Archive for Mobile Etiquette
by Darla Mack
May 20, 2008 at 7:46 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Mobile Etiquette
When I relocated from New York to North Carolina I couldn’t quite understand the zoning in which the landline provider utilized in order to determine local call billing. The town that I live in has the 2 digit exchange of a town thats about 20 minutes away. However, the closest town to my house is 7 miles away in distance. Sprint (now Embarq) is the ONLY phone service provider in Duplin County, so its not like there was an option as to who to chose. But when I realized that I was getting charged for extended local calling (one step below long distance charges) just to call that town that is 7 miles from me, I started to inquire. What I found was that my exchange location was outside of the local calling zone which meant that I was constantly being billed for extended local calls. This meant a monthly bill of over $200. What????
The easiest solution was to just use my cellphone. A decision like that didn’t require much thought and even people in my community only saw the need for a landline to use dial-up on their computers. According to an article on Yahoo News only 3 in 10 household actually have a landline. To me, this isn’t surprising.
The federal figures, released Wednesday, showed that reliance on cells is continuing to rise at the expense of wired telephones. In the second half of last year, 16 percent of households only had cell phones, while 13 percent also had landlines but got all or nearly all their calls on their cells.
The number of wireless-only households grew by 2 percent since the first half of last year. Underscoring the rapid growth, in early 2004 just 5 percent had only cell phones.
Households with cell phones who rarely if ever use their landlines grew by 1 percent since the first half of last year.
Old analog providers made it easy as well by allowing 911 calls to be made, even if cellphone service was inactive.
But was this ever expected?
Also affected are the telephone industry and emergency service providers, who can find it harder to locate people calling from a cell phone.
The survey also found that:
Low-income people are likelier than the more affluent to have only cell phones.
Those with only cells tend to be living with unrelated roommates, renters rather than homeowners, and Hispanics and blacks rather than whites.
About a third of those under age 30 only have cell phones.
Households with both cell and landline phones who rarely or never get calls on their landlines tend to be better educated and have higher incomes.
About 2 percent of households reported having no telephones.
Now, while I don’t completely agree with that above list, I will say that in my opinion using my cellphone instead of a landline is the most cost-efficient method. Especially since you can’t really right the landline companies about their zoning methods. But at the end of the day, a monthly plan of $39.99 beats a monthly bill of $200. And yes many can say that you can still have a landline, just don’t make long distance calls… but why pay the extra money if you don’t have to.
by Darla Mack
April 11, 2008 at 5:02 pm · Filed under Mobile Etiquette, Messaging
Although unofficial, today marks the very 1st Annual 411 day. V-ENABLE has moved its popular Mobile411™ application that was previously only available to select US carriers to a mobile web version for all users. Consumers can now go to freemobile411.com or fm411.mobi from their web-enabled handset.
Press Release
Today V-ENABLE, leading provider of mobile search and enhanced directory assistance solutions, has unofficially created the 1st Annual 411 Day (on 4/11/08), one hundred and thirty years after the first operator assisted phone call took place. To celebrate America’s history of search, V-ENABLE is announcing FreeMobile411™, a mobile search service now available on any web-enabled handset free of charge at freemobile411.com and fm411.mobi.
According to a January 2008 survey by Local Mobile Search of Opus Research Group, respondents indicated that a substantial number of their mobile calls (over 30%) were for residential queries. Unlike other free 411 services, FreeMobile411™ features not only 14 million businesses and 140 million residential listings but it also allows users to browse by category, get maps, driving directions, see other businesses nearby and connect to an operator if needed at any time during the process.
FreeMobile411™ is the first service that integrates operator assistance. Unlike automated 1-800 services, FreeMobile411™ offers the option of operator assistance, allowing consumers to speak with a live operator to ensure a satisfying search experience.
“411 has come a long way and we hope FreeMobile411™ brings together all of the rapid advances in web and mobile services, while keeping the human touch of the live operator, into one service,” said Craig Hagopian, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of V-ENABLE Inc.
Previously, the popular V-ENABLE Mobile411™ application was only available with select carriers, such as Alltel and MetroPCS. Now with the release of the mobile web version FreeMobile411™, anyone with a web-enabled handset can enjoy the service free of charge at freemobile411.com and fm411.mobi.
by Darla Mack
November 23, 2007 at 12:37 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, mobile social networking, Mobile Etiquette
Its weird to see just how far we’ve come when it comes to Mobile evolution, but mobile dating? I remember a few years back Match.com went mobile through Cingular and Sprint.
According to a report from Juniper Research, hich was released in September, revenues from mobile dating and chatroom services are expected to pass $1 billion US by 2010.
