T-Mobile: Dazed and Confused

November 21, 2008

T-Mobile is my mobile telephony and data provider. I am a customer, and I can provide numerous examples of T-Mobile’s dazed and confused approach to online services. The company launched its own “interface” to Internet news and trendy subjects and labeled these “T Zones”. I still haven’t figured out what the service is doing when it tries to open information on the Reuters and ESPN Web sites. The downloads are little more than a way to ding me for files I can get free elsewhere. The account information remains as useless as it is on the T Mobile Web sites for customers, which is different from the site for general access which is different from the site which sells phones and so on.

I heard a couple of years ago that T Mobile was going to use the Fast Search mobile search technology. You can see this in action on some of the InfoSpace.com properties, or at least it was working earlier this year. I did not find the service particularly compelling and apparently neither did T Mobile.

I read in IOL Technology here that T-Mobile will use the Yahoo search system for its search system. Presumably the search system will be available to me on my BlackBerry. What was interesting about this announcement, I heard in Europe earlier this year that T-Mobile was talking to Google about using its mobile search technology. Then I heard a rumor that T-Mobile was looking at other alternatives as well.

Other developments at T-Mobile include:

Staff consolidation (which in my opinion means layoffs). Information here
Price increases here
Grief about its marketing here
Creating yet another T-Mobile “portal” called Web2Go here.

Stepping back, I think T-Mobile is floundering. With the Yahoo announcement, I asked myself, “Don’t these guys know that Yahoo may exit the search business?” Obviously T-Mobile has confidence in Yahoo search. Not surprising since the company shipped me an empty box that was to contain a replacement for my malfunctioning BlackBerry. I called and the company mailed me a replacement battery. See what I mean? Dazed and confused.

Stephen Arnold, November 21, 2008

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Mobile, News, Search, Yahoo

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.