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At the risk of doing the Vodafone thing to death…
There is a conspiracy in the mobile phone world, using DRM as an excuse for content lock in, and the public haven’t yet noticed.
There was a time, not 10 years ago, when the latest piece of geek gear would open up a world of hacks and extensions. In the Apple II world at least, we’d spend much of our time writing drivers, or coding hacks to get 3rd party gear to work on the Apple II. Floptical drives, personal organiser (now called PDAs) interfaces, printers, tape drives, industrial strength scanners, all had published APIs or protocols, and companies actively promoted technical documentation for hackers to use their gear. Some would require a little hardware hacking, others just software, but in general, the manufacturer didnt care. And in most cases, approaching them about the driver you’d just written would get you a “with our compliments” letter, and they’d start directing other interested users to your code. This has all changed due to DRM.
I’ve written previously about Vodafone’s disgusting attitude towards users, and how key features of my Sony Ericsson K700i have been disabled unless I pay Vodafone for the privilege, but the conspiracy doesn’t end there. It continues with Sony Ericsson, the manufacturer of the phone, and countless other network operators who also rebrand these phones.
I bought the K700i so that I could write Java apps for it, particularly the Apple II emulator that I’ve already written. Nothing special about that, most people learn Java these days at school, whether it be a simple Hello World or something more extensive. And what a great hack to get your own code running on these babies? After all, that’s one of the features marketed by Sony Ericsson, the ability to run J2ME MIDP applications, as is MP3 files as ring tones. Silly me assumed that because the phone supported it, that I’d be actually able to use it. Is it possible to copy J2ME apps directly to the phone and have them run? No it is not.
At least Sony Ericsson have a free developers’ site, where they provide all the technical specifications for writing applications. But the first thing you’re hit with is that the phone is completely managed by DRM. Even free applications need to be wrapped in a DRM package before they will run on the phone. And MP3s? Vodafone won’t allow you to use MP3 files as ring tones, unless they are DRMed. Of course Sony Ericsson provide the developer application that allows you to illegally DRM any content, which rather stupidly defeats the purpose, but still, all these companies are conspiring to make usable content only available for subscription download from the network provider.
And the man on the street apparently has no idea. They’ll happily download that MP3 ring tone or wallpaper from their network provider, for almost a third of what it costs for their monthly rental, and which for the network provider is almost 100% profit.
What if I happen to draw my own wallpaper? Record my girlfriend saying “Ring ring”, or even dare write my own Java application? Can I easily download it to the phone? Of course not.
These phones should be open to everyone, to do what they are technically able to do. If the phone runs J2ME apps, then let me run any J2ME app, and make it easy for me to do so. If I want to use MP3s as ring tones, because it is one of the phone’s key features, then let me do so.
There is a conspiracy in the mobile phone world, where our access to phone technology is being restricted by network providers wanting to make money for downloads. Don’t believe the bullshit that they are protecting copyrighted works, the DRM is there to lock you into paying for downloads. It’s a con, its a conspiracy, and it has to stop.
Darren Barefoot talks about Clicking on Ads for sites he likes to support. You could argue that this is cheating the system, considering there is no intent to purchase from said advertisement, but like the advertisers would give back the other way.
Anyway, what would be nice to have, is a browser plug in, WinIE or Safari, not fussed, that had a “I like this site” button. When you clicked, it would scan the page for Google Ads, and randomly click a few of them in the background for you. No new windows, no interuption, minimal bandwidth. It could fake the http headers to match the current browser settings, and add random delays between each request, to make it look like a real user.
In fact, such a plug in could blow up the whole ad space, increasing income for Google and site owners, and increasing fees for advertisers. And you know what, anything that makes them pay more and us get paid more sounds like a damn fine idea to me.
So, any enterprising plug in authors want to have a crack at it?
Podcasting. I’m still underwhelmed.
I’ve tried, I really have, to try to understand what all the fuss is about, giving the odd A-lister the benefit of the doubt. The radio killer, the next big thing, the future of the media. Sorry, still not ringing any of my bells.
A few months back I added enclosures to one of the Sacrament Radio RSS feeds, and after the hour of coding it took to write and test, I sat back waiting for the metaphoric penny to drop. Not even the podcasted recording of a penny dropping, metaphoric or otherwise, I think would change the situation much either. Here we are podcasting, big deal.
