What might a larger-screen e-reader look like? Here's what Plastic Logic plans to release later this year. Whether Amazon will follow suit remains to be seen.

Over the weekend, while I was reading the Wall Street Journal on my Kindle e-reader (I pay $10/month for that subscription), I noticed this headline: Amazon Is Developing Bigger-Screen Kindle. I found the article interesting for several reasons — including that the sole source for the headline’s claim is the unnamed group, “people who said they have seen a version of the device.” I was even more surprised to read that “the new Kindle could debut before the 2009 holiday shopping season, they said.” That’s pretty damn ambitious.

…WSJ.com also noted that an Amazon spokesman “declined to comment on what he called ‘rumors or speculation.’”

Hmmm… could this be a replay of the rumors of an Apple tablet computer that have been recurring for years? (Thanks for the reminder of that, Ron Miller.)

A larger-format Kindle would indeed be an attractive product to many consumers. It would be even more appealing to news organizations that are already selling (or are considering selling) Kindle subscriptions to their content. The Kindle’s current screen size significantly constrains formatting and excludes advertising — and thus news revenue potential for this device.

When considering this story’s conspicuously scanty sourcing, I noticed that this article did not acknowledge that the Wall Street Journal — and every other news org selling Kindle subscriptions — stands to benefit financially from the availability of a larger-size Kindle. In other words, the Journal used a definitively-worded headline to amplify an unconfirmed rumor that, if true, might eventually increase its e-reader revenue stream. And this claim has been widely repeated.

Of course, Amazon’s alleged forthcoming Kindle is not the only emerging larger e-reader option…

I reported earlier that Hearst says they’re working on their own e-reader. And Plastic Logic has been signing up content partners (including news content) for its larger-format e-reader, which Plastic Logic says it will start rolling out later this year. But Amazon is a very strong consumer brand, and the Kindle has consumer market traction — significant potential advantages to publishers seeking e-reader revenues sooner rather than later.

Also, the WSJ tech site All Things D reported April 2 that Rupert Murdoch mentioned that News Corp (which owns the Journal) is investing in an as-yet-unspecified large-format e-reader. Peter Kafka wrote:

“I checked in with a News Corp. spokesperson, who confirmed that I hadn’t been hallucinating: News Corp. is indeed in ‘exploratory’ talks about making an investment in a company working on e-reader technologies.”

So: Could this Kindle story be an attempt by the Journal to nudge Amazon in a favorable business direction? The possibility is strong enough that I’m personally very skeptical about the WSJ article’s key claim. Either a more nuanced headline or stronger sourcing would have made this story less of an ethical gray area.

AM I A WSJ SUBSCRIBER, OR NOT?

…This Kindle-WSJ connection is the kind of thing I love to point out on Twitter. But to tweet it, I needed a link to the story. (You can’t tweet web links directly from the Kindle.) So I had to look up the story on WSJ.com. There, the full text of this particular story is available only to Journal subscribers — which makes me hesitant to link to it, since most people would not be able to read it.

But I found the context surrounding this article intriguing enough (and considered that I probably have at least some fellow paying Journal subscribers in my Twitter posse)… so I thought it might be worth making an exception and providing a link to subscriber-wall content.

I tried to log in to the site as a subscriber, to check that the full article was indeed available there. Guess what? WSJ.com doesn’t think I’m a subscriber — even though I pay for this publication on my Kindle. That’s right: currently there is no way for paying Kindle subscribers to log in to WSJ.com in order to gain access to their full Web content. In fact, the Journal’s own subscription page currently doesn’t even mention the Kindle as an option.

Hmph. Maybe the circulation, business development, and editorial departments at the Journal should sit down together and talk about this one.

Oh, and to add another layer to this onion… Recently I noted in Tidbits that WSJ.com’s managing editor Bill Grueskin and former Dow Jones CEO Peter Kann made some amusing comments about how the site’s initial paid-content strategy was “ignorant.” Seems that under News Corp. management, this misguided thinking continues…

However, many news organizations still could take a lesson from the second item on HuffPost’s list:

“2. Do research and include links to back it up. Whether you are referencing a quote, statistic, or specific event, you should include a link that supports your statement. If you’re not sure, it’s better to lean on the cautious side. More links enhance the piece and let readers know where you’re coming from.”

It amazes me how often I still see mainstream news stories which completely lack links, or which ghettoize links in a box in a sidebar or at the bottom of the story…

In online media, links enhance credibility and invite engagement. Yet many (perhaps most) major news organizations (including the Associated Press, Wall St. Journal, and USA Today) still include few or no outbound links to sources or context from their stories.

I know from speaking to many, many journalists that in some news organizations, outdated print- or broadcast-focused content management systems make it cumbersome for reporters to add links to stories. In other cases, reporters either don’t know how to add links, or don’t bother to do so. And in a few cases, editors still actively discourage reporters from adding links to stories due to mistaken ideas about what drives online traffic and demonstrates value to readers.

Look at this from the perspective of the community you’re trying to engage online: Dead ends are bad news on the internet. A story without source or context links (especially obvious ones) may appear suspect, as if the news org hopes to discourage independent followup. Yes, it’s a good idea to link to your own related stories — but if you only link to your own news from your own news, you risk looking like an echo chamber. The more value you offer (which includes useful external links), the more likely it is that your online news will attract repeat traffic, inbound links, and personal referrals.

