Prompt's TechBlog

The police in Leeds are worried. On Sunday 25 May, it is quite possible that the residents of the Yorkshire city will march out en masse, and battle each other in a large-scale pillow fight.

The battle has been organised through a group set up on social networking site Facebook, and calls for participants to meet at the city's Hyde Park at 3pm and batter each other silly with pillows. According to The Telegraph the residents of Hyde Park are a little apprehensive about the fight, and alerted the police.

Authorities have contacted the organiser and asked him to cancel the event and the group has disappeared. Unfortunately, a number of splinter groups have emerged to keep the enthusiasm for pillow fighting going.

It's not difficult to understand why people as so nervous: earlier this month, a similar Facebook-organised 'flash mob' event took place in the city. Over 350 people met up in Millennium Square garden for a mass water pistol fight, and essentially destroyed it. The garden was one of Leeds' most treasured assets. Built in honour of Nelson Mandela, it won a medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2004. The war of the water pistols is believed to have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage, and videos of the event can be seen over Facebook and YouTube.

So will combatants pour onto the streets on 25 May, feather-filled armaments at the ready, or will they instead choose to stay in bed. We'll find out the week after next...

Labels: Facebook, Leeds, pillow fight

The moment the sun comes out, there are all sorts of silly maths-related stories in the press. You know the kind of thing: some boffin's worked out the formula for health (a lot of algebra which breaks down into eat well, exercise more) or someone's calculated how many crisps you'll eat in your lifetime (and what percentage of those are paprika flavoured).

Well, this one I thought was hilarious (your mileage may vary): According to Leicester University, text messages are a more expensive communications channel than the Hubble space telescope. When you work out the cost per megabyte (assuming 5p per text of 160 characters), it costs you £374.49 per megabyte to send texts. And Nasa gets data from the space telescope for £8.85 per megabyte.

"Hubble is by no means a cheap mission," says Dr Nigel Bannister, a space scientist at the University of Leicester. "But mobile phone text costs are astronomical."

Ba-doom-tch!

Labels: mobile communications, space

Just in case there aren't enough ways to waste money online, along comes SomethingStore.com, a service that allows you to pay ten US dollars to get "something".  That's it.  There's not really much more to explain.

The variety of items can be viewed on the site's SomethingTracker, which lists previously purchased items.  This page shows the assortment of the objects and also indicates that there are in fact people ordering somethings every day.

The best aspect to the site is that it truly is selling it's randomness as a key feature.  From the FAQ section:

Do you match somethings by gender or age?
Nope. During ordering we only collect your name, mailing address and e-mail information only, so we will not know how old you are or whether you're male or female. You can be a 25 year-old man and your something maybe a white tank top embroidered with a pink heart. We won't know so we can't match.

Now maybe the dollar is just too valuable these days... or the US economy is just too strong... but this site seems ridiculous.  In the early days of eBay many joked about how you could now find anything you wanted online.  But now it seems that only a decade later we have evolved to a point where "anything" is too broad so "something" will have to do.

As of this post, the site claims to have sold 5,867 somethings which means nearly six thousand people have fallen into this trap of a tantalizing shopping mystery.  How sad. And yet sadly, I'm incredibly tempted to order a "something" of my own... it's just too tempting... this something could be anything! 

Consider me duped.  I'll check back in once it arrives and let you know the extent to which my $10 was wasted.

Labels: ebay, online shopping, websites

The internet has revolutionised our lives, giving us 24hour access to a dizzying amount of information. Unfortunately, a lot of it is inaccurate, misleading or completely incorrect. As the old adage goes, don't believe everything you read.

With the exception of this blog, naturally.

There have been a number of reports over the last few years of marketers posing as consumers online, and trying to create a buzz around their products. Sony famously did this, with its "All I want for Christmas is a PSP" campaign. An 'amateur' viral video spread across the net, alongside a blog, supposedly written by the friend of one of the characters in the video. Both of these had actually been produced by Sony, and when this was revealed people were... unhappy. Very unhappy.

The best marketers know that they need to be honest and clear with their identity, particularly when promoting their message online. As reported by Advertising Age, at the end of May, those in the UK are not going to have a choice. As of the 26th day of this month, it will be a criminal offence for businesses to seed positive messages online without making it clear who they are. Brand owners can be hit with fines, or even prison sentences if they break this law. Of course, the exact penalties are not yet clear and it will likely take a test case to establish this.

Over in the US, marketers are apparently hoping self-regulation will be enough to make sure brands behave. If not, it is possible the government will have to establish regulations there too.

