The website of Alex Kinch, live from London
Posts tagged Mobile Services
Now then now then..
May 9th
(note: if you’re younger than about 21, were deprived of UK telly from 1975 til 1994, or have a phobia of elderly men in gold shell suits laden with more bling than Mr T, ignore the next paragraph!)
Jingle jangle, jewellery jewellery.. Welcome boys and girls to SMSTextNews will fix it. Here we go with a letter from Erin at nowthen:
I’d like to invite you to try nowthen (www.nowthen.com ) – a simple, free and addictive social networking service that lets users communicate and express themselves via camera phone snapshots.
nowthen originated as an internal SMS/MMS communication tool used by my coworkers because our team is spread throughout the US and UK. Eventually, we all had such a good time with the photo messaging feature that we decided to make the service available to the public – and here we are!
Fantastic.. it sounds good so far – the words ‘MMS’, ‘free’ and ‘social networking’ always make me curious. So how does it work? Over to Erin..
As a nowthen member, simply add friends, MMS your pictures to 07983 111 222 and we’ll instantly forward them to the phones of your nowthen network of friends. Likewise, you can receive your friends’ updates to your phone too. We also provide our users with free web space where they can easily store, share and access their photos. There are no applications to download – just a simple registration process via phone or the Web and users can immediately begin nowthening!
Brilliant! Sounds like it’s got potential to turn into a real killer app for the world of MMS. I haven’t had a chance to give it a proper go yet, but as soon as I find some time I’ll post an update.
Motorist text reminder service is smashing
May 9th
WWW.SMASHINGTXT.COM | SMS reminder service
I’ve just been having a play with a new text reminder service, called Smashingtxt. It’s quite a cool service, and I believe it’ll fill a real gap in the market. Of course there’s umpteen million different reminder text services out there already, and you can set reminders for birthdays, anniversaries, feeding the cat, putting out the recycling, and pretty much whatever else you have to remember. So why is this offering from Smashingtxt different?
The service focuses on one particular audience: the motorist. The company behind it, Smashing Plates, is one of these companies that’ll get you a really cool numberplate for your car, van, bike, caravan, whatever. You know the sort.. like EW4N for example. They’re not a tech company, and aren’t churning out mobile applications ‘because they’re cool’ and then trying to find an audience – quite the opposite. With over 30 million cars on the road in the UK nowadays, they’ve figured out that we all need a little help to remember things like renewing our MOT, putting the car in for a service, etc.
As someone who managed to not realise for a couple of months that his first MOT was due, I’d go for this straight away. In fact, I’m going to setup a reminder now to give me a nudge when it’s next due. At least with road tax renewals I get a nice pretty reminder.. but with MOT and servicing? Nothing. Not a sausage. It’s up to me to remember these things – and spending a couple of quid could save me quite a large fine and some points on my licence.
South Africans get insured by text
May 8th
Link: webitpr | Get Instant Cover Before Travelling
Congratulations to Clickatell (sponsors of this site), who’ve hooked up with insurance giant Metropolitan Life to pull off a world first - offering insurance by mobile phone in South Africa.
Here’s the deal. Insurance, as we all know, is usually a hassle. You’ve got to fill out a ream of paperwork, sign in triplicate in ten different places, and then wait for a few days for all the bumph and policy documents to turn up. Not good, especially if you’re not exactly comfortable with locking yourself into a deal, or don’t have a bank account that will allow regular monthly payments to be sucked out to pay for said insurance.
Step forward then Cover2go. For around R10 (approx €1), handset owners can take out life cover of R60,000 (approx €6,300) for six days at a time, just by texting a premium SMS shortcode. The cost is automatically deducted from their mobile prepay balance (or charged to their monthly account), and they get a confirmation text back with the policy number. As soon as six days is up, Cover2go sends them a text reminding them the policy is about to lapse, and offers the chance to renew it.
