Posts Tagged ‘users’

Flirtomatic users send each other REAL underwear and roses!

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

This Valentines Day, Flirtomatic has taken a step out of the virtual world and into reality.

You know they ran a phenomenally successful campaign a while ago whereby users could user their paid credits to send each other virtual pints — that could then be redeemed in a pub for a real one? Flirto sold something like half a million in a week. Something crazy like that.

Have a read of this from Mark, Flirtomatic’s CEO:

So….because we love you we’re sending you a Valentine’s Gift today Ewan…..

Should arrive this morning.

We’ve been testing the potential for our users to send real gifts (not virtual) to each other from the service. Valentines Day seemed a good opportunity to do so.

Since the weekend we’ve been offering chocolates and single red roses which uniquely turn into a pair of knickers ;-)

And we’ve pretty much sold out (all the chocolates and only 10 roses left – we’re trying to buy more). That’s 400 real gifts.

Couple of interesting points:

- obviously 400 is not going to rock the world but the prices are much higher than for virtual gifts (we have to post too) and they ARE selling: we feel we have proved the point that the phone can generate physical e-commerce like this

- recipients have to give us their address for delivery – and almost entirely they have (we clearly promise not to use it or reveal it to the sender)

Mark that’s genius. Absolute genius.

And thank you for the rose.

Heh.

And the underwear. I have just sent a text to my wife to explain that when she returns and sees a bra and a rose sat on my desk, not to worry.

I can imagine these things being hugely, hugely popular.

No wonder you’ve sold out. Fantastic. What a model.

Here’s the little card I got:

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And the back:

12022009159

The rose itself:

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Hidden in the ‘bulb’ of the rose is…

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Heh! Fantastic!

Been on Flirtomatic recently? Check it out. This merging of virtual and reality is really growing the Flirtomatic economy.

Nokia 5800 users.. ShoZu is coming shortly

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

For all those about to find themselves sporting the Nokia 5800 handset (launched officially here in the UK on Friday), don’t panic.

MIR’s James Whatley has it via Twitter from ShoZu that their Nokia app will be live and downloadable in a few weeks time. They’re just tweaking the UI as a result of the 5800’s touchscreen.

Good news!

OrangePartnerCampWatch: More facts and figures

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

In wrapping up the event this week and after sitting through more meetings than we care to remember, Orange presented some more figures that we thought we’d pass along.

These go on to highlight just how well they’ve done in the past year alone, with the culmination of stats that ended in September this year.

In terms of mobile phone customers over the key countries they are currently in, all seems on the up and up. Orange now has 117.604million users to be precise, where they were at 107.197million at the same time last year. Just to save you pulling out your calculators, that’s 10,407,000 new customers in only a single year.

Instead of rambling on with a bunch of meaningless figures and stats, we’ve highlighted a few below which we thought were the most significant ones in our humble opinion

Orange France seems to have been the most successful practice with 24.524million users to date on their network, with 23.504million at September 2007. That’s a growth of over 1million customers in just 12 months, the largest out of all the regions.

Let’s not forget that Orange in France has the iPhone in their portfolio, which could explain away the dramatic leap in those numbers. As we were told they picked up 216,000 iPhone customers in that stretch on 3G. Although we’re sure you’re aware those days by now could all be numbered, from a recent court ruling this week.

In the UK they hit 15.815million users in the same time frame, where they were on 15.400million on September 30th of 2007. Here’s an increase of 415,000 users on the network in a year.

The last significant increase we noticed came from Orange in Poland. In that country they’ve come along from 13.487million customers in 2007 to 14.054million, that’s 567,000 all told. That’s a mighty difference from the previous year. Hurrah!

Mobile broadband users across their whole network had the largest leap in their numbers. It’s increased by the factor of 10,409,000 new users in just a year. They used to have 12.789million on their network, now they’re at a whopping 23.198million strong customer base.

In France alone, they hit 9.922million users from 6.284million – an increase of 3,638,000 customers.

Their Spanish outfit hit over 1.5 new users, from 1.232million to the latest stats of 2.820million mobile broadband customers.

The UK’s growth saw them reach 2.883million Orange customers from 1.551million. That’s an overall growth of 1,332,000 new users to the network.

All in all, the future looks bright for Orange judging by these figures. Although it looks like it’s their data network has been the real winner for this year.

Google Talk users now connected by text message

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Let’s assume you’re having a productive conversation with a colleague via Google Talk, right?

Then you need to go out. Away from your computer.

You’ve got your handset with you but it’s a rubbish one that doesn’t do Google Talk or anything other than phoning or texting (think Motorola RAZR).

How do you continue the conversation?

Pick up the phone, usually.

Or, if you’re in the States, you can try use Google’s new Google Talk by Text function.

They’re really given this some thought.

When you move away from your computer, you can opt to still appear connected — and receive messages from your contacts as normal via text when you’re out and about.

This is BRILLIANT. Texts are delivered anywhere in the world (good old Google) and, what’s more, they’re delivered from independent MSISDNs (or different ‘phone numbers’).

