25 Reviewers Announced – Telstra Windows Phone 7 Social Review
Filed under: consumer, HTC 7 Mozart, Microsoft, Social Reviewer, Windows Phone 7, WP7 social review, Xbox LIVE
It’s almost been two weeks since we opened applications for our second Social Review and we were once again overwhelmed by the number of people that submitted applications.
Over a five day period we received just over 1300 applications. How does that compare with the HTC Desire Social Review? The application phase of the HTC Desire review was longer at eight days and generated around 2200 applications. The run rates are practically the same, but the Telstra Windows Phone 7 application page generated an extra 2000 page views. I think this speaks volumes to the size of the online community interested in the Windows Phone 7 operating system and the HTC Mozart 7.
You’ll find the complete list of the Social Reviewers below including their Twitter accounts. While it’s a helluva job going through all the applications, it’s a privilege to come across so many interesting people.
When we called for applications to be a HTC Desire Social Reviewer, we asked “Why should you become a Social Reviewer?” 15 people responded “Coz I’m sexy”. For the Telstra Windows Phone 7 Social Review, 14 people attested to their sexiness as a suitable reviewing characteristic. We didn’t seek to qualify these answers any further.
Breakdown of entries
The general break down of the all applications received:
| Gender | |
|---|---|
| Male | 86% |
| Female | 14% |
| Age Bracket | |
|---|---|
| 18 – 25 | 32% |
| 25 – 34 | 41% |
| 35 – 44 | 17% |
| 45 – 54 | 6% |
| 55 – 64 | 3% |
| 65 + | 1% |
| State | |
|---|---|
| ACT | 2% |
| NSW | 32% |
| NT | 1% |
| QLD | 20% |
| SA | 7% |
| TAS | 3% |
| VIC | 27% |
| WA | 9% |
| Describe the way you use social media | |
|---|---|
| Content Consumer | 34% |
| Content Creator | 29% |
| Networker | 38% |
The hashtag agreed upon by the Social Reviewers is #TelstraWP7
A separate section has been established for the Telstra WP7 Social Review on the Windows Phone 7 forum.
To follow all the action check out the Windows Phone 7 Social Review tag and RSS.
Your 25 Telstra Windows Phone 7 Social Reviewers
- Natalie Bochenski http://www.twitter.com/girlclumsy
- Robert Candelori http://twitter.com/RobertCandelori
- Christopher Chan http://twitter.com/chanc
- Matt Coutts http://twitter.com/northirid
- Ryan Fernance http://twitter.com/Dimorphic_AU
- grum http://twitter.com/grum
- Brad Kellett http://twitter.com/bck
- Damien Kelly http://twitter.com/DamoMK
- Jodie Miners http://www.twitter.com/jodiem
- Steve Molkentin http://twitter.com/themolk
- Peter Murphy http://twitter.com/pedaah
- Jess Nichols http://www.twitter.com/jessnichols
- Lauren O’Grady http://www.twitter.com/lilylauren
- Daniel Olivares http://twitter.com/themonkeyboy
- Peter Papadopoulos http://twitter.com/sidetwo
- Shane Perris http://twitter.com/smperris
- Heather Samsa http://twitter.com/I_Enigma
- Andrew Sayer http://twitter.com/andrewsayer
- Evan Smith http://twitter.com/fictillius
- Richard Taylor http://twitter.com/artywah
- Ben Taylor http://twitter.com/taybenlor
- Peter Wells http://twitter.com/fulltimecasual
- Glenn Wilson http://twitter.com/Mykre
- Bryce Wilson http://www.twitter.com/DrjftGaming
- Steve Wright http://www.twitter.com/stevivor
I have to say I’m a little surprised at only 5 of the 25 reviewers being female. You’d have thought that a more even spread of male to female reviewers would have been sought.
Hi Tia
You’ll see from the stats that 14% of applicants are female and yet 20% of reviewers are female. So actually I think we’ve been fair. But hey – of course I’d say that.
Cheers
Kristen
I guess presence on Twitter was important then
Yeah, I only had a facebook account and not Twitter. Once I look at the list I wondered if I would have had a better chance if I had Twitter but then I found people I know of in list so my chances for doing the Gaming part wasn’t that great.
Congrats those that got to do the part
.
@Tia, yeah I have over 25,000 posts online but very few on Twitter, I find it is a full time job to try and follow Twitter with any sort of sense, it is very much a what’s happening at this point in time format and things are quickly forgotten, even Facebook is like that to an extent although not quite as bad perhaps
Damn you highly successful applicants and your winning ways!
Ah well, at least my Samsung Focus was unlocked today in the US and is on it’s way over here for a T sim!!!
Congratz & Have fun!
@Tia Only 182 of the 1,300 applicants were female. Maybe you could suggest some other avenues for Telstra to promote the review to ladies for next time round
only 1300 applicants, the Desire was around 2500 wasn’t it, maybe the promotion of this revue wasn’t as well known???
Sure thing Geoff. One of the most obvious is to have more females to review to start with. Not all of us subscribe to Telstra or the GadgetGuy (like I do), but do tend to read other women’s blogs, follow Facebook or Twitter etc. Just like the addage “you have to spend money to make money”… maybe “you have to use more female reviewers to expose the opportunity to gain more female followers/reviewers”.
I’m interested to see if the unsuccessful still go buy the handset. A lot seemed to suggest they were looking at it – judging from the comments anyhow.
Possibly. I got bad experience with Windows Mobile thanks to the Xperia X1 and Windows Mobile 6.5 Firmware so I was using this chance to see to see if all the issues (mainly the slow start-up and the ram usage which makes it highly unusable).
