The Gungle Ben Green makes nice with technology and humans

Crying Wolf, or an Indetectable Bluepulse

The first social mobile application I ever got was Bluepulse (December ‘05). It was moderately exciting to discover, and I even had vague expectations of being exposed to new people / things / stuff. I added the Deck of Secrets widget, as the physical pack of cards was doing the rounds in Melbourne at that time, and it was a smidge … fresh. It was ‘Strayan too, and I love a sunburnt country.

The shine wore off pretty quickly, for reasons including: a really hard sign in process; not much content; it was pretty slow on my handset; I didn’t have a good data plan (like the rest of Australia), etc etc .. the usual suspects.

None of the above is worthy of generating ire towards an app or service. BluePulse was on the frontier, there weren’t many users, carriers are responsible for half those problems, 2G networks most of the remainder.

But I had gotten a little shitty because i’d twice tried to retrieve a password and not found support for that on the website. So I was trying my different passwords and each try would take 5 minutes, and the app wouldn’t remember my username when I retried and I felt the wap-rage that is hopefully becoming a less prevalent symptom in our handheld endeavours. Eventually a direct email to support got me the password change, and they were very nice and efficient about it, but I want a “Forgot Password?” link that sends an update to my email address. Call me new-fashioned.

So it was over for the time being. Then I got an email, saying 2.0 was released, and who can resist a 2.0? I dredged up my old account details, downloaded and installed and had a squiz. I haven’t begun using it again, pretty much because of the reasons above, but! … I’ve discovered a new annoyance.

Bluepulse has sent me three emails notifying me of messages:

Hi nutlx,

Someone is trying to get social with you on your mobile – You have 1 unread message waiting for you on bluepulse.

To check your messages, open up bluepulse on your phone and select ‘Messages’ then ‘Inbox’.

Problem is, it’s Bluepulse trying to get social with me, with exciting announcements from Ben and reminders not to post lewd pictures. So, how come BluePulse can’t just identify themselves and say “Hey, champ – we’ve got an announcement. Check your messages to view.”

Even better, just write it in the email. If it’s moy importante, then it will benefit from the easy-to-read format that email is. If it’s less important, like an announcement that bluepulse is the fastest growing mobile community in the world and that we’re all special, then we can choose to ignore it.

Bluepulse 2.0 has been lauded for it’s wide range of features and availability for numerous handsets, and it’s potential as a targeted advertising platform. That’s tops, but I feel like they’re bullshitting me with their notification emails, and I feel like they’re doing it to ensure I hit the service and they can sell their advertising platform on the basis of an inflated number of “community members”.

Point is, there’s been enough disappointment in the mobile space to date, and one of the most hyped apps of the mobile “2.0″ / “social” / etc is being less than transparent in it’s service.

[...] Crying Wolf, or an Indetectable Bluepulse [...]

Dude, you promised everything on this blog would be going through an API. What is this – a straight post?

But on a serious note, what do you reckon the penetration of any non-bundled aps will be on mobiles? So you know whether the bluepulse guys have a sales arm talking to carriers and manufacturers?

Fergle – I think the future of non-bundled apps depends on the support of the operating system in downloading, installing and later accessing them easily, and maybe pre-existing needs and behaviours.

e.g. imagine the iPhone OS and interface makes it easy-peasy and worthwhile to download widgets/apps, manage them and use them (in the way OSX currently shapes app interfaces for use). Then it doesn’t require a PhD and the patience of Peter Costello to try out a new app or service.

Secondly, a few people I know who aren’t massive mobi-heads are raving about the Gmail and Google maps clients on both Win Mobile and Java platforms – because you’re extending the use of something cool onto your mobi, and it works well. When I went to WA for a holiday last year I loved the Gmail app – and that was on a ‘last-season’ Series 60 Nokia (6680).
I don’t know how much use the carriers will be, because they’ve tended to want to control all aspects of the service, rather than be happy gleaning the (currently exorbitant) revenue from the data carriage. Hence maybe the iPhone is the kind of thing that can shift the balance of power around services away from the carriers?

And you’re right. I sold out. I future when I get a bee in my bonnet, i’ll handwrite the post, photograph it, then let the Flickr API punch it thru to the gungle. Or, I could anticipate the URL that Wordpress will create for the del.icio.us entry, bookmark the future page in del.icio.us, and write the post in the comments section of the del.icio.us bookmark then wait for it to be posted to Le Gungle by del.icio.us. The circle will be complete. The prophecy shall be realised. Fuck.