Gizmobuddy's Ramblings on Gizmos, Life and games!

The Long Tail... and the World of Mobile Software Marketting

2007-03-07T14:19:00.000+05:30

Picked up but never fully read a book called "The Long Tail" by a guy called Chris Anderson several months back... now I'm realizing from experience how relevant some of the snippets I read in that book were... and I guess I'm going to apply some of that to how I promote Bubble Drop too...

So, ok... what exactly is the long tail ? and how does it apply here ?

The phrase "long tail" as used here, refers to the trailing end or tail of the demand curve (see figure below- picked from Chris Andersen's site).

And as Chris Andersen explains at his site on http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html:

"The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare."

How does it apply here to mobile software marketting ???

Well.... that's the billion dollar question....

watch this space, coz the question's going to get answered here in the coming days!!!

Bye Bye Blog Marketting - hello to myself

2007-03-07T09:02:00.000+05:30

Picked up this book called blog marketting some weeks back... thought I'll promote a product I wrote- on my blog... but ok; seems that kind of blogging is not my cup of tea.

Been posting & mailing bloggers right, left and center... all of last week and more... and no replies; not a single mention of my game on even one blog-page.

But ok; yesterday was different... mailed a german blogger called e61effect whose blog I stop by once every few weeks and click on links, maybe translate a post or 2 into english... got a reply from him... was asking if I also have a Nokia E61... yes I do!

I took that as a question asking if I also have a E61 blog... replied... that set me thinking if trying to educate the world about technology really is my cup of tea.

Maybe I need to shift focus.... stop trying to become Darla Mack (Darla = http://darlamack.blogs.com/ she's got one great blog)- coz educating people with my deep-knowledge just isnt my cup of tea.

Maybe I need to be more like Joel... Joel as in http://www.joelonsoftware.com - Joel's style is a lot more like mine... he shares his deepest ideas instead of dumbing down stuff for people... ok, so lots of stuff gets beyond most people... but atleast he's enjoying his writing instead of compulsively trying to draw people in.

Dunno tho if that'll get me any readers... but ok, here goes!!!

And yeah... Matze, if you're reading this... keep reading, because now is where my blog becomes interesting... casting some light on where I'm coming from, thinking-wise.
(German E61 Blogger... great guy, great blog, check out http://e61effect.wordpress.com/ his thinking's closer to mine than it is to Darla Mack's)

Also, along the way, I'm gonna review some mobile blogs I've passed through... who knows, maybe someday, some blog marketeer reading my blog might indeed benefit!!!

GizmoBuddy.com Webshop Launched

2007-03-07T02:30:00.000+05:30

March 6th, 2007 - We Launched our webshop... at http://www.gizmobuddy.com
So, all you fans have one more place apart from http://www.handango.com to buy Bubble Drop.

And yes, for folks that havent downloaded BubbleDrop yet... we have a slightly touched up; new version of BubbleDrop at gizmobuddy.com or click here to get just the JAR... http://www.gizmobuddy.com/downloads/e61/v01c/bubdropgb.jar

Gizmobuddy Releases Bubble Drop for Nokia E61, E62, E61i, N75 S60 3rd Edition 320x240 Business Phones

2007-02-25T10:22:00.000+05:30

A Shareware Trial version of Gizmobuddy's Bubble Drop game for Nokia E61, E62, E61i business Phones is now available for download.

If your Nokia Phone has a 320x240 Display, Download Free Trial of Bubble Drop Now.

Users can purchase Bubble Drop through Handango.com for a retail price of US$7.95 per copy.

Check it out- and tell us what you think- either through blog comments-- or by mailing support(at)gizmobuddy.com (replace (at) with '@').

Bubble-drop is a fast-paced puzzle game which will make life interesting for folks who use Nokia E61, E62 or 320x240 similar business-phones.

Burst bubbles by clicking groups of same colored bubbles. Score more by popping larger groups of bubbles. And then... there's acid, fire and bomb to add a twist to gameplay!