Being a hardcore gamer and a developer, I will certainly have interest in Xbox Live and the Application Development on the phone so it can certain win me if it doesn’t suffer the same issue the Xperia X1 had.
Also, having a battery life of at least 2 days after heavy gaming/developing will be great.
If I was buying a WP7 handset it would have to have 4 inches of SAmoled goodness. Hard to go back to tft after tasting the future on my Galaxy S.
A Mozart would have been great, and I hope my business upgrades to this platform from oue winMobile 6.5 smartphones…
But I have a Samsung Focus bought unlocked/outright from the US coming in for just over $700. Simply love the thin form factor, the gorgeous SAMOLED screen and the upgradeable storage (to 32GB)….was tough to get, but shd be here soon!
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1575615
Thanks to Telstra for picking me. God knows what I wrote that convinced you.
Looking forward to getting the HTC Mozart and making some sweet music with it.
All right, that already sounds weird.
I await by my letterbox!
Nat.
I heard a whisper around the traps that 2 of the reviewers were a couple…how is that fair?
Oh there’s a couple!? That’s kind of cool I guess… But I’m guessing everyone would have been judged on their own merit.
Thanks Telstra for letting me be a part of this, can’t wait to get my phone tonight!
If you ask the question *fair* do not ask of it with Telstra. Majority of the *reviewers* are Journalists (established or upcoming) Majority of them are from Melbourne or Sydney. I would not be surprised if they were mates and connected to even the reviewers.
Dig into the tweets, websites, and in a days digging you can unearth all the links…
Telstra got free publicity from this, the numbers this time have dropped since the last time (Desire promo) coz more and more people are seeing through the *sham*.
I am done with Telstra *shams*. This was just a way to *buy* reviews, now when you think of it, they wanted to see how well one could promote the product, they did not want any social *crap* they mentioned. It is a business and the bottom line is *not* charity.
Jayant,
I can tell you with certainty that there were people in the Desire review that were NOT journalists of any kind! How do I know – because I’m a public servant from Canberra and I was one of the reviewers.
While I know there’s a fair amount of hate against Telstra, just making up *sham* stories is not really true!
At the end of the day, Telstra is wanting some differing views – if there’s a couple there: maybe they both put in applications and both provided balanced sides of a normal household usage that Telstra wants to test. I know of one Desire reviewer who ended up just giving it to her husband as she didn’t like the phone.
Hell, I liked the Desire so much (not) I sold it after the review period and got an iPhone4. But the speed of Telstra’s network is such a refreshing change (that I contracted my iPhone4 onto Telstra), so i’m moving my other 2 business accounts across to Telstra as soon as the contracts are over with another large carrier.
Jayant: I’m not a writer, I just love technology. Whilst my personal phone is connected to the telstra network that happened only after becoming disillusioned with Voda after 12 years as a customer and Optus after 18 months. I had never knowingly met or spoken to the Telstra team involved in the social review program before.
If you follow the conversation, you’ll see most of it so far is anything but complimentary to the handset and particularly not to the OS – hardly the outcome Tesltra would want if they were buying reviews. The whole point of this program is for people to be honest about how they find the product.
In the end I am glad I wasn’t chosen as I purchased an LG Optimus 7Q last weekend. I would have sent the other phone back.
and i bet most if not all are from metro areas
Very glad to be a part of the process
Last time with the HTC desire promo Telstra had given out Music vouchers to all applicants, this time around they are paying their *consultants* or *advisors* big fat paychecks.
Cheers,
Mate, I can promise you the only thing I’m getting ‘paid’ out of the review is getting to keep the phone. Also if you look at the #TelstraWP7 on Twitter there is a very even number of pro’s and con’s we all like about the phone.
I know we all like a good conspiracy theory but your fishing in an empty lake.
We get the phone to keep, and some good or bad content for our blogs, and 24 new connections, I consider that a fat paycheck, prisceless
Well said, Jayant.
They might just as well have included criteria that said, ‘No Twitter, NO chance’.
I’m also quite confident ageism played a significant part in the ‘selection process’.
Telstra is shameless.
From my observations there are at least 4 people who should not be in the Social Review….this is going by the fact that 2 of the reviewers are a couple and there should only be 1 per household, there is a journalist, phone reviewer and even a tech/games reviewer.
I thought the idea of “Social Review” was to get people with average jobs and interests that match the idea of the review to get it happening.
Seems like a percentage of this idea is bent
Hi Sam,
My name’s Natalie, and I’m one of the reviewers – and as a journalist, I’m probably one of the four you don’t think should be in the review!
You’re absolutely entitled to your opinion, but I to give you my background – I’m not a tech/gadget journo at ALL. The only things I’ve reviewed in my career are films and theatrical productions. This is my very first smartphone, so I don’t even have anything to compare it with. I will literally be giving my opinions as someone coming to the tech for the very first time.
And I can tell you that I’m pretty damn ordinary. I consider myself as having the average job and average interests that you say reviewers should have – it just so happens my job is in media.
Cheers, Natalie (@girlclumsy)
To be fair, it didn’t actually did specify the type of people they wanted, just that they wanted Social Review and in this case, many of them are from a common background that may have give them an edge.
I want that phone too you know!
@Girlclumsy – looking forward to seeing your review, I never had a smartphone before
If being a chef that is mobile obsessed puts me on your list, all well and good. I’m an average guy that runs his own website as a hobby/obsession, it’s been my niche tech for years. The perks, testing Beta software for developers, receiving the software for free but contributing to the development process, the occasional accessory. Otherwise all self funded. I have no ties to any mobile carrier in Australia, and I buy my gadgets outright, and am prepaid, usually unlocking phones, and installing custom software. So maybe my experience was what got me in. I think it was dumb luck
I intend to be honest about the phone, and that’s it.