‘I know Ben canǃÙt afford to buy anybody a drink while heǃÙs there, thatǃÙs for sure.’

Indeed he couldn’t. I am assuming the address of Bluepulse as per their website: Suite 1206/3 Kings Cross Road, Rushcutters Bay, 2011, Sydney, Australia is the same one below?

1206/3 Kings Cross Road, RUSHCUTTERS BAY
Modern two bedroom apartment in the prestigious Altair building. Featuring two large equally sized bedrooms, built-ins, internal laundry, integrated stainless steel kitchen, generously sized living area and two large balconies one offering spectacular NE views of Sydney harbour and the other with views to Botany Bay. Building features pool, gym, security parking and concierge. How much for this luxurious Sydney office A$725PW – I hope to hell someone is living there too!

Perhaps a more meagre setting for a head office might do the trick. More money to pay for important business trips, development and staff training – ouch!; not conceirges and swimming pools. But I aint gonna tell you guys how to suck eggs.

http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2006/01/27/how-not-to-deal-with-blogs-a-case-study/

Over at MobHappy, Carlo Longino relays an excellent case study in why companies need to “be sincere in their communications with blogs,” and what can happen when they’re dishonest. Earlier this week, Carlo posted some critical comments about a mobil…

Particularly when the Google cache shows the old page.

Carlo, you seem to have missed an important word when you quoted bluepulses compatability claim.

You quote the site as saying:
ǃ?Your content and applications, on any phone, anywhereǃ?ǃ?

In actual fact the text on that link says:
“Your content and applications, on almost any phone, anywhere…”

In this context I think ‘almost’ is an important qualifier =)

I plan to interview Ben on my podcast in the coming weeks – (Mobile Media Show – and will commend him on his valliant attempt to put a cable car on what is otherwise a steep and rugged road ahead.

However, reading all of these interesting posts from people like Tom, Steve, Mike and Carlo I want to respond to Oliver’s call for comments on how we are finding it.

I downloaded and installed it and although it is running fine on my Nokia 6680 (not too cumbersome on the memory, which many other widgets seem to be) I am not compelled to use it and this is where it becomes tricky. I think Tom is right when he says “it’ll suffer from the chicken-and-egg situation of needing an audience before content providers address it in large numbers”.

There are also some practical things that I feel lets it down. I tried the “Send to a friend” option and my friend received an SMS with an invitation to download the application, including the comment that it will cost “$5 to set up”. That’s not necessarily the ideal “share” situation, particularly when my friend can go and download it for free at the website like I did.

I also tried the IM system but was unable to get that working. I put my settings in for MSN and then added a Buddie, but when I did so I was told I had already added that Buddie, when clearly I hadn’t. Again, Tom’s words “Is BluePulse for the average user? How will the average user get it?” rang true as I am not an average user. I am reasonably technically capable, I fiddle around on my phone a lot more than others and I have a vested interest in getting it working. I actually want it to work so much I’ll try in four or five times. Will the average user?

Yes, the MSN is in Beta, so perhaps there are teething problems there. But if I am an “average user” getting the product now, will I care to come back when these issues are resolved and when there are more cool things in there.

I am very happy with reading my RSS news in my Opera Mobile browser and I have the movies, tv, horoscopes through my subscribed services on my carrier portal which are cheap and already billed directly to my phone bill (so I don’t have to worry about working out the credits system, which I found difficult to understand because nowhere did I read what the cost was per 1000 credits – did I miss something here? Oliver seems to have found that information).

I really, really, really want BluePulse to work. If you guys can get the handset makers to preinstall it on everyone’s handset and there are a whole lot of cool apps running (smoothly) inside it then I would be very tempted to not only go and try using it again (regularly) but I would also want to develop my content to work inside of it. Without that, I am afraid it may just not have the smarts to get us all hooked.