Spark Socialiser

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Biddle Corp

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#1159115 21-Oct-2014 11:19

Yabanize:
sbiddle: I can't believe Spark fell for this, they'll now have to deal with the same problem that every other provider who thinks this is a great idea does - which is content that customers believe is zero rated that isn't as it's embedded rather than originating on either FB or Twitter. Good luck to them, they'll need it.

They've teamed up with facebook to do it so maybe they've zero rated the cdn's etc too

Im looking forward to see if Vodafone, 2degrees or even Skinny are going to respond to this

You can't zero rate the external content posted to FB or Twitter. This is a massive issue that every other provider who tried to do this has had to deal with.

Vodafone offered free Twitter and Facebook a few years ago on many of their mobile plans and one of the reasons that they did abandon it was that it was an absolute nightmare to deal with due to customers not understanding that an embedded FB video that links to YouTube is not free.

richms

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#1159118 21-Oct-2014 11:28

Wonder if photo uploads to facebook will be included...

Richard rich.ms

stevenz

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#1159128 21-Oct-2014 11:34

Sounds like the zero-rated aspect isn't able to be relied upon, which makes the entire concept too risky to use. Nice for them to offer, although they're presumably routing it all through a local proxy and gathering as much metadata as they can from it, but will it end up being a case of history repeating ala Orcon's Steam fiasco?

@KnightNZ

code15

198 posts

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#1159364 21-Oct-2014 17:10

sdavisnz: Hi Spark,

What about Facebook messenger, This app can be accessed separately or via a tab in the Facebook app, what happens here?

Cheers

Saw a comment from Spark on their Facebook page saying messenger is included too

shk292

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#1159556 21-Oct-2014 20:10

stevenz: Sounds like the zero-rated aspect isn't able to be relied upon, which makes the entire concept too risky to use. Nice for them to offer, although they're presumably routing it all through a local proxy and gathering as much metadata as they can from it, but will it end up being a case of history repeating ala Orcon's Steam fiasco?

Not sure why this would be risky. You enable socialiser, and all/some of the data currently consumed by facebook is no longer metered. For me, that's a portion of about 150MB a month. I usually get close to using all of my 500MB bundle, so this is a nice little bonus and makes me less likely to run out of data. I wouldn't pay $10 for it, but it's free

Flickky

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#1159655 21-Oct-2014 22:10

Turns out it does warn you when you start loading content that isn't unmetered

edit: image too big + on my phone, can't resize :(
https://i.imgur.com/poN6qif.jpg

Bung

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#1159814 22-Oct-2014 10:17

BigHammer: Official apps only. Windows Phone not supported. Kinda limits things a bit. Still, can't please all of the people all of the time.

Why is this? Is it because the "official" WP app for facebook is developed by MS rather than FB?

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psychrn

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#1159816 22-Oct-2014 10:19

Have just signed up.
Spark are certainly emphasizing the "Added Value" to their plans.
They state it could take 5 days for it to become active-we will see

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GregV

928 posts

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#1159818 22-Oct-2014 10:23

Bung:
BigHammer: Official apps only. Windows Phone not supported. Kinda limits things a bit. Still, can't please all of the people all of the time.

Why is this? Is it because the "official" WP app for facebook is developed by MS rather than FB?

I asked Spark, and yes, this was one of the reasons given
https://twitter.com/SparkNZ/status/524323160045285377

Flickky

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#1159820 22-Oct-2014 10:26

psychrn: Have just signed up.
Spark are certainly emphasizing the "Added Value" to their plans.
They state it could take 5 days for it to become active-we will see

Took them a couple of hours to 'activate' the socialiser thingo thing for me.

old3eyes

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#1159832 22-Oct-2014 10:37

Just signed wifey and M-in-Law up to it. I'm on Skinny so I can't actually the amount of time I access FB while off WiFi is minimal.

Regards,

Old3eyes

CJbravo

51 posts

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#1160116 22-Oct-2014 16:41

GregV:
Bung:
BigHammer: Official apps only. Windows Phone not supported. Kinda limits things a bit. Still, can't please all of the people all of the time.

Why is this? Is it because the "official" WP app for facebook is developed by MS rather than FB?

I asked Spark, and yes, this was one of the reasons given
https://twitter.com/SparkNZ/status/524323160045285377

Is this something that Spark should ask Microsoft for some assistance with, perhaps? Or perhaps Microsoft could volunteer, since they want to grow the WP ecosystem? I love my Lumia (still), but it does get a little old always being treated like an outsider just because I choose to use the mobile OS with the best UI.

Personally I think this initiative is a great idea, and demonstrates that Spark is trying to offer great value and that it 'gets' what its customers want. The fineprint in the offer, combined with Facebook's obvious desire to dominate the internet by effectively building a browser inside its native mobile apps and even beginning to host its own video content while deprioritising YouTube-uploaded video, may make this a bit too problematic for average users to get the most out of, though.

I've signed up for it, I just won't change my mobile behaviour since I won't get any benefit from it (... yet?!)

timmmay

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#1160138 22-Oct-2014 17:11

Socialiser was just added to my account, now the Android App doesn't work. Over both WiFi and 4G it's stuck on "retrieving your account info".

It eventually says "app not available - system problem" (paraphrased).

Lizard1977

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#1160142 22-Oct-2014 17:17

I've just had it activated too, but everything is fine for me on iOS.

haydenmarsh

288 posts

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#1160198 22-Oct-2014 17:56

Mine got activated about an hour ago! loving it.

Thanks Spark! :)

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