What’s the market for a six day life policy, you may ask? CEO of Cover2go Derek Pead explains:
‘Every day, a large majority of South Africans have to board minibus taxis, many of which are notoriously unsafe. For people travelling over the most dangerous periods such as the Easter weekend, the risk to the wellbeing of their families is very real – 276 people died this past Easter holiday. Unfortunately, the common perception is that life assurance is a luxury that’s unaffordable and complicated to obtain. With Cover2go, people can get basic cover instantly, at very affordable prices, when they need it most”
So there you go. What a great use of mobile technology – it’s simple to use, doesn’t rely on the latest flashy phone with all singing all dancing software and a 3G connection, and it’s filling a gap in the market.
Will be interesting to see how well this service performs in the coming months. Maybe they could offer a minicab insurance service for revellers in London’s Leicester Square? Provides cover in case of driver getting lost, overcharging, falling through hole in floor, or being stopped by police as the driver got his driving licence from a cornflake packet.
Blackberry squashed in Europe too?
May 2nd
Link: RIM’s outage spreads to Europe and mid-East
Poor old RIM, when it rains it pours. After a ‘non critical’ upgrade a couple of weeks back that left millions of Crackberry users in North America without email service for a few days, the same thing seems to have happened in Europe and the Middle East, according to IT tech news site The Inquirer.
An INQ reader working in a small City bank claims his five users have been without service since Friday 27th April. Complaining to his local service provider, O2, he was told that RIM had performed a ‘cosmetic’ upgrade to its system over the weekend. The outage appears to be affecting only those who connect directly to their own Microsoft Exchange server and not those who employ RIM’s own BES server solution.
The INQ has seen an email from RIM confirming that the ‘high severity outage’ has indeed taken place. Although the email says the problem is confined to Europe, the reader’s sister company in Dubai has also been affected.
Oopsy. Another good reason (no pun intended!) to dump your Crackberry and use Good Mobile Messaging instead?
Keeping tabs on Windows Mobile users
May 2nd
Link: Mobile Spy ups mobile snooping powers | The Register
Retina-X Studios have released an interesting application for Windows Mobile devices, allowing you to eavesdrop on texts and calls made by the handset user.
Mobile Spy, a new application from Retina-X Studios, monitors calls and text messages and reports them back to a central server. When installed on a Windows Mobile device, Mobile Spy allows parents to keep watch on their child’s phone, or enables employers to enforce an acceptable use policy on their staff – though the legality of doing so will depend where in the world you are.
Not quite sure I’d like an employer snooping on my texts and calls – then again with so many companies now actively monitoring Internet usage it’s only a matter of time before Big Brother starts sniffing through your mobile usage.
I haven’t got a Windows Mobile handy to test it on, so if anyone fancies giving it a go let me know! Their site is here.
Orange launches mobile ‘Play-Off’ competition
May 1st
Link: News | Orange launches mobile ‘Play-Off’ competition – NMA
Just caught this on New Media Age:
Visitors to Orange World are invited to upload their own 10-15 second videos via MMS or the Orange website. They are then entered into one-on-one competition with a rival in several categories including face-off, dance-off and weird-off. The entrant with the highest number of votes progresses to the next round with several competitions running concurrently.
Interesting concept. If you’re an Orange 3G customer, you can give it a whirl at http://orange.play-off.com/
New Yorkers get their own ‘text a drink’ service
Apr 20th
Happy hour by SMS, with BuyYourFriendADrink | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone
If you owe a friend a drink, or just want to be nice, head on over to the BYFAD Web site and fill out the form–you’ll need to have that friend’s cell phone number on hand. You can opt to give them a dollar amount between $5 and $250, and there’s a 99-cent processing fee. Then, your friend receives an e-mail and a text message alerting them of the yummy drinkable gift, along with a promotional code.
Nice! Looks similar to the Corney & Barrow BuyMeADrink service that was talked about way back in September 2006. Anyone in New York gonna give this one a go over the weekend?
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