Of course, links are not everything. It’s true that original research (including interviewing) still matters in journalism. It’s also true that not every fact reported has an online link for reference. That said, much (perhaps most) of the information and context that journalists gather and assemble into most stories does indeed have some sort of primary online reference.

Avoiding those links implies hubris (the impression that the news organization is pretending to be the original source/gatherer of all the information presented), laziness (the news org couldn’t be bothered to link), or cluelessness (the news org doesn’t recognize the value of links).

Also, when linking to sources of context, quality counts. I’d have preferred it if HuffPost had stated a preference for links to primary sources, and qualification for any link that is not a primary source. But still — when soliciting news and reporting from amateur journalists, this list is an adequate starting point.

(NOTE: I originally published another version of this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

Huessner interviewed me for this story because I’ve been blogging about it on Contentious.com and on E-Media Tidbits. She chose to include a few highly edited and interpreted quotes from me that I think grossly misrepresent my own views and the character of our conversation.

Yeah, being a journalist, I know that no one is ever completely happy with their quotes. I’ve been misquoted plenty in the past, and normally I just roll with it. But this particular case is an especially teachable moment for my journalist colleagues in mainstream media about understanding and covering the role of social media in today’s media landscape.

Today’s a pretty busy day for me, but I didn’t want to let this go unsaid any longer. So I made a little Seesmic video response to this story. Here I am speaking strictly for myself — not on behalf of any of my clients or colleagues. Yes, I am very emphatic here and somewhat critical. Please understand that my frustration is borne of seeing this particular problem over and over again.

For example, see Inquisitr.com: Indian Government trying to block Twitter as Terrorists may be reading it.

Rumors — even fairly innocuous ones — really bug me. Mainly because they’re so easy to prevent!

I’m trying to track this particular rumor down, but haven’t been able to confirm anything yet. At this point I’m skeptical of this claim. Here’s what I’ve found so far…

Newstrack India reports:

“[Yesterday] evening, there were suddenly a lot of ‘tweets’ reporting that the Indian government had asked that there should not be online updates of military operations against the holed-up terrorists, citing a BBC news source. But, the BBC actually quoted ‘tweets’, which in fact had no independent confirmation.”

BBC’s timeline of the Mumbai attacks (which is an excellent resource, by the way!) reported at 11:08 GMT:

“Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. ‘ALL LIVE UPDATES – PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations,’ a tweet says.”

The BBC included no link to that alleged tweet from the Indian government. A simple Twitter search for “please stop tweeting” showed the earliest occurrence of this phrase in connection to the Mumbai attacks came from the MumbaiUpdates account, which appears to be run by a Twitter user named Mark Bao — a high school junior based in Boston, who apparently is not in Mumbai at the moment.

Several hours ago, MumbaiUpdates tweeted: “ALL LIVE UPDATERS – PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations.”

Prior to that, he tweeted (in chronological order):

1. “Due to military action happening very soon, @mumbaiupdates may have little information to report to protect the rescue operations”
2. “I am not updating on any details about #mumbai operations until futher notice to protect the operatoin”
3. “Indian government is asking that the twitter search page #mumbai be shut down.”
4. “or possible clarification: to just stop live updating about the situation pertaining to #mumbai”

UPDATE: Bao just e-mailed me to let me know that his tweet was not the original report on this event. Here’s what he said:

“The rumour started on via another twitter post that retweeted from another person that was a trusted source IN mumbai. Later, it was confirmed on video that the police wanted live updates of the operations to be stopped, though they did not mention the hashtag #Mumbai, though they asked media outlets to stop reporting live.

“The purpose of [the MumbaiUpdates] stream was to disseminate info from the CNN-IBN, NDTV and those twittering from Mumbai. With any news reporting and re-reporting it’s possible errors got in the way. I’m sorry if it caused any confusion.

“If anything, even if NDTV and CNN-IBN were still reporting, it is best practice, and I think justified, to stop tweeting and disseminate more information on the operation that could be spread and could be useful to those that we don’t want to let know the info.”

Also, on Twitter he wrote:

“It was confirmed by Mumbai police on video that they don’t want live updates. Don’t think they mentioned Twitter but it is possible that they did. If not, then that is the rumour that evolved, yet still good practice.”

I’m really glad that Bao elaborated on this, and I’d like to say that I think he did a good job with quickly starting the MumbaiUpdates account to aggregate information on the attacks in India.

Parsing out Bao’s response, it looks like we still don’t know the exact source of this rumor’s first report, but apparently it might have come from a Twitter user in Mumbai. He also said it was “confirmed by video” — but we don’t know where that video was, whether that confirmation was an on-camera statement by police, whether someone was relaying on video information they’d gotten first-hand from the police, or whether someone was simply repeating an unsourced rumor on video.

If you have any further information on this (especially specific links, cites, video clips, etc.), please leave that information in a comment to this post.

TAKEAWAY LESSONS

Media is increasingly unmediated. People are communicating directly, on a global level. We don’t all have to be journalists — but we’d all be better off by adopting stronger media-literacy skills.

