Vodafone spurns UK’s Rummble for FourSquare

I saw Vodafone’s FourSquare deal announcement this morning and immediately wondered what the hell had happened to their rumoured deal with UK location-and-recommendation service, Rummble.

The word on the grapevine is that Rummble — having worked really hard on a very neat looking Vodafone 360 app — were due to get all sorts of on-handset distribution and a heck of a lot of Vodafone love. This is good news given Rummble is a home-grown British startup very well deserving of the attentions of the likes of Big Red.

But no.

I can’t quite imagine the frustration of the Rummble team wondering why Vodafone has plonked out this announcement.

The message is quite clear for British and European startups (as TechCrunch points out regarding Bambuser): Don’t expect a leg up from British operators.

Can anyone give me an example of a British mobile startup that’s been ‘made’ (or at least, substantially helped out) through it’s association with a British mobile operator? There must be some?

Recently Published

Question: When is the only time a traffic jam is good news in the UK?

Answer: When you're sitting in the back of an Uber and you need reliable mobile signal. Boom! Sad, isn't it, dear reader? Travel all around...

Ah yes, an S23 with a BlackBerry Bold Keyboard: Exactly what I (think) I need

I was playing with Midjourney, the AI/photo generation service and I asked it to show me what a Samsung S23 would look like with...

It’s ok, your moon photos aren’t fake, they are just enhanced – quite a bit

Have you taken a photo of the moon recently? I almost did, the other day, when I spotted a fabulous moment here in Dubai....

Don’t move! You’ll jinx it! This looks like a tiny bit of innovation in the mobile world

It has been quite a while since I’ve seen anything in the mobile industry that’s caused me to want to write much. Just look...

The new BlackBerry movie trailer is here

Were you a BlackBerry fan? Of course you were. At some point, almost everyone was. I still remember the days and the joy that...

Airalo: The easy way to roam globally with a data eSIM

Shortly before I began my FinTech & Banking Tour around the GCC, I popped into the Apple AppStore and searched ‘eSim’. I wondered if...