I’m so immersed with the online world that when I saw an ad for a new Charlotte’s Web movie today, I wondered what a pig and a spider had to do with the Internet. So, pardon me while I rant about the fine distinctions between two things that nobody actually cares about anyway.
Well, I’m looking at cell phone upgrades. Mine is so old and ugly that it has induced people to point and laugh, so I figure it’s about time. And there’s all these new cool features, right? Like maybe this hot mobile web-browsing stuff I keep hearing about from places like Danger. And since I’ve got their DSL and long distance, I figure that Verizon Mobile Web would be a good place to start. After all, they give a discount for bundling sevices.
I got to the point of showing up ready to buy a phone when I found out that when they say “Mobile Web” they don’t actually mean that you can access the web from your mobile phone. Now, I don’t expect competing services like mMode or iMode to do this, but if it’s called “Mobile Web,” it sure sounds like a mobile web access service to me!
What do you get for your Mobile Web subscription? You get WAP. You get Hotmail and IM and a couple tidbits in their special walled garden of licensed content. WAP sucks. It has been a well-documented failure for years and you’re still promoting it like it’s the hot new thing?
For actual mobile web access — say, blogging from my phone — I’d need to buy a Pocket PC (up to $599 after rebate), and pay $60/month for the minimum plan, plus per kilobyte data charges if I go over the allowance. Per kilobyte.
You fucking assclowns! What fool branding agency came up with that? Whoever picked that name doesn’t know IP from taking a piss.
Secretly Ironic 