Fustar on the impact of kidnapped Madonna to 80s games bois.

Suzy plays it again while Michael Lynn’s hearing is adjourned ’til October.

Astronomy Ireland has a new blog.

Codgerism is still rife in the news room.

Biggest road party eva?

WANT.this.house.com

Does this point to O2 claiming iPad exclusivity come launch in May? Or perhaps a signal that we won’t sneak in with the launch of the device in Voda territories? Interesting.

Must we have chaos to achieve order?

How much…

Twitter Job Search.

Those Murphy Icecream lads study the scientific effects of a milkshake on the unborn!

Notte Sento (English subtitles) from napdan on Vimeo.

A stop-motioned fairy-tale with impossibly pretty Italians. Made with 4,500 photos!

If you want to be added to this list, drop me an email at alexia < at > golez.net.

I reserve the right of addition. Not interested in adding people that don’t interact or are greedy with followers.

Yes, plans to make it easy to navigate and, possibly, searchable are on the cards.

Media

Broadcast

• The Holiday Show: @theholidayshow
• The Last Word: @lstwrd
• Morning Ireland: @morning_ireland
• Newstalk Breakfast Show: @breakfastnt
• Phantom 105.2: @phantom1052
• Dublin’s Q102: @dublinsq102
  

Radio Personalities

• Ray Foley – Today FM: @rayfoleyshow
• George Hook – Newstalk: @ghook
• Sean Moncrieff – Newstalk: @SeanMoncrieff
• Rick O’Shea – 2fm: @rickoshea

Publications (Print & Online):

• Analogue Magazine: @analoguemag
• Irish Times: @the_irish_times
• Irish Sentinel – Satirical site: @irishsentinel
• Day and Night Magazine (Irish Independent): @dayandnightmag
• Life and Fitness Magazine: @derryo
• Media Contact: @Mediaflash

Journalists

• Marie Boran – SiliconRepublic: @PixieVonDust
• John Collins – Irish Times: @jaycee001
• Mark Coughlan: @Mark_Coughlan
• Richard Delevan – Guardian: @rdelevan
• Kilian Doyle – Irish Times: @kilian_doyle
• Tadhg Enright – RTE: @tadhgenright
• Shane Hegarty – Irish Times: @shanehegarty
• Harry McGee – Irish Times: @harrymcgee
• Hugh Linehan – Irish Times: @hlinehan
• Mark Little – RTE: @marklittlenews
• Adam Maguire: @adammaguire
• Dick O’Brien – Sunday Business Post: @dickobrien
• Chas Taylor – Irish Times: @ChasTaylor
• Adrian Weckler – Sunday Business Post: @adrianweckler

Events

Monthly

• Refresh Belfast – Monthly designer meet: @refreshbelfast
• Dublin Twook Club – Monthly book meet: @dublintwookclub

Less than monthly

• Cork Open Coffee: @CorkOpenCoffee
• Tuesday Push – Fortnightly startup blog event: @tuesdaypush

Arts & Culture

Artists

• Allan Cavanagh: @AllanCavanagh
• Eolaí gan Fhéile: @eolai
• The Stenner: @stenner

Music

• EMI Music Ireland: @EMI_Music_IRE
• Meteor Music Awards: @MIMA2009

Literature

• Poetry Ireland: @poetryireland

Professional Services

Advertising, PR & Marketing

• Denise Cox: @denisecox
• Dave Davis – Redfly: @redfly
• Paula Eager – MKC: @paulaeager
• ICAN Advertising: @icanadvertising
• Nick McGivney – copywriter and satirist: @nmcgivney
• Liz McGonigal – EMcGPR: @LizMcGPR
• Rachel Morrogh – Insight Consultants: @RachelMorrogh
• Laura O’Mahony – Hothead Media: @hotheadmedia
• Simply Zesty: @simplyzesty
• Thinkhouse PR: @thinkhouse
• Catherine Wilson: @cathwilson

Livestyle

• eBookers – travel site: @ebookersie
• Daft – home rental and sales: @daftmedia
• WeddingDates – wedding venue search: @weddingdates

Associations & Societies

• Irish Internet Association: @iia

Programming

• Ian Quigley – .Net: @IanQuigley

Design

• Martin Duggan – visual branding and UI design: @MDDdesign
• Jennifer Farley – graphic and print design: @Laughing_Lion

