Marketing with Ovi Store error page

Although Nokia during latest quarter sold more smartphones than before, they are loosing faithful Symbian customers to other platforms. Time to do something?

Some days ago I received from Ovi Store an SMS that promoted a local application

Well, I wasn't using anymore the S60 device, but HTC Hero instead. When I clicked the link from the message, it opened the browser and displayed a message

I'm not a marketing guy, but wouldn't this be a great place for trying to get a customer back? After all, this page is displayed to somebody who has previously owned and actively used a Nokia device but who has swithched to other manufacturer's phone. Opportunity to tell about latest news and improvements and make an offer for new Nokia phone?

//Harri

Wishlist to Mr. Sports Tracker

Dear Mr. Sports Tracker, I’ve used your application many years already; this is what I’d like to get for next Xmas.

Fix the constant application crash. Checked statistics for my latest 10 exercises and only one of the recordings has finished successfully. For the other 9 recording Sports Tracker has restarted the phone and thus stopped recording; I have a couple of times observed how phone suddenly restarts when Sports Tracker is running. It was quite easy to reproduce before I disabled the automatic phone lock after 30 minutes. When locking after 30 minutes was enabled, Sports Tracker sessions used to stop exactly at 30:02 or 1:00:04.

Add a “power guard” feature. Sports Tracker is very battery hungry application and even though I unplug my phone from charger just before I start Sports Tracker, battery will drain before I return home. I’d like to enable setting that closes Sports Tracker before battery has dried completely - that is also a security feature that would keep my phone usable if something nasty happens while I’m out.

Add reminders. For long and concentrated training sessions I’d like to get reminders that alert according to my wishes. For example on a hot summer day I’d like to get a small alert every 15 minutes that reminds me it is time to get some drink and an hourly alert that reminds to get some carbohydrate.

Allow preplanned routes. Allow users to plan their routes (with Sports Tracker website, Google Maps, whatever) and upload the route to application. During exercise Sports Tracker application can give to user simple routing instructions or warn if he is no longer following the route.

Add weather information. For every outdoor exercise I’d like to get automatically current weather information stored.

Get training accessories to your online store. First thing I’d like to buy is a reliable bike mount that would allow me to use my heart rate belt with Sports Tracker application. Using HR belt while cycling doesn’t work if phone is in jersey’s rear pocket; I guess bluetooth signal is just too weak to go through my body.

Final wish: get the new website running.

Just in case you didn’t notice: I didn’t write these features should be free. I’d happily pay a small monthly fee for the new SportsTracker application.

FYI: I use Sports Tracker (version 3.05) with N96 (firmware 30.033).

//Harri

I hope mobile identity won’t fail in Finland

Later this year - maybe - there will be mobile identity infrastructure setup to Finland, operators are ready to issue certificates to users and service providers are starting to offer the benefits of this ecosystem to the end users.

This all sounds similar to the situation that was in Finland at late 90’s when PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) was setup with high hopes. Later this system has been documented as a failure. I hope mobile identity project will not become yet another failed technology driven infrastructure project in Finland, but I can see some dark clouds.

User expectations will not be met

During last six months I’ve heard a handful of presentations about the new mobile identification system and all have included an idea that users will love the system because they no longer must remember tens of passwords to access their accounts in numerous systems. Passwords will be replaced by “secure and easy” mobile login. Unfortunately I’m afraid that it will not happen and users will be disappointed. Reason for my doubt is that MobileID transactions will cost for service providers and they can’t see the reason why they should pay for operators for every single login event. Instead of password replacement, MobileID will be used during registration to ensure user’s identity and after registration user will be authenticated with username and password, just like before. Also for special cases like password recovery MobileID can be used, but user who has hoped that passwords will not be required anymore, will feel fooled.

About user expectations: does somebody really think that most of the services will start using MobileID and developers for example in Silicon Valley are just waiting to get their hands-on experiences about MobileID? No, MobileID is a domestic system that will (or will not) be used by domestic solutions. Don’t expect to get rid of passwords anytime soon!

No exact information available

The system should be available next fall, but technical and economical information is not yet available. Operators cowardly refuse to say anything about the cost of joining and using the system, they only agree that using the solution will of course cost something. In Finland the price will most probably compare to Tupas-pricing, that is approx. 0.20€ per request.

Only for individual users with good income

In presentation slides the certificate issuing process looks nice, but that is only the case if you are a person who has signed a direct contract with the operator. If you are a business user and contract is made by your employer, what will happen? Nobody seems to know.

What if you are using a prepaid account and don’t have an agreement with the operator? Nobody seems to know.

Future proof until...?

When personal identification number was launched in Finland nobody was paying much attention to how it was used and stored - after all it’s just your birthday and some additional bytes. That was the case until it was understood that personal identification number identifies person in almost every system and that information can be abused.

