Error message what?

For the last two weeks, I haven’t been able to buy anything in the Apple iTunes Store. Every attempt generated an error message number 5002. No further explanation of what I needed to do in order to resolve this issue within the error message and complete gobbledygook within the Apple Support pages. Its been a very frustrating experience and problem and one that has effected many people based on the number of entries on various message boards. Eventually, I found that by changing my password I could solve the problem. It seems odd that Apple iTunes is still issuing error notes in code language – the error message should tell the user exactly what they need to do or refer them to a page, which explains what steps they should take. It seems odd that Apple hasn’t got to this stage yet especially when you consider that iTunes is updated every five minutes. 

OpenSocial

Google has introduced a standard for the development of social networking applications, its called OpenSocial. Standards had names like SOAP, BPEL, WSDL and UDDI up to now. The challenge with Web services is not developing the technology but in agreeing on the business semantics.

Did the term ‘Item Shipped’ mean the same thing to every company?

Google’s strategy with OpenSocial is to take the emphasis away from Facebook (which people are getting bored of, by the way) in the same way that Web services where about taking the emphasis away from Microsoft.

The ’semantics’ have converged with naming conventions in the case of OpenSocial. But surely, the effect of OpenSocial – if successful - will be to muddy the waters when it comes to social networking.

Then again, perhaps OpenSocial will allow small communities to exist in their personalised community while mixing with the rest of the world if they want. Make your own mind up, this article from Computerworld is a starting point.

It gives rise to the question is social media a solution in search of a problem? It will only sustain us when we are all sat behind computers all day or they are wired into our brains.

A fine example of collaboration…

Australia tends to follow the rest of the world and this is the case with social media. The adoption of social media by corporates in Australia is nascent. The country is in market maker mode - a time when influencers should come together to help develop and educate, which makes it hard for me to understand the thinking behind the scheduling of two relevant events in Sydney.

ACE’s Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration and IIR’s Enterprise 2.0 will take place in Sydney on the same dates 3, 4, 5 December.

Now that’s a fine example of collaboration….this country!  

I’v already opted to go for the ACE event (I am a bit worred that they felt the need to use the word ‘Online’ in the title of this event, by the way) but the Enterprise 2.0 line-up looks really good.

Social work

There is lot of talk about the abscence of professional tools and applications in the latest social networking sites. I have been thinking about applying the concept of ’social’ in the context of ’social media’ to the work place. This may have been discussed or it may be being discussed. It stemmed from a conference call in which I took actions and circulated them to the participants. Well actually, I sent them to my team mate to review and then asked her to circulate them. Now, if instead of circulating them she posted them to the Web and sent us a feed. We would then accept and they would go into a centralised To Do List, which collects the actions from all of your calls and meetings. Everyone can view everyone else’s actions. When one action is the first step before another, as many are, the team member that completed the first step would automatically initiate the action as ready in the To Do List of his colleague. With the same application, you would have a Twitter like application for teams to exchange pleasantries or share ideas and thoughts. And a status bar would broadcast a descriptive of your current project (if it is of significane and/or lengthy enough to require a status bar update). Imagine a team member is called into an urgent/unplanned meeting and unable to complete a must do task in his to do list before its deadline. This task would pop up on the screens of the team mates with an option for them to accept, delay or reject. If the action is rejected then an automatic chat room pops up for the team to discuss the resolution. Does anyone think there is something in this at least in distributed teams. 

The bleeding obvious

Can someone tell me why when I log into Yahoo.com, I get a little pop up asking me if I know about the .com.au site. This happens every time I log-in. The degree to which this annoys me is disproportionate to its size and significance, but annoy me it does. Similarly, calling a bank or a taxi booking service and being forced to listen to the following message; did you know that you can bank/book taxis online at www.whatever.com?. Its fine to remind me once but not every 2 minutes – that’s just plan annoying. Yes, of course I know but would I be calling you if that was a more convenient option for me?

Dull Phone

I am in the market for a new mobile phone. I am currently using the Nokia 6280 (pictured). I’ve disliked it since day one, it looks like a toy, the battery life is poor, it randomly turns itself off, bits keep falling off of it, the 3G doesn’t work because it doesn’t have enough memory (or so it tells me) and the ring tones are rubbish.

So I went to my local Vodafone store and a couple of others. Vodafone have 8 phones to chose from!!! and of the 8 nothing stands out as being cool or different or exciting or new. Even the shop assistants are uninspired. In another store, we chatted through a much wider range. My thoughts are as follows:

Motorola - The Motorazr is looking a bit dated. OK, so its comes in a range of colours/finishes but it’s not seen as being a serious phone, the flip design appeals more to the ladies. It’s not the sort of phone you’d want sitting in front of you in a business meeting.

Nokia - Most of the new phones are in the slide design. There doesn’t seem to be much between them. Nokia offers a 5MB camera on the N95, that’s quite neat. I haven’t had a great experience with the slide phone. See my comments above.

LG - Relatively new to the market and getting better. Battery life is generally a problem and I don’t think I’m their target market. They are going for a youthful, fashion conscience audience. Nothing jumps out here either.

Sony Ericsson - I wouldn’t go near SE as I had bad experiences with the T300 (I think that was the name of it) a few years back. It was really slow and didn’t really work as a phone due to poor reception and sound quality. I looked at the W880i yesterday and this has really bad buttons.

Samsung - Have a new range of phones coming out soon with some nifty features, such as a business card reader. Focused on the flip market. Not for me.

There are others; Asus, htc, O2. Still, nothing stands out and new entrants need time to iron out glitches and get competitive.

The issue here is that the mobile phone market is maturing, the manufacturers need to minimise costs so they standardise or industrialise their designs and manufacturing process. Meaning that they opt for a single chasis or hardware platform and then add different features around this. The good news is that this creates opportunities for new entrants to the market with big ideas. The bad news is that until that happens, we can’t expect to get to excited about going and choosing/buying a new phone.

I’ll probably go back to my old old Nokia until something sexy arrives – such as the iPhone, which arrives in Australia in 2008 but then if the Australian iPhone is anything like Australian iTunes then only half of the features will be available anyway.