Googling is no different -whatever the handset
Rating: Angry of Maidenhead puts 3’s case
by Tony Dennis
I obviously caused a stir at 3 UK’s Maidenhead HQ with my comments made about trying desperately to find the latest news on Lewis Hamilton via an X-Series Nokia handset versus an iPhone. And abandoning the
process after 12 minutes.
So much so that I received a missive from Mike Stead, project manager for global technology strategy with Hutchison Whampoa.
The point I was trying to make is that intelligent personalisation of 3’s portal had let me down.
Mike Stead writes … "Apart from the
better screen area and multi-touch UI, a Google box is a Google box. 3 handsets all have access to it,
via either a direct web link if you’ve bookmarked it or the portal page on
Planet 3 (Internet: search. One layer down) if that’s your fancy."
He also added that, "fundamentals like Googling are no different IMHO, UI
issues aside."
Curiously Mr Stead has helped to support my argument. When I tried selecting
the Internet menu option this AM, it had Yahoo! Search at top of the page. Now
it has Google since I selected the ‘Switch to Google’ option.
Obviously the portal is learning from my behaviour as I expected. My complaint
was that 3’s portal should have learnt from my previous surfing sessions that I
don’t want Football as my Number 3 menu option. I want Formula One. I have no
interest in Footie.
But, no. Even after going to the trouble of re-subscribing to 3’s mobile alerts
for F1, the order that content is displayed in didn’t change.
I fully expected to scroll down through the portal’s home page and find a link
to an important piece of breaking news. Despite clicking hopefully on options
like Services and then News, there was nothing about Hamilton.
Of course, I could have booked marked http://news.google.co.uk
and I have now. But that really is self defeating. I want my portal page to
reflect my interests and previous content searches.
Mr Stead will probably point me to the help files which enable me to fine tune
the ‘My3′ page. I’m willing to wager, however, that doing so via a PC and its
browser will be much simpler than trying to attempt the same exercise on the
handset itself.
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