Disclosures - things you should know about me

I’ve been giving quite a lot of thought to trying to identify key trends in my posts here that could well be construed as ‘having an agenda’.

I don’t specifically get out of bed every morning with a ‘must-rail-against-the-following’ list taped to the wall. 

The posts on this blog typically fall into the following categories:

• Mobile related news — I often link and quote sources of mobile news. 
  More often than not, I add some kind of opinion
• Q&A’s / Interviews — with people and companies I find interesting.  Whether it’s Sarah of 82ask or Justin of BuddyPing.  If you’d like to be interviewed, just email me and ask.  (Provided you’re connected with mobile in some way.)
• Things I see — I often comment on things I see or witness — e. g. posters, special offers or the like.
• Things people email — if it’s related to mobile, I’ll usually publish and/or comment on it.
• Rants — like the one this morning on Vodafone.

However, here are some key themes that will, I’m sure, inform my publishing strategy here at SMS Text News:

1. Overcharging
   I have a problem with us all being charged stupid rates — at least here in the UK.  The standard out of bundle cost of a text message is £0.125 pence on Vodafone, for example.  There is no excuse for this.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.
2. Stupid data fees
   Here I am trying to get my friends — in fact anyone who will listen — to use data services to do moblogging or the like, … only to be told that it costs them £2.35 a meg (for example) to download data.  GO AND GET THE T-MOBILE WEB N’WALK UNLIMITED DEAL FOR 7.50 A MONTH THEN, I respond.  But let’s face it, it’s only ultra geeks like me who’d change service providers for this sort of service.
3. Phone handsets that don’t work
   I simply cannot accept the premise that my friend Natalie walks out of a Vodafone shop with a handset that is misconfigured.  That is, ‘factory misconfigured’.  She did nothing to it.  It was new out the box.  She can’t send video or picture messages or use any data services whatsoever.  It drives me nuts.  She further drives me nuts by accepting it. 

4. Stuff not working
   I think I need another heading to cover the point that I don’t react well at all to any mobile operator service that doesn’t work as billed.  Picture messaging.  A lot of people I’ve been speaking to recently tell me that their cross-network picture messaging service seems to have stopped working in the UK.  Totally unacceptable.
5. Orange putting their text prices up
   They actually put the cost of their standard text message rate UP from 10 pence to 12 pence.  They must think our heads button up the back.  Well, guess what, they do.  Orange’s customers swallowed that increase without a problem.  They’re also busy eating 1p charges for message confirmations and a whole lot more.
6. Vodafone
   Continually wind me up for squandering so much opportunity throughout the years.

7. T-Mobile
   Seem to permanently have the shittest range of handsets of any operator.  I love their ‘unlimited’ data price plan.
8. Three / 3
   — well, my position has changed quite dramatically. I used to really get wound up by them no-end by their lack of data plans… however, their X-Series service offering is absolutely phenomenal now. I am totally delighted with it.

There’s more — there’s definitely more — but this is all I can think of for the moment.  I will update as I go forth.  If you recall an issue that you think should be on my disclosure list, email me or post it here.

– I am influenced by freebies

Current Interests

I am co-founder and one of the owners of:

• Neo One — which provides a wide range of interactive facilities management services
  (We’re in the process of changing it’s brand, by the way)
• Interactive Energy — which provides dedicated blog, mobile and community consultancy, strategy, training and monitoring.
• Eventscope — the world’s most popular online networking service for conferences and events

SMS Text News is wholly owned by me.

Sponsors

I’ve recently worked out a deal with ShopQwik.com to feature their advertisement top right of the site for a period of time.   I’ll also highlight any news and updates that they have from time to time. You’ll also have seen the Clickatell ad on the top of the screen too.