Thereís a very amusing booklet from the 1940ís at Contact Sheet. Itís full of startlingly obvious advice about how to use the Telephone. Stuff like ìBe sure of your numberî and if you choose to ignore this little gem ìApologize for wrong numbersî.

But then I thought. Actually, wouldnít it be great if todayís technologists:

1. Understood that their users donít have the same grasp of their technology that they do.

2. Explained how to use their technology clearly, simply and in congruence with contemporary society.

Whatís especially ignored is some kind of etiquette in using this new stuff ñ like Making Friends on the Telephone. Nowhere is this more apparent than Instant Messaging, but it applies to SMS, email, chat and pretty much everything else.

Taking IM as an example, this is leading to huge problems with kids. Since most communication is non-verbal and since the keyboard removes inhibitions, many a child has got themselves into hot water with their peers over an IM conversation. Giving away too much too soon is a common mistake, to be regretted at leisure. As is passing on dodgy gossip or a quickly regretted bitchy remark.

And, like the Telephone guide, thereís no older generation to explain the rules ñ they donít know as they have no experience. So a world (and IM is a world) where kids make the rules is going to be a pretty brutal one.

Remember Lord of the Flies?

Interesting little snippet here from Mobile Youth via New Media Zero.

It seems that under 25’s in the UK are spending 5 times as much on their mobiles as on music.

Hmmm….(stroking imaginary beard)…could this be why the music industry is going down the pan? Maybe it’s nothing to do with file sharing after all.

I’ve long argued (admittedly along with lots of others) that file sharing increases consumption of music. After all, nothing beats owning the CD of music you really like.

But the laws of economics dictate that when your income is limited, something has to give. And in this case, mobile is a youth must-have and music an optional extra.

It’s difficult to underestimate the importance of the mobile to an Under 25. But, being barred from using one is the modern equivalent of being banished to your room, with no TV, books or music. Apart from being allowed to go to school with “I am a dork” tattooed on your forehead. And forget dating - you neither have the tools to arrange dates nor those to maintain relationships.

The modern teenager will be happy to be grounded (relatively). But banning them from their mobile for a week is the parental equivalent to going nuclear.

I know books have always been mobile. But now the mobile novel (novel on a mobile phone) is one of the surprise hits in Japan.

Trend Central reports most major publishers are jumping on the bandwagon following the huge success of Deep Love, the first of the genre.

The book was self-published by the author, Yoshi, and downloadable in installments from websites that offer other mobile phone services such as ring tone downloads. The story of Ayu, a 17-year-old girl who finds love through a chance encounter, touched the hearts of so many cell phone novel readers that it went on to be published in print, become a best seller, and is now being made into a movie.

It sounds like the plot of err….a cheap novel
Beyond the storyline, readers also enjoyed the interactive and collaborative efforts that the novel offered by being on the internet: readers were able to type in ideas so new plot twists could be added on as the story progressed.

But there’s very little that’s truly new. Dickens published his works in serialised form, as this passage on the Mural website proves:

When The Old Curiosity Shop was approaching its emotional climax — the death of Little Nell — Dickens was inundated with letters imploring him to spare her, and felt, as he said, “the anguish unspeakable,” but proceeded with the artistically necessary event. Readers were desolated.

…..and crowds in New York awaited a vessel newly arriving from England with shouts of “Is Little Nell dead?”

Mike Grenvilleís excellent 160 Characters reports on some of the latest trends on MMS. It makes gruesome reading.

The NOP poll found that 83% of respondents had yet to send an MMS.

It also has some stats on MMS usage in 2003:

∑ France 23 Million
∑ Germany 37 Million
∑ Italy 20 Million
∑ Spain 17 Million
∑ Sweden 5 Million
∑ Switzerland 450,000
∑ UK 27 Million

While these numbers may look impressive, in the UK context, 27 million a year compares to over 2 billion SMSís a MONTH.

Thereís a number of problems with MMS in my view:

1. Itís expensive. Many of the MMSís above were actually sent during the free trial periods offered by operators.

2. It often doesnít work and users are often required to manually change the settings on their phone. And they donít know how.

3. Itís a technology looking for a use.

Iíll expand on point 3 a little. While itís sometimes possible to invent a technology and find an application for it (Post It Notes spring to mind) itís not normally a winning strategy.

