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Just imagine when those MSM mags will hit the streets? Something tells me they'll be somewhat less than relevant by then.
Doomed, I tell ya!
....Of course, your readership aren't interested in mobile broadband dongles for their free laptops while on holiday in their velour-stuffed caravans in some Midlands white trash wasteland hell-hole.
....I'm amazed you were even able to find this site......
Thanks for proving our point :)
I’ve traveled the states from one coast to the other with an Eee PC – it saved me a lot of potential frustrated moments and getting hoplesly lost
Flat tire, dead battery & no wifi service – PDA phone worked great and got help
Next? I might be traveling the South America seas and I’m bring my nerd toys with me.
Us geeks & nerds have a LIFE and we have complete efficently with nerd toys and survival skills -- Maybe you’re just jealous?
BTW – I’m a grrrrl – Nerds & geeks rock!
Journalists get invited to PR events every day. Not all of them will appeal to every journalist. Although it may be their job to cover what they see at them, after a while these events will blur into one big free buffet. They probably go along for the food and to pick up the press release so they can write a filler piece if they need to.
As exciting as you or I may find this particular one, for many of the people there (who probably got invited to to the launches for a new vacuum cleaner and a new brand of slippers last week) it was 'just another launch for a product they don't care about'.
Sad but true.
I've run product launches and PR events in the past and to get anyone to turn up can be an achievement sometimes when there are so many other launches going on at the same time. And even if they turn up, the journalists who do come are not necessarily the least bit bothered about what you're up to. I'm not tarring all journalists with the same brush mind you - journalists are just very busy people, with hellish deadlines and a ton of product launches press releases, fact finding and interviews to deal with, often with daily or weekly deadlines to meet.
On the other hand, bloggers are generally enthusiasts so would give their eye teeth to come to a product launch in their sweet spot. It's not necessarily their day job (although in this case it is your day job Ewan - does this make your a blogalist or something?) but it's their passion and their specialist subject so they will make the time and the effort to turn up and find out more just because they can.
It's all relative.
I was horrified - I'd chew my arm off to be paid full-time to write about this stuff and he dribbles out that toss... what a lack of respect for his readers.
I guess the thing is blogs are more interactive so if we did that the readers would tear us a new one.
Seriously, when was the last time you read about a new device or service in a technology magazine that you hadn't already heard about online?
That said by sympathy for 3 is somewhat tempered by the fact I haven't been able to make contact with them. I've tried going the 'proper' PR route and was largely ignored, and wrote to 3 Mobile Buzz and didn't get a response (perhaps not surprising, I may fall outside their remit). Maybe I should have tried harder, but...
To be fair I think its very hard for marketing people to connect with those they need to (how do you know who is most valuable unless you're part of the community itself), especially with blurring lines (or rather a continuum) between bloggers/social media/online media/mainstream media etc etc. Of course you also have to bear in mind they have limited resources and therefore can only ever target a certain number of people so you can't assume you should be on the list (which incidentally PR should set up a mailing list and send out a summary the next day to everyone who was unable to make it or they didn't have room for).
Of course the danger being it ends up being PR for the handsets rather than the network - but im sure the press kit photos are '3''d to within an inch of their DPI.
that by email. But when you turn up to an event, it's downright rude to pop
in, stuff your face, ignore everything, spot the 'goodie bag', grab one and
head off!
Where's the next X-series, the next Orb, the next slingbox, the next skypephone (er..)
There is the next skypephone, plug it into your laptop and it'll load the drivers to use it as a mobile broadband dongle... there's your innovation!, every other operator will sell you a handset contract with data and specifically forbid you from tethering it.
Three are pushing all the right buttons for me right now!
er, taxi for mass-market FAIL, please! It was a buzz but really - TV on your mobile? Next.
...actually, I met a Slingbox user the other day. No, really! I was carving my initials into his side with a stick and he woke up...wait, no, that's a Monty Python routine....
I remember being at the Nokia Growing Together conference and having tons of international journalists doing nothing related to the phones, and looked at me crazy just for taking tons of comparison images. The same happened at the N96 and N78 launch, although there were less of these mainstream reporters.
They probably think "This guy never saw a phone in his life..."
Pretty ironic it would be!
Imagine if you had to cover 15-20 launches a month. Not all on things you care about, you may be for example massively into home cinema but not care about mobile much. etc. Most of the results from a launch like this is to get the Press Release printed - mostly verbatim, and a photo in the publication.
Job done.
Dirty but realistic.
mag or a computer mag or whatever... it's your job to take an interest, even
if it bores-you-to-shit. You take an interest. You walk about. You look.
You poke.
You don't arrive, stuff your face and piss off with the press release 60
seconds later.
bold has been at various trade shows
E71 has been in nokia store on regent street for a few weeks
N96 is there too
tocca is in every mobile store in the country
X1 is rare as is the things you presumably wernt allowed to blog
however if its a bloody press show - why have things you cant show on display.
unless it was purely on embargo. which most press ignore.
All you're doing is confirming the laziness of mainstream media.
Glad I found this site, I’ll be reading often.
On a more helpful note, all the 3 firms world-wide select their own handsets so what 3UK does is no indication of what will happen in Ireland... other than via consumer pressure.
sods law.
hey any news on the samsung soul on three? i hear a release is imminent?