesses change their offerings. All of them. Blyk know more about what people want than all other mobile networks, in my opinion. I hope that that opinions about an offering change don’t cloud, remove or replace the fact that, for the first time ever, a media channel was built upon conversation rather than broadcast. We can and should have an opinion and it is more common for negativity to out-shine the positive. It is the way of the world sadly.”  Jonathan MacDonald

Fair point, but how much conversation was going on when they changed the game plan?

Let’s hear from Alistair:

“In January Blyk launched a comprehensive content portal and will be marketing the service heavily to members based on their profile information. By giving users monetary value to spend on whatever they want Blyk will drive content consumption, offer members an additional free service and most importantly, create increased inventory and another avenue for advertisers to access the profiled member base through traditional WAP formats (banners, text links etc.) as well as more creative pre-rolls, interstitials and ad funded content experiences (games, wall papers, ringtones).

Members will place a MASSIVE amount of value around flexibility and will love the fact that they can now access facebook, maps, email etc. using their free allowance. 

User created MMS will still probably stay low but is a good option to add to the mix.” Alistair Crane

I also got some words from fellow Blyk User and MIR Contributor Samanatha

“When I first heard about this, I’ll admit I was excited and happy. And then the reality of Blyk’s inability to comprehend the needs and desires of their customers finally sank in again. I don’t like moaning, and in fact I’m pleased they’ve finally realised that listening to their members is the right way to go about their business; but when there’s such a loss being made by each individual member, questions have to be raised.”
 

Blyk my final words to you are these, your idea is fantastic and it will work well however you tell me you listen BUT do you really?

Do you *really* understand your member base?

- – - – -

A word from the Editor: Hi there, Ewan here. When you go live and tell your customers that it’s all about the conversation, that you’re listening, that you care, it’s good news. If you mean it. But then I suspect it’s a lot larger to wield the happy stick when you’re running a mobile operator. But… if you’ve asked your users for feedback — and they give you feedback, it gets rather challenging when, for whatever logistical reasons, you can’t necessarily deliver.

Over the months we’ve delivered some rather inspiring commentary on Blyk — chiefly from Ricky, the author of today’s post, and more recently from Samantha. Both are exactly in Blyk’s target range. Both are considered, smart, intelligent individuals, misled by the Blyk concept.

We stopped the BlykWatch coverage a while ago because it began to turn into a broken record. Despite the readers from all across the world — I reckon that a good 20-30,000 tuned in regularly for BlykWatch — when we were continually publishing news about forum posts not being replied to and lax or bored customer service, I thought that was it. Time’s up. It’s an operator. Their job is to deliver as many eyeball conversions as possible for their advertisers. It is not to ‘listen’ to their users and it is most certainly not to react to what users want unless there’s a direct profit. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this as a business practice. The disconnect is the users — such as Ricky and Samantha and a lot more besides — getting far too passionate about the service. At one point I think I said to Ricky to go and get a T-Mobile account and stop worrying about Blyk. That’s difficult when you feel passionately engaged by the company and when the company simply does not reflect that back. I’m sure Jonathan MacDonald — in his Every Single One Of Us guise — will have something to say about that. It ain’t good. But it makes cash. The Blyk customer is the advertiser. The user is the gateway to cash for Blyk.

Now, here’s is a viewpoint that I doubt will be received well by Ricky, Samantha and the array of Blyk fans they’ve spoken to about the news: It’s free so you have no rights and your opinion doesn’t count. Despite what the marketing tells you.

The only opinion Blyk want to know is whether you liked the Coca Cola or the Pepsi MMS ad better. If it’s a service level you want — you’re much better off demanding service from a traditional offer and wielding your own cash in return, rather than your data/opinions.

Swapping around the credit structure perhaps indicates at a challenge with the Blyk model. According to a BBC stat, there are about 7 million 16-24 year olds in the UK.

200,000 of which have got a Blyk sim card. Or, let’s be generous — let’s call it 300,000. I don’t know the current stats. No one from Blyk has contacted me with an update for years. So let’s work on the basis of 300k ‘penetration’.

Let’s now get real.

Ricky — one of the world’s most passionate Blyk users doesn’t actually use them as his primary account. He uses T-Mobile. So let’s strip a load out.

Let’s assume 300k sim cards activated. Let’s assume 20% converted to become regular Blyk users? I dunno if this is accurate. Let’s keep with it.

20% is 60,000 regular Blyk users.

How many of them are PRIMARY Blyk users — i.e it’s their ONLY mobile operator? That’s a difficult stat. Let’s say…. another 20%? Let’s be kind?

So 12,000 regular, primary users.

Assume 1% of them can be arsed to care about their ‘billing structure’.

Text them and tell them the credit structure is changing and about 100 of them hit the forums complaining. That sounds about right. Now, once again, these stats could be hugely incorrect and I’m happy for us to be corrected by Blyk.

But if they’re anywhere accurate, they’d explain why the company isn’t necessarily screaming about it’s successes and why it may well become necessary for them to shift around the credit structure to reduce their costs by 40-odd percent.

