Mobile Telecommunication for a Flat Earth

The first things that I need to get across are 1)  I am a technophile, more to the point I love gadgets, I have a very real need for new things to play with on a regular basis.  2)  My mobile phone network of choice is Orange, not for any special reason, it’s just that that’s the one I landed on.  3)  My contract is due for renewal in July and I’m in the market for an upgrade.

While trying not to deviate from the righteous path of rant into the dark fields of viral marketing Nokia’s new N97 has me Greasy excited.

It would need to really, considering the last Nokia product I owned was a Gen 1 N95 which was so flaky I nearly ate it.  While in the bath. I eventually had a hissy fit with it in Blockbuster car park, took the battery out and refused to put it back in.  It was at this point I vowed I would never own another Nokia product.

But seriously God-damn that’s one awesome looking gadget!

So any way, I’m thinking woot!  awesome new toy just around the corner, let’s have a look at it  on the Orange website.  Hmm, not on the phones coming soon page, strange you’d think they’d have made more of a fuss about such an important product.  So I checked The Feed (Faux corporate blog), one entry, answered with possibly the most insulting, patronising answer a marketing drone could muster. Not the type of coverage you’d expect for a device being hailed as the next big step in mobile technology.

Finally, feeling defeated I turned to google for my answers.  The answer I found has left me disappointed, and will probably lead to my changing my service provider.  Among its many features the N97 has integrated 3G Skype support, meaning it would allow owners to talk for an unlimited amount of time for free, anywhere in the world.  This is no doubt making many mobile service operators tremble as should it catch on it would ultimately negate international call charges.

Using orange as an example, to call Australia using an Orange mobile phone costs a whopping 49 pence per minute!  Any where in the rest of the world other than the US, Australia or Europe costs almost a pound a minute.   At the moment therefore calling abroad from a mobile would only ever be a final option.  Using a Voice over Internet Protocol such as Skype however places all locations under one price-band.  zero pence per minute.  That’s only short term as well.  Should this trend continue, as VoIP phones become more main stream we will eventually see all call charges for become a thing of the past.

This doesn’t really relate to me at the moment.  There is no-one I really need to call livng overseas who I really need to talk to, VoIP isn’t yet so popular that I can abandon regular calling.  That isn’t and should never be the point though.  My point is that a company who I Choose to patronise is refusing to provide me with a product I want, and am willing to pay for because it cannot dictate to me the way the product will be used.

Tags: geeks, marketdrones, rant

Facebook Usernames and the Online Identity

The Facebook Username landrush started last night, basically meaning that instead of your facebook link looking like this:

http://www.facebook.com/friends/#/profile.php?id=561529368

it now looks like this:

http://www.facebook.com/yournamehere

Big deal, right?

Well, potentially it was for some, popular journalists and brands were spared the landrush and allowed to pre-register their desired facebook username in advance of the launch. Presumably this was a play for positive write-ups for their vanity project.

So what does it mean for us? Well it will be a little easier to do this sort of thing:

It has got me thinking about the distinction between the two worlds we operate in. The only place I use my real name on the internet is Facebook, and to a degree here. Everywhere else I am VenomandSerum, a handle that has developed from gaming, through forums and now to creative outlets. I’m fairly sure this is a common story.

In the Venn diagram of my internet connections there are very few people in the intersecting area. This made my decision to use my actual name as my Facebook Username an easy one. Facebook, whilst a powerful tool for connecting people, seems to me like internet-lite, a tranquil zone for the less geeky in a sea of nerd. It has pretty much all the other aspects of the tinterwebs, games, chat, commercials, and the friends in the Facebook circle that I also see in real life, you know, the real number once you strip away the people that you drifted apart from after school FOR A REASON, tend to head straight to Facebook when they get on the net, and rarely visit anywhere else.

For these people the Facebook Username might be a huge deal. Nobody wants to be DaveSmith637, and for these people an alternate Facebook Username is largely useless; their online persona is the same as their real life one. I guess they’re stuck with a string of numbers still in their link, pretty much negating any potential benefit of the Facebook Username.

Oh well, never mind, I got /GazzHayes so what do I care…?

Tags: Facebook Username, internets, own the internet, rant

Facebook vs Twitter

So Big Brother 10 started recently, allowing fuckwits to vote for other fuckwits, which does seem like a theme recently, but thankfully there is a reality entertainment experiment that stars normal people and is actually entertaining.

When I was younger I remember a show, I forget what it was called, but it was basically a national scavenger hunt where the contestants would be hunted the length and breadth of the country whilst having to perform simple tasks. One team of bounty hunters would recieve help from the public to track down the other team, who in turn recieved help completing their tasks and staying one step ahead of the hunters.

Finally someone has picked up the mantle for the internet generation, in the form of Facebook vs Twitter. Each team is set a daily task in a different city in the UK, and require the help of their friends and followers to complete them.

Yesterday the two teams had to perform a stand-up comedy routine using only jokes provided by their friends or followers. Today a set of photos need to be found. Choose a side and get involved…

Team Twitter

Team Facebook

Tags: campaign, internets, reality tv

On Voting

BE FOREWARNED I will sound like a parochial fool with Tourette’s, but I am an angry internet mans right now. People refusing to exercise their democratic right are linked to a switch in my brain labelled ‘Angry and Indignant’.

I am sick, absolutely sick of people not voting ‘because there’s no point’. True, most politicians will do things you don’t like, but not voting at all is like rolling over and asking to be taken by every sweaty inmate in the political community. I hope you enjoy it.

Recent example: the fabulous 42.81% turnout for the European elections has allowed two members of the fascist, almost neo-Nazi BNP to represent us in Europe, their vote totals are lower than the last election, but they gained two seats due to the terrible turnout. They got in simply because people couldn’t be bothered to put a cross in a box.

And that’s the point isn’t it. People claim to object to politicians and refuse to vote as any asshole is as bad as the next, but it’s really because it takes a lot of effort reading about the parties and candidates when all that mental bandwidth could be used thinking about how Susan Boyle is the second bloody coming instead. Not to mention actually hauling ass all the way to your polling station, losing 30 minutes of valuable TV time. I admit it, whoever you vote for you will still be fucked, but isn’t it better to be fucked by the nice smelling guy who still talks to you after, rather than the grinning monster covered in his own faeces with razorblades taped to his cock?

Voting is a right and not exercising it is unconscionable. We’re just over twenty years past the events at Tiananmen Square (excellent reminder here), these turnout figures so close to the anniversary of this event feel like a slap in the face. You are lucky enough to have the right to chose your political leaders; sure you don’t have the final choice and it seems like your vote doesn’t count, but that doesn’t matter. You have been given a voice, please use it.

UPDATE: See Warren Ellis’ site for more. For those wanting to maintain the political momentum I suggest reading his Transmetropolitan books, drawn by Darick Robertson (who is also bloody brilliant).

Tags: angry internet mans, politics, rant

European Election Results

The fascist BNP have a seat in Europe. What the fuck were Yorkshire and Humberside voters doing at home that was more important than voting? They got 9.8% of the vote, that’s 1.3% more than the Green party ffs.

I am not impressed.