Specifically, when you hear something that sounds surprising or important, CHECK OR ASK FOR THE PRIMARY SOURCE before you share the news. It’s not hard to do, and it’s a crucial step.

If something just sounds like common sense (like, “Hey, tweeting details of police movements here might endanger police and hostages, so don’t do that!”), there’s no need to appeal to authority (i.e., saying the police said so) to make people listen. A true common-sense message stands on its own — and in social media like Twitter, it could  carry more credibility as a peer recommendation than if positioned vaguely as an order from “above.”

In this case, many, many well-meaning Twitter users simply repeated the alleged government/police request as if it were established fact. This could cause ripple effects in future interactions between the Indian police and the public (in person and online). There’s a power dynamic in play here that deserves attention and care.

Of course, if an important primary source (like a government official) does offer crucial or interesting information, attribute it clearly. Just a like when professional journalists rely on source documents or press releases, transparency counts! It doesn’t take much time to include a link in your tweet, or just say you heard it firsthand.

Rumors and misinformation, even if well-meant, don’t help. In this case, what if the Indian government made no such request regarding Twitter? What if this call for social media restraint actually arose from concerned Twitter users? Actually, that might be far more interesting than a governmental request.

Imagine the precedent that a true government or police request regarding live tweeting might set for possible future police policy or requests during other events, such as political demonstrations, natural disasters, or a food riot.

Finally, if there was a police or government request, it may have had nothing to do with social media. It’s possible that any official move to get people to stop tweeting details of police/military location and actions, or victims’ locations and circumstances may have actually been a side effect of incautious TV coverage. Many people in India and around the world were watching network TV coverage (especially NDTV and IBN) and tweeting what they saw.

I think in this case it would be useful to know whether the police were mainly requesting cooperation from TV news organizations, or from individuals with cell phones. If the latter, that might mark an interesting turning point in the intersection of government, public safety, and free speech.

——————

NOTE: The original version of this post included the following information about my initial assessment of the situation and attempt to get clarification:

So far I can tell, the source for this alleged request by the Indian government is someone based in the U.S. who is monitoring the situation by remote online. He did not cite or link to a primary source for his allegation. It’s unknown whether he got this news firsthand, is repeating what he heard secondhand, or simply made it up. (I’m not saying he would fabricate that info; I’m just saying it’s possible that he could have done so — and that possibility needs to be ruled out before making this news worthy of repeating as fact.) On that basis, I personally would not repeat this rumor as fact.

That’s why, just now I asked Bao about his source: “@mumbaiupdates: What’s the source of your info that Indian government was seeking to curtail tweeting about #mumbai? Link or cite, please?”

UPDATE: I just received this response from Bao:

MumbaiUpdates: “@agahran ~14 hours ago police were asking that the live updates (incl from media) stop. not sure if it is still in effect.”

…Which really doesn’t answer my question. So I just asked for clarification:

@mumbaiupdates My question is, did you get that info 1st-hand? If not, what’s yr source? Also, did the police specifically mention Twitter?

…Soon after Bao transmitted his “PLEASE STOP TWEETING” request, he noted via MumbaiUpdates:

• “Requesting that if live updates are stopped, that when operations are happening, that NDTV and CNN/IBN stop broadcast also. #Mumbai”
• “This is exactly what #Mumbai doesn’t need: a certain tv station following the configuration of the police. That’s what I’m getting at.”
• “SUCCESS – the NDTV website is no longer broadcasting live video from the #Mumbai front. Thank you NDTV.”
• “TV MEDIA, BE RESPONSIBLE. RT @MumbaiAttacks CNN-IBN just gave out a room number from a guest that called them. What are they thinking?”
• “If in #Mumbai pls call +91-120-4341818, or if anywhere email editor@ibnlive.com to tell to stop broadcstng operations info.”

Yesterday, after much prodding from local bloggers (including me) and commenters on its site, the Boulder Daily Camera finally reported that the streakers who got busted by Boulder police at the 10th annual Halloween Naked Pumpkin Run will, if convicted, have to register as sex offenders. Today, the paper also published the names and ages of the 12 streakers who were cited for indecent exposure. All of these people are over 18, and thus under current CO law must register as sex offenders if convicted.

No acknowledgement of the community/independent media role in pressing this issue was offered by the Camera.

I just called the Boulder Municipal Court (303-441-1842), which informed me that Boulder County Courts (303-441-3750) are handling these cases. The county court rep I spoke was surprised, since normally misdemeanor citations handed out within Boulder City Limits get processed through the municipal court system. However, he did say that if indeed the county will be handling those cases, they should have more information on Friday. So I’ll call back then and will post an update. I’ll also check back with the municipal court, just in case they gave me incorrect information.

I’m contacting the local courts because I want to learn the dates and locations of arraignment hearings for the busted streakers. As far as I know, the public (including media) can observe these hearings. It’d be here that we’d learn whether these cases are being plea bargained down, whether there are motions for dismissal, and in general the attitudes of the judges, cops, attorneys, and defendants.

Stay tuned…

This series is a work in process. I’m counting on Contentious.com readers and others to help me sharpen this discussion so I can present it more formally for the Knight Commission to consider.