Brainy or quick and flashy ? you decide!!

Would love to hear what you folks out there feel about this game.... raves, rants and feature requests all welcome!!! Mail me at support (at) gizmobuddy.com (God!!! this is beginning to sound like a press release...)

Bubble Drop Screenshots

2007-02-18T04:01:00.001+05:30

Technorati Profile

Indian chess player banned for 10 years after cheating with Bluetooth

2007-02-17T20:45:00.000+05:30

Interesting posting on the s60 blog; just the kind of publicity the bluetooth SIG needs to take it from being a textbook standard to being a part of public imagination heh heh...

http://s60.blogg.se/301206114241_indian_chess_player_banned_for_1.html

An Indian chess player has been banned for 10 years for cheating after he was caught using his mobile phone's wireless device to win games, reports Reuters.

"The player, Umakant Sharma, had logged rating points at a rapid pace in the last 18 months and also qualified for the national championship, arousing the suspicion of officials and bemusing rivals.

Sharma was finally caught at a recent tournament when officials discovered that he had stitched a Bluetooth device in a cloth cap which he always pulled over his ears.

He communicated to his accomplices outside the hall, who then used a computer to relay moves to him, Indian chess federation secretary said.

Cellphone Applications for folks that like Working Naked... and more...

2007-02-17T17:54:00.000+05:30

Hi Folks,

If there's one guy whose philosphy towards customer support and evangelism I love; it's Ron Liechty from Nokia... surfed to his blog after benefitting from his help at Nokia developer's forum.

Not sure about how many of you have read Po Bronson's "The Nudist in the Late Shift"- that talked of how the internet and the dotcom boom created new lifestyles... including the story of the guy that would work late at night... after everyone had gone home... and he'd work in the office naked!!!

So anyways... couple of days back; I saw a interesting entry on Ron's blog--- touched upon a future where we'd see a possible class of lifestyle apps aimed at folks that like working naked...

https://blogs.forum.nokia.com/view_entry.html?id=390

And that blog entry had a link to a computerworld interview with Tom Mullhal- who with his wife runs a clothing-optional SPA.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9009365&pageNumber=1

and Tom, in the above interview talks of the impact of how 9/11 and the layoffs that followed it led people to work longer hours and telecommute-- and hence the very real possibility of folks that check into a nude-spa bringing their work with them.

Check it out Folks!!!
Interesting reading and interesting thinking.
And check this space again; because I have some heavy thoughts on what folks like Nokia need to do to usher in and profit from newer and newer classes of lifestyle apps!!!

-Gizmobuddy

Web 2.0 - The Machine is Using us... the best ever youtube video I've ever seen... and some other interesting youtube videos!!!

2007-02-16T22:52:00.000+05:30

Hey Folks...
I surfed on by today to the blog of corporate-rat( http://corporaterat.blogspot.com/2007/02/web-20-machine-is-using-us.html ); saw this really interesting youtube video he'd embedded... it's called "The Machine is Using us"; and produced by a guy called Professor Welsch at Deptt of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State Univ.

One request::: if someone can identify it's soundtrack/tell me where to get the MIDI from; please, please, please do comment/email me and tell me--- I loved it's soundtrack; and real soon now, I am going to rip it and use the filched soundtrack in something of my own... so someone save me from getting sued!!!

What say ???

Hutch - Vodafone - Essar - When Globalism meets Fuedalism-- how much pettier can things get ??

2007-02-16T01:08:00.000+05:30

This article is a teaser-- read it; and tell me if you'd like to read more... and I'll be happy to write... and if some of you folks write more on this topic; comment-me and I'll be even happier to read more...am new in in blogosphere; and in time, I'll clean up my act, edit my posts & get all neat & clean!!!

This article is pure opinion... no intention of slander or misinformation here.

Hey Folks...
What does a guy say of a series of events that forces Hutch out of one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world ?
What does a person say of a bunch of petty businessmen that think they can go back on every committment-- break every agreement in spirit if not in letter--- think they can do whatever the hell they want, without worrying about the consequences on the market ?

