Google Nexus One Customer Service Train Wreck

Would you like some cream with your schadenfraude pie? Hoof on over to the Google Mobile Help Forum and have a quick read through the Nexus One pages.

It would seem as though the likely-to-know-everything-about-you-lads forgot perhaps the most important thing in shipping the Production 1 Nexus One ’superphone.’ Customer Service. Whilst every other manufacturer can get away with debugging P1 in the marketplace, they do have the benefit of operational support systems, both their own and those of their Operator customer’s.

Google has gone live on a rushed hardware release with only a forum and an email address for customer support. They are promising a response within 48 hours. Well, you live and learn. I am sure they will throw a lot of money at this and recover.

Perhaps the Internet is being unkind and Google are victims of their own success? To a certain extent, maybe that’s true but you don’t need to go to MIT or Stanford to understand the importance of Customer Service. No, you just need a dash of common sense and a soupçon of humility.

Image: McCord Museum

…and a Happy New Year

If a somewhat belated one.

A little busy last week closing down the latest release of the MO-Call app for PC (and very soon, Mac), taking on new developers and pushing through some great new features (bookmark Rich and Peter’s MO-Call blog to make sure you don’t miss out on our new releases).

Here in Beijing, as in the UK, we’ve had a record snowfall and apparently there is more on the way. Unlike the UK, public services are still working…and so are we.

Merry Christmas from Morodo

The Morodo team wishes you all a very Merry Christmas.

It’s the time of year when, traditionally, we over-indulge a little. In the event of any accidents or mishaps, you might find this advice from the Wired How To Wiki, how to save a wet mobile phone, rather handy.

There’s no rest for the wicked: we’ll be working throughout the festive season, online and available as and when you need us.

Remember, if you can’t be with them, MO-Call them.

More Mobile and Internet predictions for 2010

ReadWriteWeb has posted the readership’s top ten products of 2009. No major suprises here, in the USA, everyone is Twittering, Googling and on Hulu; if I make one prediction for 2010, it’s that Android will enjoy a comfortable position in this top ten next Christmas.

On the subject of predictions, Dean Bubley’s predictions for 2010 are not only insightful but also a joy to read. As he suggests, from now on, I will be referring to Mobile Networks as Happy Pipes instead of Dumb Pipes.

My own occupational language overuse bête noire is the term ecosystem ascribed to, variously, Operating Systems, App Stores and Development Environments.

Mobile end of year reports

Two weeks until the end of the decade and the mobile industry reports are starting to come in. First up, on the report-lite front, the GSMA’s round-up of 2009 begins with these suprising words from Matt Ablott:

“It’s amazing to think that mobile application stores didn’t exist 18 months ago..”

That’ll be news to Get Jar, Handango and Handmark then, these mobile application download aggregators have been around since WAP was a boy. Get Jar’s Ilja Laurs is not the kind of fellow you’d want to upset, this week he’s already got up close and personal with Nokia over the cellphone giant’s claim to the coveted number two app store spot.

On the report-intensive front, Morgan Stanley weigh in with a 424 page meisterwork: The Mobile Internet Report. Quite generously, this has been posted for anyone to download. There’s plenty to take issue with here but also a wealth of facts, figures and plain old data. Taken from the report summary, here’s a superb example of how fast things change:

It’s a contentious document, that’s for sure and it’s already ignited a few heated discussions in our office; great stuff for the grey cells. I’ve no doubt we’ll return to this again and I’m certain there will be a few more reports, top-tens and best-of-decades to discuss before we see out 2009.

Nokia flagship stores closing

Old news I know but Ewan at All About Symbian has posted an amusing question, Top Ten Things Nokia Could Have Done With Their London Nokia Store.

No. 7 on the list is the key for me, the helpful addition of a cash-till might have made all the difference. Obviously, Nokia didn’t want to actually sell phones in the store, that might have upset their other customers, the Mobile Network Operators. Ridiculous.

iCall up for grabs – Morodo up for everything Mobile

It’s been reported that Apple is interested in acquiring Mobile VoIP company, iCall.  Figures such as ‘$50 million’ and ‘100,000 customers’ have been bandied about and there  has even been idle speculation that Apple might be buying the company for the name alone.

OK, well, here at Morodo we’re not sitting waiting with baited breath for that call from  Motorola, Morrisons or Mozilla about MO-Call, but we do see this as an emerging trend for 2010 and beyond: First Google snapped up Gizmo, Packet8 has alleged suitors,  Orange ON is pitching VoIP outside it’s network footprint and now this. Operators of all kinds, Manufacturers and Brand Owners have finally realised that voice is the killer app.

Pat Phelan asks whether other service providers should be worried. Not particularly  bothered Pat, quite pleased in a right-place-right-time kind of way. Morodo is first and  foremost a mobile software company and we’re happy to sell our services to anyone, so,  dear reader, if you want a mobile dialer for your brand, do get in touch, our software works on almost 1,800 different mobile devices, not just the ones you read about in the PR press.

And if you want cheap international calls from your mobile, come and join MO-Call.

Google Nexus One in New Year Sales

In case you have not heard, Google have made a mobile phone and given it to their staff to test. This news should be a suprise to nobody – you make a mobile OS, might as well build at least one device to showcase it’s capabilities.

For a comprehensive rundown on the hardware, start with an informative post from Phandroid.

For a reasonable assumption of the Do No Evil marketing machine’s strategy, you could do worse than read GoMo News. Seems like a logical conclusion to me.

For frankly nauseating love-fest reportage, try Techcrunch – that post must have been written with tongue firmly in cheek, surely?

I rate Android very highly but I think it’s biggest problem is going to be a lack of standardisation in ODM/OEM reference design. HTC don’t have a great record in this respect so I sincerely hope that the Nexus One helps Google whip them into shape, for the sake of all of us.

Mobile search savers

Last week Google slipped out an image search app for Android 2.0, Goggles. Over at Mobile Marketing Watch, Justin wonders whether this might bring Mobile Image Recognition mainstream. As the nice lady from Google says, it’s a start. This kind of thing has been popular in Tokyo for some years now and works well within localised Layar-like AR apps.

In my view, it’s more likely that AR will overtake mobilised image search.

Elsewhere the Do No Evil trendsetters posted out QR code window decals to the 100K most popular favourite place stores in America. In a few weeks time, to use Mountain View parlance, we’ll be able to say “this is sooo last decade.”

Given Google’s massive database, indexing capabilities and developer talent I am suprised not to see them sweat that asset and release an Android app rivaling European services such as smart apnoti, whose iBarcode app seems to be exactly what the harrassed and cash-strapped Christmas shopper requires.