That Time I Accidentally Invented Twitter


A proposal to micro-blog via text.

A curio from the archives. Waaaaaay back in 2003, I was working at Vodafone on their graduate training scheme. One of their fancy new ideas was a crowd-sourced employee suggestion box for new business proposals. As an eager young grad I submitted dozens of ideas. Most of them were crap. But, as I looked back […]

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The worst morale boosting gesture I've experienced


The Vodafone logo with the text "The future is exciting. Ready?"

I promise you this story is true. Many years ago, when I was very young and you were even younger... Work was not going well. Our recently launched product was a flop. Rumours of job cuts were swirling. Things were tense. I was sat in work, headphones on, trying to drown out the sound of […]

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Vodafone Content Control


Back when I worked for them, I was (partly) responsible for some of Vodafone UK's "Content Control" systems. I didn't like the system then, and I don't like them now. I understand the need that network operators have to protect themselves from bad headlines and give people some control over what they see online. What […]

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I Am No Longer a Vodafone Shareholder


The Vodafone logo with the text "The future is exciting. Ready?"

As many of you know, I worked for Vodafone for nearly 7 years. I left shortly before the "entirely legal and justified tax avoidance" scandal came to light. I didn't know anything about the tax issues while I was working there - other than the fact I had some colleagues working in Luxembourg - otherwise […]

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The Death Of The BlackBerry


For years I was a BlackBerry fanboy. I remember snatching a departing colleague's 6710 and lying to the IT department that I was authorised to have my email on my phone. I never looked back. Despite a brief flirtation with the Nokia N95 - I was a BlackBerry Boy through and through. Until this happened. […]

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#O2Fail - What You Need To Know About Mobile Phone Content Control


WARNING This article and pages it links to, contain information about pornography and sex education which may be offensive to Daily Mail readers. These are the hurried lunchtime writings of a chap with too much on his plate. So, O2 has apparently angered the Internet Gods by switching on its Adult Content Filter. This means […]

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How Sony Ericsson Killed Android


(Yes, the title is link bait.) Sony Ericsson have announced that their Xperia X10 range of Android handset won't be updated to the latest version of Android. They'll be stuck on Android 2.1 with no hope for any bug fixes. As I discussed last year in "The Future of Android - And How To Stop […]

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Reputation Management at the Speed of Fright


The Vodafone logo.

(This post appears on ReputationOnline) Vodafone has suffered a massive blow to it corporate reputation in recent days.  A security error on their site allowed anyone to find customers' email addresses and phone numbers.  It's still unknown if any accounts were compromised due to the flaw - nor is it known if there was any […]

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Vodafone Exposes Users' Email Addresses


(Disclaimer - I used to work for Vodafone. I don't any more.) A rather nasty flaw with Vodafone's "My Account" service was recently pointed out by Denny de la Haye. Vodafone will quite happily tell you the email address of any customer who has set up the "My Account" facility. Ugh. @VodafoneUK's website exposes my […]

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Kindle and SureSignal - or how to find your Kindle's phone number


I've got a rather neat femtocell - the Vodafone SureSignal. It extends the 3G signal into my house by way of my broadband. To stop anyone leaching my broadband, you need to register "approved" phone numbers with the SureSignal. So - given that the Kindle has a Vodafone SIM card - how do we find […]

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