O2 blueroom

Over the coming week we’ll be letting you know about applications which we find really useful. The first on that list is ‘Spb Mobile Shell’. Here’s some links you may find useful:

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User Manual
Reviews

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you can download this here 

Now Screen - The Most important Information on One Screen

Now Screen gives you quick and enjoyable way to check the status. You can see your most important information with a quick glance. Even more importantly, you get the quickest and most direct way to respond as needed. For example, you can open your Inbox to read new emails with just a tap or with a couple of hardware key clicks.

Spb Menu

Spb Menu adds a fast and convenient way to navigate through your device. It is designed for one-handed navigation. Typical response time on qVGA devices is under 80ms. Clear design, Vista-style icons and animation on the first level make it look nice too.

Speed Dial Panel - Contacts Optimized for Fingers

The Speed Dial allows you to add up to sixteen photo contacts of your choice. You can also add a shortcut to the Spb Contacts on the panel.

Spb Contacts - Smart Contact Search

Contacts submenu gives you the fastest and most convenient way to find a contact. Thoughtful large buttons are optimized for finger taps, but can also be used with hardware keys. You can assign this screen to one of Today’s soft keys, so you have instant access to it.

That may sound like a contradiction in terms - and it is. But it’s also a good description for the O2 Xda.

The Xda has functions by the bucketload. Indeed there’s probably one to book your holiday and make you a cup of tea at the same time, if only I knew where. But it’s also sufficiently simple to let me make calls, send texts and take photos (which are my essential things) with the minimum of fuss and without ever having to read the manual.

Things I like about the Xda:

• Looks quite swish (yep, am a sucker for the flashy and impressive-looking)
• I can check my emails, internet dating sites and other important dating schenanigans while out and about/waiting in a bar.
• GPS is a wondrous thing - no more need for endless scruffy print outs from multimap of bar locations etc. Though as the battery life plummets when you use it, it’s good to be paying attention once you set it going.
• Seemingly unlimited memory for text messages for the sentimental amongst us who like hanging onto these things.
• Large screen for pictures/picture messages

Things I don’t like/have struggled with:

• The Stylus. Yes, it’s possible to write texts without it, but it’s definitely more fiddly than on a normal phone - and for those multi-taskers amongst us who are usually texting while walking/standing on the tube/wine glass in hand, it’s sub-optimal. On the positive side, no doubt my phone bills will decrease.
• Re the above… fat chance of me EVER managing to send a text when drunk. This may be no bad thing, however.
• It’s quite big. Not 1980s big, you understand, but considerably larger than my previous phone (LG Chocolate). It doesn’t fit in some of my evening handbags, so I have to swop my SIM onto an old phone for the evening - so I’m back to being able to drunk text. Rats.
• It is impossible to see the screen in bright sunlight. Particularly if you lock the phone so it doesn’t dial from your pocket. Whilst skiing I completely gave up and had to resort to an old phone. Again, rats.
• Transfering photos from the phone to my computer is not easy. Well, you can email them (at a cost, of course) but there should be an easy cable transfer thing, like most digital cameras. I faffed for half an hour loading various bits of software and then gave up and went to the pub to show my friends the pics. Easier. But not very 21st Century. Also, because it’s a 3MG camera, the pictures it takes are then too large to send by MMS (despite selecting low res options etc). Go figure.
• Disappearing photos. The phone had a hissy fit one day and deleted all my pictures. Fortunately I had emailed my favourite ones already to my emails. I have no idea where they went. Same place as those blokes who are abducted by aliens? Possibly.

So there you go. I like it - mostly for the looks/phone/email combo. If I could get music/camera to work properly too, it’d be even better. But maybe this is where I ask a bloke to help?

Neil Perkin, has given some great thoughts on the Orbit 2 and seeding campaign. You can view his original post here.

“Like most of us I suspect I get approached a lot these days by agencies or people wanting me to write about a brand new product or service as part of a blogger outreach programme. The variety of approach you get never fails to surprise to me, and I’m pretty choosy. But I’m also curious. I figure that one of the best ways of understanding what constitutes good practice in this relatively new type of activity is to be on the receiving end of it.

