Amazon's mp3 store on mobile Music is a huge seller in the mobile marketplace. Why carry a walkman or a discman when your phone can deliver high quality music to your £3.99 headphones? Hear a song you like on the radio, in a concert, from a busker singing - a few clicks and it's on your phone ready to play. At the moment, MNOs* rule the roost in terms of mobile music sales. Customers don't wa…
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Ahhh.... Nokia. Remember them? Once upon a time they were a global power-house. But now, with BlackBerry, iPhone and Android nipping at their heels, they are a shadow of their former self. I mean, Nokia "only" have a market share of 38% - and they "only" sold 108 million devices in the last quarter.... Hmmm.... Still - you know what will kick the arses of those American and Canadian rivals? …
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BBH Labs - a marketing agency's "Skunkworks" - recently blogged about using QR Codes to send messages via Twitter. There approach was interesting, but as I commented, there are ways to improve it. If you scan in the above QR code, it will take you to Twitter and pre-populate your status with "@edent". You can, of course, set it to be any message you like. There are two key things to remember …
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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…
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When I was a student, I had a brilliant idea. Why not have a stand at every train station where you could sync your Palm Pilot with the latest news? Insert a pound in the slot, press the button for The Times, aim your handheld's IrDA at the blinking light and ZAP! All the latest news for you to read on your train journey. It's just as well that my idea never got out of the paper prototyping …
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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…
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I feel a bit guilty about including NatWest's latest mobile advert in my Badvertising section - because it's mostly very good. But it shows exactly why you need to carefully examine every link within your site and see how useful it is for your customers. You may have noticed this animate banner as you wander around the mobile web. NatWest Advert Here it is in context NatWest Ad on Times Site …
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America and Canada both celebrate a holiday called "Thanksgiving". Although, for complex reasons, the celebrate it at different times of the year. Outside of North America the holiday simply doesn't exist. Much like the US doesn't celebrate Guy Fawkes night - the British don't celebrate Thanksgiving. So, I was a little surprised to see this advert for #tweetsgiving on my mobile. What is…
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Ewan of Mobile Industry Review has published his weekly newsletter in which he is somewhat critical of Vodafone 360. The newsletter is not available on his website, so I'll quote excerpts of it here. This is a tricky blog post for me to write. I am involved in some aspects of Vodafone 360 (mostly My Web) but I certainly do not speak for my employers. I'm currently on holiday - and have been …
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Seesmic, a service I've not tried before, have released a Twitter client for the BlackBerry. Is it any good? How does it compare with the features of Dabr or the usability of UberTwitter? Find out! Getting the client was fairly simple, but could be better. Simply visiting http://seesmic.com was enough to bring up a mobile friendly page with download instructions. However, scrolling down…
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ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET* *One plate only, limit of half a sausage per person, no refills, persons weighing over 75Kg will have to pay a supplement, does not include ice-cream. Doesn't really seem fair, does it? The Internet industry loves to abuse the word "Unlimited" - the mobile industry is particularly bad. Despite complaints from the public, the Advertising Standards Authority recently …
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How do you indicate that something on the web is "clickable"? The W3C - the body which sets the standards for the Web - recommend you don't use "Click Here" for link text. Normal text is usually underlined and / or a different colour when it is a hyperlink - images don't have any specific decoration to indicate you can click on them. In this animated GIF, an advert for Lexus, we see a call to a…
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