Business

Founders & Execs

• Robin Blandford – Founder of Decisions for Heroes: @robinb
• Keith Bohanna – Co-founder of dbTwang: @keithbohanna
• John Breslin – Researcher & Co-founder of Boards.ie: @johnbreslin
• Fergus Burns – CEO of Nooked: @fergusb
• Joe Drumgoole – CEO of Put Place: @jdrumgoole
• Deborah Hadley – Founder of Spicendicity: @debz
• Aileen Hannan  – Co-founder of SortMyBooks: @aileen456
• Walter Higgins – Founder of Sxoop: @walter
• Calaen King -  CEO & Founder of RevaHealth: @revahealth
• Stephen McCarron – General Manager of Hosting365: @smccarron
• Anton Mannering – CEO of Udoogoo: @antonmannering
• Michele Neylon – Founder of Blacknight: @mneylon
• Conn O’Muineachain – Founder of Edgecast Media: @conn
• Conor O’Neill – Founder & CEO of LouderVoice: @conoro
• Pat Phelan – CEO of Cubic Telecom & Blogger: @patphelan
• Paul Walsh – Founder of Segala & BIMA chair: @paulwalsh

Education

• Gabriela Avram – University of Limerick: @gabig58
• Educate Together: @EducateTogether
• Bernie Goldbach – Tipperary Institute: @topgold
• Stephen Kinsella – University of Limerick: @stephenkinsella
• iPhone App School: @iphoneappschool
• Liam Noonan – Tipperary Institute: @vpn
• National College of Ireland: @NCIRL
• SQL Training: @sqttraining
• Tipperary Institute: @tippinst

Social Hubs

Networks

• Pixie – Photosharing site: @pixie
• MUZU TV – Music playlisting site: @MUZUTV

Portals

• LouderVoice – Consumer review site: @loudervoice
• Daft.ie -Property site: @daftmedia

Communities

• Boards.ie: @boards_ie

Consumer

Telecommunications

• eMobile: @emobileireland
• Eircom: @eircom
• Meteor: @meteor_mobile
• O2: @Talk2O2
• Vodafone Ireland: @vodafoneireland

Entertainment

• Moviestar – Movie rental service: @moviestar
• Movies.ie – Movie news and reviews site: @movies_ie
• Irish Music TV: @IrishMusicTV

Food & Drink

• Bewley’s Ireland – Tea & coffee retailers: @BewleysIreland
• Cheap Eats: @CheapEatsDotIE
• Herbstreet – Dublin eatery: @herbstreet
• Look and Taste: @lookandtaste
• Slow Food West Cork: @SlowFoodWCork
• Small Sips: @smallsips
• RF Wine: @rfwine
• Tastie Tweets: @tastietweets
• Twecipe: @twecipe

Travel

• Irish Breaks: @irishbreak
• Ryanair Cork offers: @Ryanair_ORK
• Ryanair Dublin offers: @Ryanair_DUB
• Ryanair Shannon offers: @Ryanair_SNN
• Outdoors Ireland – Kerry adventure breaks: @OutdoorsIreland

Web & Internet

• Blacknight: @blacknight
• Magnet: @magnetnetworks

Technology & Gadgets

• Komplett: @komplettie

Politics & Government

Political Parties

• Fianna Fáil: @fiannafailparty
• Green Party: @greenparty_ie
• Labour Party: @labour

Politicians

National

• Ciaran Cuffe – Green Party TD: @ciarancuffe
• Paschal Donoghue – Fine Gael Senator: @paschald

Local

• Mannix Flynn – Independent: @mannixflynn
• Dermot Looney – Labour: @dlooney

Government Bodies

• Bord Bia – food, drink and horticulture body: @anbordbia

Sport

Venues

• AVIVA Stadium – new FAI and IRFU stadium: @AVIVAStadium

League of Ireland

• League of Ireland Teams – http://twitter.com/LeagueofIreland
• Athlone Town  – http://twitter.com/AthloneTownFC
• Bohemian FC – http://twitter.com/bohemianfc
• Bray Wanderers – http://twitter.com/BrayWanderers
• Cork City – http://twitter.com/corkcityfc
• Derry City – http://twitter.com/derrycityfc
• Dundalk FC – http://twitter.com/DundalkFC
• Galway United – http://twitter.com/GalwayUtd
• Kildare County – http://twitter.com/kildarecountyfc
• Mervue United – http://twitter.com/Mervue_United
• Monaghan United – http://twitter.com/MonaghanUtdFC
• Shamrock Rovers – http://twitter.com/ShamrockRovers
• Shelbourne FC – http://twitter.com/shelsfc
• Shelbourne Supporters Development Group – http://twitter.com/ssdg
• Sligo Rovers – http://twitter.com/sligorovers
• Sporting Fingal – http://twitter.com/SportingFingal
• St. Patrick’s Athletic – http://twitter.com/stpatsfc
• UCD AFC – http://twitter.com/ucdupdates
• Waterford United – http://twitter.com/waterfordunited
• Wexford Youths FC – http://twitter.com/WYFC