But this is where many analysts and Operators are going wrong. They see camera phone sales = consumer desire to send pictures = acceptance of consumer to premium pricing of MMS = huge surge in data revenues = telecoms boom.

I wrote in my blog a few months ago about this phenomenon, comparing it with South Park’s Underpants Gnomes. They spend their lives stealing peoples’ underwear.

Tracked back to their lair, we find the Gnomes with a huge pile of err….Stolen Underpants. Challenged to justify this, they show a large chart on which is outlined their strategy (see below). The key to this strategy they say, is to identify what the question mark represents - “then it’s untold wealth all round”

Chart:

1. Collect Underpants
2. ?
3. Profit

Another flawed formulae is:

ability to make video phones = consumer desire to make video calls = acceptance of consumer to premium pricing of data traffic = huge surge in data revenues = telecoms boom.

People have compared SMS with MMS as being like DOS was to Windows. Apart from being an obvious overclaim, a better example would be Text based email to HTML email. Weíve had the latter for years, but apart from formatting the appearance of the email and/or forwarding HTML email thatís already composed, most people never use it.

It comes down to usability. The requirement to compose an HTML email or an MMS which includes pictures, text and maybe audio is beyond the artistic skill of the average user. Moreover, even if they can do it, it would require a considerable investment of time.

So if I were in charge of implementing the strategy for MMS (a potential poisoned chalice, but I can dream), Iíd do the following:

1. Make sure every handset worked ìout of the boxî. I know itís not easy, but neither is this impossible.

2. Make sure that we had cross network compatibility. If youíre going to send a message, it has to arrive. No excuses.

3. Develop a range of content, readily available and FREE that people could use to quickly compose their MMS. Most operators try to ìdouble bubbleî by charging for content and then charging you to send it. Come on guys, thatís just greedy!

4. Drop the price. 35p (OK O2 have just generously introduced a 25p tariff ñ more than double what an SMS costs on the most expensive tariff). 10 ñ 15p seems reasonable for a premium content message. 25 ñ 35p is that greed thing again.

5. Give 1,000 or so handsets to the coolest kids and give them free MMS messaging.

Having then lit the touch paper, you see it start to take off. But will an Operator adopt a marketing-led strategy? Excuse me, must sign off ñ thereís a pig flying past my window

Silicon.com reports that UK watchdog ICSTIS is getting heavy with mobile scammers. So far it’s handed out fines of more than £500k.

Scams come in two flavours:

1. SMS to people’s phones claiming that they’d won a prize. They then had to dial a Premium Rate number to claim. Only to find that they hadn’t really won anything.

2. Actually, rather cleverer, they ring a mobile number and hang up. The curious then call the number, which turns out to be a (you’ve guessed it) a Premium Rate number.

It’s great to see ICSTIS getting tough, but you’ve got to wonder at the gullibility of some of these people. It’s like the endless parade of people conned by the 419 scams. What planet are they living on when they think that some nice foreigner with dodgy English is really going to hand over 45 trillion dollars to someone they don’t know?

One of the best phone scams I heard was in the 80’s. Some guy used to advertise a car at a real bargain price ñ but not suspiciously low. Respondents to the advertisement were answered by a woman, claiming to be the wife of the seller.

ìJust hang on a minuteî callers were told. ìI think the carís still available, but my husbandís in the garden. Iíll just check.î And the caller was kept waiting and waiting and waitingÖÖ. connected to a Premium Rate number.

Then there was the guy who pretended to be a motorcycle courier with a package for a man with a very unusual name. ìPackage for Mr Blitheringcoopî he would announce.

The receptionist, of course, said that Mr Blitheringcoop didnít work there, so our friendly courier asked to use the phone. Heíd then have a conversation with his Dispatcher, who was actually imaginary ñ he was connected to his own (you can see this coming, canít you?) Premium Rate number.

So, telephone cons are as old as the telephone. Theyíve just migrated to mobile now

Navigate the Streets is the latest urban “wired meets meat space” game to emerge. While it’s possible to participate in this race/scavenger hunt without gagetry, using technology gives you a distinct edge.

Race entrants are encouraged to use mobiles to help solve the clues - either by using WAP or by staying in touch with frinds who can surf the net.