Marketing in this way is a minefield. You’re dealing with people’s egos. It’s new territory, defined by a new set of rules and needing different skills - you might call it egonomics. Egonomics is about the application of some very social and very human attributes. You need people with good judgement and common sense to do it. The things that constitute good practice seem so obvious but given how many get it wrong, perhaps its not. So, for the record, here are my top 10 tips for good blogger engagement:-

1. It helps if you’re a blogger yourself (in fact some might say it’s a pre-requisite to understanding how to approach bloggers)
2. Show that you read my blog (it helps if you’ve read it for a while or been part of the conversation on it)
3. Be authentic. People see straight though it if you’re not.
4. Be straight. Don’t fart about, come out and say what you’re after.
5. Add value. Think about what’s in it for me.
6. Show me that you’re using the feedback you’re getting to change what you do
7. Understand that the reason I might take part is for reasons of interest, relevance, curiosity, and learning rather than financial gain. My hunch is that any blogger who is worth being part of your programme would feel the same.
8. Make it clear that I’m under no obligations (I know I’m not but you should say it anyway, and keep saying it)
9. If you’ve found this post at some point in the future and are referencing it in your approach - well done - you’ve been thoughtful enough to use that little search box up there on the right to see if I had written anything on the subject already
10. If you haven’t read this post, oh dear.

Here’s an example of what I mean. I was approached a while back about trialling the new O2 XDA Orbit phone. The guys at VCCP get it (evidenced by Amelia’s 5 tips for blogger outreach). The approach had all the right stuff in it - right tone, right language, said all the right things. The communication regular (but not too regular), respectful and helpful. The blog features all reviews, good and bad. The whole experience was…well, very human. Oh and the phone? Well if you want to read a review of it there’s better ones than I could do here, here and here. Suffice to say I’m still using it in preference to my (slightly older) Nokia. So yes, it’s a bit fiddly, but I like it.”

Steve Clayton has given some great feedback on what he thinks about “Word of Mouth Marketing”, opening the box, and the phones hardware. You can see his original post here, thanks Steve.

“With my recent travels I’ve been a bit slack on blogging about the XDA Orbit 2 that O2 (via VCCP) kindly sent to me recently. A few of my blogger friends are also on this seeding program and have reviewed in depth so I thought I would take a slightly different view than give you an in depth technical assessment. Besides, when it comes to the software I’m biased : )

For informed views from others, check out reviews from the likes of Being Lucy Diamond, Blog Til You Drop, Darren Straight, Keith’s Affiliate, Marketing Blog, Mediations, Mobile Phone Development, Neville Hobson, The Engaging Brand Blog and Will McInnes – all of which have been put up on the xda_blog

I wanted to explore 2 quite different things

1. Word of Mouth Marketing - Neville has covered this somewhat in an earlier post on approach to social media outreach
2. The out of box experience/hardware

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Blogger relations, or blogger outreach as I like to call it, is a relatively new concept in the PR and marketing arena. Prior to blogs and other forms of social media, people working in our industry have never had such direct access to influential people from all walks of life. The advent of these new platforms has also enabled us to tap into real insights, views and opinions on various products, brands and issues which in-turn have allowed us to have open and transparent *relations* with the *public* (public relations, get it?).

As proved by Edelman, Forrester and Nielsen, the opinion of the every-day person is increasingly becoming a more trustworthy source of information. The public is more ‘media savvy’ than ever before meaning marketing messages no longer have the same effect as they once did. If they ever did. Is it any wonder that PR people, marketers and the respective companies they represent are increasingly seeing the value in blogger outreach?

Using myself as guinea pig and my involvement in the O2 blogger outreach campaign. The company working on the initiative, VCCP, probably looked at this blog and classified it with having a niche audience. With around 1500 RSS subscribers I can safely assume that I don’t hold great powers of influence. Not to say this blog doesn’t hold *some* level of influence; it does. To what extent, though, I really don’t know, but I’m sure the guys working at VCCP have their own reasons for including me in the outreach.

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John Dodds has some great insight into the intuition using the phone. John’s original post can be seen here.

“I know it will take me months to master maybe 40% of its functionality, so why would I put myself through that?”A typical and unsurprising comment from some technology focus group research that I saw recently. But what’s the solution? Intuitive interfaces for sure. But let’s not forget what intuition is - it’s defined as immediate cognition. The trouble is cognitive biases mean that cognition (and thus, I assume, intuition) can differ greatly between individuals.

Along with others, I’ve recently been testing the new xda Orbit 2 from O2. It’s elegant, has great audio quality and made me want to use it, but that’s where my problems started. I’ve finally got around to locating a helpful and extensive online pdf instruction manual (sadly not a website). But the crucial “out of the box” experience was, for me, not what it should have been and I understand that some more technically-astute users have also been “unintuitive” - in one case being unable to find a feature that was heavily touted on the website. It’s a salient reminder for any company, not just O2.

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Will McInnes gives us his first impressions on the Xda Orbit 2, his blog can be found here.

