Colin Charles Agenda

I’ve been meaning to write my thoughts down on this for a while. Its on RSS feeds, and mobile readers (two separate issues). Spurred, largely today, thanks to a post titled: You can’t afford to lose mobile readers. The author is right – you can’t.

Mobile readers
While I don’t think sites need to be optimised for 800×600, largely because I think we’ve moved from the days on the Web where this was a necessity (what’s next, going back to the colour safe web palette? ;-)), I do think a mobile alternative to a site should be available.

WordPresss has plugins – the author mentions MobilePress and WPTouch. I’ve never used either, but I use the WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King – in time, I’ll probably play with the other WordPress plugins.

Its nice to know that sites like Tumblr just have a mobile version available right there.

Note the bit about Flash. Most (if not all) Nuffnang ads tend to be flash based. You’ve just lost some ad readership.

RSS feeds
My pet peeve? Partial/excerpt RSS feeds. This is just plain silly. If you think people are going to click on to go and visit your site to view advertisements, you cannot be further from correct. If I’m savvy enough to be reading RSS feeds, I am almost certainly going to be using some form of ad blocker – if not via Adblock Plus, via some other method to not see ads.

If you’re worried about losing ad revenue, consider RSS feed ads. I don’t know what the click-through-ratio is, but I’m seeing more and more of them pop up nowadays. They’re a minor annoyance, I don’t block them, but I don’t actually click on them, either.

And why are partial RSS feeds bad? Because if I’m reading it on my mobile device (say, the E71 or an iPod Touch), I’m very unlikely to want to click to open another window and load your blog entry. I’ll just skip it. Skipping it is worse than showing full feeds…

Conclusions

• Have a mobile optimised site
• Have full RSS feeds. Run ads via Google if you need to. If your service of choice doesn’t support it, badger them
• If you plan on posting lots of photos, ensure that your mobile theme resizes them to something more sensible (then again, posting original sized JPGs, and having 20 of them load in a page is play stupidity – if you’re lazy to resize it, use a service like Flickr)

More thoughts? Share them in the comments.

A great, modern way, to promote a TV series. [spooks] code 9 allows you to upload an image, and play a “game”, that is generated into a movie (a short clip). It takes all of under two minutes to do, and the whole application itself (Flash based) will take about five minutes of your time.

Personalisation, has been taken to the next level. The video below will last for three months, after which all I have are the screenshots. Give it a twirl, you might enjoy it.

my ID; a rendered me (as a Caucasian woman, quite possibly :P)

I like the idea of allowing you to email, or upload to Facebook, or embedding it to your own site. I like how you “play a role” in the mission. You have choices, before the final movie is made. All in all, good job BBC.

This is a busy week for the MCMC. They’ve just announced that Mobile Number Portability (MNP), will now be a reality (a rather delayed reality. There is a FAQ available. Key things to note:

• Don’t terminate your mobile number before porting – only active numbers can be ported
• If you’re contractually bound (12 months, etc – such offers apparently can exist, with incentives to consumers) porting will be denied (unless you break your contract, I guess)
• Prepaid users beware – all existing credit doesn’t transfer over – so use it all up!
• A request to port, therefore, is notice to your current provider to terminate subscription
• Porting can take between 5-10 business days (utter bollocks, this kind of thing should take hours)
• You may get suspended international roaming during porting, so beware

Its about time. It will only cost a minuscule RM25 to change the provider. Customer service will clearly have to improve (this would be the sole reason I move off a network, IMHO)

A long time ago, Adam (017 – now owned by Maxis) used to offer “free calls” to 017 numbers, for users on a postpaid plan; plus they had the cheapest prepaid options. I was a heavy phone user in those days – it was a long time ago, during the Nokia 5110 days (so late 90s?).

Wonder how many new service offerings like this will crop up? Optus has free 20 minute calls to Optus customers (Yes Time, from 8pm-midnight), 3 has free 3-to-3 calls for 10 minutes anytime of the day, and so on. But knowing what service provider people are on, is key. This is the main reason I carried 2 SIM cards (and phones) in Melbourne.

Well, here’s to saying goodbye to 012/017 being Maxis, 013/019 being Celcom, and 016 being DiGi.

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I’m sitting here at a talk about the mobile industry now, and its all mostly focused on an overview of the mobile platform(s). Its basic (for me, but from the wide range of attendees, I think they got a lot out of it)… Location based services, APIs, Java, XHTML, all the joyous buzzwords. There’s plenty to do in the mobile industry, in terms of content creation in Malaysia (and Australia, fwiw). Lots of sites don’t have mobile specific sites, and scrolling, etc. is a pain.

