Seek + Find
So, with Barry and Dave, we tried to use Voda's Find+Seek service whilst sitting in Pizza Hut. Remarkably it managed to find us! Yes, apparently we were only 1.1km from Pizza Hut so we thought we had better move to that one instead :-)
Again, it gave a precise address as to our whereabouts - "2 Blabla Drive" - giving, as I noted earlier, the impression of accuracy only in need of some calibration. Cycling through the "Where am I now" option, it jumped around in where it thought we were, at one point actually getting quite close. Having noted that the reason for "pin-pointing" us at a precise address is to give a real and locatable reference point, at one point it was just giving "you are in Blabla Way" i.e. with no specific address. Thinking about it this morning, that was because Blabla Way has no residences or buildings actually on it - they all hang off of adjacent roads or plazas, including - one of the BIGGEST AND MOST OBVIOUS landmarks on Blabla Way - PIZZA HUT!! Had the geo-coding had a degree of "intelligence" built in, like suggesting obvious landmarks where there might be one (I mean everyone knows what Pizza Hut looks like) it might just have found us.
Another peculiar feature in the "find nearest...." option was a huge mismatch in how I versus Voda define nearest. When listing restaurants, it listed every single type in the directory (never mind that these were alphabetically listed as opposed to popularity ordered - to save paging around in WAP world - like Indian and Pizza should be near the top). Included in the listing was Greek, so I hit this option and it gave me a place a mere 56km away. Great! In my opinion it simply shouldn't list categories that have no restaurants nearby, but then what is near? [Full discussion of radius-of-interest versus radius-of-opportunity was included in my feasibility report for Metrowalker, and is also included in my course.]
The database was in any case devoid of any qualitative information, so had it told me that that particular Greek place had the finest smorgasbord of wares, then yes, I may have been tempted. At the end of it all, just when you find the thing you are looking for, the WAP page informs the unsuspecting user that he now has to pay 35p to get the information. Fair enough if that's their way of making money, but considering I just spent 110p on GPRS packets faffing around with a hopelessly designed system, I think that was rubbing salt in the wounds.
Not to be completely put-off, I was curious what the text message - which is what they send you for 35p - was going to tell me. Each time I got to one of these 35p walls, it mentioned "additional information" was part of the package as well as the address and phone number of the place of interest. So, out of curiosity, I located the cinema nearby and asked for the details. To my horror, nowhere, not in the SMS or the WAP page did it mention anywhere the films being played. Maybe - most likely - that's in another menu somewhere in la la land, which is where wireless data services is going to end up at this rate with such poor usability.
8:40:40 AM 
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