So please comment below or e-mail me to share your thoughts and questions. Thanks!

To compensate for our government’s human-unfriendly info systems, some people have developed civic info-filtering backup systems: news organizations, activists, advocacy groups, think tanks, etc.

In my opinion, ordinary Americans have come to rely too heavily on these third parties to function as our “democracy radar.” We’ve largely shifted to their shoulders most responsibility to clue us in when something is brewing in government, tell us how we can exercise influence (if at all), and gauge the results of civic and government action.

Taken together, these backup systems generally have worked well enough — but they also have significant (and occasional dangerous) flaws. They’ve got too many blind spots, too many hidden agendas, insufficient transparency, and too little support for timely, effective citizen participation…

In other words, the patchwork network of backup systems often fail to supply enough civic information to precisely those people who are most likely to be involved or affected by civic issues, in ways that engage them and support participation. Also, often the civic info they offer generally reflects the providers’ own agendas, assumptions, habits, and preferences — about which they may or may not be conscious or transparent.

Yes, having these backup civic info systems is certainly better than relying solely on the government’s own information systems — but too often, not by much. And sometimes they can even be much worse.

JUST GIVE ME THE DATA

The Knight Foundation has been supporting some efforts to make civic and public info more user-friendly and direct, like Adrian Holovaty’s Everyblock project. This is another third-party civic info “backup system” that aims to provide a more direct experience of civic info. They try (and mostly succeed) to improve upon government communications by enhancing relevance and usability. Everyblock empowers users to search and filter civic info as they choose (at least within a geographic context).

…But there’s a big catch to offering this valuable service: Everyblock must cope with the fact that usually getting raw civic info from government and public sources is a huge pain. It requiring considerable tweaking and maintenance to constantly adapt their “screen scraping” processes.

Screen scraping is a painstaking, cumbersome programming technique. A screen scraper program extracts data from the final display output of another program (what gets shown in, say, your web browser). According to Wikipedia: “The key element that distinguishes screen scraping from regular parsing is that the output being scraped was intended for final display to a human user, rather than as input to another program, and is therefore usually neither documented nor structured for convenient parsing.” That means the whole process is inherently pitfall-prone and inefficient.

Blogger and author Jon Udell nailed the underlying problem of data friction inherent in situations where civic media are forced to resort to screen scraping to obtain public information:

“Data friction can be intentional or not. When it’s intentional, you might have to file a FOIA request to get it. But in a lot of cases, it’s unintentional. The data is public, and intended to be widely seen and used, but isn’t readily reusable.

“…Now it’s time to grease the wheels. Here’s one way that can happen. An enlightened city government can decide to publish [its] data in a reusable way. I’ve written extensively about Washington DC’s groundbreaking DCStat program which does exactly that. I can’t wait to see what happens when EveryBlock goes to Washington.

“But city governments shouldn’t have to go out of their way to provide web-facing data services and feeds. Databases should natively support them. That’s the idea behind Astoria (ADO.NET Services), which is discussed in this interview with Pablo Castro. If the NYC Department of Health had that kind of access layer sitting on top of its [restaurant inspection] database, it wouldn’t put EveryBlock’s screen-scraper out of a job — it would just make that [person's] job a whole lot more interesting and effective.”

This all leads back to why I like what the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is doing: They’re flipping the focus around, to put people’s needs first.

They’re doing this by starting from the question “What kind of information do communities need?” — rather than simply settling for “How can we tweak the badly designed, human-unfriendly entrenched patchwork system of civic information so that it becomes at least slightly less painful or more useful?”

…Well, they’re doing that to a point, anyway. The crucial limitation I see in their approach lies in how the Knight Commission has chosen to define “community.”

(COMING THURSDAY: Part 3, Beyond Geography…)

This series is a work in process. I’m counting on Contentious.com readers and others to help me sharpen this discussion so I can present it more formally for the Knight Commission to consider.

So please comment below or e-mail me to share your thoughts and questions. Thanks!

If you want to strengthen communities, it helps to ask: What defines a community, really? Is it mostly a matter of “where” (geography)?

Last week I got into an interesting discussion with some folks at the Knight Foundation and elsewhere about whether “local” is the only (or most important) defining characteristic of a community. This was sparked by an event held last week by the new Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy — an effort to recommend both public and private measures that would help US communities better meet their information needs.

From the time I first heard of this project, I thought it was an excellent idea. It bothers me deeply that many (perhaps most) Americans routinely “tune out” to issues of law, regulation, and government that not only affect them, but also that they can influence — at least to some extent. (I say this fully aware that I often fall into the “democratically tuned out” category on several fronts.)

The problem then becomes, of course, that when citizens don’t participate, their interests are easy to ignore or trample.

Why do so many Americans abdicate their power as citizens in a democracy? It seems to me that many are too quick to “blame the victim,” pointing to widespread apathy, ignorance, or a prevailing sense of helplessness as common democracy cop-outs.

I think there’s a different answer: The way our democracy attempts to engage citizens actively opposes human nature. That is, it just doesn’t mesh well with how human beings function cognitively or emotionally.

Fighting human nature is almost always a losing battle — especially if you want people to participate and cooperate….