Bloggers

Individuals

• Damien Mulley: @damienmulley
• Lily Collison: @lilinator
• Suzy Byrne: @suzybie
• Tommy Collison: @trusttommy
• Twenty Major: @twentymajor

Music

• Niall Byrne: @nialler9

Local Interest

• Limerick Blogger: @limerickblogger
• Limerick Newswire: @Newswire99

Leisure & Sport

• Arse Blog – Arsenal fan blog: @arseblog
• Nathan Kingerlee: @NathanKingerlee
• My Munster: @mymunster

And I thought the abortion aftercare ads were fail. Nah, there are stranger ones out there.

A simple, impactful ad.

Misunderstandings on Darwin.

Games given classic novel covers.

Cardboardy sweets.

Bill Hicks remembered on Letterman 15 years after from his death. His mother Mary interviewed and Bill’s missing 1993 performance. Parts one, two and three. Part three has Hicks’ performance.

Laura Gibson has a new album called ‘Beasts of Seasons’ out in a few weeks. Some say she’s the female Sufjan. Here she is introducing ‘Funeral Song’ in a cemetery. Check out ‘Spirited’ on her myspace.

Crystal Stilts ‘Prismatic Room’

Update: Table cleanup!

Steph has done the research on how we should travel to the Blog Awards.

Speaking of the awards, the organisers are looking for judges. Sanity is a prerequisite, I’m sure.

And Sabrina is organising another Ladies Tea Party to precede the show!

Great post by Niall giving tips about how to use video online. He has the stones to become Ireland’s biggest video blogger.

Mulley  Communications are giving away their online marketing docs. Pop by and comment.

Neil has some O2 nightmares, as well! Oh dear!

Via Ger, Goodbuy.ie – a new Irish site marries bargain-hunting and Digg-style voting.

Conor and Oisin at the scene of the whale running aground at Courtmacsherry.  (Update: He’s dead in the vid, kids. Spare those crocodile tears)

Take that Tubs! Twitter was on the ferry rescuing survivors from last night’s US Airway’s crash into the Hudson. Amazing photo.

Free! Take One!

What a cool idea. Snippets collated from the web, Flickr and tweets in a collection of  interesting things. Kinda like a curious web mixtape of words. Want!

The Stone Roses ‘Waterfall’

People who deserve it. Via Matt.

There be fun in the comments of Michele’s Green Party spamming post.

O2 customer with online billing? Check to see if you’re being ripped off.

Just days until TeenCamp Ireland. Wanna help with goodies and logistics? Interested in popping along? Drop them a comment/mail!

If ever a word had fifteen minutes of fame.

Love poems of the stars.

Lina has a wonderful eye. Here’s her Personal Red album. (Some of her photos are NSFW)

What a way to start the slow Sunday morning. Fan vid, but amazing song.

You can still play Bullshit Bingo, if you watch the whole interview, though. Her stylists were “nice gals”.

Still love the cadence of her speech. She continues to concentrates on the wrong word on every * single * sentence.

Skip to 1:40 from the end. Ouch, you still scared of the bloggers, Sarah?

Part 1 of Palin interview with Greta Van Susteran. Part 2 of the interview and more.

Patrick has written a nice reflection tool for the iPhone’s SDK.

This Gender Equality Forum looks unequal to me.

You have until November 1st to register to vote on the draft register for the coming year. Check the electoral register to see if you are on it. You want to play in the locals next Summer, right?

It’s never too early to put up those Christmas lights, you know..

Search Flickr by colour.

Ugly pillow faceoff!

And the award for Design site with the Best Name goes to Art Bastard.

‘The Insiders’ by Jane Mayer – New Yorker cover story from the last issue calling BS on Sarah Palin’s claims of being outside the Washington political elite. Good piece.

Zebra typography.

Love Letters, a poster piece by Dublin artist Alex Synge of the First 47.