“Major brands such as Match.com and Webdate have recognized that customers are willing to pay a mobility premium for 24/7 access to these services and are increasing deploying mobile applications to complement and enhance their existing offerings. The increasing proliferation of 3G handsets and a mean that companies are increasing confident of introducing converged services at the outset. Furthermore, those companies which embrace such a strategy - such as Flirtomatic - are experiencing significantly higher levels of traffic from their WAP users than from their users on the fixed internet.” by report author Dr. Windsor Holden
With all this being said I wonder… is Mobile Dating really going to be the new thing?
Other findings from the report include:
* At the present time, the largest mobile dating markets by user numbers are Japan and India.
* The low level of fixed penetration in India, and the increasing tendency in the country to use mobile services directly as an aide not merely for dating, but for marriage, suggests that overall penetration here will be significantly higher than elsewhere in the world
* Many customers will use mobile dating as an adjunct to, rather than instead of, their fixed internet dating services
I have to be skeptical on this because I fancy the traditional method, then again my methods of traditional might not be the same as others. But there are certain issues involved that go a bit beyond just increasing data charges. What about safety and security? Inviting someone into your life via your mobile doesn’t quite seem traditional to me.
by Russell Shaw
November 14, 2007 at 8:44 am · Filed under Privacy + Security, Mobile Etiquette, Facebook, FOMM
I believe we are reaching a point in which the privacy-violating implications of mobile messaging are reaching a flashpoint.
I explored an aspect of this in a ZDNet blog posting I made yesterday. Seems as though we’re seeing the start of a trend in which students take camera-enabled cell phones (aren’t they all?) to school, take unflattering photos and videos of their teachers, attach these photos to SMS and MMS messages, and then post them on sites such as MySpace and YouTube.
These actions hit home for me. The girlfriend just recently taught photography to some vivacious middle schoolers. She’s described giddy kids taking pictures of their friends, their non-friends, and yes, even their teachers. And although these images were captured via camera, and not via camera phones, these kids all have cell phones anyway.
What’s to prevent their new-found enthusiasm and expertise from being applied to photos taken with their cell and then spread to each other as well as posted on the Internet?
And I need to tell you, we’re not just looking at kids, here.
While my mobile does not have video capture and MMS capability, It’s just a couple of clicks from my camera phone to a posting on my Facebook or Flickr photostream. If I were spurious or mean-spirited, I see funky stuff every day that I could photograph and either SMS or post. A homeless person pushing a shopping cart. A guy picking his nose. Even just something as innocent as a traffic jam- with license plate numbers revealed.
I guess my point is that while camera-enabled and video-enabled cell phones substantially enable us to obtain a more varied and ubiquitous view of our world, let us not just gratuitously use these tools just because we can.
by Darla Mack
August 31, 2007 at 11:57 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, SMS, Mobile Etiquette
Recently while in Helsinki I came across something interesting. Let me start by explaining how this happened.
I was paying a visit to Nokia HQ and in the parking garage I came across a pink car. Out of the excitement I can’t quite recall what model it was. I asked my host if he knew who drove the car and he laughed and said no. I later found out from Phil Schwarzmann of Finland for Thought that all I had to do was send an SMS with the license plate number to a specific short code and I would get the owner’s info back in an sms. My first thought was, “is this legal”?
Being a native New Yorker and encountering many traffic situations (none including accidents or being ticketed), I thought along the lines of how safe would this be in the US. Apparently in Finland, privacy isn’t well guarded. The truth of the matter is, that lets say you accidentally cut someone off in traffic. All they would have to do was SMS your plate number, hunt you down and get revenge. This definately wouldn’t sit well in the US.
Could there be a positive side to this? I’m left wondering just how beneficial this type of information grabbing could be.
by Darla Mack
August 28, 2007 at 12:26 am · Filed under Usage + Usability, Mobile Etiquette
There are some things that fall under the category of ‘mobile etiquette’ that either we or others do that drive people nuts.
I’ll be the first to admit that my mobile etiquette definitely needs some work. I have the habit of just randomly texting someone and then if I don’t get a reply in a timely fashion I start calling. I guess thats due to my impatience, but the fact that is most of those times the matter has no sense of urgency what-so-ever. My apologies to my victims. 
I also have the habit of calling people and not leaving messages. I look at it this way… if I call, my number shows up therefore the person can tell that I’ve called. Bad theory?
I also have a bad habit of not checking my voice mail messages. Most of the time I’ll see who called and just call them back.
Now the funny thing is although I do these things, I can’t stand it when its done to me. Does this mean that I don’t participate in proper mobile etiquette? And is there such a thing?
We use our devices for everything. When we purchase a new phone it comes with a user manual to teach us about our device, if we don’t already know about it. Should the same thing apply for how we use our phones? Hmmm…. until further confirmation I’ll probably keep bugging people with messages and calls. Lol, they can always tell me to stop right?