Face it: It’s hard to stay motivated about participating in democracy when your attempts usually leave you feeling like you’ve been bashing your head against cloudy plexiglass, struggling to read documents written in Latin. In 5-point type. In bad lighting. With the pages lacking any discernible order or context. And you only have time to read a tiny fraction of them.

…I’m not kidding. As a journalist, I’ve covered energy and environmental policy at the federal, state, and local levels. So I’m intimately familiar with such civic info-inspired headaches. I’ve wrestled with obtuse legislative information systems. I’ve probably sacrificed years of my life to decoding cryptic legalese and bureaucratese, to learning the dialects and idiosyncratic processes of various governmental bodies, and to collating conflicting or seemingly unrelated information from disparate sources. I’ve sat through many, many mind-numbing public hearings and meetings. And I’ve interviewed public officials and employees who treat transparency primarily as a threat to their fiefdoms.

I expect would-be newcomers to the democratic political process (people who want to initiate ballot initiatives, or run for office) face even steeper learning and procedural hurdles.

My experience is why I suspect that apathy, ignorance, and helplessness are probably not root causes of US civic inaction. Rather, these inhibiting emotions are totally natural effects that occur when human beings repeatedly encounter overwhelming obstacles to participation.

As things currently stand, simply finding and staying informed about relevant issues brewing at all levels of government — as well as understanding the processes of, and forces at work in, a huge multilevel representative democracy — is damn hard work! I don’t expect it to be effortless, but it’s certainly much, much harder than it needs to be. Or should be. Or could be.

We could do much better by developing civic information systems that work with human nature — our abilities, our constraints, our preferences, how we relate to each other, and how our brains work.

In the rest of this series, I’ll sketch out some ways we might achieve this goal.

(NEXT: Part 2, Beyond Government…)

I’m happy to report that there has been some progress (small, but real) from Nokia in terms of addressing it US service problems, which I’ve written about extensively.

First, here’s their most concrete step forward so far: Today, Nokia announced that the long-awaited firmware update for the US N95-3 should be available by early June.

Note that this does not mean Nokia has improved its firmware update process — which (as Beth Kanter, Robert Day, and I noted) is PC-only and very cumbersome, confusing, and annoying. And, in my experience, Nokia’s firmware update process is also risky — it’s what bricked my N95 in April.

…But still, a lot of US N95-3 users have been waiting (and waiting) for this firmware update. News that it’s coming soon appears quite welcome in that community, judging by the initial comments to the announcement.

Also, I’m encouraged to see that Nokia’s Conversations Blog yesterday launched a series of posts on its myriad US service problems. So far, there’s been:

• May 15: Introductory post, in which Nokia promises to specifically respond to my six suggestions for their US operations.
• May 15: A post on US repair turnaround time.
• May 16: A post about the forthcoming N95-3 firmware update.

I think the fact that Nokia has made this discussion so public, and is respecting and addressing concerns raised by users, is a very positive step. Frankly, this is far more than most major companies are willing to do. Nokia is willing to publicly acknowledge its significant problems, and doesn’t seem to consider this inherently risky or bad for business. Many, many companies and organizations could take a lesson from Nokia on this front.

That said, Nokia’s blog does try (understandably) to put as positive a spin as possible on its US service problems. As far as I can tell, they’re not painting a specifically inaccurate rosy picture — but so far they haven’t directly tackled the hardest issues.

Therefore, it’s still up to current and would-be US users of Nokia N-Series phones to keep pushing for clear answers to our most pressing questions and concerns. This is going to take time, folks.

Here’s what I mean…

US SERVICE TURNAROUND TIME:

Short-term fix: Earlier I suggested that one measure Nokia could implement immediately that would help restore US consumers’ confidence would be to guarantee a 7-day US repair/replacement turnaround time. On May 15, James at Nokia wrote:

“Whilst there is a stated 30 day turnaround in the warranty policy, this is designed to capture all Nokia products and typically applies to older products where spares may not be readily available. Nokia USA assures us devices are typically returned within 7-10 days and that 85 per cent of those returns happen within seven days. This is much closer to the time frame Amy (and we) feel is acceptable. To be special, we reckon a five day turnaround for Nseries devices would help boost confidence somewhat.”

To put this in context, this is not new information, and it doesn’t address the issues I raised, which focus on certainty:

• Certain about maximum wait time. The 30 days that Nokia’s warranty currently allows for turnaround time is far too long for such a must-have device. Overnight replacement or loaners (similar to what AT&T offers, according to Ricky Cadden) would be ideal — but for now I’d be willing to settle for just being certain that I’d have a working unit back in my hands in a week. Nokia’s 30-day wiggle room, plus numerous user reports of longer waits, is a worry I’m not willing to tolerate for a $600 must-have device. The point here is not average speed, but a guarantee.
• Certainty that the problem will be fixed. User James Roblimos commented, “What about the numerous reports of people who get their phones back with the same issues they’ve sent them in for? I’ve read numerous horror stories of owners sending in their phones …with hardware problems, only to get them back several weeks later and the only thing the warranty techs did was flash the firmware (sometimes not even that).” [Examples here.]

In this comment I asked Nokia to please respond directly to these core concerns. We’ll see what they have to say next.