That's the hutch-essar-vodafone story for you.

In a nutshell; Hutchison acquired the mobile operations of a Indian operator called Essar-- owned by a family called the Ruia family.

Stuff was mostly hunky dory and there was a massive boost in service quality... but that was only until the Ruias realized what the true value of Hutch might be... and started twisting the levers... till finally Hutch decided to exit the Indian market.

Vodafone bought them oput... paid a premium for the controlling stake even though on paper the ruias still owned 30%+ of Hutch... let the Ruias stay on as the Indian partner because Indian law demands the presence of a Indian partner-- and thought there's not much bad if the Indian partner's cash lies parked there--- grows in value as time passes.

But then ; boom!!! a couple of billion arent enough for the Indian partner... demands Vodafone recognize that it's 30% stake gets it a say in management matters!!!

And boom... I guess that's how business gets done in India and in certain other parts of the world... if there's a reason lots of folks on orkut write their view as 'strongly authoritarian' then this is the approach the think beneficial.

My only worry is what now for folks like me who're customers of hutch's Indian operations ?

Is the bar for service going to get lower ?

Are us folks who're disgusted with other players like Airtel and Reliance... think Hutch is what multinational-level-service-quality means going to be forced to lower their expectations ?

Do you wanna see more where this article came from; hear more abt the telecom scene in India ?

Write in with your comments and I'll be happy to expand upon this skeleton of a article and fill you in maybe dole out a crash course on what it means to do business in India, in China and in the Arab World!!!

My Nokia is my iPod; is my PSP; my gameboy; my phone; my ebook reader; my digital diary; and more....

2007-02-15T22:55:00.000+05:30

I read this awesome blog post titled "My Nokia E61 is my iPod"; check it out and my comment at the blog-url below:
http://www.e-series.org/archives/6#comment-9796

The author writes about how his iPod nano conked off; and after buying a 2GB memory card for $60;

"The challenge I faced was how to manage my music libraries and move the music to my Nokia E61. I found a great tool to help me do just that. The free application SyncTunes lets you syncronize part of your iTunes library to an SD card. This is the step-by-step guide."

Book-mark this URL and check it out.

The above post gave me the eureka and aha moments I needed to put together my thoughts.

Been thinking a lot but couldnt actually bring myself to articulate my thoughts; but ok, while you wait for my post, check out the posts below that set me thinking (as in thinking about why I disagree/differ with what they said).

(1)
http://corporaterat.blogspot.com/2007/01/iphone-worlds-best-micro-tablet-not.html

This guy is generally pretty independant minded and sensible-- but abt his comments on the iPhone; all I can say is, as John Carmack would say "wtf, ya still dont get it!!!".

(2)
http://www.mediangler.com/2007/01/11/content-is-king-make-that-queen-jack-content-is-unimportant/
Haydn Shaughnessy's blog... puts his thoughts accross straight and blunt!!! The way only a Irishman or a Scotsman or some other similarly defiant subject of Her Majesty could!
"The Content is King, make that Queen, Jack"; argues that actually money is king; as opposed to what Ajit Jaokar et al proponents of http://www.opengardensblog.futuretext.com/ say.

And arguably, what I'd say is that it's neither content nor money that's king;
I think it's the ability to add value for the customer that's king.

Pop Quiz::: What're the three killer apps for smartphones in most of asia ?
Answer:
(a) Call-Recorder
(b) Games
(c) Music & Videos & the extra large capacity for phone book and received SMSes & perhaps the ability to check email on the mobile.

Dunno if that'd sound kind of dumb... but yeah... that's what I've learnt and realized talking to people and watching out... in India and in China; which're said to be amongst the fastest growing mobile markets in the world!!!

So I guess this should be a sort of wake up call....

Dunno if many would agree, but yeah, that's what I think-- and the world's still waiting for the killer app which would make people want to buy mobiles.... the way folks in the 80s bought PCs just so they could run Lotus-1-2-3 or Visicalc!!!

