So I had this super duper, uber-fantastic CTIA blog post that I was just about to hit ‘Publish’ on…

…when all of a sudden this video lands on my desk.

Brilliant.

SpinVox @ CTIA - c/o our friends at Heist Projects - Cheers!

Tony Carter, it’s over to you…

Back from Mobile World Congress and back from Barcelona and back to the day to day business of turning voice, into text.

And WHY has it taken so long to update this here blog of ours?
Well… I can tell you. You MAY have noticed from the pictures that we had JUST A FEW little men - aka “Speech Mobsters” - on the SpinVox stand.

Two thousand of them in fact!

And behind those two thousand we had a further five hundred. Packed away all secretly like and ONLY given away to those folk who we REALLY liked
Thing is - we kinda underestimated how popular this little piece of ’schwag’ would be and the poor little blighters disappeared in no time!
So as it turns out - word has got around that owning a genuine ‘Speech Mobster’ is cooler than a snowman’s cool bits - and my email inbox has literally been flooded with requests…

First they started out with the normal kind of thing - “Where can I get one?“
Then the demands of “Whatley, you owe me Sonny Jim! You HAVE to get me one!“
Finally to the scary “I’ll swap you my Gran and a week’s worth of biscuits…“

I’m sorry to disappoint folks. There are NONE left! Even the one that I had in my keeping got stolen from desk whilst I was in Barcelona last week, (nice huh?).
So listen, if you’re reading this and you got one of these:

You are one of the lucky ones.
Guard it well

If you *didn’t* get one of these but still consider yourself a friend of SpinVox - i.e.: You REALLY want a Mobster! - then I might have a way to get you one.
Basically I’m currently trying to pull every string possible to get another one into my hands.

Watch this space - when I do, I’ll make sure that the readers have this blog get a chance to win their very own Speech Mobster…

Until next time,

J

PS - Have you seen Mobby?

HALLO! …and HOLA!

(again)

From all of us at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona!

It’s been “GO GO GO!” since we started yesterday (hence the lack of updates - TOO BUSY!) but the SpinVox stand.. and everyone working in and around it, has been going fantastically well..

“The best stand at the congress…“ I heard one person say.

And our Speech Mobsters are like gold dust - you only get one if you’re VERY special…

I’ve been taking some photos around the stand and I thought I’d put them on here to share with you!

All comments welcome

If you’re at MWC - Why not come say Hi?

If you’re NOT at MWC - you can still get your message through by calling me, James Whatley on +447825798998…

Leave a voicemail and I’ll send the converted text message to the board in the pictures..

Now how’s THAT for a slice of fried gold?!

CALL NOW!

Hola!

We made it to Barcelona! WOOP WOOP!

…and I can tell you something: The SpinVox Stand looks AMAZING!

The team over here have worked tirelessly since late last week, getting our stand ready in time for the crazy kick off this morning.

And ready it is!

We finished up quite late last night but before we all toddled off and tucked ourselves in for the night, (and before the cleaners threw us out), I grabbed this video for you with an EXCLUSIVE first look at the SpinVox stand…

ENJOY!

Only one week to go until the world’s largest communications event, Mobile World Congress (previously known as 3GSM) kicks off in Barcelona and the excitement here is almost at fever pitch.

As you can see we’ve already despatched our Speech Mob figures (or ‘Mobsters’ as we’ve taken to calling them lately) to er… ‘assist’ shall we say, with the construction of the Official Mobile World Congress SpinVox stand, which is currently being unpacked and put together (lego style) RIGHT NOW!

I’ve been sworn to secrecy about the actual content and build of the stand itself but what I can say is this: It will be unlike anything you have ever seen before!

Also - if you’ve got something to say at Mobile World Congress, whether you’re attending or not, SpinVox will make sure the delegates get the message.

It’s all a bit vague and mysterious I know - but more will follow soon.

Promise

ONE OF OUR SPEECH MOBBERS IS MISSING!

You remember Speech Mobbing right?
You remember what they look like right?

I’ll remind you:

A Speech Mobber, as in ‘one who is part of a Speech Mob’ can be observed thusly:

As you can see from the above picture they like to have a bit of fun. Posing for pictures and suchlike and turning up to all kinds of events and generally causing a bit of a kerfuffle wherever they go.

Well. One of them has gone AWOL.
I know they’ve been getting around a lot lately, what with Rogers and Alltell both launching in the space of a couple of weeks… Y’know… They’ve had a lot to do… Must be hard work being flown all over the world spelling out words at different events, staying in all those five-star hotels, having to use all that room service…

HANG ON A MINUTE!

Now look here, if you’re reading this Mobby…
(or whatever your name is)

Did you not READ my story on Anna Hemmings a couple of weeks ago?!

Did you not understand me when I said that SpinVox people are NOT QUITTERS!

You can’t just up and leave whenever the going gets tough…

If you’re here, then you’re here for the ride! Dammit!

“CLIP IN AND CLIMB ON“ and all that… GRRRRR!

……………………………………….

What? What’s this..?

Hang on… Excuse me for a second ladies and gents… Someone’s trying to talk to me…
(you’d think you’d be able to tell when a dude is trying to blog huh? apparently not)

……………………………………….

*mumble mumble mumble*
… WHAT?! …

*mumble mumble*
…He’s gone WHERE?!…

*mumble*
…for what REASON?!

What do you mean you don’t know?! What’s this? A video tape? Who uses video tapes anymore?!

Oh I seeeeeeee…. I just have to put it in THERE and then I push THIS and then what’s supposed to happen?
Ohhhhhh… I have to push PLAY.

Right then - we all know what Flashmobbing is right?

No?
*sigh*
Do pay attention Bond…!

Ok - “FlashMobbing“.

A quick wiki-check gives us:

…ahem…

“A large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.“

For instance - you could use this ‘Finger Gun Shoot Out!’ as an example that happened at the Tate Modern this very weekend…

…that a certain Editor-in-Chief may have attended…

Anywhoo - so that’s Flashmobbing covered. Right? Right.

So - “SpeechMobbing“

It’s very similar - but allow me to try and define it for you:

“A large group of people* who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time**, then quickly disperse.“

*By “people“ obviously we mean our “Spinning Heads“. Y’know? Go to our homepage and click ‘try now’ - you’ll see.
**And of course by “unusual action“ we mean “delivering messages, dancing and generally being quite boisterous“.

Still not sure what we mean?
Ok - well thanks to the guys over at animoto.com - we knocked up this little video for you…

Now do you get it?!

Look out for the SpeechMob events - they’ve happened a few times now in various different places - we’ll be uploading more pics too soon.

Until next time..

PS - If you’re here looking for the Figures of Speech transcriptions that we promised in our last post, apologies - we’re still working on getting them to you.They’ve been caught up in customs somewhere between here and the US.We’ll get them, don’t you worry!