US SERVICE LOCATIONS:

In the post about US repair turnaround time, James of Nokia also wrote:

“If you live in NYC or Chicago, you can roll your phone into the local Nokia Flagship store where it’ll be repaired within three days. This is on a par with other device manufacturers in the US, but as Amy rightly points out in another part of her post, there simply isn’t the breadth of Nokia service centres in the US to make this feasible for the masses. That though, could be about to change.”

This is good news for Nokia users in those two cities — which doesn’t include, well, the vast majority of the US. And I’m also curious what user actual experiences with Nokia’s in-store service have been in those cities.

If you’re in NYC or Chicago, I’d love it if you could drop by the Nokia store there and see what the in-store staff have to say about how they handle service, replacements, and loaners. And if you’ve had service done in those stores, how did it go? As we’ve seen with Nokia’s phone customer service, sometimes the reps say very different things from Nokia corporate. It’s worth an on-site reality check.

CLUNKY, RISKY FIRMWARE UPDATE PROCESS

Again, Nokia’s notoriously clunky, PC-only firmware update process is what bricked my N95. Today, James at Nokia contended that Nokia’s update proces really isn’t very risky:

“The NSU [Nokia Software Update] team tells us that over 8 million devices have successfully been through the update process and the failure rate is ‘very low’.”

…If that’s true, then why did the Nokia customer service rep who Beth Kanter spoke to on April 17 tell her that Nokia discourages users from doing the firmware update except as a last resort to combat severe functionality loss? That doesn’t sound very “safe” to me.

Also, Nokia support has claimed that the firmware update bricking problem happens when you try to install a US firmware update on a non-US phone. Since I bought a US N95-3 from Amazon, that creates further concern — are N95 retailers selling non-US phones as US phones?

Who needs all these layers of fear, uncertainty, and doubt? It may be that Nokia needs to train its customer service reps better on this issue, they’re sowing considerable concern in the US market.

In this comment today I reiterated to Nokia that their firmware update process (not just the firmware version) is a huge hassle for US consumers — and far inferior to the user experience offered by their main US competitor, Apple.

In my comment I’ve asked Nokia to specifically comment on whether, when, and how they plan to make firmware updates less painful — and also Mac-friendly. We’ll see what they say.

NEW PHONES SHOULD HAVE NEW FIRMWARE

Especially since Nokia’s firmware update process is so awful, it’s especially discouraging that right now brand-new N95-3s are being shipped to US customers with old firmware. ZDnet’s Matthew Miller wrote:

“Nokia’s support for these high end devices will have to get much better before I can recommend people go out and spend US$500+ for a device optimized for U.S. 3G bands. Every other Nokia N95 has received a firmware upgrade, except for the N95-3 North American version that actually came out before some other devices. This apparent lack of support for loyal N95-3 buyers has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth and this kind of treatment should not occur in the future if Nokia wants to reach U.S. customers.”

In my comment today, I asked Nokia if they could update their existing inventory of N95-3s so that no device is shipped with outdated software. Again, we’ll see what they have to say.

KEEP TALKING

…So that’s where this conversations stand as of today. I’m grateful to everyone who’s added their voice to this discussion. I’ve notified several Nokia and N95 user forums about this ongoing discussion on the Nokia blog, so hopefully even more folks will be chiming in.

In my opinion, so far Nokia does seem to want to improve its US service — and they can only do that if we’re telling them what we really need from them, to keep them on target and accountable

(Note I also posted a video overview of this situation on Seesmic.)

Earlier today Nokia’s Charlie Schick posted a thoughtful comment about how Nokia and its current and would-be customers might, through talking openly together, improve the situation in the high-end US phone market. (Also, Nokia director of corporate communications Mark Squires also just left a comment on this theme.)

Here’s my response to the excellent points Charlie raised…

————-
Hi, Charlie

Thanks for commenting. This conversation is getting very interesting, and I’m glad to see that Nokia seems willing to engage in a non-superficial way.

Thanks also for starting to raise these issues on Nokia’s Conversations blog. I posted some thoughts today on why discussing problems publicly is so important.

Despite vast time-zone differences, I think this could be a quite interesting and possibly constructive conversation.

To respond to your points:

1. “PLEASE, let’s together make sure that this isn’t a one-off ‘help Amy’ thing.”

I TOTALLY agree with you on this. My main concern here is that I want US journalists and mobloggers to be able to get ASAP the kind of pro-quality tool that will enable them to do their best work from anywhere, anytime — while staying connected to what’s happening elsewhere.

So far, Nokia’s N-Series tools (especially the N95 and N82) seem to offer the best shot at that. But with mobile tools, service is at least as important as product. If Nokia USA can get its service act together, I think we’d have a winner that ultimately would enhance the quality and diversity of news, information, and perspective available from the US.

Furthermore, until Nokia USA gets its service act together, I personally couldn’t bring myself to commit to owning another N95 — no matter how much I want one. By itself, a great product isn’t enough. So the only way to “help Amy” here is to improve how Nokia USA works, starting with short-term fixes and moving up to more substantive improvements (like widespread local distribution and service in the US).

2. “My comment on ‘intermediaries’ wasn’t to shift the blame. Tut tut. It was saying that your category of problem (service) was a complicated beast.”

