Not enjoyment, and not for sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Brings us farther than to-day.
Longfellow, A Psalm for Life
Blackberry should cost no more than a Nokia 1208 “go-go” club phones, as Audia Granston, my deceased cosmetologist girlfriend oft referred to the iconic flashlight phone, which I must admit is great for looking into tight corners. But the Blackberry is a technology throwaway that Telecom Provider have thus far failed to entice people to purchase as asserted neatly in my blog article entitled “Apple iOS 4 vs Google Android - Blackberry Shot the Sheriff”.
Why am I all up in RIM’s business today? On Monday February 21st 2011 at 15:34, my peace was disturbed when a telemarketer, purportedly from Telecom Provider LIME called me on my Nokia 1208 from a number 1(876)979-8532 to offer me a choice between a Blackberry Curve or some other Nokia 3G phone.
Initially calm, the phone conversation degenerated into a curse-out when I was made to realize that the “free” phone offer mean I had to not only pay JA$3000 per month for a two (2) year subscription, but worse – I would have to travel all the way from May Pen, Clarendon to their Head Office in Kingston in order to get this “free” phone. WTF!!!
The words that left my mouth left many mouths agape in the Amazing PC Store in May Pen, Clarendon where I now work since Monday February 14th 2011. This is after being initially employed on Tuesday February 1st 2011 and enduring a grueling two (2) week intensive training at their Hagley Park Branch in Kingston
Ironically, this required me to travel this distance via public transport, as being that I was out of a job as explained in my blog article entitled “America, Productivity and International Labour - Dream Merchant” I had no money to get my Nissan motor car moving.
Just as well anyway, as I was gaining weight while working at Telecom Provider CLARO (2008 to 2009) and all that walking helped me to lose it all. So this phone call got me all worked up again – and in a mood to put pen to paper and longhand write this article of protest as this not the first time a Telecom Provider has had its silly Telemarketers call people offering their “free” stuff, yet trying to trap them into long term payments.
In that previous instance, it was Telecom Provider Digicel calling at 9:45am on March 29th 2010 from a number 1(876)619-5000 to offer me a Digicel SIM, despite my insistence that my phone, a Nokia 1208, was incompatible and I was not interested.
At least at that time, the offer Telecom Provider Digicel made me did NOT require that I travel to Kingston , but it included NO phone and worse, it was made in the morning, when I was in the peace and solace of my home in Milk River
The least they could have offered was a phone with the SIM card; preferably software locked using the SIM IMSI and the phone instrument IMEI such that they could not work with any other phone instrument or SIM respectively.
This much similar encounter, detailed in a letter which I subsequently wrote to Mr. Donovan Whyte, Marketing Manager of Digicel is copied verbatim in my blog article entitled “Mr. Donovan Whyte: Ideas to improve your Marketing as it is, like, so lame!”
I was so upset, that I wrote Mr. Donovan Whyte and his ballsy Mafia cronies a series of letters with my proposal ideas for a Marketing Platform called Brown Dawg, a Mobile Social Network concept akin to Foursquare (also my suggestion!!) but not necessitating that people have phones that have a built in GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) installed based on the technology of a company called GloPos as per my blog article entitled “Mobile Triangulation without GPS - A solution to Crime, Missing persons within five (5) years”.
Brown Dawg was not one proposal but a composite set as detailed in my blog articles entitled “Brown Dawg, a Mobile Social Network based on Mobile phones”, “Brown Dawg and A So di Ting Set - An API tool for User preferences and avoid backlash”, “Brown Dawg and I Spy Rewards - Geo-Location Rewards System for Mobile Social Networking” and “Brown Dawg and Se'et Deh - Behavioral Targeted Marketing Ads”.
Donations via my PayPal Account are acceptable for my above suggestions, which I am sure Google would be interested in as per my blog article entitled “Google Voice and Google Nexus One - All's Well that Ends Well”.
No reply thus far, so via this modern day communication medium I re-post my idea: free Blackberry under the Brown Dawg Mobile Social Network, where the instruments are genuinely free to the customer, save for paying for Pay-As-You Go Credit or a thirty (30) day Data Plan subscription.
After all, this stylish technology throwaway from the Developed World is now the phone to flash among Generation Y as stated in the excellent anecdotal observation by the Brit writing for ZDNET Zack Whittaker in his article “'Phone on the Table' students: Driven by Social Status”, published February 22, 2011, 10:52am PST by Zack Whittaker, ZDNET. This I have actually observed in the wild!!!
The phone’s cost would be subsidized via advertising, as it would be a Platform that advertisers would be interested in pushing advertising to, oweing to its ubiquitous presence in one’s pocket.
Even Multimedia Jamaica Limited, the adopted child of the RJR Communications Group, was successfully able to get its adopted parent to partner with BlueWave Technologies to offer a Bluetooth advertising solution as per my blog article entitled “Google AI and Broadcasting - Minority Report”.
They too, can pitch in and subsidize directly Blackberrys from the Telecom Providers, so that this “modern” marvel of “smart” phone technology would be affordable to all Jamaicans and a Platform for their brand of advertising, as Blackberrys have Bluetooth built-in.
The Big Three (3) Banks, namely Bank of Nova Scotia (ScotiaBank), National Commercial Bank (NCB) and Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT), can also subsidize and offer Blackberrys as a part of opening any bank account or a Credit Card or Debit Card as it would aid in pushing e-Commerce via M2M (Machine-to-Machine) transactions as per my Geezam blog article entitled “NFC and M2M - Cashless Society and the Internet of Things” .
This would support the expansion of Mobile Banking, now on the cusp of reality in Jamaica as suggested in the article ‘Drumbeat grows for mobile banking in the Caribbean”, published Friday, February 18, 2011 by AL EDWARDS, The Jamaica Observer (http://www.jamaicaobserver.com).
Not to mention Mobile Gambling or Gaming. Supreme Ventures too, could retail branded Blackberry which would be a shot in the arm for Supreme Ventures as I had suggested in my blog article entitled “Supreme Ventures and Mobile Phone Platform for Gambling”. This is further explained in my blog article entitled “Supreme Ventures and Online Gambling - The Return of the King” and my blog article entitled “MNP, Supreme Ventures Limited, Internet Gambling and the Royal Flush of Smart Phones”.
In summary, there is absolutely no reason why the Telecom Providers and RIM cannot subsidize the Blackberry to be either free or sold for the same price as the Nokia 1208 either via:
- Sponsored by advertising via a Mobile Social Network based on Geo-location powered by Mobile Triangulation named Brown Dawg as above described
- Subsidized phones given free to customers in partnership with local Jamaican companies in exchange for the sponsoring company’s branding and advertising on the Blackberry’s screen or as a Platform for their Services, effectively an affiliate program akin to Amazon Affiliates.
RIM, how do you like dem Apples, Free Willy (1993) Style?
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