New: BlykWatch at SMS Text News
I’ve been following Blyk, the UK (and soon to be international) advertising-based MVNO for a long time — ever since it was a glint in the milkman’s eye — or, more precisely, ever since news of it publicly broke a long time ago.
I did a count last week — I routinely get about 10 questions or calls about Blyk a week from various parties wanting to know more, particularly information starved analysts wanting to see how things are getting on in reality with Blyk.
(I still get people asking me about Lethal Weapon when I mention ‘Blyk’ (background here). I still have a pretty good feeling about them. I reckon they’re in the right place.)
My biggest issue with Blyk is the entirely arbitrary 217 texts and 43 minutes a month they give each customer. I know it’s ‘based’ on research. Just, well, I always like to look at the end-game — and I think they’d have been far better suited making it free. Entirely free. Or 1,000 minutes and 1,000 texts per month. I don’t like the temporary nature of it… I think it paints the wrong impression in the mind of the consumer: Like they’re only ‘worth’ 43 minutes each month to Blyk. That being said from what I can see, I think the team are doing well.
So what’s BlykWatch all about? Well, Ricky Chotai is 19, based in Manchester and I’ve engaged him to write a daily account of how he uses Blyk — and, crucially, to document how Blyk interacts with him. Ricky became a Blyk member right away when the service became available in November 2007. His main number is a T-Mobile UK contract so Blyk, running on an unlocked Sony Ericsson W610i, is Ricky’s second phone.
We’re going to give BlykWatch a go and see how we get on — it’ll main comprise of Ricky’s weekly account of his Blyk interactions. However if you’ve got questions, send me a note and I’ll put them to Ricky to answer in his next report.
(Ricky Chotai is not to be confused with SMS Text News daily contributor, Ricky Cadden.)
On with the BlykWatch:
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Thursday 31st January 2008
Sent a few texts with BLYK this morning, and have discovered that text tags (a small ad added to outgoing SMS messages) are no longer attached to all SMS. Logged into the BLYK forum and read that this is due members on the forum not happy with the tags and now they will only be attached to a certain number of outgoing SMS not every message. It is great to hear that BLYK is listing to its members.
I think I may have found a problem with BLYK, sometimes I lose all signal all together and then it comes back randomly. It is a very strange issue and I will pop over to the BLYK forum and see if they have any answers. I know it’s not my phone as I put an Orange sim and the signal is full. BLYK is MVNO of Orange so signal wise they should be the same!
Finally I received no brand messages today.
Friday 1st February 2008
I woke up to the sound of my phone receiving a message at 12pm, and lo and behold it was from BLYK. It was an mms of the Sony Ericsson k850i telling me I could buy it from BLYK shop unlocked for GBP279! I had no reply from my post on the forum about signal issues so I sent member care an email.
I then traveled on a virgin train from Manchester to my home town of Lancaster, for those of you who use the trains in the UK will know that Orange has an exclusive deal for signal boost on these trains. As a result I could happily chat and SMS all the way, whilst my T-Mobile phone was out of signal!
I also received a further two brand messages; one was a HEAT Scoop about Peter Andre and Jordon, which I promptly deleted and the other was from dominos pizza giving me a £5 discount code if I spent over £15. Sadly the dominoes in Lancaster do not deliver to my house so that was not happening and the voucher code runs out on Sunday. Oh well!
Saturday 2nd February 2008
One brand message received today from L’Oreal, I also had the option to reply which I did and I was sent a mms which contained a video. In my opinion it was not very interesting. That’s all for today except I am running out of minutes, however my refill is on Monday so all is ok.
Sunday 3rd February 2008
One brand message (however it was a sms not mms) today asking if I had used an online dating site, to which I replied no and I got another sms back, pointing me to www.quickflirt.com and a unique promo code. I will however not be using the code so if you want it drop me an email (in confidence of course haha).
Just a couple of quick points I received an email back from member care they told me that they had no information or known issues about signal, but they would keep a watch out. The other point today: Whilst trying to replying to the brand message, I had to send the text a few times — as the BLYK SMS server was playing up again. I feel BLYK need to move quickly getting this issue resolved as the same thing was happening a few weekends ago, and it is not showing them in a good professional light.
Refill day tomorrow!
Monday 4th February 2008
Refill day BLYK sent me a SMS at 5am telling me and my account had been refilled. 5am thank god I had my phone on silent (this was because it’s my birthday so my mates would sms me at stupid hours). No happy birthday message or anything extra from BLYK oh well!
They also set me an email at 5am telling me the same thing however it was marked as very important! Anyway I think I should not complain as it is all for free!
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Fascinating, thank you Mr Chotai. It makes for interesting reading, does it not? What are they doing sending account refill messages to students at FIVE am in the morning?
It’s great to see how Ricky’s actually interacting with the messages. I remember a lot of sneers from the analysts and journalists in the room at the Blyk launch event last year who reckoned no one would bother responding. Nonsense. It’s passive entertainment. Why else would Ricky respond to a L’Oreal ad? Fair enough, he didn’t think the video was that interesting — but L’Oreal got to him through Blyk. Quite telling, too, about the Dominos 5-pound discount voucher… had he been located nearer a Dominos, would he have used the voucher? Sounds like he might have.
Not good news about the Blyk text gateway appearing to have problems. I remember they were extremely careful to point out that their technology was all under their express control. Looks like they’re still working out the kinks. Critical to fix, that.
Thanks Ricky — look forward to more from you soon.