I understand that your comment on intermediaries wasn’t intended to shift blame. However, I hope you understand that from the *consumer’s perspective* it could easily appear that way.

Nokia has pulled together a complex network of connections to bring its N Series products to the US market. This involves sales, fulfillment, distribution, support, service, and more. When you look out at that network, you see intermediaries. But consumers see Nokia. As far as we’re concerned, we’re dealing with *your brand*. So we expect Nokia to be accountable for our experience with your products and service.

I understand that building a coherent brand vs. managing necessary intermediaries is a tough balancing act for any consumer products company.

One thing I hope this discussion will do is help consumer’s peek behind the curtain of your brand to understand more about how Nokia really works — and who you work with. The goal of this is to reality-check consumers and Nokia alike so we can focus on getting to market the product-service package consumers really need, in a way that’s lucrative enough for Nokia to keep it up over the long haul.

3. “Wow. This was a great article. It has many aspects and I think it’s pivoting around your krappy experience with the FW update. I think you could make a deeper post in each of these items you list.”

Thanks, I’m glad my efforts are appreciated, because I am putting more energy into this than I expected. I’m surprised how much this matters to me — but if you saw the half-assed tools most journalists have to do their job, and how that hobbles their work, then my passion for this topic might make more sense.

To be clear — the firmware update that bricked my N95 was *only the trigger.* Don’t mistake that for the core problem.

The core problem here is that, through this technical snafu, I realized how woefully deficient Nokia USA’s service is (at this point) for N-Series users. I realized that Nokia USA was forcing consumers to assume an unacceptable level of risk, and I was relieved that by quickly deciding to ditch on the N95 for now I escaped that morass with minimal financial harm (but not without heartbreak)

And yes, if this discussion continues constructively I’m sure I’ll have much more to say on my suggestions for action.

4. “What pains me most is that you CARE and you have to suffer such an experience. But, it’s sad to think of all the people who don’t care that we turned off.”

Yeah, I know, that is a major bummer. Be glad that Nokia has developed a line of products that can instill such passion and also be so very useful to people in a position to do important work (journalists and bloggers).

The tricky thing about instilling passion is that it can quickly turn against you in a harsh way if you frustrate those passionate people. That’s one thing that concerns me here: Nokia has created a situation to engender passion, but Nokia USA has created a situation to engender frustration. Not good. I don’t envy you having to manage that conflict.

The good thing is that transparent, frank, public conversation can act like control rods in a nuclear pile. It provides a vital reality check that can keep expectations from spinning out of control, without leading people to lose hope and passion, and while finding solutions to thorny issues.

5. “It’s obvious that sometimes the firmware updater bricks a phone. Indeed, I hold my breath every time. But, it seems to be improving (it actually saved my son’s N81 user data — finally). And it’s been really popular. BUT, yeah the big BUT, maybe we should have been prepared for any of those rare instances when it BRICKS THE PHONE. Sigh.”

Regarding the firmware update process, you’ve got two big problems as far as the US market is concerned: It’s clunky as hell, and it’s Windows-only. Those are technical barriers that *can* be fixed.
Let your US users know what you’re doing to fix them — and involve us in the process. Offer us safety if we agree to be your beta testers as you improve this process. (Like maybe starting a registered beta program where, if the firmware upgrade bricks your phone, Nokia will overnight a new one to you. Just a thought.)

But in the short term (i.e., immediately) three things Nokia could do to improve the situation and gain US consumer confidence are:

• Post bulletins about what is and is not known about the firmware upgrade problems, and put them in an easily findable place that people can subscribe to by feed and e-mail. For instance, is the problem really due to trying to update non-US phone models with US software, as Nokia’s support reps told Beth Kanter? (Your comment to Beth on that indicates that may not be the reason.) Consumers want clarity on this point. FUD is bad for business.
• Train Nokia support reps ASAP about this issue, so they’re giving consistent information and advice.
• Reduce consumer risk. Update your warranty for US N-Series phones to unconditionally and immediately replace any phones bricked by your update process. No questions asked. I’m sure you can confirm though your servers whether a particular phone attempted or completed a firmware update prior to bricking. Since this is a known problem related to crucial Nokia-provided support, consumers need to know that Nokia is really taking responsibility for it, and not leaving them at risk.

6. “Well, yeah, if you pay a lot for a device, there are certain expectations.”

True. That comes down to understanding and respecting the consumer. No one wants to do business with a company that doesn’t show them respect.

Furthermore, US high-end consumers currently are weighing Nokia’s offerings against the iPhone, and the iPhone currently is winning that contest. Apple offers fast, great service for iPhones. You can buy iPhones or get them serviced/replaced at hundreds of US locations (Apple stores and AT&T wireless stores).

But the iPhone’s problem is functionality: It isn’t yet the best tool for a serious journalist or moblogger. It’s not 3G network compatible (slower data transfer), it’s locked into one US carrier, it doesn’t support an external keyboard, it only begrudgingly has begun to support 3rd-party apps in a negligible way, and it doesn’t have real GPS. Nokia currently has the advantage on all those issues. I’d like to see you use it.