The Rubitone.

Pearl Jam ‘I Am Mine’

So just to make your life easier, here are the phone numbers of O2′s shops on Grafton Street. Good luck getting through and I hope your call doesn’t get left on the counter like John’s and mine have.

O2 Experience Store, 87 Grafton Street, Dublin 2

• Phone: 01 670 5577
• Fax: 01 6671384/01 670 5586
• Email: expgrafton@o2retail.ie

O2, 50 Grafton Street, Dublin 2

• Phone: 01 670 5470
• Fax: 01 670 5478
• Email:grafton@o2retail.ie

And the number of the general-purpose O2 customer care rollercoaster of fun is 1850 92 30 30

From the AA Roadwatch site tonight:

Expect delays around Merrion Square where the West side is closed until 7pm due to events associated with European Mobility week.

How very Green to cause more poisonous emissions to be spewed in the air all while trying to convince people to be more green aware and use transport modes that spit out less CO2.

Can’t an event be held outside the city to minimise traffic disruption and unnecessary emissions? Decentralisation anyone?

* May not actually be true. In fact it’s completely false. Yes, a big FAILing falsehood.

Here’s the blurb:

After our very successful Mobile Monday barbeque with the MMA in the summer, I would like to announce that we’ll be holding our next event the evening of the 29th September.

Often neglected (although they continue to be the major economic engine of the industry), we will be looking at Voice Services, and how they are quietly evolving just as intriguingly as the data services that steal all the headlines.

Our speakers include:

• Andrew Fuller
  http://voxpilot.com
  CTO of Dublin’s VoxPilot on what’s happening in the industry regarding IVR, video IVR and standardization

• Pat Phelan
  http://maxroam.com & http://twitterfone.com
  Demo session from Cubic Telecom entrepreneur, and renowned Cork blogger

• O2 Ireland (speaker to be confirmed)
  http://o2.ie
  Trends in voice services and usage, particularly in Ireland, from an operator’s perspective

Pat and O2 on the same stage? (Not to forget VoxPilot!). Unconfirmed reports say that girls in bikinis, with boards announcing speakers will parade about after every round.. er.. speaker.

But seriously, MoMoDublin is a great opportunity to meet people involved in telecoms as well as listen to enterpreneurs in the field. It should be a pretty amazing night.

Here’s what the turbo-charged MAXroam V2 has to offer snipped from Pat Phelan’s blog. He’s Cubic’s honcho and part-time benevolent ruler of Cork tech scene:

• New, more user friendly design
• Improved online store allowing you to buy more than one SIM per order
• New videos guides to help you use MAXroam better
• New blog
• More options for airtime amounts with 3DSecure and Verify By Visa I don’t see any issues
• Improved Call Billing
• Auto Top Up – Never run out of credit, set a minimum level of credit and top up by a specified amount
• Data – from 0.005/kb
• USA Roaming – from €0.39 per minute
• Coverage now in 175 countries with over 450 partner carriers

Emboldening my faves. Auto Top Up is a great idea. Data and USA roaming are biggies. O2 charge €4.95/Meg when roaming in the UK. Did you know that? Scary, scary prices.

Well done MAXroam. Well done, Mr Phelan! Aside from the small part of Rebel blood that flows in my veins, I hope that someone from outside Cork makes it to Techcrunch next year, just to prove that there isn’t success serum in the Lee. Who’s up to the challenge?

Like a cruel lover, the iPhone has brought me nothing but heartbreak. The more I love it, the more it rejects me. And lo, how the cruelty continues. I spent the weekend in Belfast, at CreativeCamp. It was great. More on that later. On the train home, I turned on the unit to find that the Home button no longer worked. What the fuck? My phone is less than a month old.

Is someone taking the piss? Mike Murphy has crept in and replaced my iPhone with a dud and he’s filming me now, right?  Must not make unusual moves, go Hulk SMASH! and shout profanities at the top of my voice. Also I have to be wary of priests with 70′s quaffs and cameras crudely disguised as suitcases. If only just a smidgen of that were true!

I haven’t even been billed for the first period and now no Home button juice. I. Was. Pissed.

To switch between applications, I now need to do a hard restart. To boot, Safari was crashing on me and dumping me out to the main menu. Annoying, but useful as I now have a dependable way of getting there. Safari crashes when opening a new page at least 60% of the time. Yessiree, irony!

