Posts Tagged ‘People’

My Google Latitude is now live to the world

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

People I know from London keep asking me, “Are you in San Francisco?” and, people from San Francisco keep asking if I’m in London.

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.

Originally published on Ewan.net and automatically republished here on Mobile Industry Review. View the original post.

T-Mobile UK’s Hey-Jude video sing-a-long in Trafalgar Square

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Would you like to see thousands of people singing ‘Hey Jude’ together in London’s Trafalgar Square?

Yes? Good. Because that’s what T-Mobile UK have cooked up for your delectation. It’s the next in the series after the rather amazing T-Mobile ‘Dance’ at London’s Liverpool Street Station that saw hundreds of apparent commuters all of a sudden break into a series of co-ordinated dance moves. Brilliant advertisement, compelling viewing. If you haven’t seen it, take a few minutes and check it out here:

And here’s the Hey Jude one in Trafalgar Square:

The good looking girl who appears now and again, singing in tune, is popstar Pink.

I think.

I’ve been wondering all about this particular video after I kept seeing it playing on all the electronic screens around the London Underground/Tube. Know I know.

I’m pretty impressed at T-Mobile UK’s advertising geniuses. The first video, The Dance, definitely underpins the company’s ‘Life’s For Sharing’ message — and, whilst the ‘Hey June’ one does too (load of folk, all singing-along mostly out of tune), I think The Dance is going to remain their most compelling ad for some time.

Originally published on Ewan.net and automatically republished here on Mobile Industry Review. View the original post.

Normob is ‘ugly word’, use ‘people’ instead

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Matt Edgar isn’t impressed with the term I coined a while back to describe normal mobile users: Normob.

He’s really deeply unimpressed:

But before you’re tempted to drop this particular neologism into your zeitgeisty telecoms discourse, just stop for a moment and listen to yourself. This must surely be one of the ugliest words not yet to enter our language. I am not alone in my unease.

Let’s begin with the sound it makes, from the drawn out drone of the “nor” to the lumpen ending “ob” and with little to improve matters in between. Just to hear this word is an aural assault, like travelling on a defective Tube train.

He’s even done a wicked diagram in his post highlighting the failings of the term.

What to do?

Well Matt has a radical suggestion:

What to use instead, you may ask. Well if you need to make a general point about normal mobile users, given that there are now getting on for 4 billion of them, I have a suggestion. It’s a simple term, one of the 159 highest frequency English words taught to Year 1 primary pupils, no less. It’s a human term, and it carries no baggage. For “normob”, just say “people”.

I understand and recognise your perspective Matt.

The challenge I’ve got in regular conversation with other mobilistas is that if you say ‘People like Nokias’ or ‘People can’t use Nokia UI’ or ‘A person wouldn’t get that function’ — you typically get skewered because you’ve made a sweeping statement about the whole planet.

I needed a term that described your man-on-the-street or 55-year-old-mother-of-three. Robert Scoble is NOT a normob. He’ll take the time to sit down and play around with a Nokia N95 and work out how to use QIK on it. My mother, on the other hand, IS a normob. She does not care how her device works. She just wants to make a call, send a text… and (until she got her iPhone) little else. The ability to make a quick distinction with the term ‘normob’ is really, really useful to me.

I used to say ‘normal mobile users’. That got a bit too much of a mouthful. So I knocked the words together.

Normob, … yeah… I do see what you mean.

But I think it still has a place in mobile centric conversations when you’re trying to differentiate between those who care — the first-movers — and the followers, the people who just want it to work.

‘People’ just doesn’t cut it!

What do you think? Any other suggestions for a replacement for the term ‘normob’ (and Promob, while we’re at it)

“Mobile-Crushes” – They end now!

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Now I know I’ve said it a couple of times in the past few months, but I’m looking for a new phone. The reason I haven’t yet bought one isn’t because I can’t be bothered to purchase one, or because I can’t afford one; in fact I’m more than happy to now pay a little bit more for a mobile than I previously would. The problem is I haven’t yet found anything… Well until the other day.

My Mum gets Carphone Warehouse letters in the post; and the other day I arrived home from School, seeking out any interesting post for myself, when I came across a little Christmas brochure. I expected to see the usual mix of non-interesting and far-fetched mobiles, which have very limited appeal to someone who is as indecisive as I.

Then I came across the LG Cookie.

I’m not an LG fan by any means, yes their phones are nice, and I have to say although I appreciate the minor attempts at creativity with their naming processes; previous experiences of LG’s have taught me that they’re not my cup of tea. Should I mention I’m not a fan of their interfaces, or just generally how they work and feel?

However, the Cookie did catch my eye! It looks nice, it’ll be a new experience, it’s a touch-screen (another learning curve), and also the ability to use an on screen QWERTY keyboard, and importantly its price.

I don’t know what to do.

Now this could just be a sporadic urge to go and spend money, and get something just because I’ve seen it, and I like the price; but then I think… LG. An interface I know I won’t like, and will struggle to get grips with, and I fear I’ll see all the flaws in my purchase just after I’ve broken that “unbreakable seal” on the box.

It’s hopeless! I do this with every wonderful find I come across, and I deliberate an item and a possible purchase so much that it either becomes outdated and therefore useless, or I decide I don’t like it although secretly still wanting it, or I’ll find something else to admire and want.

I know for one, I can’t be the only person who does this; and I know for one that it’s probably a good safety precaution my mind has implemented to stop such impulse buying – a trait I really try to avoid at all costs.

Now I wonder, why is it I find mobiles such as the Cookie, and previously before it the LG KS360 before that, and there was also a Sony mobile before that too; why is it I loose interest, and forget about it, and then find some other mobile-crush?

Could it just be that no matter how lovely one major aspect or feature of a phone is say, it’s price, a new built in gadget or a sleek, slender design; it really isn’t enough to make a mobile good, or at-least good enough to buy.

What I’m beginning to see is that mobiles tend to be about one major factor, be it its connectivity, a particular design focus, a built in application, the camera, the media, the price, or its “technological achievements”.  I don’t want just one particularly above average feature as reason to invest in a mobile; I want a device that has equally good features which aren’t just surfing above the acceptable quality in phone.

So my next mobile-crush won’t be on a weak whim, a spur-of-the moment encounter, it’ll be something which offers more than one better than alright feature, and something I won’t fall out of love with.

Feel free to e-mail me anything at Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com


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