Mobile Inc » Nokia

The MyNokia SMS Spam Fiasco

Murat — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:30:29 +0000

If you’ve purchased a Nokia handset in the last couple of years you might remember being prompted to join the MyNokia service when you first switch on the phone. The likelyhood is that you didn’t even notice it as you hammered away at the ‘next’ button to fly through the tutorials and other on-screen crap to begin actually using the phone.

The service supplies users with tips, tricks, support and information about their Nokia handset in the form of one or two SMS messages a month.

Here’s the problem, when you switch phones Nokia still send you the SMS messages, with no indication of how to opt-out! I’ve tried replying STOP, OPT OUT etc, none worked as the sender number cannot be replied to.

The last Nokia I had was 12 months ago, I’ve been getting these messages since then. The last two messages from Nokia have been exactly the same too, asking me to download ‘Free Sat Nav’ (picture above).

A quick search on Google shows many others asking the same question “how do I opt-out of this Nokia spam?”. Poor Dave Hall had a torrid time with Nokia customer services trying to stop the things coming through. They even lied to him and tried to say that his operator was sending the things out:

“I called Nokia back. This time I was kept on hold again for around 20 minutes. As soon as the call was answered I demanded to speak to a supervisor. After further time on hold I got to speak to a supervisor. First he tried to tell me it was coming from Optus not Nokia and that I needed to contact them. Next I was told to use the My Nokia menu option, which I explained I didn’t have. Finally he suggested that he could login to the My Nokia website and unsubscribe me – finally I was getting somewhere! Then I was asked for my password, I explained I didn’t have one, “that’s OK sir, you can go to the website and sign up for one”. It was clear after almost another hour lost this was going no where, so I cut my loses.”

Finally a corporate comms manager at Nokia got back to him with several ‘simple’ ways to unsubcribe, even though the FAQ on MyNokia only describes one :

sending “stop” to +6141690697

I’ve just tried this and I got a message saying I am now opted out! Woohoo! Oh, slight problem tho – this number isn’t advertised anywhere and it’s not the number the original SMS messages came from. How are people meant to know this? It’s not even on the MyNokia FAQ, and how much did that SMS to Austrailia just cost me to opt-out?? What’s the UK number?

through My Nokia application in phone

Yeah I sold that on eBay ages ago.

online at www.nokia.com.au/mynokia

Eerr there’s no button there, just registration, do I seriously have to register to opt-out? Yes, you do. GGRRR.

request “unsubscribe” through Australia.mynokia@nokia.com

Oh yeah, of course! Should have known.

Nokia Customer Care (Carline or email support)

You want me to spend my time on the phone to customer care, to opt-out of SMS messages? Seriously? Didn’t work for Dave Hall did it?

This information is presented to consumers in multiple ways:

after signing in via phone, customer receives a welcome message and information on how to opt-out (SMS)

Common sense please, how long do you think the time is between someone buying and selling/upgrading a phone? Why would anyone still have that SMS?

- ~20% of scheduled SMS contain opt-out information (SMS)

Yeah, that’s a fail. Should be 100% for this type of SMS communication especially as people change phones, lose them and return them.

- in every sales pack, there are the T&Cs for MyNokia including all the details of how to opt-out”

The box and instructions I threw away a year ago?

This should be bread and butter stuff for Nokia, these messages need a simple opt-out mechanic plain and simple. The fact MyNokia is on millions of phones and has millions of opt-ins with only 20% of messages including instructions to opt-out is shocking.

There is actually potential for MyNokia to be a good service, but currently it offers little value to Nokia customers in my opinion.

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Nokia N97 Promotional Video VS Real Life

Murat — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:16:33 +0000

I was having lunch with a mate yesterday and watched them get out their N97 to send a text message. Noticing the crappy transitions on the screen, I suddenly remembered the N97 promotion video from last year which basically makes the phone look god-like.

The real life story is somewhat different, I was actually going to put together a video myself then I found someone had beaten me to it. It speaks for itself – watch this:

When the N97 was announced I actually worked at Nokia, and what’s interesting is that no one I spoke to internally believed it could do what was shown in that promo video. We all knew it would be some clunky Symbian interface with the trademark N-Series feature of completely slowing down after a few months of usage. We weren’t disappointed.

It’s dangerous to mess around with consumers like that, especially when Apple and Google have raised the bar in all areas of mobile. Nokia can’t retain smart phone customers when they are struggling to imitate competitors, let alone set new standards.

My Ovi Store Experience Summed Up In One Short Video

Murat — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:18:51 +0000

Found this video on Intomobile and it perfectly recreates the Ovi Store experience I had in the first few weeks of it’s launch.

I’ve wrote about how bad the Nokia Ovi Store is compared to the Apple App Store but now with the power of video I can share that experience with you.

Check out the consumer vs Ovi Store:

Nokia Ovi Store Gets 10 Million App Downloads In 3 Months, Apple App Store Gets 2 Billion Downloads In 14 Months

Murat — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:39:41 +0000

Nokia recently revealed the absolute ass-whooping the Ovi Store is receiving in comparison to the iPhone App Store.

The announcement at Nokia World confirmed that since May 26th, users have downloaded 10 million pieces of content from the Ovi Store. Compare this to iPhone App Store which surpassed 100 million downloads in the first two months and 1.5 billion after a year. The Ovi Store supports 100 Nokia devices and the iPhone App Store supports, wait for it…2.

Now remember ‘pieces of content’ doesn’t just mean apps but also lame things like ringtones, wallpapers, etc count too. I wonder how much of that 10 million is actual apps?

The Ovi Store had huge technical problems on the first day, Nokia underestimated the demand and consequently suffered outages meaning that for many people, it was over before it started.

The technical issues weren’t the only problems with the Ovi Store user experience. The Ovi Store requires the CRAZY backwards step of having to find, download and install the Ovi Store client before you can use it.

If I wasn’t a mobile phone enthusiast I would have given up on the Ovi Store the very first day it was launched. Apart from the Nokia server problems it took around 3 tries and 40 minutes to set up on my phone. The end result was a clunky and slow store with some poor quality applications that neither provided a good service or enhanced the handset.

The process that I had to go through makes me wonder how many regular mobile users actually bothered to try the Ovi Store or did the majority of the 10 million downloads just come from tech heads, phone geeks and fanboys? Consumers and brands don’t really seem to know or care about the Ovi Store.

Nokia still don’t understand how important experience is these days. No longer can they get away with endless menus, crap graphics, unintuitive interfaces and poor end products. Consumers eyes have been opened by the iPhone and Android, they expect working services and high standards as well as amazing apps.

Considering the poor download figures for Ovi Store the decision not to develop a Facebook app sooner has clearly cost Nokia. Facebook has 300 million users yet still no Nokia application. Madness.

I really don’t see a bright future for Nokia unless they do something drastic. They really should get rid of Symbian and try Android. The more they build on top of Symbian the worse it gets, the N-Series phones can barely handle flicking through the menus after 6 months of use.

‘Innovate or die’ seems to fit Nokias situation perfectly.Market share is constantly being lost to Apple, Rim and Samsung, how long before Nokia are at 20% share of the market (down from 50%)? 2 maybe 3 years?

Decisions like releasing the 5800 Xpress Music phone with a stylus was just embarrassing. Yeah take that Apple! We’ll show you and your glossy touchscreen – look at our tiny little plastic pen thing, wait… oh we’ve lost it on the bus. Nevermind.