Friends suggested a backup and restore. I did this last night and prayed to the deities of Appleverse. All to no avail. My iPhone is grumpy white box that refuses to do what I want it to do!

This morning, I rang my friends at the O2 support centre. After 6 minutes of waiting on the line, listening to a monotone message to the effect of “All our O2 operators are busy at the moment speaking to customer, one will be with your very soon” play every 25 seconds or so, I got a customer support specialist. I regaled my story to her. She told me that more than likely my unit would need to be replaced and that I needed to contact Apple support as they take care of after-sales support for the iPhone. Fine, grand. At the close of the conversation, I ask the O2 agent if this hardware fault was common. Interestingly, she said it was and that she had had a few customers with similar problems.

So, I call Apple. Their call response is much faster. I was impressed they worked the word “expedite” into the support-line blurb. They know what they are about. Expedite kicks off an impression of rocket-powered, efficient customer care. They must be able to help me. I got put through to a nice agent who took down my details and made note of my problem. She said I had two options. Number one – take my unit to an O2 store and get them to sort me out. Or number two – a much slower operation whereby she would send a courier out to collect my device (could take up to three days) and it would be mechanically inspected by Apple for faults. If the problem is fixable, the phone would be repaired else a replacement would be sent to me. Mean time of Apple’s inspection of the device is seven days. That’s effectively two working weeks, without a phone. She obviously recommended the O2 store option. If I wanted to go with the Apple/courier/two weeks of living in silence option, I could call them back.

So, this morning I decided to brave the O2 store located at 50 Grafton Street in Dublin. After queuing for ten minutes (thankfully there were no queue jumpers), I got to speak to a young sales assistant. I took out my phone and he listened carefully to my problems. I told him that Apple had directed me to them. He patiently told me that he could do nothing for me. Apple own their own support. I should go through Apple for support. I explain to him that Apple told me to contact my nearest O2 store. He repeats that he cannot help me and that Apple should not have told me that. He says Apple own their own support. O2 do not. I tell him I’m paying the iPhone premium. I pay more on my call plans than other non-iPhone customers and that if I go with the Apple route I will not have a phone for two weeks but still be paying for my O2 monthy calls. Again he tells me that there’s nothing he can do. At this stage, I’ve completely lost the plot. I make it completely plain to customers in the shop that O2 are ripping off people as I leave the store. O2 don’t care now that I’m a customer. They have me shackled for another seventeen months.

Who now owns the support story? I’m confused. More than likely Apple, but why would they specifically direct me to an O2 store telling me that I can go through that avenue to get a quick turnaround on my iPhone woes? Has this method expedited a fix on others’ iPhone hardware faults ?

I entered the O2 store with trepidation this morning and left wholly dissatified. Again. Fuck me, I never want to return to an O2 store, ever. The member of staff was perfectly mannerly, but really couldn’t give two shits about my issues. No compassion whatsoever. O2 don’t want to offer you a replacement phone. It’s easier on their balance books, to hoover up money on your monthly bills and not provide a replacement phone to you. It suits them. Good little O2 customer pay up your money for fuck all in return. I have to have my phone repaired. I don’t have a landline in my house, so I’ll be effectively out of contact with everyone for two weeks. O2 are doing this. It works for them nicely, doesn’t it?

Update: Rather than post another O2 rant, I’m just going to update you on what happens next. I’m not one for naming individuals out in posts, but Karol from the retail arm of O2 comes in for some praise. For every woeful experience I’ve had with O2, he comes back with the fluffy O2 support and tries to fix the problem. O2 needs more Karols. So do all the Irish mobile companies. Employees that engage with customer support nightmares, cut the bullshit and just do their jobs. So, thanks Karol. I know he reads blogs. In fact, I’d encourage Karol and his colleagues to engage more with bloggers. Word of mouth is a powerful thing. O2 continue to support the Best Blog Post of the Month and they are to be commended for doing it while some of us bemoan our experiences. At least O2 are tuned into respond to some of our grievances. I hope O2 set up a spot on Twitter and deal directly on it like so many other companies.

Back to my case, so I need to return my iPhone to my nearest O2 store for it to be sent away to Apple for appraisal. O2 have arranged for me to get a loaner phone while I wait for my iPhone case to be sorted. Here’s hoping it will be fast and I can get a working iPhone back asap.

The iPhone I fought so hard to buy is all fucked up less than a month after I bought it. Yes, the Home button no longer works. I’ve been creepily taking care of my phone like a babe since I bought it, hence my utter frustration.

