Category: android

Shot through the heart (and amazon.co.uk is to blame)

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So sang 80’s hair rockers Bon Jovi. In a manner of speaking, anyway.

But I’m actually referring to accurately-targeted email advertising. Specifically this one:

Hello Mr 6000,

Are you looking for something in our Tablet PCs store? If so, you might be interested in these items.

Asus EeePad Transformer TF101 10.1 inch Tablet PC (nVidia Tegra2 1GHz, 1Gb, 16Gb eMMC, WLAN, BT, Android 3.0) with docking station and keyboard


RRP: £429.99
Price: £418.13 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery.
(See details and conditions)
You Save: £11.86 (3%)
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
Gift-wrap available.

Yes. Yes, I am interested. Very interested. And you damn well know it, because I spend several hours a day gazing at the tablet porn on your site.
Specifically this little baby.

I have checked out her stats, I have checked out the 3% discount, I have checked out the fact that gift wrap is available.
Yes: gift wrap.

The fact is that I had previously thought that I was immune to this sort of advertising. But they’ve hit the spot here and they know that I will click their links and gaze upon her wonder again and again. And eventually I will be worn down and I will submit and I will part with my hard earned Rands and I will have her.

This happens so rarely to me that I can’t even remember it happening before. Except when I moved to SA after a whole week’s pressure from my wife. And since that seems to have worked out so well, I see no reason that this one won’t end happily as well. (Are you reading this, dear?)

UPDATE: And this is why I need it:

Exactly.

Android is Blowing Everyone Away

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That’s not my line up there in the title, it belongs to Business Insider, who published this astounding graph on their site yesterday.

In my line of work, I’m well used to looking at graphs and attempting to observe subtle differences and trends within the data.
This isn’t one of them though, is it?

And while the blue Android line is rising, the green BB is in freefall, which should come as no surprise to anyone. (Least of all anyone who has talked to my wife).

Byebye BB?

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This has been doing the rounds all over the internet since it came out last week, but it needs to be here too, just in case anyone missed it:
Gizmodo’s Ten Reasons Why BlackBerry Is Screwed.

While BB came out as the coolest brand amongst the youth in South Africa in the recent Sunday Times Generation Y survey, it seems that the South African Youth is sadly not really in touch with reality (who’d have believed it?). While BB holds the lion’s share of the smartphone market in SA, it’s all beginning to unravel worldwide.

A lack of new products, a lack of innovation, a particularly pathetic tablet offering, a lack of decent apps and some strong competition from Android and Apple that RIM seem to have no answer to and it really looks like they could be headed the same way as Nokia.
As the article points out, when BB are losing their stronghold on the corporate market, something is obviously going very wrong.

As for the stat that more than 50% of all current BB users want to change to a different smartphone platform on their next upgrade, I can well believe it: exactly 100% of the current BB users in this household would rather be on anything other than her BB.

Heart v Head

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I desperately want(ed) to get down to the coast this weekend. The weather this week has been atrocious (once we’d got past Tuesday with its ridiculous midwinter 30 degreedness) and the wind has whipped up some epic swells around the South African coast. The weather service were warning of 7m off Agulhas. Yummy.

I love that kind of weather. It’s dramatic, elemental, Wuthering Heights kind of stuff. I would much rather wander along a beach in a gale, with crashing surf and disturbed seabirds than sit there in the baking sun, baking.
There are other considerations though. Family, for one, two and three. Coming from South Africa, rather than the UK, they are not so keen on the epic waves and howling wind. They want sunshine and warmth. They like to be able to see the sand to sit on and to dig in, rather than have it littered in smashed weed and marooned jellyfish. Suffice to say, their preferred conditions are not going to be much in evidence this weekend. And there’s more to do with two small kids in Cape Town than in a tiny village miles from anything except a windy beach and a wild sea.

Add to that the frankly rather scary conditions forecast for the Cape on Sunday – if you thought last night’s ice storm was bad, just wait – which is when we’d be doing the 230km back and it’s sadly a no-brainer. Or rather an all-brainer and a no-hearter. Not that I struggle to drive safely in storm force winds and heavy rain, but unfortunately, it has come to my attention that a lot of other people in this country do.

So I’ll be around this weekend, I think. Which makes it all the more important for you to take the few seconds required to ‘like’ the new 6000.co.za facebook page, download the 6000 miles… feed Android app or even the one for your Nokia Ovi, thanks to Nokia SA and #mobiblog.
And – big news – the 6000 miles… iPhone app is under development and should be with you shortly. Possibly even more shortly now that I’m going to be around some internet for the next few days.

So many ways to stay in touch. No excuses anymore.

BB is cool, but…

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Incoming for our friends at Ogilvy in Cape Town (and belatedly blogged), the results of the the Sunday Times Generation Next 2011 Brand Survey, conducted by HDI Youth Marketeers.

This is a hugely useful survey for companies wanting to market to young people, with loads of results for what is “cool” according to the more than 7,200 youths (aged 8-22 Julius, ok?) questioned in the survey. Toothpaste to Comedians, DJ’s to Fashion, it’s all in there and it’s making me feel old.

One thing that did stand out was Blackberry, which came top of the “Coolest Cellphone”, “Coolest High Tech Gadget” and – most interestingly of all – “Coolest Brand Overall” categories. This is conclusive proof that something doesn’t have to actually be very good to be very cool.

Blackberry phones, when compared (rationally and unemotionally) to other smartphones on the market (i.e. iPhone or Android) are actually pretty rubbish, but they have BBM, as Jason Levin, managing director of HDI explains:

BBM is the archetypal ‘killer app’ – it’s one of the best examples ever of intrinsic functionality driving demand for a cell phone … or any device for that matter.
BBM turned the Blackberry, originally a smart phone used for business purposes, into a cool-tool for youth.

And he’s right. Because if that’s all you want from your phone, then BB is the one for the job. And while BB users are desperate to have the functionality and stability of other phones, other phone users would kill to have BBM. Fortunately, it might not be long before that happens. And if/when it does, how long before the “killer app” effect wears off for Blackberry?

Good news for BB then and many of the other brands in there who will be hoping to get their hands on the R95bn that the under-23 market spends in SA each year.

Disclosure: Ogilvy sent 6000 miles… a Goodie Bag containing products from many award winners and nominees. (But no Blackberry)