Novarra – An Apology, To Our Readers

With apologies to Private Eye…
Over the past couple of years, we may have given the impression that we were a trusted and authoritative source of information on the mobile marketing industry. Last week, judging by the comments received on our interview with Novarra, it became clear that some of our readers, at least, thought that impression was complete hogwash.
While the vitriol in most of the comments (read ‘em) was aimed at Novarra, a couple accused us of sloppy journalism, with one suggesting that the interview consisted of nothing more than a set of written questions supplied to Novarra for them to fill in the answers. On that point, I am happy to clarify that the interview was conducted over the phone, over the course of around half an hour.
One part of the interview that has been met with particular derision was the reference to the non-existent ‘.wap’ URL. And rightly so. On this point, I can only say, mea culpa. Schoolboy error. I should have realised that was nonsense, and didn’t. Whatever brickbats anyone wants to throw my way as a result, be my guest.
On the accusation of accepting Novarra’s point of view unquestioningly, however, I plead not guilty. We try to cover the mobile marketing business in its entirety. We don’t claim to know everything, and clearly, we don’t know as much about any aspect of it as the people on the coalface. I knew we were getting Novarra’s side of the story, but I knew also that if anything Novarra President and COO, Jayanthi Rangarajan, had to say smacked of puffery or spin, there would be plenty of people queuing up to pick her up on it. On that point, my instincts were right, though I regret the fact that some of the criticism of the points she made in the interview has become somewhat personal.
Novarra has taken issue with one part of the interview, concerning Sprint’s Openwave deployment. The company says that the 60-70 seconds load time reference was not a reference to the Sprint Openwave deployment, but was “a generic speed for a non-Novarra (or other optimised solution) versus a Novarra server deployment.” We are happy to make this clarification. The company also says it does not recall saying that Internet use in Vodafone UK is now around 1,000 times what it was before the Novarra deployment, but we can only refer to our notes, and according to these, it did.   
If we did let our standards slip during the Novarra interview, I can only apologise to our readers. From the day I launched Mobile Marketing Magazine, we have tried to report the facts honestly and impartially, while at the same time not taking ourselves too seriously. We plan to carry on in the same vein. At least we know that if we mess up in the future, we’ll soon know about it.

David Murphy
Editor

Comments

[Anil]

David - i think you did a good job here. You gave a platform to a technology provider whose actions have affected a great many players in the mobile web world, and in doing so for the first time "outed" them.

Your interview confirmed the "head in the sand" attitude from Novarra wrt to the problems their transcoding technology has caused. The interviewee moved unashamedly from completely understating the problems their technology has caused, to diminishing the outcry that this has led to, to suggesting that the rest of the world should "lump it" because they believe their service works better than their competitors.

It is not the editors prerogative to correct or edit the opinions of an interviewee, but to report them and to get them to address the real issues at stake. This you did very well and as a result a great deal of copy has been generated bringing this company to task in a very public way.

[Scott]

Hello David, rest assured I have heard the '1000 times' stat from Novarra on a different occasion. Sorry to hear that Mobile Marketing came in for some unjust crossfire.