So; if that's what I think, what's the connection between the iPhone review and Haydn Shaughnessy's 'Content is King' thingie ?

Well... I personally feel that whether or not apple gets a hit in iPhone, their strategy is perhaps to go through a market-validation process--- to see and discover markets where the sale of incredibly cool products could be driven by the sale of killer apps.

That may sound disconnected and off the ground; but the markets I refer to are markets like the ones apple originally discovered/created/expanded when folks would calculate the cost of setting up a image-editting creative studio by adding the cost of buying a couple of high-end apple boxes and the cost of the right number of photoshop licenses.

How wrong could I be ?

or am I on target ? eye-of-the-male-buffalo, if not bull's-eye ?

Comments & feedback always welcome....
Would love to hear from all you folks out there in blogosphere.
Am new here, so forgive my naivette abt trackback URLs et al.

-Gizmo Buddy

Book Review: O'Reilly's Nokia Smartphone Hacks By Michael Juntao Yuan

2007-02-13T10:10:00.000+05:30

Book Review: O'Reilly's Nokia Smartphone Hacks By Michael Juntao Yuan

This book packs a catchy title.
The first time I heard of this book was when I had just bought a smartphone and was searching to download or program (yup!!! that's how nerdy I can be) a call recorder program for my Nokia 6630 smartphone.

And since the overview of this book contains among other things a promise to help the reader "Learn How to Record phone conversations"; I was game!!! and rushed along to go lay my hands on the book.

But ok; while this book may give the reader a few snippets on how to do this and that; and also this book collects a lot of mobile related vocabulary and definitions in one place-- the fact is this book doesnt live up to the promise in it's overview or book jacket--- atleast not for a technically oriented person person who has owned a smartphone for a few months.

At the same time:
Should you buy this book ??
If you havent bought your first smartphone yet; definitely you should... because it tells you a lot of stuff that'll help you make a smartphone choice.

Also, if you're buying a smartphone so that you're able to do specific tasks-- like control your PC from phone or other things--- and you're in the US, then this book will be a great buy.

My Wishlist: if only there was a site that packed info like that in this book... at a better price, free!!! (and that's what http://www.gizmobuddy.com intends to become. tell us what help, tips or info you want to see, and we'll post that online... and what's more, for telling us what you want, we'll give readers who register and write to us free mobile software goodies...!!!)

And yes... check out the coming soon: The Dummy's Guide to Nokia Smartphone Jargon only at http://www.gizmobuddy.com )

Formatting your Nokia Series 60 Phone

2007-02-13T09:48:00.000+05:30

Here's how you format your Nokia Symbian Smartphone, Nokia nGage QD game phone:

BE WARNED: DEEP RESET IS EQUIVALENT OF RE-FORMATTING YOUT HARD-DRIVE. YOU WILL LOSE ALL DATA, CONTACTS, MESSAGES AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN PHONE MEMORY (THOUGH THE CONTENTS OF MEMORY CARD MAY BE PRESERVED, DEPENDING ON YOUR PHONE MODEL)

DEFAULT ACCESS CODE FOR NOKIA PHONES (SET FROM FACTORY) IS 12345.

Shallow Reset:
(using A: - Normal Reset (*#7780#) : Restores ini files from rom but preserves user data (photos, 3rd party apps etc)

Deep Reset:
(*#7370#) : This reformats completely the C: drive. All applications and files stored on this drive will be lost and clean default files will be rewritten.)

I hope this helps.

This worked on my Nokia 6630 imaging smartphone, and also on my Nokia 6681 business phone.

Many times, when a virus or worm infects one's phone-- and the phone gets too slow; and takes even 20 minutes to start after switching on; then reseting the phone is the only option.
Also, it's typically better to try the shallow reset-- and if that doesnt work; try the deep reset.

For more similar tips and ideas; and also to win free gifts, mobile phone games, and mobile software, feel free to register on our website http://www.gizmobuddy.com

Feel free to comment or email Gizmobuddy (through above http://www.gizmobuddy.com website and I will be happy to post helpful tips, hints and help solve your phone problems.