Google have, imaginatively, bought a ton of 406 United States numbers (406 standing for G0O..gle). Heh.

What this means is that since they’ve got an array of phone numbers to play with, they can actually route messages to your contacts on particular dedicated numbers. So, for example, if you’re talking to me by Google Talk and I’m receiving your messages on my phone, I *ALWAYS* receive your messages from, say, 406 911 1919. I can put that in my addressbook now as ‘YourNameGoogleTalk’. When I text that number, the message will be routed into a chat between you and I.

Smart, smart, smart.

It’s unfortunately only working in the States at the moment. I daresay it would be quite easy to buy a block of UK numbers to do this — and they’re pretty cheap nowadays. So I can’t use it. Until I’m in the States and my stupid Sprint phone number works.

Here’s how you get it activated:

We’re just trying it out for cell phones in the United States right now, but you can send texts to your friends with US phone numbers from anywhere in the world. You can start by just typing a phone number into the search box in the chat window on the left, then select “Send SMS.” You can also select the contact you want to SMS first and then add their phone number.

If you’d like to try it out, let me know, I’ll experiment with you. Drop me a note or get me on ewansms@gmail.com.

Flirtomatic users to now flirt with Sharpcards’ content

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Flirtomatic, UK’s leading flirting service has today announced its partnership with Sharpcards, the global pioneer in enhanced mobile messaging.

As a part of the agreement, Sharpcards will provide its content to over 900,000 of Flirtomatic users, while still holding the mobile licensing rights of its content. An initial trial of the same was undertaken by both the companies since February and has been highly successful. The agreement will work on a revenue sharing basis and gives Flirtomatic users access to over 15,000 items from brands such as Purple Ronnie, Cartoon Network and Forever Friends, all under Sharpcards’ roof.

Presently, the deal is said to cover Flirtomatic’s userbase in the UK and Germany. A speciality shop, knows as the ‘FlirtShop’ will be set up for the users, where they can go ahead and buy content from Sharcards such as creative messages, virtual gifts and mobile greetings. Users can make use of, what has been named as ‘Flirt Points’ to buy these contents.

CEO of Flirtomatic, Mark Curtis, whom we’ve spoken to in the past, said:

Teaming up with Sharpcards means that our users now have access to even more high quality content which we can refresh on a much more frequent basis. With an amazing portfolio of content from some of the most exciting brands at our fingertips, we know we have found the right partner for our needs. Sharpcards is the pioneer in mobile messaging and with its truly global reach, they will be a key partner as we expand our presence and offerings.

After setting up a base in Germany as a part of its European expansion strategy, Flirtomatic is now looking to expand in the other international markets too.

3 has one million mobile broadband users in Europe

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Kudos to 3.

They led the way, in the UK at least, with the tenner-a-month USB mobile broadband revolution.

This shows demand is strong for mobile broadband in all 3’s territories, including the UK, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and Austria…

… says the press release I got in this morning.

Christian Salbaing, MD of European Telecoms at Hutchison isn’t impressed with the roaming data rates demanded by other networks. He has a good old dig at them (aimed, I reckon, at the EC regulation chappies):

“Typical retail roaming prices are literally hundreds of times what customers expect to pay domestically. A European consumer might pay around one Euro cent per megabyte at home, yet pay a premium of 360-times that simply to cross a border.”

Ridiculous. Aye.

Christian obviously goes on to point out that 3’s “3 Like Home” tariffs enable data roaming on 3’s sister networks without additional cost. (Elsewhere 3 charges around £3 (€3.79) per megabyte to its customers, based primarily on the wholesale rate charged.)

If you’re arriving into the UK and find yourself data roaming on 3, you can work out just how much your incumbent operator is creaming you with this statement from Christian:

3 has demonstrated its commitment to bringing down the price of roaming across the EU by offering Europe’s mobile networks a reciprocal wholesale rate of just 25c per megabyte, [compared to the current average of nearly €4]. This offers even greater scope for compelling retail rates than the European Commission’s suggested wholesale level of 35c. Just five networks have agreed to take up the offer – suggesting a clear need for intervention.

24% of Apple iPhone users upgraded from a Motorola RAZR

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

JD Power have released a study of 20,000 mobile phone users in the States. It makes for interesting reading — and Arc Chart have the gossip here.

However Giff from i2SMS noted a key stat (in the same piece at Arc Chart, this time referencing a study by Rubicon Consulting):

24% — or, almost a quarter — of those surveyed who upgraded to an iPhone, did so from a stinky Motorola RAZR.

Now I don’t have exact stats — and I can’t be sure how representative the Rubicon Consulting study is. The important bit for me is the mind-blowing difference of experience that those RAZR users will have encountered.

I would have loved to have sat and watched the new iPhone user put his RAZR in a drawer in his desk and unpack his new device… and start surfing, Googling, texting, taking photos and so on.

I wonder just how many iPhone users, worldwide, are entirely new to the ’smartphone’ experience? Fascinating.


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