Thanks to Jason os the excellent and venerable Kottke blog for sending the link.

Bryan of SmartMobs blogs a nice piece on the Japanese Prime Minister admonishing MPís for texting in Parliamentary sessions.

The national Asahi newspaper said Koizumi scolded 30 first-term lawmakers from his Liberal Democratic Party during a luncheon. “Don’t send e-mail on your cell phones or read comic books in Parliament while in session,” Koizumi was quoted as saying. “You can be seen very clearly from the prime minister’s seat. You should really stop that ó it’s disgraceful.”

A sign of the times

Hot on the heals of Pac Manhattan is the UKís answer to the challenge. Uncle Roy All Around You is part theatre, part console game and errr, let them tell you:

Uncle Roy All Around You is where the console game breaks out onto the streets; a game that pitches Online Players around the world alongside players on the real streets of the city. Street Players use handheld computers to search for Uncle Roy, using the map and incoming messages to move through the city. Online Players cruise through a virtual map of the same area, searching for Street Players to help them find a secret destination.

Using web cams, audio and text messages players must work together. They have 60 minutes and the clock is ticking…

And according to Metro (newspaper)

…one of the most exhilarating theatrical experiences you’ll encounter. You leave feeling contemplative, thrilled and ever so slightly paranoid.’

This combination of the virtual world and meat space is something weíre going to see a lot more of over the next 10 years. As the real world becomes highly networked (in urban areas anyway) itís going to be completely integrated with the online world. Who knows what the consequences of that might be. But the futureís never going to be the same again.

Mobile marketing is finally going mainstream ñ well, kind of.

Trend Central reports that Nike Operation 6453 is took place last weekend.

This on-foot scavenger hunt takes participants through the streets of New York to find 16 different poster locations. Those interested send a blank SMS to short code 6543 (NIKE) in order to receive registration instructions. Over the course of four days, players send SMS short messages to Nike for poster locations, and in turn are sent coordinates. When players find the poster, they message a code on the poster to Nike; the shorter the time between the posting and the finding, the higher the score. Winners get a limited edition version of the Nike Air Force-X MID designed by NYC street artist Stash. Runners-up get a chance to buy the shoes at an exclusive pre-launch event.

At ZagMe we tried something similar and it worked brilliantly (remember, this was 3 years ago). We had a Treasure Hunt with the locations being off-the-beaten-track retailers in the mall. The promotion had a very high participation level and nearly everyone who started completed the rather arduous course, including a 70 year old and his Grandson! Itís actually a case study in the free White Paper Iíve published on Location Based Marketing. Drop me an email if youíd like a copy.

A fascinating story about a new Intel initiative in The Feature:

based on the research of a brilliant Yale psychologist named Stanley Milgram, who died in 1984. One of the many remarkable ideas Milgram came up with was that of the “familiar stranger.” These are people that you see in public on a regular basis, but do not talk to or otherwise communicate with, at least not in any normal sense.

Paulos said he wanted to further Milgram’s early-70s work on familiar strangers by using mobile technology. “What make certain places feel the way they do, and why?” He wanted to know “Clearly it is the people you share the space with that influences the way you feel about it. It’s often friends and colleagues, but in urban settings it’s largely dominated by people that you don’t know - familiar strangers.”

So theyíve come up with a downloadable Bluetooth application (which works on any Bluetooth phone). This analyses other Bluetooth phones in the vicinity (they donít have to be running the app). If itís seen it before, your app notes that itís a familiar stranger and the more it sees them, the more familiar they are and this is also noted and analysed.

The objectives seem largely academic at the moment. For instance, if you want to go somewhere really different in your home city, you go where there are no familiar strangers around you. But wouldnít you’d kinda know that?

I do think itís interesting though. Not the least that Bluetooth has the potential to be one of those disruptive technologies, likeÖ.SMS. Kids are already sharing stuff (mainly pics and ringtones) via Bluetooth. In fact, Iíve noted before the new phenomenon of Courier Messaging. This is where party A wants to send something to Party B. But A knows sheís not going to see B for a while, so she sends it via Bluetooth to C. C passes it to B, even though C has no interest in the content ñ heís just doing his two friends a favour.

Why is this important? Whereís the revenue? Oops!