One thing’s for sure — either Apple or Nokia will get the product/service mix right for the high-end US market, sooner or later. It’s just a matter of who will get there first.

High-end phone users are willing to pay a premium price for the right product/service mix. But we expect the very best in return for our money and their passion. Don’t let us down.

7. “As for sales price, distribution channels, etc, let’s see if we can split those discussion up instead of all on one place. Also, for me, at least, those are much bigger issues than I can respond to.”

Then maybe it might be best to start an online community focused on improving Nokia USA — something that addresses the technological, support, service, distribution, and pricing issues for this market as a whole.

I’d hate to see this discussion get too fragmented. (It’s already too fragmented, across various blogs and forums.) In order for all this talk to lead to action, we need coherence. And really, since it’s Nokia’s US high-end business at stake here, it makes sense for Nokia to host that discussion.

Thanks,

- Amy Gahran

Recently Nokia launched its Conversations blog, a good first step any company can take toward transparency and engagement with its customers, partners, and critics. Not surprisingly, most of the initial posts were “happy news” of one kind or another. I don’t begrudge them that — almost any company is doing some good things worth discussing.

But the real proof of how serious a company is about embracing public conversation is whether it’s willing to openly discuss thorny problems. Today Nokia’s blog took a first step in this direction with this post: When things go wrong with updating your device software.

There, Nokia staffer Charlie Schick picked up on the discussion that’s been happening here on Contentious.com, and on other blogs (like Beth Kanter’s and Jenifer Hanen’s), and via social media like Twitter concerning the myriad obstacles encountered by current and would-be US users of Nokia’s high-end N-Series phones. He focused on the firmware update problem I and other US users have encountered and mentioned Nokia’s support forums — which can indeed be a useful resource for solving some problems with Nokia devices.

Schick’s blog post is a good start. But I found his comment today on my blog even more to the point.

…All in all, I think this is a promising start to the public conversation. Of course, so far it’s all “just talk” — but real progress comes from action. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of action Nokia and its US market can muster together.

I left a couple of comments on Nokia’s blog — which will probably be approved for publication to the blog after people get to work in Finland. So in the meantime, here’s what I commented…

Charlie, thanks for raising this issue here. As I’ve written on my own blog, I really do want to see Nokia succeed in the high-end US phone market, mainly because I think your N-Series products offer the best potential so far to serve as an all-in-one mobile journalism/blogging tool. I know a lot of US journalists and bloggers who could use those tools RIGHT NOW. Getting those people what they need to do what they do is my core concerns, because we need the info they produce.

So to clarify, this isn’t a “help Amy” thing. As much as I’d love a new N95, I know it would only lead to more frustration unless Nokia USA gets its act together on service and support.

I’m encouraged that Nokia seems willing to address this in public. I think the combination of your blog and discussion boards is a good place to focus this conversation.

What I’d suggest is that Nokia make it easier to track discussion and progress on its current US problems. For instance, why don’t you set up some issue-related categories on this blog (with their own feeds) called:
- Firmware updates
- US service/support
- US distribution
- US pricing

You could set up similar directories in your support forums to make these topic areas easier to track there. Currently, your forum offers a section on N Series and S60 devices, which is global and mostly technical. You also have a forum for software updates.

But none of your forums have a US focus — and there’s nowhere to discuss your service, support, and distribution issues.

Categories and forum directories are powerful tools for focusing online conversations and communities aimed at consensus, collaboration, and problem-solving. Plus, they can be implemented quickly and inexpensively. Maybe focusing this conversation would be a useful first step toward both building goodwill with the high-end US market, documenting progress and setbacks, and making improvements happen.

It might even be worthwhile to start a separate blog or community for US N-Series users aimed at engaging this community in enhancing the overall service, support, distribution, and pricing experience. I think if your potential market here was more aware of what Nokia is trying to do to solve these problems, and that their input counts, then together we might find solutions that could help Nokia succeed in this market.

That’s the nice thing about online media — there are always lots of options for collaboration, as long as your goal isn’t to control the conversation.

…Also, to clarify, the point of my posts on Contentious.com about the N95 were not really about difficulties with your *product,* as your post today might imply.

As I’ve said many times, I think your N95 product is fabulous. It’s definitely far superior to your main US competition, the Apple iPhone.

Rather, my point is that Nokia USA’s poor business practices (inadequate warranty, too-long service turnaround time that requires shipping, lack of local distribution and replacement, inconsistent answers from support, and too-wide discrepancy in pricing between buying from Nokia vs. other outlets like Amazon) are sabotaging your own efforts to gain headway in the US high-end phone marketplace.

Before high-end US consumers are going to trust Nokia enough to pay premium prices for your premium products, they need to know whether you’ll really be there for them if they need you. Frankly, right now it’s not clear whether you’re really serious about serving the high-end US market. With mobile devices, service (in every sense of the word) is at least as important as product quality. So far, Nokia USA gets a B- on product (it would be an A+ except for the firmware update problem), but you’re definitely flunking on the service front.

Nokia could fix its clunky and risky firmware update process (which *does* badly need fixing) and STILL not succeed in the US high-end market because of these larger problems. That’s the 800-lb gorilla in the room, and that’s what you really need to be handling — ideally with transparency and public engagement.

- Amy Gahran