I don't like spam. I'm very careful always to tick the "do not pass my details on to 3rd parties" box on forms. So, when I do get SMS spam, I like to know who has been flouting the rules. See my previous investigation. A few weeks ago, I received this rather annoying message: I'm not a gambler - and I've never had a business relationship with Coral. So why are they sending me this tripe? I took to Twitter to find out. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentHey, @Coral - SMS spam is not cool. …
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Earlier this week, I blogged that some people were too stupid to use QR codes. I concluded, by saying You’re not too stupid to understand how to make effective use of QR codes. The “commandments” are mostly just common sense. Use QR codes wherever they seem appropriate – but make sure that they’re scannable, work for everyone who scans them, and lead somewhere useful. Y'see - I don't think people are too thick to use QR codes. Most of the time... My Isle Of Wight There's a new campaign t…
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Nokia's marketing team are idiots. They've used URL over which they have no control on an advert for one of their premium handsets. This is the story of how I hijacked stole hacked recycled it and, in doing so, prevented Nokia from having a serious PR problem. E7 Poster This is advert for the new Nokia E7. It really emphasises the tweeting capabilities of the handset. Nokia's marketing team have illustrated this by showing off a couple of tweets on the handset. One of which contains a…
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Congratulations to rawedge for this QR campaign for Sky Atlantic. A simple QR code, pointing to a URL (with source=qr for analytics), a mobile website, and a 3gp video. Almost perfect. Why Almost? I'm a nit-picker - but here are a few suggestions to make the campaign better. Make the code bigger. When dealing with newsprint and its fuzzy images, it's always better to make the QR as large as possible - or as large as your advertising team will allows. Larger images are easier to scan. …
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(eBuzzing have sponsored this post. Please let me know what you think about sponsored articles on this blog.) Android phones are now big business - even Woz seems to think they'll take over the world. Into the crowded arena steps the HTC Wildfire. I'm a huge fan of the HTC hardware - but I often feel that they ignore the customer service side of things. For too long they were silent on when their firmware releases were coming out - leaving VillainROM and Cyanogen to pick up the slack. …
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Ahhhh! The BBC. Shining bastion of purity in a sea of commercial malaise. Nothing can spoil its lustre. Well, for those of us in the UK. For the poor sods who find themselves living in the wilderness of ROW (Rest Of World) this is their BBC experience... BBC With Adverts The reasons for me seeing this are rather complex and involve VPNs and a co-located BES. Regardless, what's this advert like? The text is small and indistinct. The purpose of the message is rather vague. There's no…
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Once again, I dive into the confusing world of Mobile Internet Advertising. A world, so we're told, where the streets are paved with gold. Based on the evidence I've accumulated, mobile advertising is subject to a lot of hype and not a lot of professionalism. Take this example as seen on my BlackBerry 9000. Flickr iPhone Advert First off the bat, it gets my phone wrong. It should be using the User Agent to determine which advert to serve. Well, let's be a good consumer and click on it…
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