The value with Blyk is surely in the concept. The concept that — all things being equal — the brands are LOVING the ROI. They’re actually getting returns on their investment. Measurable and high percentages. Just, not with millions of teenagers. So I think the concept of Blyk is a success. Whether the MVNO will prove to be so? Well I don’t know. Let’s keep watching and wish them all godspeed.

(And swap to T-Mobile, Samantha.)

If you have seen it then you can now play with Android yourself here.

As you can imagine all the functions are not available, however for those of you who have only read about the device this is your opportunity to get some on-line hands on experience.

I am sure the podcast team will be commenting how true the emulator is to the real device!

So enjoy and post your thoughts below!

That’s a close-up of the box.

If you’ve guessed the identity of the handset, don’t spoil it for the other readers as I’m sure it’s not on everyone’s lips at the moment.

All will be revealed on Monday 10th.

The just released it today so if you’re a LloydsTSB customer, you’ll be able to keep track of your bank account and transfer money between accounts using their dedicated mobile application.

I’ll have more details and some screenshots shortly. In fact I think we’ll put it into the MIR Show for Monday.

CellSpin Launches the First Mobile Blogging Service for Twitter and Pownce to Support Audio, Video, Picture and Text Posts

CellSpin enables users to post audio, video, pictures and text ‘tweets’ from 300+ phones worldwide

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire/ — CellSpin (http://www.cellspin.net/) today announced its support for sending ‘tweets’ in all four media types (audio, video, pictures and text) to the popular micro-blogging sites Twitter and Pownce.

Users can post multimedia tweets using the CellSpin mobile application, now available on 300+ mobile phones worldwide, or by using the CellSpin website.

CellSpin lets users move beyond Twitter’s 140-character limit and take their expression to a new level. Pownce users can share whole range of multimedia experiences with their friends on-the-go using CellSpin.

According to Bobby Gurvinder Singh, CEO and co-founder of CellSpin, “We’re really excited that you can now tweet in your own voice and not be limited to text only. You can also share picture tweets and video tweets of your life as you live it, from anywhere in the world on both Pownce and Twitter. This is the next obvious step in the micro-blogging revolution.”

According to Ian Fung, co-founder of CellSpin, “CellSpin makes posting to Twitter and Pownce very easy, and makes it more convenient for users to post multimedia in real-time. This will definitely broaden the base for micro-blogging beyond those who use it only to describe what they had for lunch.”

Good stuff!

TV AND SPINVOX PARTNER TO LAUNCH FIRST EVER INTEGRATED VOICE POWERED CAUSE-RELATED SOCIAL NETWORKING CAMPAIGN ‘STAND BY WHAT YOU SAY’

CAMPAIGN VOICED BY SUPERSTAR KELLY ROWLAND

‘CAUSES’ PROMOTES CAMPAIGN TO ITS 12 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS

London/New York – 10 June, 2008 – MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, SpinVox and Causes on Facebook today announced the launch of their joint campaign, ‘Stand by What You Say’. The groundbreaking initiative encourages young people to speak openly about sex, sexual health and HIV/AIDS, with a view to increasing awareness and breaking down the stigma and discrimination which so often accompanies the disease.

The campaign, which uses the SpinVox service to convert voice messages into text, is the first of its kind. It encourages users to pick up the phone and ‘Talk About…’ the pleasures and issues surrounding 21st century sex . Those that speak up are then asked to bolster their support by pledging money to the Staying Alive Foundation, MTV’s HIV and AIDS charity which allocates grants to youth-led organisations who work to raise awareness on a local, grass-roots level. SpinVox itself will be ‘standing by what it says’ to match funds raised to the value of $50,000.

‘Stand By What You Say’ aims to empower young people to speak freely about sex. It advocates that only by speaking openly can the stigmas be erased and barriers broken down. An open mind leads to open discussions which ultimately helps promote safe sex and lowers the risk of HIV and AIDS.

Callers are greeted by 2008 Staying Alive Foundation Ambassador Kelly Rowland, who prompts them to leave a message (UK: 0151 266 7700, US: 1513 729 6417 – see full list of numbers at end of release). The voice messages are converted to text and posted on a bespoke Staying Alive Blog www.standbywhatyousay.com by SpinVox. Topics such as ‘sex secrets, ‘one night stands’ and ‘condoms’ will act as conversation starters and encourage debate among a global youth audience. Different themes and questions will be posed throughout the campaign to keep the contributions coming.

“MTV is proud to be a part of this innovative campaign”, said Bill Roedy CEO MTV Networks International. It is only by speaking out openly about sex, sexual health and HIV/AIDS, that attitudes can be changed, barriers broken and stigma reduced. ‘STAND BY WHAT YOU SAY’ is the right to talk freely about your first crush, about the craziest place you’ve had sex, about carrying condoms. It’s about talking freely about peer pressure to have sex or choosing not to. By speaking freely and standing by what you say, we are encouraging young people to take the first step in altering the dynamics of the epidemic”.

