The main one is that Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over their UK number of +44 762 480 1423. You can still update via the number but updates won’t be sent on via SMS.
Now the reason for this given is that it was costing the company a fair chunk of money, so it’s scaling back the offer while it tries to negotiate deals with telecom companies across the globe.
And there’s two interesting points from this - the reaction and the business opportunity.
The reaction has been hilarious/disappointing (depending on how you view humanity) with users from all walks of life, including a Liberal Democrat local councillor, all bemoaning it as if they have lost a limb.
The reality is that they’ve lost nothing. if they want to receive ongoing, real-time Tweets, the solution is simple: go and pay for it. Pretty much what Twitter would have had to do, but that concept seems to have escaped the majority who appear to just want someone else to pay for their service.
(Nic Brisbourne has posted one of the more sensible viewpoints as a contrast to the rants. Another good one is here.)
The other point is that if I was a company offering a decent 3G dataplan and had the capacity to handle it, I’d announce a product with Twitter front and centre. Even the iPhone could jump into this (in the UK it comes with a decent 3G plan). Make the most of Twitter’s change in circumstances to promote your offering, knowing that with even a minimal PR spend, all the Twitter people moaning about this (and the evangelists I suppose) will spread your message.
Personally, I don’t see what the fuss is here. I’ve alread pointed out that I find Twitter useful for journalism and PR, it can be educational, and it can be just good fun to keep in touch with people. Having said that it does have downsides (which I’ll address in a later post) and far too many people still populate it with rubbish (”had coffee. Tasted coffee-y”) and if people want to keep getting a service that they have had for a while for free, well welcome to the real world.
(a part of me actually wonders if Twitter planned this all along. It’s almost the supply model of the drug dealer - give something away for free for a while and then bring in the costs. And given that some people out there are saying they would pay for the service, that poses an interesting question. Of course I think it’s ridiculous that people would pay to receive SMS messages, but each to their own…)
I was up at T in the Park last month, helping out the Scottish Sun lads cover a few of the acts and I thought that it might give me a chance to properly evaluate Nokia’s N95 (the original, not the 8GB) as a tool for covering events.
I know Reuters had a fantastic kit for their N95 trials but I wanted to try it a little more basic, ie - the phone on a full charge and nothing else.
So how did it do? Let’s break this down into five areas: text, video, audio, pictures, phone in general.
TEXT
As well as filing for The Sun, I wanted to be able to capture moments over the weekend and found Tweeting to be perfect for that. I used Twibble and it did the job - 95% of the time - perfectly. There was the odd Tweet dropped, but I don’t know if that was because of the network 3G connection or the software.
But sending Tweets worked as a great way of posting and maintaining the live feel of the event instead of writing after the event. It also gave me a great aide memoir when it came to writing the larger copy (indeed, the sub editors could have just copy and pasted from my Tweets if time had been a factor) as well as seeing what others, like Shaun Milne, were doing at T in the Park.
On the Sunday, time did become a factor in filing, but the N95s notes worked perfectly. I was able to write the review for Primal Scream as it was happening and file by email (sending notes as an attachment) instead of watching band and then heading back to the media area to file. It may have only saved 20minutes or so, but being able to hit ’send’ the second the band went off-stage at 10.50pm made life a little easier for the subs back in Glasgow.
So for text - and none of your predicative texting for me - and writing tweets/copy, it was a definite winner. But I would consider a folding keyboard next time, which would save me a laptop at all.
VIDEO
Given the nature of the event, you aren’t going to get a large tripod onto a N95, so I’ll let people judge the video for themselves. At various points on these videos, I’ve zoomed in and out to/from the maximum to give you an idea of the phone’s capabilities.
What’s quite apparent is that you couldn’t use it on an IMAX screen but for rough and ready footage on handhelds/laptops, it would do. It’s also convenient for the reporter/VJ as they aren’t carrying around anything bulky.
The sound was the surprising thing for me. I’ve certainly had worse bootlegs than what the N95 managed to record.
A BBC lad trying to film…
The Bacardi Breeze Dance Tent
Amy Winehouse plus crowd shots
Amy Winehouse with gradual zoom in/out
Primal Scream - in a tent
AUDIO
Two tests for the N95 in this area - as a dictaphone and as accompaniment for the video. On the latter, as I said above, it certainly did the job decently enough and as a dictaphone, it also did the job. I can’t provide a sample for a ridiculous reason but suffice to say that it was as good as anything else I’ve used in the field (T or any other) in the last 15 years.
