Blykwatch – Omnibus

Ricky catches us up on a couple week’s worth of Blyk

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Firstly this week’s edition covers the last two weeks of my Blyk usage. Last time I blogged about Blyk I was not impressed, thing were starting to bore me. Well it seems the chaps at Blyk have decided to pull their socks up, they are now offering an incentive to users to top up (could it be that everyone is not using Blyk as their main handset but more as a spare handset? This is something that myself and Ewan have suspected for a long time, however there is no data available to prove this.) The incentive is if you top up by £5 they will reward you with an extra 150 text messages free of charge, this in my opinion is fantastic so for topping up by £5 you get 367 free texts and 43 free minutes and the £5 to spend as you wish. I believe this is the best value you can get by topping up £5 and beats all the other UK networks on their Pay as You offerings, of course you do have to accept that you can receive up to 6 adverts per a day. There are some things that still annoy me about the service, I still do not understand why they have to fix the number of free texts and minutes I believe they would be more successful if they assigned a free amount of credit a month and let the end user choose how they wish to spend it. The other major gripe is data, Blyk are still yet to offer any free inclusive data at all or even a bolt on for data in my opinion this is something its competitors are doing much better (i.e. T-Mobile who offer unlimited data (FUP) for £1 a day). As more and more users switch to all singing and dancing handsets without inclusive or cheap data I suspect people will simply not use the extra services these handsets offer.

In other news, Blyk has launched a new service with recruitment agencies to enable them to contact the Blyk members directly about jobs. Chris Bennett, commercial director of Blyk UK said: “Blyk and its offerings are determined by member feedback and demands. Members want to hear more from recruiters who can help them land their first job — making the recruitment sector now a key vertical for Blyk. Check out the full article here, personally as I graduate next year I think this could potentially be a fantastic new service.

Now let’s look at what the Blyk has been sending me over the last two weeks.

Monday 4th August

A fashion forecast mms, detailing the weather and suggesting clothes to wear during the week. I also received a MMS from DJ Logan, telling me his hot tune for this week within the MMS was a preview of one of the tracks. Today was also refill day for me so I received 217 texts and 43 Minutes.

Tuesday 5th August

I received a SMS asking who I think you should be evicted from big brother, I did not reply big brother does not interest me at all. I also got an SMS asking if I wanted a sports update of either the football, tennis or the F1. I again decline their offer.

Wednesday 6th August

A SMS from good old STA offering student discount on BA flights at STA travel the message contained a mobile link (still stuck behind Blyk’s walled internet garden). However I have had my holiday for this year so not much use!

Thursday 7th August

I received a SMS from Blyk asking if I wanted an exclusive Blyk ringtone, I replied however it was shockingly bad so I deleted it.

Friday 8th August

Last week, I said I was sick of lottery adverts I thought it must be impossible for them to run another campaign. Well I was completely off the mark they can, The National Lottery has launched a free online game and as a Blyk member I get exclusive FREE screensavers and wallpapers. Yawn! How rubbish! How is going to make me want to play the lottery? If I have already ignored the last 15 campaigns from the lottery. Blyk also sent me an MMS informing me that I invited a friend to Blyk in the next three weeks they would give me £10 free credit.

Saturday 9th August

A SMS giving me an opportunity to win 10 CDs, all I had to do was ask a question to a member of The Strokes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strokes). The top 10 questions will be posed to the band member and published on the Blyk Blog. I also received a SMS giving me the opportunity to receive a mini review of three films currently in the cinema.

Sunday 10th August

Today I received a SMS giving me the opportunity to receive a free ring tone from Peggy Sue and the Pictures, after the last shocking ringtone I decided to decline Blyk’s very kind offer ;).

Monday 11h August

Another fashion forecast MMS and another MMS from DJ Logan with his top 5 however this week the sample clip comes from Wiley’s new song. I also received a SMS from Blyk music telling me they had a new artist on their books called Little Jackie and if I wanted I could receive a free wallpaper, you can guess my response LOL.

Tuesday 12th August

A profiling SMS from Blyk asking what events I had been watching on the Olympics, I replied with the swimming and I received a reply back telling me to watch out for more updates on the on Blyk soon. I also received a MMS which contained all the latest information on what is going on in the Big Brother house, at the bottom of the MMS was a link to more info and that it was free of charge. All the link does is open a page and says all content after this page is chargeable this really annoys me what is the point in putting the free link in? Why not just link directly warning users it is not free of charge!

Wednesday 13th August

A message asking how I heard about the NatWest Student Account, another profiling question clearly NatWest is trying to find out the most effective way of communicating with its target audience. I then received another profiling SMS asking this time how I would open my student bank account (eg online, in store or on the phone). Finally the last message was informing me that I could receive a free student rail card for opening a NatWest bank account and a free phone number that I could ring to apply.

Friday 15th August

A received a SMS from some band asking if I wanted a free wallpaper, I simply did not reply. I then received a profiling SMS from Blyk asking how the UK’s recession was affecting me the options were not really, yes a bit and yes a lot. It will be very interesting to see the results when Blyk decide to publish the results on its blog.