Also, coming soon only on Gizmobuddy.com: "The Dummy's Guide to Nokia Phone Jargon" (register yourself on Gizmobuddy.com and be alerted to new updates, games and phone tips.

Check it out!!! And also feel free to email or comment to tell me what you wanna see here!!!!

The Fate of the Sony PSP... and are Nokia's Smartphone's destined to share the PSP's fate ?

2007-02-11T16:25:00.000+05:30

Well... I aint sure if sharing the Sony PSP's fate is a bad thing.

Infact, I'm not even sure if a mobile device can have something we'd call as a fate!

But hey... since I'm here to ramble and rant, let me say what I want to say.

I bought my first Sony PSP in Shanghai, China in April 2005... and went wild with delight each time I played with the PSP... a neat little package, small enough to put in my coat pocket; and yet powerful enough to give most desktop PCs of that time a run for their money and beat them hollow.
(yup!!! that's true, I'd gone there to talk to a game company... and they asked me if the graphics capabilities needed by a game could be handled by NVidia's geforce-2 graphics accelerator cards... and when I said yes, they said "in that case, it can also be handled by Sony's PSP and the game can be possibly ported to the sony PSP")

and it had Wifi capability to boot. The shoeshine boys and kiddie-whizkid automechanics I showed it to; went mad with delight anticipating the day they could buy this neat little gizmo at a fallen price... the way folks can buy out of fashion mobile handsets... but ok; the PSP never made it to the mass market the way we thought it would.

Infact, it never even made it to the mainstream market.

Today, when we use Nokia phones, a person like me goes wild with delight at the processing power... can you imagine ? read a PDF document in bed... while listening to MP3 songs... without paying the price of a laptop;
but ok, will these smartphones go the way of the PSP ? who knows... I for one know of atleast a few things Nokia could do to make the world a easier place for 3rd party developers... not just in Nokia 2nd edition Feature Pack 2 phones (Nokia 2nd ed FP2 *) and Nokia 2nd Edition Feature Pack 3 phones (Nokia 2nd ed FP3 **) but even in Nokia 3rd edition phones like the Nokia 5500 and the Nokia 3250.

What're these features I'm talking about ?
What're the applications I think are not there yet ?

well :-))) watch this space to learn more!!!

And check out http://www.gizmobuddy.com for more on where I see us headed!!!

Footnote: Dont know much about the "2nd edition, 3rd edition..." story... here's a snippet...

* Nokia 2nd Edition FP2 phones- For Example: Nokia 6630 Imaging phone, Nokia 6681 business phone, Nokia 6680 business smartphone, various others...
* Nokia 2nd Edition FP3 phones - For Example: Nokia N72
* Nokia 3rd Edition Phones - For example Nokia 5500 Sportphone , Nokia 3250 Music Phone , Nokia E61

and... coming soon to http://www.gizmobuddy.com is a FAQ "The Dummy's Guide to Nokia Phone Jargon"...

Who ? me, blog ?

2007-02-11T16:17:00.000+05:30

Well yeah! Never thought I'd be here in blogosphere; but here I am!

That's true... by a quirk of fate or a twist in destiny, here I am in the gizmo-world.

Personally, I'm not out here to put my name here for posterity, but ok, for folks that like tinkering with gizmos, here I am and here's our site!

At http://www.gizmobuddy.com

Check it out.

And yeah... for folks wondering what my Geek Quotient is; I know, I know, that the Nokia Smartphones run on a Arm Microprocessor; and the Sony PSP runs on a MIPS RISC processor, and also that a lot of the Microsoft Pocket PCs also run on a ARM processor.... and yesss, Motorola's Linux Smartphones run on a non-x86 intel processor (slips my mind if that's the i5660 or what ???)

So... without further ado, and having marked Gizmobuddy's presence, I walk on... anticipating now, when; sooner than you'd expect, I'll come back with more posts...