Category: Columns & Opinion
Opinion: Vodafone gives us an early Christmas pressie and unwraps Social Networking on the move
Jonathan Weinberg writes… I saw a quick demonstration of this yesterday and it certainly looks like being a brilliant idea that I hope other mobile networks follow. With Internet prices dropping like stones across all the mobile firms thanks to bundled ‘unlimited’ data and use of social networking growing by the millions in the blink of an eye, it makes sense to match up the two.
Vodafone has designed a downloadable application that sits on your handset connecting you to Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Bebo. Nothing majorly new there, because you can surf them at present and many have their own download applications too like the excellent Facebook program for Blackberrys…
Opinion: Creating our own content will never replace traditional media
Jonathan Weinberg writes…
2012, the year London is set to host the Olympics and also the year Nokia reckon a quarter of all entertainment will be created and consumed within peer communities. They think that in five years time, traditional media as we know it now, will begin to die out further with personally-created content becoming the must-read and must-watch for Internet users within their friend networks and social community sites.
But I just can’t see it. There’s no doubt it’s becoming more and more popular to make your own videos and post them on the web for all to see, but 99 per cent of it is absolute tosh – like the man who can juggle dogs while standing on his head drinking a glass of water and playing the harmonica! PS: Don’t try that at home, it doesn’t exist and we don’t condone cruelty to animals, I just use it as an illustration…
Opinion: Oyster-enabled Nokia handsets are the right kind of mobile convergence
A confession: I don’t have an Oyster card, being a hick from the sticks who still has to buy physical tickets when travelling into London. So the idea of swiping your way through tube barriers rather than holding up dozens of commuters as you squash your malfunctioning piece of card into the slot already feels space-age to me.
Opinion: What Amazon Kindle needs is… interactive book groups
So, Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader is finally on sale, and although there’s been a mixed reaction from journalists and users alike, Amazon has still won plaudits for the focused way it’s entered the market.
The key thing to remember is that Kindle is a first-generation device, so there’s scope for firmware updates to bring new features, as well as future models that’ll solve the flaws and introduce new functionality.
Opinion: Why online ticket retailers like Ticketmaster need to ban ticket touts
Excuse me for five minutes whilst I vent and rant about how angry I am with Ticketmaster and other online ticket-sellers. You may be aware that this morning, tickets for six Morrissey gigs went on sale at 9am. Or you will be, when tonight’s papers come out proclaiming the gigs as being the fastest-selling concerts since the guitar was invented.
Like all die-hard Morrissey fans, I logged on at 9am sharp to buy two tickets to just one of the gigs. I was actually using my HTC Touch on the bus, navigating through the pages with GPRS, which was actually behaving itself for once. Not only that, but I had someone else attempting to buy tickets for me as well, on a computer at home. By 9:04am however, we discovered that our attempts to see the quiff-tastic Mozfather were in vain, as all the tickets were sold out.
Hang on – a 3,300 capacity venue, sold out on all six nights, within minutes of the tickets going on sale? It reeked of ticket tout exploitation, and has angered me to the point where I’m urging Ticketmaster and the like to implement new measures to block touts from ruining actual fans’ chances of purchasing tickets. For the love of Morrissey and all good music!…
Opinion: Amazon's Kindle won't make E-Books popular but how hard can it be?
Jonathan Weinberg writes…
I don’t read as much as I used to, one look at the amount of books in my house is enough evidence to tell that story. Not that I don’t have many, oh no, I’ve got shelves full of novels and non-fiction. It’s just most of them are bought on a whim, and then a few pages in swapped for something else or put down to play the Xbox 360 or check out the telly.
Children too aren’t reading as much as they should. In fact, David Cameron, the Tory leader, is about to announce plans to try and get every
youngster up to speed with their reading by the age of six. It’s a massive failure in any education system when kids can’t pick out enough words to enjoy a story without it being spoken to them…
Opinion: YouTube isn’t turning kids into killers
My heart sank when I saw the front page of The Times yesterday. The lead story was the dreadful high-school shootings in Jokela, Finland, and the headline was ‘THE YOUTUBE KILLER’. The games industry can breathe a sigh of relief: it seems Google’s video-sharing site is the new Root Of All Evil in the eyes of Fleet Street.
Opinion: Mobile phone deals aren't call for cash
They’ve always said you don’t get anything for free in this life, but flick towards the back of any of the tabloid newspapers in this country and you’d have to question that view.
FREE Xbox 360, FREE iPod, FREE laptop, FREE Wii, FREE PSP, FREE HDTV, FREE money – and all you have to do is sign up for a FREE mobile phone. In fact, some of the deals even give you a FREE handset with your FREE handset. Please, tell me, where do I sign…
Opinion: Why Nintendo is getting it right on lifestyle games
Jonathan Weinberg writes…
If you’ve ever played games, then at some point, you have absolutely loved a Nintendo title – for many of us, they were the firm who shaped our childhood virtual experiences. And while Sony and Microsoft are great at catering to the core gamer, Ninty have always been the best at spotting new opportunities and finding ways to appeal to everyone.
Just look at the Game Boy, the most successful handheld of all time and played by men, women, children of both sexes and grandparents. This week Nintendo showed off a whole new crop of lifestyle titles in its Touch Generation series and I was left in no doubt that these are going to expand gaming horizons into areas they have so far been slow to reach…
Analysis: First thoughts on the 3 Skypephone
Today’s announcement of the 3 Skypephone wasn’t a huge surprise, given that rumours have been swirling round the blogosphere for a week or so. But now it’s all confirmed: a handset with Skype properly built in, complete with its own dedicated button.