Here’s an example of the sound quality from a recent (indoor) bash:
(Thanks to Lynn Hunter, formerly of Macdonald Hotels for the invite to that event)
PICTURES
I’m rubbish at pictures, so I’ll let others judge these. What I would say is that at times the N95 felt slow to get the picture that I was going for and other times I had no idea it was taking pictures (but we can put that down to user error)
My feeling was that you could perhaps use it to capture general pictures but it wouldn’t be any use for catching a quick moment - someone jumping off stage, punching someone, that sort of thing - but again, you wouldn’t be asking the snapper to go out with it.
PHONE IN GENERAL
I wanted something that would do the job, saving me having to carry a notepad, pen, pencil, recorder and various other gadgets (still carried a notepad and pen/pencils though - always need the backup!) and it worked really well. I was able to stand during acts and fire off notes or Tweets, that could be used later as part of the larger write-ups.
The battery life was fantastic. It was charged up on the Friday and that lasted until the Monday morning (4am) and that was with video and audio recording, 3G hammering, phone calls, Tweets, the lot. In fact my biggest worry, and still is, is how much Orange is going to thump me for using the 3G. I’m on their £35 a month tariff and it certainly doesn’t compare to the iPhone O2 tariff.
I’ve used the N95 at a bundle of events now and it’s just a fantasticly rugged device. Every journalist/PR should have one.
N95 v iPhone
In case anyone was wondering: would the iPhone have been better for the event? In all honesty - and this is speaking as someone who wants an iPhone - not a chance. While the keyboard, screen and UI may have made life a lot easier, there would have been no audio recording (this was pre-App Store), definitely no video and I would guess - but that’s all it is - that the pictures wouldn’t have been as sharp.
And then there’s the battery issue. It would never have lasted. And yes, there may have been charging points at the media village and back at the hotel, but in journalism/PR it’s not outwith the realms of possibility to be on the go for a long period of time. Given that T in the Park started on the Friday night and there were incidents over the weekend, it’s entirely possible that a reporter/PR operative may not have got back to a place to charge. A spare battery is one solution - but not for the iPhone.
There’s also the issue of sturdyness. I dropped the N95 a few times and was never worried. If I had dropped an iPhone I would have been calling the cops to get it back safe.
CONCLUSION
The N95 is a far from perfect phone, but for people who like the option of catching a lot of data - mobile journalists, web 2.0 PRs and so on - it can do a lot without you needing to carry a lot of gear. And when I pick up an iPhone, I’ll be keeping the N95 as my mediaworkhorse.
I know there are those, like Iain Hepburn, who doubt the use of Twitter as a news outlet (I, for one, think it is incredibly underused as a news outlet for posting live updates to events and so on - and I’ve used it for the likes of T in the Park, election gossip and award ceremonies as previous posts here show).
But here’s one from the NASA people - Tweets from the Mars Phoenix probe. Not a tweet about the probe or detached information, but writing as if it’s the actual probe writing it, first person, the lot.
Brilliant. Quick snippets of information. Great way to interest someone. Imagine being a kid and realising that you’re getting information sent to you by a robot on Mars. (And yes, I know it isn’t, but it’s close enough - have some romance in your soul.)
(and as you can’t impersonate someone on a blog, how long before we get a law saying it’s illegal to impersonate someone on a Tweet, even a robot? )
I ache. Big proper post later, but anyone wanting samplings of what T in the Park was like this year could do worse than check out the Tweets I did, Shaun Milne’s Tweets or The Sun’s round-up (can you guess who invited me?).
A very interesting weekend that deserves a full post later once my muscles have returned. Though I now live in fear at what Orange are going to charge me for data use over the weekend…
And now to turn off the Tweet updates appearing here.
Author Craig McGill is a content manager, PR and media advisor with strengths in the print and digital sectors.
He's written for nearly every major publication in the UK and TIME.
When not writing for media - or working on books - he advises leading companies on PR, internet and media relations.
Learn more about Craig here or contact him here.
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