Organised by CamerJam, this was the first MobileSQUARED Roadshow. I was extremely proud to be ask to represent Vodafone on the "Operators' Panel" - but I'll let others review my slot. I want to concentrate on the four aspects of the day I found fascinating. As ever, these views are my own. Mövenpick As some of you know, I boycott Nestlé. So I was unable to try any of the sponsor's ice-cream. …
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HTML is a complex beast. Especially when it comes to languages. I don't mean the difference between English and French but between UTF-8, Windows-1252, and all the other methods for encoding text. When it goes wrong, you can come a cropper - take a look at this advert for the BlackBerry. Somehow a character has crept in to the text which can't be rendered by the browser. BlackBerry? Advert? …
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One of the joys of the Internet is that it is international. Anyone, from anywhere, speaking any language can visit any page on the World Wide Web. This makes life difficult for advertisers. Not only do they have to ensure that what they're showing is applicable in the viewer's country, but also that it's legal and written in the correct language. If they don't, at best they've wasted their…
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Another in the occasional series looking at mobile advertising gone bad. Who doesn't enjoy a good, clean game of scrabble. After a busy day reading The Times, nothing takes the edge off the day like a word puzzle. Wait! What's this? Scrabble Banner So far, so good. A clear, professional banner. It clearly emphasises that - although it's an advert - it's endorsed by The Times; so you won't g…
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In 1998, Douglas Adams wrote a essay about the de facto Universal Power Supply - the in-car cigarette lighter. He was half right. We've settled on USB as the standard - simply because it's ubiquitous. A few days ago, the ITU finally caught up with the rest of the world and endorsed micro-usb as the standard for all phone chargers. Sam Manchin tweeted about now seeing USB charging stations in …
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It's been a while since I last wrote about Mobile Badvertising. Although we're constantly told that mobile advertising is going to be HUGE, you wouldn't know it from looking at the adverts on mobile sites. Over this occasional series, I'll be picking examples from popular UK sites. I've tried to avoid naming the sites in question, but sometimes it's unavoidable. The Lie Is that too good to be…
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I've decided to add a preview of YouTube videos into Dabr, the mobile Twitter service. The code is fairly simple - although I still suck at regular expressions. if (preg_match_all('#youtube.com/watch?v=([_-dw]+)#', $tmp, $matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER) > 0) { foreach ($matches[1] as $match) { $images[] = theme('external_link', "http://m.youtube.com/watch?v={$match}", "<img…
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I know a thing or two about mobile websites. The last 4 years of my life have been spent obsessing over them. I wouldn't claim that the sites I run are the best in the world - but I've picked up a thing or two about how a successful mobile retail channel should work. Nokia's Ovi gets everything wrong. I'm going to show you 25 easily avoidable mistakes in the new Ovi Store. Here's how to make a…
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I try so hard to like Nokia. Their hardware is second to none - but when it comes to software and services, they haven't got a clue. They've just announced a new app store - Ovi Store. This is to replace the broken mess that is Mosh, N-Gage, Download and the current Ovi. Why do I get the feeling that there are several fiefdoms within Nokia all working against one and other rather than working t…
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[Disclaimer: This event was generously sponsored by Vodafone. I am a Vodafone employee but this post does not reflect the opinions of Vodafone. I helped arrange this sponsorship and am, therefore, highly biased.] A quick review of MobileCampBrighton. Brighton is such a delightful city that it's hard to begrudge it stealing one's Saturday morning lie-in. As I wandered the laines looking for The…
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The Internet is abuzz with the on-going spat between the BBC and the UK ISP industry. In short, the iPlayer is now responsible for 5% of all data traffic in the UK. That figure is growing. The problem is that the ISPs have been selling "unlimited" internet connectivity when their capacity is severly limited. The ISPs are trying to make up for their lack of investment in their systems by…
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I've seen two very different adverts recently which, in my opinion are bad. Very bad. I'd even go so far as to say that they are terrible. The first is a poster advert seen at my local train station. A tagline, a shot of the service and a URL. Let's break it down. 1) The URL. I initially typed in w4mobile rather than w4mobiles - and got a non-mobile friendly page. It would have been better …
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