“Disclosure: O2 is a client of mine. In a different capacity I am on the receiving end of a blogger outreach programme run by VCCP, one of their roster agencies, where they send out pre-release phones/devices for people to play with and keep. This is the second phone I’ve been sent - first time was the Coccoon which I never got round to writing about (oops) but I can say sincerely that my wife LOVES it and says she gets lots of positive comments about it, so there you go.

So first impressions of the O2 XDA Orbit 2.

Love the packaging - this is the kind of feel O2 needs to evoke in people if its own-label devices are to live up to the brand promise and the position that O2 wants to take in the marketplace. Packaging shouldn’t mean anything, but we’re not rational people really, and any Apple fanboi will tell you that great packaging does matter: it’s the fullness of design and experience applied across every touchpoint.

Love the user-friendly instructions and stickers.
There is so much ground to be gained in consumer tech by being easy to use. Although it may not be the cool brand amongst the young people, I personally believe Nokia owes so much of its position to having always offered the most intuitive, usable menu systems. In the USA there is much re-balancing of the Apple iPhone see-saw towards tried and tested Blackberries which super-users can bang out message on much easier (their words, not mine) than on the swish haptic iPhone interface.
So simple instructions and on-device in-location stickers that make it clear what I need to do using PICTURES (!) is great - I don’t read the manul, I’m afraid it’s just that simple.

Size-wise, I think this device is reasonable enough for the market: it’s not staggeringly thin and small, but it’s certainly not chunky - check this pic which highlights the lack of thickness:”

Bit old as it’s already been published on SMS Text News.

I’ve been playing around with the Xda Orbit 2 given to me by VCCP on behalf of their client, O2, for just over a week now and I’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty impressive phone. In all honesty, I’ve never been particularly fond of phones that come with a stylus. To me, they appear as an additional thing I just don’t need. Besides, I’m a master of predictive text (using either hand I might add) so the idea of using a little rod to poke in my letters is a complete turn off and, knowing me, I’d probably lose it within a matter of days.

So, as you might imagine, my first thoughts were I wasn’t really going to favour the phone from a usability point of view. However, after playing around with it on the first and second day I found the stylus is not really needed as you can change the option to TouchFLO and a much bigger touch keyboard is provided in QWERTY style. As fat as my fingers are (and they are pretty fat) I was able use them pretty easily to write text messages or input web addresses in the mobile browser.

The touch screen seems very similar to the iPhone and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Apple product was an inspiration for the Orbit 2. It’s definitely a selling point of the phone.

Next up is the mobile browsing. Being a frequent user of the mobile web, the mobile browsing experience plays a significant part in my mobile phone purchasing decisions. The Orbit 2 runs on Windows Mobile 6 Professional so uses Internet Explorer. Admittedly, I’m not a user of Internet Explorer on a PC but I have used it on an Orange SPV I used to own a few years ago. It was pretty useful then and still is today in my opinion. All my favourite mobile sites (Gmail, Bloglines, Twitter, BBC, Sky News etc) work fine on it. Although it did take some time to get used to the way it’s operated but I think this has more to do with me being more familiar with the browser on my Nokia n73.

The Orbit 2 also comes with ‘News Hub’ installed. Basically, News Hub allows you to subscribe and read RSS feeds on the move. You can also listen to and download podcasts, watch video blogs and schedule downloads. You can also import an OPML file too. Pretty cool.

I tested the internet browsing using wifi and was very impressed also. Believe it or not, this is the first phone with wifi capabilities I’ve actually used (how very old fashioned of me) so maybe it was the novelty of it that impressed me so much. Either way, it was quick and responsive and the next phone I have will definitely be wifi enabled.

Syncing the phone to a computer is a doddle and transferring music over was easy too. The phone comes with a 1GB memory card but the memory can be expanded up to 32GB apparently. Windows Media Player performs well as does the built in radio. A good radio is always a plus point to me. You just never know when you’ll want to hear a bit of Chris Moyles.

The phone’s 3 mega-pixel camera is adequate, although it doesn’t have a flash. What’s more impressive is the camera album which (again like the iPhone) can be used to sweep the photo thumbnails side to side. In all honesty, I think the camera could have been a bit more powerful given that Nokia’s producing 5 mega-pixels these days. Maybe I’m just being picky, I don’t know?

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to play around with the sat nav yet. Will probably do so in due course and report on it later, but so far so good. Like all new phones it takes some getting used to but I’m liking the Orbit 2. In the beginning I wasn’t so sure.

Definitely a grower.