“Voice-powering a campaign in this way is a world first,” says Christina Domecq, SpinVox co-founder and CEO. “Together with MTV we’re breaking new ground by changing how people can contribute to the Staying Alive Foundation, encouraging them to speak freely, openly and honestly about sex and the issues of HIV/AIDS. Sharing experiences, advice, the good and bad times, but also the ridiculous and humourous moments that happen around sex is a powerful way to involve and educate others, harnessing the power that we all have to change attitudes and so the progression of this disease.”

For more information about the Staying Alive Foundation, visit www.staying-alive.org. Full list of campaign telephone numbers:

UK: 0151 266 7700

US: 1513 729 6417

Canada: 1416 628 8501

Spain: 3493 184 2078

Germany: 4921 123 7061072

France: 3317 666 0863

Ireland: 3531 657 1891

Love it! Love it! Love it! Kudos to SpinVox! I love seeing technology being used to help and make a difference. I urge everyone to call your number and stand by what you say!

With an updated version or, possibly, versions of Apple’s iPhone expected this summer, the rumour mill surrounding BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd.’s much-anticipated response has officially kicked into overdrive.

Waterloo-based RIM has said little about its upcoming wireless email devices, but there are nevertheless dozens of photos circulating on the Internet that purport to show everything from new BlackBerry designs to leaked technical documents about a new BlackBerry mobile operating system.

For example, a blog claimed yesterday to have photographs of a yet-to-be released BlackBerry dubbed “kickstart” that resembles the consumer-oriented Pearl model, but is designed as a flip or clamshell-style phone instead of RIM’s traditional candy bar shape.

While it’s possible the kickstart is nothing more than a speculative rendering, several observers said the concept was indeed plausible.

Hmmmmm….

Well, things are looking up for Rogers customers. Word on the street has it that the Nokia N95 is due to hit Rogers’ GSM network on May 2. The Canada-bound variant of the Nokia N95 should hit market sporting the same 5 megapixel camera, GPS receiver, WiFi, TV-out, and 3G HSDPA data connection that the US enjoys. And, with the help of Rogers, the Nokia N95 should be able to make use of its video call camera.

Pricing for the Nokia N95 on Rogers is reported to hit $699 without contract.

And, all you Canadian iPhone hopefuls (those of you that haven’t already jumped across the border for an unlocked iPhone) may soon be able to get your hands on a Rogers-locked Apple iPhone in the near future. The Toronto Star cites industry sources as indicating that Rogers is gearing up to launch a touchscreen-based handset campaign with the release of the master of touchscreen handsets, the Apple iPhone. The iPhone’s entry into Canada has been speculated to as being held up by the country’s costly GSM data plans. But, with the launch of the Rogers’ $20 unlimited data plan, the “Communicate Value Pack,” Rogers is believed to be preparing to receive the heralded iPhone.

Ok good, good. A year too late but hey. It’s about time someone clued in. Honestly, it’s getting to the point where if I see one more person with a RAZR and they think it’s top of the line I’m going to scream.

There is better out there people! SEE!

Ok so it’s not great, I know you’re sitting there going “ahh but we already have those and have had them forever” yes i know, but baby steps, right direction and all eh?

And they have to introduce the unlimited data, they have to. (Although $20/month is too much, hello! Bell is doing it for $7, although only with the Touch.) you can’t give someone a phone like this and not give them unlimited data.

“Here you go sir, here’s your top of the line BMW with power windows and GPS and leather and heated seats and this and that, but you’re only allowed to drive it and not touch anything. Yes that’s right, only drive, don’t touch any buttons. Roll the windows down by hand and oh, here’s a map.”

Fingers crossed.

I was reduced to asking for a brief set of words by email from ROK CEO, Laurence Alexander, on the success and got this straight back from him.

“We’ve come a long way in a fairly short space of time – something you, Ewan, would know all about! Thanks for your mobile blog – it’s essential reading.”

Top man Laurence. Top man! Once again – congratulations everyone at ROK.

Pure genius!

As someone who is ridiculously addicted to knitting, I will now have to spend hours staring down this tiny picture trying to figure out how they did it so I can make one of my own. It still doesn’t get you out of buying me one though Ewan

The credit for coming up with the woollen iPhone goes to Ann Orton of Salt Lake City, Utah. Nicely done Ann!

(Thanks to Mike for snapping this one in today’s Guardian newspaper — looks like it might have been from the G2 section).

Read more here

(I just love how they call it touchy-feely )

London, UK. – October 25 2007
The power of social networking and microblogging increased significantly today with the announcement from SpinVox, the global leader in Voice-to-Screen messaging, that posting on Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter can be now achieved simply by using your voice. `Social Networks through SpinVox` enables voice-driven social networking from any mobile phone.

‘The use of social networks and micro-blogging sites has exploded in the past few years, but, so far, they’ve lacked true mobility and so are not achieving their full potential. Whether you’ve just walked out of a concert or have discovered a great new place to eat, your voice can now be used in place of the keyboard to tell the world the news and capture your thoughts, emotions and experiences `in the moment` as and when they happen.”

Well *that* explains why James Whatley’s status updates on Facebook started appearing in quotation marks!

Check out more info here