I will be calling you in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be nonchalantly passed onto Apple support with my god-damned problems. Any and all support engagements will be blogged – good or ill.

Yours,

A Very Pissed Customer

]]> http://golez.net/2008/09/07/when-home-is-all-fucked-up-the-button-that-is/feed/ 5 http://golez.net/2008/08/26/what-o2-pr/ http://golez.net/2008/08/26/what-o2-pr/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:07:41 +0000 Alexia http://golez.net/?p=1018 So it’s been a clutch of weeks since my disgusting treatment at the O2 Experience store in Grafton Street, Dublin. O2 said sorry and gave me a complimentary month of rental. John was similarly frustrated, got an apology and a dock to make amends. Still there are two glaring O2 customer experiences that were blogged about and they haven’t had a scrap of contact. No support whatsoever.

What are O2 thinking? Seriously. Have all the PR brains gone on holidays? Pat and Damien are two of the biggest names in Irish technology blogging have been ignored. Bloggers whose audiences are ten times of mine. Writers that people listen to when dipping their toes into technology, gadgets and telecoms. Trusted voices of the Irish Tech sector. Yes, O2 – this is a slow-mo PR disaster and you are driving the train.

The support shortcode 1909 works from any mobile or landline, but this is unclear on the site. They are rectifying this. On my missing PIN/PUK, they don’t supply them with the unit as it’s insecure. Fine, but I didn’t get any mail (like I was supposed to) with the information I needed. On my activation issues, they are looking into it deeper.

An apology on this mistreatment at the O2 Experience store on Grafton Street and an assurance that it won’t happen again is all very nice, but the proof will be in the pudding. Angry customers and potential customers will be vocal about mistreatment. Retail staff treating customers like lepers won’t be stomached. I think O2 should be welcoming this. Aren’t we making them a better company?

O2, if you are reading this check out these posts by John, Damien and Pat. Get in touch with them. They have had very disappointing experiences with your retail arm and would like to give valuable feedback on it.

Update: And gave me one month for free as a gesture. Thanks O2. If anything, this incident has taught me that bad customer service needs to be repaid with noise and foot stamping. If I get bad service from anyone (yes, O2 as well) I’ll be making my voice heard.

]]> http://golez.net/2008/08/20/o2-apologises/feed/ 3 http://golez.net/2008/08/15/update-on-the-whole-o2-story/ http://golez.net/2008/08/15/update-on-the-whole-o2-story/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:45:12 +0000 Alexia http://golez.net/?p=775 Okay, just posting an update on the whole Alexia-O2 thing, since I’m being asked about the state of affairs constantly. So, you’ve read part one and you are wondering what happens next..

Well, last Sunday I was feeling a little pissed, as you would imagine, and I discarded the whole idea of buying an iPhone until the end of the year. The thoughts of wasting more of my precious time standing outside O2 stores didn’t appeal. The last thing I wanted to do was go into an O2 store.

Early on Monday morning, I got Twitter messages and emails about the iPhones hitting the O2 online store. I waited and waited and waited. As the hours flew past, I thought long and hard about why I had decided to not to buy the iPhone. The truth is, that the whole debacle left me crushed with disappointment. Last Saturday was a battle of wills and I had lost, but at the end of the day, the child inside still wanted to play with * that * gadget. That love wasn’t rooted in branding – Apple, O2 or whatever. Just pure curiosity. So, I plumped for a 16 gig model in the online store. Of course, the black model was sold out. And against my better judgement I picked up the white one. On reflection, though, it looks quite nice.

Anyway, a courier attempted delivery on Wednesday, but I wasn’t home. Impressed by the speedy dispatch, I picked up the phone in Rathmines yesterday morning. Coming home was like a Christmas morning rush to rip open Santa’s pressies. On opening, I was struck by the emptiness of the box. I know Apple are elegantly barebones about packaging and info, but I was surprised with what box didn’t contain like a card with the PIN and PUK codes or any other branded O2 manuals. Inside the box was an invoice, a page with the returns policy, an envelope and the iPhone box with the SIM card in a holder stuck to it. That was it. Okay, I said. Fine. The PIN code must be 0000 because O2 wouldn’t forget to include important information like that. I typed in the default code, and of course, I get the incorrect PIN message. I was a little annoyed. So I scamper off to the O2 site to search for a support number as I’m damn sure I want to avoid an O2 shop if at all possible. One thing you’ll notice about the O2 ‘Contact Us’ page is that there is no support number for Bill Pay customers calling from Ireland on landlines. See?

