Sponsor's Message

What's that? You can't get to the website? Me neither. Typical bloody SkyTV - I guess nobody tested it prior to launch -- but who cares? After all, what other satellite-based pay TV company can you switch to?

SkyMail is, of course, the long-awaited email add-on to the Sky Digital pay-tv service that was promised months ago.

Through this service, Sky subscribers will be able to send and receive emails using the set-top box that also decodes their satellite signal -- well that's the theory.

By the way, some readers may have detected a cynical tone to this morning's column -- you're right. It's hard to be anything but cynical when the memory of their last upgrade fiasco remains fresh in the memory of many subscribers.

So does it work?

How would I know? I canceled my SkyTV subscription many months ago and now spend that money on renting DVDs, a move I've never regretted for an instant.

However, the reasons for my chuckling today relate mainly to Sky's claim that the system can be used with the existing remote control unit.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) Skymail... - Nigel Sky TV... - Ian Sky digital... - Stan Sky... - Richard Have Your Say

Now I know that some one-fingered typists can be quite proficient at tapping out a message, and many folks can even key in a pretty mean TXT message on their cellphone using just a tiny array of buttons -- but the vision of thousands of middle-aged to elderly Sky subscribers battling with sloth-like software and that tiny remote just cracks me up.

I suspect that in most cases, unless they spring another $95 for a proper keyboard, SkyMail users will be sending only very, very short messages.

So how much would you expect to pay for this ergonomically disastrous mess?

Just $2 per month PLUS... 18 cents per minute of online time. Yes, you're going to be charged almost $11 per hour to send and retrieve those emails folks.

Of course one would hope that you could send and receive a lot of email in an hour -- but it's not at all clear from the information I have to hand (thanks for not sending me a PR Sky) exactly what part of the process requires you to be online via the set-top box's modem.

And hey -- if you've already got a regular ISP account (with its associated mailbox), and you're really rich or stupid (or both), you'll be able to access those accounts (for $11/hr) using your Sky box as well. Errr.. so long as they don't include any graphics or other attachments that is.

Now, do you think that SkyMail will have powerful spam filters on their system?

Oh, excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor (uncontrollable bouts of laughter will do that to you).

Of course they wont. Hell, at $11 an hour, you want to keep all those SUCKERS (oops, I mean) "valued-customers" online as long as possible and if they've got 30 or 40 spam emails to download it's even more money in the bank right?

Now I could predict that this SkyMail system will be a total flop and that people are far too smart to put up with this type of silly system -- but the words of PT Barnum ring loud in my ears.

The very fact that, in these Xbox and PS2 days, they've managed to sign up 18,000 subscribers to their ridiculous $60/year games service just goes to prove that, if your marketing people are slick enough, you can sell virtual-ice to cyber-Eskimos.

Nobody Cares?
On Friday I pointed out that a story on the Stuff.co.nz site carried an embarrassing spelling mistake where New Zealand was spelt "New Zeland".

A small error perhaps, but given the context in which it was made, I would have thought they'd at least run a spell-checker over their material before publishing it.

Even more astounding is that, three days later, the mistake hasn't yet been fixed.

Is this simply a case of "print-media mentality" where once a story has gone to press it's too late to fix it -- or do they simply not know that, unlike print, web pages can be changed after they're published?

Go figure.

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