Podcasting? Hmm… All I did was drop a URL to an mp3 file into an RSS feed via an enclosure. Enclosure? That’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s not like the file is actually stored within the feed, just the URL is. The file still needs to be stored on a server somewhere, and pulled down by software that knows it is there. I think “external media reference” is a more accurate term to be honest.
I’m an Apple nut, and have been since that fateful day in 1979, so I’d be the last to suggest dropping the pod from podcast, but sitting here seeing an RSS feed containing a reference URL to an mp3 file, I’m thinking perhaps feedcast is a more accurate and appropriate term. Podcast? Pah! Cute iTunes scripts to download files to the iPod, but buddy, it’s still just a URL to a file.
So while I’m taking pot shots at the technology, why don’t I finish up by firing a few broadsides at podcasters themselves. Of course to call yourself a podcaster, would imply that your listeners are downloading to iPods, which is a bit presumptuous if you ask me. You’re a feedcaster, so just deal with it, ok?
So that brings us to the content itself. Most of course are mp3 files, now a substantially old technology, that only still exists because bandwidth hasn’t increased as fast as we’d hoped it would. Where is the interesting experimentation with other kinds of media?
And listening to some of these podcasts is a enlightening experience I must say. Most tend to be amateur umm and ahh merchants who think they’re either experts in their domain or professional stand up comedians, presenting content which would be way quicker to consume by reading it instead of having to hear it, all interspersed with various musical tracks, which if I was interested in listening to, I’d probably have running in the background via iTunes or the radio anyway.
I’ve said it before, in Podcasting: The little brother of RSS, or the future of community radio? and Podcasting — a speed limiter for information flow, podcasting is an interesting hack for delivery of audio content, but it is not like traditional radio isn’t progressing either. XM and Sirius are expanding their satellite options, and terrestrial broadcasters are also raising their game. To then say that podcasting will take over from traditional media, is the same blinkered thinking that took us into the bubble in the first place.
Radio and Internet audio (in some form or another) will converge at some point on personal devices such as phones and PDAs, which are effectively just portable radios anyway. The podcasters’ challenge is to wake up and realise that all they’ve re-invented is community radio, and then take it to the next level.
I’m sorry, but a URL inside an RSS feed, which points to an mp3 file of some guy reading a news story I can read elsewhere, with illegally recorded music spliced in that I have no interest in listening to, isn’t going to impress me. Show me the delivery of high quality time shifted content which feeds me knowledge faster than I can read it, and then I’ll get excited!
I had an interesting visit to my site the other day by someone at Vodafone. I don’t know exactly why, it just popped up in my logs, but I’m guessing because they stumbled across my Dear Vodafone and your mp3 ringtone DRM, welcome to the blogosphere post.
That evening, I stumbled across a post in an online forum by someone who had been a customer support person at Vodafone, and was saying that to get the best results, you need to act nice and cordial, detail your exact problem clearly, and not to get frustrated. Here’s a partial quote:
People really need to learn that getting angry at customer service
representatives can only hurt you, not help you. 99.99% of the time, some
poor person who has nothing to do with your issue will be taking your shit
and will not WANT to help you.
Of course this is stating the obvious, but the problem here is that if this tends to have more success, then it is more indicative of a failing customer support system. A poor person who will not WANT to help you, shouldn’t be working in customer support, end of story.
When someone calls up support, they are usually frustrated with themselves that they can’t work out the problem, frustrated with the company that what they’re trying to do can be so difficult, and are likely to do more damage through word of mouth if they are not satisfied with the outcome. Frustration leads to extreme emotional states, and the more frustrated, the more unstable and angry we become. That’s human nature. Subsequently, the more angry the customer, probably the more serious their problem, and therefore the more important it is to solve their problem and make them happy.
Customer support personnel are supposed to be professionals, solving problems in emotionally charged situations, with knowledge and experience of psychology and how to deal with people as key requisite skills. Most companies however, treat customer support as a low income limited skill call centre process, usually staffed by out of work actors or HTML coders, who couldn’t give a shit about the person on the end of the phone.
Think about the last time you had to call a company for support, think about how frustrated and angry you may have been, and think about how they dealt with your call. I bet your current impression of said company matches your last experience with them on the phone.
Vodafone. Between their arrogance of removing most of the useful functionality from my phone, and their really crap customer support, I guess at least they’re consistent.