It seems a little strange, right? So I called the Limerick number suggested for Bill Pay customers calling from International destinations. The support analyst was friendly and agreed to look into the issue. She put me on hold. She then came back and told me that Apple do not include documentation with their products. I said I knew that, but my issue was with O2 and not Apple. She said it looked like an oversight, but that she’d be happy to give me the codes over the phone. Grand, says I. I take down the PIN and PUK codes. She hesitates and tells me that she has the PIN2 and PUK2 codes as well and would I like them too. It’s been a while since I’ve studied telecoms. GSM is a faint memory, so I ask her what they are used for. She says she doesn’t know as noone ever asks for them but would I like them anyway. Alright, I’m a bit geeky, but is it too much to expect a knowledge broker, which is what a support operator is, to have answers to these questions? Hmm. She was perfectly helpful, though. So, I enter the PIN code and get a screen filled with numbers including the IMEI. She says that the screen is normal and it only means that I need to charge the unit. I find this a little strange as others reported that their phones were charged, so I leave it to charge for a bit.

After a few hours, I come back to it and the screen is exactly the same. At this stage, I’m a bit worried. I connect the phone to my laptop. iTunes boots up and I’m happy. Yay. We have progress. So the 200meg+ update starts to hit my phone and things are looking up. While this is happening I get an email from O2 saying that they read my post and wanted to know more about my experience. Would I like to call them. My phone is effectively bricked for a few hours, so I pen an email describing what happened up to this point – my unsatisfactory time at the O2 Experience store, missing PIN information, the dodgy contact page and the fact that their support doesn’t know what PIN2 is. As part of the mail I included that some of my friends had crappy O2 experiences too. That was yesterday lunchtime.

I booted up the phone and played with it for a bit after the firmware update. It’s really nice to play with. I’m still learning the ins and outs of it, but I love the way I easily switch from checking mail to Twittering and from calling to texting. So today, I remembered that part of the advertised online shopping experience with O2 is that you need to return signed documents containing the information you entered on the site at checkout time. And yes, I held out all hope that they would be sent separately. I hadn’t received them today, so I called O2 support again. This time I got to speak to another analyst. I explained my situation and she looked at my account. She told me that my phone hadn’t been activated correctly and that she would do it for me at her side. She also said she’d instantly send me out my missing forms and apologised. She was extremely helpful.

Each step forward has been accompanied with a matching step back. I have worked retail in different places. I understand the boiler situations retail staff can find themselves in, more than most. At the end of the day, business is about numbers, but good salesmanship is all about making the customer want to come back.

Just this evening, the O2 person that contacted me sent me an acknowledgment of my mail and said they would look into it. I was hesistant to blog this update as my dialogue with O2 is still ongoing. My experiences with O2 have been patchy so far. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes next.

Update: John has just published a lengthy post on his disappointing O2 store experience. He tried emails and calls to no avail.

I stood on Grafton for the bones of the day. Watching and waiting to such an extent that the helpful drunks enjoyed coming up and telling me that I’d “been there all day”. Thanks a lot. I watched the iPhones getting delivered to the store at 11:50am. And at noon, I watched O2 staff inside the store tell a fresh customer that no phones had arrived, despite the fact that the trolly of oblong, brown boxes had rattled past me ten minutes earlier. Just after the customer left, I went up and asked the very same question. The same employee smiled and told me that they had arrived, but alas, O2 couldn’t sell me one as their systems were down. First off, a lie to another customer and then the tantelising promise of iPhone snapped away. Of course, this was by now my third trip into the shop. I was on first-name basis with the sales reps. But that does not excuse the deliberate lies they told another customer.

It seems that O2′s instore systems have been down all day. The only sales transactions that they can carry out is the sale of Speakeasy phones. Billpay sales cannot be processed. Their broadband sales have been affected too. I’m unsure about the online offering. Surely those systems are tied together in a centralised, sales transaction system? This problem is national. So lots of other iPhone customers have cold comfort this afternoon.

Sales rep guy gave me a flash of his pearlies and a card with the store phone number. Thanks a bunch. Off I went to the Carphone Warehouse, just to see how they were affected. They said that they were unable to sell O2 phones also as they use the same system. They also said that customers had contacted them as they were having problems sending text messages this morning. Of course, this is hearsay – but interesting nonethless.

