Author Archives: Joanna

O2’s “free Web Bolt On” is not free at all!

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Gah!

Right now I should be packing my bags for a lovely long weekend away. But I have had to post to share my utter disbelief and frustration.

I have just had a letter from O2, my mobile phone provider. It reads:

This letter concerns your O2 Web Bolt On data usage. Your usage is significantly above the normal levels we expect to see with this product and we think you may be in breach of our terms. O2 Web Bolt On is subject to terms of use which stipulate that all usage must be for private, personal and non-commercial purposes and that you may not use your SIM Card:

  • in, or connected to, any other device including modems.
  • to allow the continuous streaming of any audio / video content, enable Voice over Internet (Voip), P2P or file sharing;
  • or in such a way that adversely impacts the service to other O2 customers.

Then there is a paragraph where they try to sell me O2 Mobile Broadband for £20 a month.

It then continues:

Unfortunately, if your usage continues at your existing level we may remove O2 Web Bolt from your account in accordance with terms of use.

Yours Sincerely

Paul Wilkinson
Credit & Risk Management
O2 (UK) Ltd

So, it appears O2’s Web Bolt On is only free when O2 decide it is free. No surprise there I guess.

HOWEVER, what does annoy me is that when I bought the phone I checked with O2 staff in the Birmingham Kings Heath shop that streaming video to the web was included in the free Web Bolt On. They told me they didn’t know and that they hadn’t realised you could stream straight to the web, but as long as I wasn’t downloading music or videos I would probably be fine. They advised me to phone customer services to double check. I did. They didn’t know either but as nothing had been charged to my account they told me to assume that it was all ok.

So, since then I’ve been happily streaming from Qik and using Fring (chat and Twitter only) FOR MY OWN PERSONAL USE. I don’t even use my work Twitter account on my own mobile.

It seems to me that O2 are penalising those who use mobile web to its full capabilities and must rely on people’s ignorance in order to claim to offer a “Free Web Bolt On”.

The ignorance of their staff doesn’t help much either.

Grr.

A “dangerous question”: Why don’t reporters write headlines?

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It’s the question I asked on Twitter yesterday.

Some people found it a perfectly comfortable question to debate, others seemed to find it irritating.

If I am being naive then I would dearly love someone to fill me in.

So far, my thinking is that reporters do not write headlines because of the nature of print production i.e. because they are not the ones that lay the story out on a page and therefore do not know what space they have/what other articles are on there.

It surely can’t be because reporters are not expected to grasp spelling, punctuation and grammar?!

The public responses to my question (or the ones that I could find on Twitter Search) are copied and pasted below in reverse chronological order. (Wouldn’t it be lovely to have an app that collated responses to you on Twitter over a specified period of time.)

Regional newspapers do not produce good journalists…

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…or at least that was the opinion of one desk editor from a national newspaper that I met during my London trip.

I had asked him why there were not more regional journalists breaking into the nationals.

His response was that staffing cuts at regional and local newspapers meant journalists at that level were not given the time to develop proper investigative and writing skills.

“We no longer see the regional newspapers as a source for staff,” he said. “We find that training graduates ourselves produces better journalists.”

He added that they had a few regional journalists who were trying to break in to London by working shifts, but they didn’t have the skills the newspaper demanded from someone with a staff job.

This had me reeling.

I had always been told that regional journalism was one of the best ways to cut your teeth in the trade and could – if you wanted it to and were good – pave a way for a career in the nationals.

Now it seems national newspapers may regard themselves as an entirely seperate industry.

Is it really the case that regional newspapers no longer train good journalists?

What every regional journalist needs to hear about their industry…

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In this Seesmic post Kevin Anderson, Blog Editor for The Guardian and co-author of Strange Attractor, pretty much covers many of the things I’ve wanted to say, but better:

Kevin Anderson on Seesmic

Kevin Anderson on Seesmic

He is answering a question posed by Birmingham City University’s Paul Bradshaw – with recent job freezes/cuts at UK newspapers, is there any point in universities running journalism degrees training students for the newspaper and broadcasting industries?

London – the itinerary

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So, just before I pack my bags and spend a small fortune filling up the car with fuel, I thought I’d let you know what I’m up to during my weekend jaunt to London.

It’s looking busy!

Friday:

Morning: The Tuttle Club – where I am looking forward to meeting some well-known social media types such as Lloyd Davies and Steve Lawson.

Lunch: Meeting up with an old friend and mentor from The Times, who I haven’t seen for years.

Afternoon/Evening: Free. Anyone wanna meet?

Saturday:

Family things

Sunday:

SHOPPING!!!!

Monday:

Morning: Meeting the veritable mine of blogging knowledge that is Adam Tinworth and fellow digital journalist in crime (amongst other things) Gary Andrews.

Lunch: Tour of The Guardian. {muffled squeak of excitement about this one!}

Afternoon/Evening: Off to Trinity Mirror Towers aka Canary Wharf to meet colleagues including über boss David Black.