consumer experience
Technology end-games and when it all falls down
Technology’s greatest strength, and arguably its biggest, weakness is that there is rarely an end-game, one perfect final solution. Everything just keeps developing, for better or worse. In an introductory video for The Guardian’s new iPad application, Editor In Chief Alan Rusbridger explicitly states: “there will be no final incarnation of The Guardian.” It’s equally [...]
59% of mobile consumers want operator deals by SMS
Reports commissioned by technology companies to advocate their solutions rarely throw up huge surprises, but a YouGov survey conducted for Upstream has generated a couple of interesting stats. It reveals that most consumers want to receive mobile deals by text message (61 per cent), and within service messages such as top-up confirmations (9 per cent), [...]
Global traffic of 8.7 trillion but SMS lights to dim by 2015
Growth now driven by enterprise, emerging markets and social networks Growth in the mass market consumer use of SMS has plateaued, according to new research from Informa Telecoms & Media. Although text messaging will remain a significant source of global revenue for mobile operators until at least 2015 – achieving 8.7 trillion messages by this [...]
Open Sesame – how public data stimulates innovation
Open data is widely spoken of as A Good Thing in the technology world, important in the meteoric rise of the Android mobile Operating System and vital in broadly sharing wealth. Android’s open source nature has helped produce a burgeoning ecosystem of applications and services, although it’s still playing catchup to Apple’s App Store. An [...]
Breaks in the Cloud
What is Cloud Computing and what can it offer businesses? A foggy November afternoon cloaked the new-build surroundings and military grade security around BT’s anonymous Cardiff Bay datacentre. I guessed at a right turn and considered that the subject of Cloud Computing was rather suitable. After offering my details to an intercom box, a man [...]
Look out the Windows (is coming)
Microsoft Windows 7 was launched on Monday with a well-coordinated fanfare. Early signs are impressive but it’s banking as much on the mysterious allure of it being ‘Something Else’ for consumers, as it is on any fine detail around the new Operating System. It’s this same Something Else factor which HTC’s Android devices have effectively [...]
Mobile messaging marketing: attitude & effectiveness research affirms validity
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Direct Marketing Association (DMA) recently commissioned research firm Brand Driver to carry out three phases of research on mobile messaging, concentrating on attitudes, effectiveness and qualitative focus group research. (I was belatedly alerted to this study by a write-up from the ever insightful Mobile Marketing Magazine folks. I’ve pasted [...]
Retailers ready for transactional mobile
Show me the money (or at least the billing mechanism) Research published by trade bodies the IAB, AIME and IMRG and reported by NMA says that two-fifths of UK retailers are planning to launch a transactional mobile site or app within the next year. It also says that retailers admit to needing more training. How [...]
A new phone that isn’t an iPhone4?
Shocking behaviour. You’re well within your rights to navigate away now. I could have probably wangled a new iPhone if I’d waited a short while longer, but I decided against it. I love my iPod Touch and use it as much, if not more than my mobile phone. Usually within a wireless network, I enjoy [...]
SMS traffic sharper than England during World Cup
Two separate reports have underlined how the World Cup, and particularly England’s fortunes instinctively spark SMS communication. A report from billmonitor.com, a service which helps consumers to find the right mobile phone contract, showed England fans sent over 11 million text messages in the space of a few minutes on Sunday afternoon – those few [...]