I called back to O2 twice more and called them a couple of times to see if their systems had come back online. And as of 4pm today, their systems are still offline. It’s infuriating. If I were not for the six, yes, six Chamomile teas I had today, I might have gone loco on Grafton Street. I called into the O2 store at the top of Grafton Street near the Green on my way home. The staff in there couldn’t be nicer. They were helpful and told me they * might * be getting some in next week. Result of the day, some nice unplanned people watching photos.

Update:Jump to part two of the story…

Yeah, still on Planet Lisbon here. So, No voters how do you feel after watching this racist video? Does it make you puff up with pride? How do you feel about knowing that your vote has aligned you to groups that have agendas like this? Groups that have been working with terrorists in the past and now sing off hymn sheets of democracy. And what about those amongst us using divisive issues like abortion to muddy up the voting? 

I Am Here: Location-Based Services

The real meat of non-iPhone hardware announcements was the push of a core location-based service API into version 2.0 of the iPhone firmware. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to scroll through your address book, see that a friend is nearby, decide to drop them a text or a call. Sounds innocuous enough, but it’s something I think that people could adopt naturally. Presence and indication of local proximity on a mobile phone rocks. 

A thousand mobile social network companies sighed as it was announced, I’d imagined. Early adopters and technogeeks, heavy users of said social networks, will already have or are considering buying an iPhone. Smart move, Apple. Although, to be honest, the real proof in the pudding will be if developers can plumb applications working on other phones into the Apple location-based system. Say I have an iPhone, and my sister has a Nokia N95, wouldn’t be nice if she could find out where I was and vice-versa? A universal mobile social networking layer that we could all just plug into. 

iPhone 3G

First off, it’s great to see that iPhone 3G isn’t going to ship in faffy colours. Yawnworthy red? No. Scratch magnet silver, outta here. I’m on the fence re: white. Not a practical colour at all, but there’s a vague 80′s throwback vibe emanating off it. Smell the Brat Pack radiation. 

I loved the stats re: the speed of iPhone versus Nokia’s N95. Jobs’ claimed it was 36% faster for browsing when compared side by side with the N95 and Treo 750. Although, as Sinéad rightly pointed out, it would have been nice to comparisons with Blackberry too. As they’re undoubtedly the enterprise space incumbent that Apple have in their sights. 

People have already begun to write off the iPhone 3G, but they are missing the message. By lowering the cost barrier to entry, Apple are commoditising the device. Trying to make it ubiquitous. Lock in the location-based social networking, make cross-platform interconnects, and the offering is a lot more powerful. I wonder how the iPhone ecosystem will look 6 months, a year and two years down the line. People who sprang for the iPhone Gen1 must be prickling. Look at the early adopter tax they incurred. Now Tom, Dick and Larry can get cheapie iPhone 3Gs at a fraction of the layout. A gadget that’s much faster, lasts longer and has move oomphy firmware goodness built-in. Right out of the box. I’d be pissed too. There are people that big up the N95, but the iPhone 3G looks sweet to me. 

Where are O2 Ireland?

O2 Ireland’s site has no mention of the iPhone 3G after the launch announcement. Likewise for Carphone Warehouse. In contrast, O2 UK has details of the new phone. If it weren’t for the Apple Ireland IPhone site and the publicity storm, they’d be no official word about the new iPhone hitting Ireland on July 11th. Weird that these outlets are in a publicity blackout, right? Were I in charge of iPhone publicity for O2, I’d be making sure that the plans and pricing were going to hit the O2 site just after the announcement, just to capitalise on all of that free buzz being generated. 

I’m looking forward to seeing O2′s pricing ideas. It would be nice to see a more generous plan being offered to customers. Although, if Jobs’ promised of a $199 price worldwide on the new 8GB iPhone sticks, I suppose we should expect a long contract lock-in and similar pricing. Not exactly the manna from heaven that Jobs was offering. I suppose like many things, it’ll cost the earth here.

What would be interesting, is if O2 took a sliding scale approach to pricing the iPhone 3G. So, for example, offer the 8GB iPhone for free when people sign up to an 18-month contract, e75 for phone on a 12-month contract and so on. I suppose we’ll all have to wait and see what O2 Ireland have up their sleeves. C’mon O2, get publishing!

Edit: Pat has posted O2′s price plans. Interesting, I still want to see more details.