Wild idea being thrown around in my head… Content creation isn’t complicated. At the last government event I attended, apparently, MOSTI has got lots of money to throw around. Some of the amusing things people got 5-figure funding for, included a guide to Malaysian beaches (not mobile related) available. Smells to me like a weekend hack for easy money.

Bandwidth is a problem… Metered bandwidth per kilobyte/megabyte isn’t something many in Malaysia think about (anyone in Australia knows the pain of this – but limitations make us present content better, IMHO). Its expensive. But I think this is a problem that will fix itself, as mobile data becomes more ubiquitous.

Then comes how to monetise this whole shindig. An interstitial does not work – they are annoying, they are a waste of bandwidth, and Mowser tried them and I believe removed them because they were largely a failure.

Mobile AdWords? Google doesn’t believe there is a market for this in Malaysia (or maybe anywhere else outside of the US). Its chicken-and-egg – till a market is built, Google won’t enter it, I’d guess.

Banners? The Star has it on their mobile site. They don’t have any public information as to how successful they’ve been. But this seems like the strongest option, currently – use an ad system powered by Slash, go out to advertisers and create unique tiny banners for them. However, this goes beyond the weekend hack idea… and that just becomes too much work.

Location based services tied into a mobile website. This could work… My social life is largely unplanned (professional life on the other hand is driven by calendars, that SMS me of appointments, even). Say I’m around the MidValley Shopping Mall, its 12:10am, and I decide I have time to kill. Access the site, it figures that there’s activity at MidValley at that time: bowling, The Dark Knight in Gold Class starting in 10 minutes, etc. Book a ticket through the site, get a commission? Banner ad for bowling, so its a “promoted” link/sponsored link, over the regular stuff (again, breaks the weekend hack rule).

If data is always on, coupled with your location, if you’re near a Burger King, it might blast you with ads saying “bring this coupon in, buy a meal, get a free ice cream”. Bluetooth based advertisers, beware – always on data+location will kick you in the nads.

OK, talk’s over, time to be social! Looks like we won’t have the Google talk after all… Thanks again to Daniel for organising this…

In what I call a great advertising scheme, Leora Zellman, a blogger, photographer, brand evangelist, etc. is offering her sexy body as ad space.

Her body will cost you on an hourly basis, she’s mostly logo focused, but will also wear schwag, like t-shirts and caps. Buy her back, butt, or chest, they all have varying prices. If athletes do it, why not us regular Joe’s, right?

Well, its not like we all don’t do this. I wear t-shirts with penguins, dolphins, and various other bits all the time. In fact, I haven’t bought a t-shirt in over nine years.

Will this work? Maybe. At a geek conference, every other geek is probably wearing stuff with logos on them. Might be useful for new products? I’ve never actually looked at a t-shirt and thought to myself, “Hmm, I need to check that URL/product out”. Maybe other’s have?

Reminds me of the time Leah Culver sold advertising space on her laptop. Also, on another tangent, Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur spoke about Amanda Congdon using her body to promote her content, Leo basically saying it wasn’t smart. Check out net@night episode 51 for more.

Well Leo, most of the popular blogs in Malaysia, are “photo blogs”, of people “camwhoring”, i.e. showing themselves off in places. Is it sustainable? Maybe not. But will it bring popularity and money in the short term? Probably yes. Some even go on to getting fame ;)

Anyways, enough ranting on this. Best wishes Leora, and to all the other “camwhores” out there.

Ever since re-entering the world of the iPod’s by getting my iPod Touch, I’ve been listening to podcasts again. One of the ones I listen to regularly, is Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code (the DSC).

Of late, it seems like he’s been talking a lot about something he calls the “Prostate Cancer Prevention Quota”. He’s quoting old (from 2003) research, that says regular masturbation cuts the risk of prostate cancer. The study, conducted in Melbourne, Australia, has not seen anything new in the last five years. But thats digressing.

Question I have is: do podcasts start trends, just like regular commercial radio?

Commercial radio is subject to a code of conduct. There are topics that may be taboo. These obviously vary from region-to-region. Podcasters don’t have to follow through, naturally.

I’m impressed with the number of folk calling in, leaving voice messages for Adam, to tell him where they stand on their weekly quota. This almost reminds me of the previous “trend”, which helps “condition” you to think of Senseo, every time he burped.

With Senseo, it was great advertising. With the cancer prevention quota, I have no idea what the benefit is, besides maybe actually wanting to improve men’s health.

Did Adam start a masturbating trend? Watching an episode of House the other night, House ordered a prostitute to his apartment. Did this increase the number of outcall’s that night, amongst television watchers?

It would be interesting to find out… statistics that seem interesting.