Now with MobileID we are no longer talking about personal identification code but about FINUID (Finnish Unique Identifier) that is “just a piece of data that identifies the user, so nothing very confidential and it can be stored in systems everywhere to identify the user” (and also mapped to personal ID). Someday the same happens as with personal identification and the use of FINUID will be strictly governed and hence the use of MobileID authentication will require careful reasoning and so on... So please, don’t come saying that this infrastructure manages “only” FINUIDs that are stored to multiple transactions logs during the identification process.

My humble request for MobileID providers is: please, don’t create a WAP-like expectation gap between the hype and reality, publish pricing information ASAP, make system available for business and prepaid users and be more exact right from the beginning about allowed FINUID handling.

//Harri

Living with an eBook reader

For people who have used Kindle or other eBook reader my notes might not be very interesting, but I have to confess that I haven’t used an eBook reader before. Thanks to our local public library, I have been able to try BeBook reader for a week. For quite some time I have wanted to get a reader, but paying hundreds of euros for test hasn’t felt like a good idea.

First impression from BeBook is that you don’t need a manual to read a traditional book.

Next challenge was to find something to read. Reader can show pdf-files but screen isn’t good in handling graphics, lines are broken and page breaks jump to strange places. Line breaks are also a problem for a plain text file downloaded from reader homepage, text becomes like an artsy poem.

I’m afraid eBooks will remain geeky toys as long as book discovery, downloading and reading cannot be done using the same device. For a short test it is doable to browse content with desktop, connect cable and copy files to an external drive. However, I wouldn’t do that any longer, especially if I would read newspapers or else often updated material. Remember how mobile applications were geeky until Apple productized discovery and installation to a consumer solution.

Just by reading about eBook I haven’t understood how an ePaper display really feels. At least I assume it is because of display’s nature that page slowly flickers from white to black and back to white before new page is readable. Not nice.

After the one week test I still think that eBook is a nice idea (having a whole library in a small device, as marketing department puts it, you know) but needs user experience design. Put the engineers to vacation and design the service ecosystem so that it works as nicely as iTunes, for example. Too much effort is wasted on thinking what device could do, but I’d like an eReader that does the primary thing well, from end to end.

After all, blank paper sheet is the ultimate open platform for endless opportunities but printing makes the book. Pile of blank paper is not the best book (“you can write your own story”), nor is supports-everything-‘cos-we-can’t-decide reader the best reader (“you can customize the reading experience as you like”).

Next thing would be to test Kindle, but it's unclear if it works wirelessly in Finland and I will not pay $500 to check that.

//Harri

Don't be shy about available software update

Some years ago it was a big secret when Nokia (or any other manufacturer) published a firmware update to one of its terminals. The reason was simple: if people didn’t know about the opportunity to update the terminal, they didn’t rush to the service point and so didn’t increase Nokia’s warranty costs. Also users tried to avoid update as long as they could because they were forced to leave the terminal to the desk and - depending on the queue - update could potentially take days.

I wonder why they are still so shy about available updates.

Why Nokia just doesn’t take the great opportunity to run new marketing campaigns when they publish firmware updates to existing terminals? Make a big fuzz about it! Yes, there can be a press release if something very big happens (end users read corporate press releases, sure) or a news article on some professional website but that’s it. You can very easily find horror stories about new Nokia terminals that have huge problems with initial firmware release. Later those bugs are fixed, but the bad word-of-mouth marketing is still out there. How can people change their opinion about the terminal if they still hold the impression that software is buggy?

Software update is also a very smooth process with new Nokia phones. I took all this for granted before I started to use HTC Hero. Well, HTC was also quite silent about the firmware update but somehow I became aware of it. Upgrade process was more than messy: first I wanted to make a backup before I continued. Then I understood that there is no backup software included in the device. Luckily there are many backup apps available in the Android app store, but which one of those to choose? Do they work? I installed the backup app with best user testimonials and made my first Android backup. Then I was ready to continue with the upgrade, but it required a Windows PC - big problem for a Mac user. Then I found a PC, installed some HTC application and was able to continue with the upgrade. Process crashed twice (did I brick my device?) but third try was a success. Then after data restore I realized that every installed application was gone. Some data files and settings were restored, but every application and all personalizations had disappeared. Lots of work and Hero was OK again. Not easy, must say.

Compare that to Nokia process: run FOTA upgrade from device and that’s it.

Completely different thing is the shortness of the period when phones really are supported. Typically there seem to be a couple of updates for a model quickly after the release and then terminals just fade away from the update process. I don’t like the attitude that an expensive device is considered as an outdated model after a year, especially when there still are bugs that cause crashes. I can understand that sometimes there are problems but I can’t understand that those are not fixed.

//Harri