I have a dream of a Utopian society, where all information online is accurate, or clearly marked as advertising or opinion. It'll never happen, but even a small step towards this is to be applauded. Nobody likes being duped, which is why the reaction against Sony was so strong, but they do appreciate clarity of purpose. The marketing industry has been around long enough to know how upset people get over blatant dishonesty, and although the internet is still a new and exciting playground for marketers, there should be no reason why these basic lessons should be forgotten.

The London Mayoral Elections are just hours away. Soon we'll see the end of the slagging match that has been taking place between the candidates over the last few months.

The manifestos of the three main candidates, Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick, are all pretty similar, coming down to a bendy bus here or a congestion charge reduction there, so it seems likely that this election will be won on personality. With this in mind, it's interesting to look at Prompt's new report (PDF) into the online community's reactions to the mayoral election.

The study examined the online reaction to mayoral candidates across a wide sphere of blogs, podcasts and community generated online media. It appears that bloggers tend to focus on the negative, with Johnson and Livingstone receiving significantly more negative posts than positive. Examining the ratio of positive and negative comments would seem to point to a win for Paddick. 31% of the posts that mentioned Paddick were positive and only 23% were negative. But, as the polls show, Paddick is unlikely to win.

Also interesting is the sheer number of mentions the candidates got, with Boris Johnson storming to the lead with more than three times as many mentions as Paddick. It's easy to guess why - with his bleached mop of hair, his to-the-point speech, and his bumbling appearances on comedy show Have I Got News For You, Johnson has a reputation of being a shambolic toff.

Johnson also received the least number of positive posts of the three candidates, Even so, many people expect him to win.

Prompt's report, London Mayoral Elections 2008 - Reactions from the online community, is already generating coverage and discussion in media outlets, including IT Pro.

The report can be downloaded by clicking here (PDF).

Comcast, a US telecommunications and cable company, which is renowned for bad customer service has started paying attention to the blogosphere in a major way, according to the Seattle Times. The company has a small division that exclusively focuses on monitoring blog postings and Twitter feeds to find out what people are saying about them. It is small (only 5 people) and growing. This represents a realization by a large corporation that it is imperative to be aware of what people are saying in blogs about the company.

They have recognized the fact that social media is, in large part, responsible for building brand image. The users are in control of the message and each and every customer service gaffe is potentially a threat to their image and business. The only reliable way right now to have Comcast hear your complaint and respond promptly is to blog or Tweet about it. It's a sad fact that Comcast isn't able to deal with the enormous volume of complaints that come in, but at least they can plug their fingers in the leaks of their sinking ship by monitoring and responding to social media.

Below are some unsolicited suggestions for how Comcast should deal with this issue (we know you're reading this ;-) ). Speaking from my experience working for Prompt, a company that specializes in monitoring social media as it relates to people's opinions on companies, it is encouraging to see a company taking steps to monitor the blogosphere and here are several ways to take it a few steps further.

1. Be proactive, not reactive

Too often we see companies address social media only as a form of crisis management. The fact that it is getting noticed that Comcast is monitoring and responding to all of these blog postings is evidence in itself that Comcast is not as active in the blogosphere as it could be.

By creating in engaging campaigns for influential bloggers and having constant positive posts written about the company, the negative ones are much less noticeable. Comcast, I'm sure, has a lot of good stories and satisfied customers that we don’t hear about.

2. Remember that anything can be blogged about

Comcast should train its employees to note that anything and everything can be blogged about. Gone are the days where the public only was able to receive opinions on companies from journalists and people close to them, because now a few bad experiences can completely damage a brand.

Imagine if employees all interacted with customers knowing that anything they say could be talked about by the customer and how that would make them much more motivated to provide better customer service. In a company the size of Comcast, and especially one that outsources call centers a lot, of course not all customer service problems would be solved this way, but surely it would at the very least make employees more aware of their actions.

3. Be a company of bloggers

This starts at the highest level of a company. Think Jonathan Schwartz at Sun. Think Marc Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks/HDNet. In the blogosphere, these two figureheads of their respective companies are very well regarded, and so are the companies' brands by bloggers.

Have you ever been away from home and met someone else from your home city or near to it? And how much more likely did that make you feel kinship for them? I'm sure a great deal more than someone who didn't share that same reference group with you. The more a company genuinely interacts with bloggers and becomes one itself, the greater the blogging community will feel a certain kinship with the company. A CEO blogger is a great way to do that, by having a figurehead that bloggers can relate to. Comcast's CEO Brian Roberts would do well to note this trend and create a blog on Comcast's front page. Many successful companies are doing this already, and for a company that is so concerned with what their customers think about it, it is only natural that is should start to genuinely engage with them and put a face to the corporation.

Modern consumer gadgetry is sold as much on its desirability as its technical ability. The days when a laptop, mobile phone or media player succeeded because of processing power, features or capacity are long gone. Instead customers want to hear about colour schemes, brand identity and pocketability. One consideration remains constant however, whether you're interest is in pixel density and platform interoperability or free minutes and celebrity endorsement - just how long will the damn thing last before it needs a recharge?

Power consumption might seem mundane, but whatever your criteria for judging a gadget, it's a major throttle on innovation and progress. Big clear bright screens, nippy high-capacity smart-drives and multi-megapixel video capture all eat up power, but big hulking power sources don't fit into sexy form factors. Manufacturers and designers have squeezed incredible life out of lithium-ion batteries to date, but compromises have had to be made along the way and the result is, well, quite exciting toys with pretty good battery life. The ongoing quest for drop-dead gorgeous, ultra-slim, feature-packed shiny slices of technical wonderment will inevitably lead to a new generation of portable power sources.

If you read this week's Prompt newsletter you'll notice that MTI Micro is the latest vendor to claim it will be integrating methanol fuel cells into mobile phones, cameras and other gadgets commercially, this time as soon as 2009. But what exactly are fuel cells, why are they expected to revolutionise product development, and are we really going to see them in consumer gadgets anytime soon?

Surprisingly the first fuel cells were invented way back in 1839 by a Sir William Grove (unless you're German, in which case Schonbein is your man), who understood electrolysis, realised that water could be split in this way into hydrogen and oxygen, and wondered if you could turn the process on its head and make electricity and water out of gas. It turned out you could, he had invented the gas voltaic battery, and had bought scientists around 150 years or so to make 'em small and efficient enough to power electric cars and mobile phones.

Sadly there have been a few stumbling blocks between Sir William's shed and our pockets that the humble battery has covered up for in the intervening years. Problems vary depending on the type of fuel cell (there are lots) and the intended application (again, lots, from substations to torches), but let's concentrate on pocket-sized methanol fuel cells. The biggest obstacle has been the research and development time to get the designs to a consumer-friendly level. Then there's the problem of passing on these costs to customers while remaining competitive with humble batteries, and convincing manufacturers and consumers to make the mental leap from plugging in their gadgets to a familiar power socket, to squeezing fuel into expensive, shiny new equipment. Finally there's the small matter of travelling a security-obsessed world with fuel-laden devices in your pocket, plus numerous other little considerations that seem trifling to fuel cell developers but are alien to the rest of us.

But back to the good news - MTI says it's ploughing ahead and we've no reason to disbelieve it. The company's CTO says we'll get twice as much life out of his fuel cells than any equivalent lithium battery and that a recharge cartridge can be squirted into one of its compatible SLR cameras in a second, rather than waiting three hours for a full battery charge. By-product water is recirculated and never comes in contact with any electronics, while CO2 emitted is negligible to the environment, comparable to say, breathing out a bit. MTI also points out that methanol is only flammable if you set light to it (like most other things) and as such is far safer than a spontaneously combusting laptop battery, for example.

So will fuel cell powered devices be in the High Street next year? Well, three pieces of news came to light this week that might bring that day a little closer.

Firstly, MTI has convinced Samsung to work with it to make its consumer device plans a reality. Secondly, as well as its fuel-cell embedded cameras, MTI has decided to put its efforts into launching a universal charger powered by fuel cells that can attach to a wide range of mobile phones or MP3 player via a USB cord and charge them up. And finally, in its 2008 Portable Fuel Cell Survey, growing niche publication Fuel Cell Today has revealed that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has ruled in favour of allowing fuel cell devices and a limited number of methanol recharging cartridges into commercial airline cabins.

FCT now claims: "The prospect of a portable product being launched on the wider public within the next two years is well within the bounds of possibility." We're not sure about 2009 - fuel-cells could make some very exciting gadgets possible very soon, but for now we'll stay conservative, point you towards the latest news from the leading players and ten year market forecasts, and keep our eye out for any new developments.

Labels: batteries, consumer technology, fuel cells, gadgets, methanol, MTI Micro, Samsung

Have you been yearning to listen to a great Bruce Springsteen cover band singing about Microsoft Vista? Well, I'm sure that you, and the millions of people just like you that have been wanting the same thing, will enjoy the following video that I first caught on Matt Asay's blog today. Microsoft recently had an internal video leak that has just that. Not only is it campy and a bad parody, you just know that it cost them a lot of money. See, this is what I like about dealing with open source companies a lot, there is always a community of people that can say "no, that's a terrible, horrible idea" to make sure videos like this don't happen.



Microsoft really needs to get The SEO Rapper involved to make the next video for Vista. Not only are his rhyme schemes solid, his technical knowledge and advice are sound.

Labels: bruce, microsoft, rapper, seo, springsteen, vista