I took my 3 year old to McDonalds today, and the Coke cup had a code for a “The Incredibles Mobile Special” – which is something like a ring tone, a background picture or a game for your phone.

To get it, you have to send the 8 digit code + your phone model as an SMS to a certain number, and you’ll receive the content in return.

I did just that, and in came a two part SMS which appeared as “service message”. Would you know what to do with it? Do you have any idea about the costs of clicking on that link? I bet you don’t, nor will the kids who try that. In my case, it didn’t even work (some strange server error), and I had to chose between different GPRS access points.

Dear mobile operators and phone makers – I you can’t get your act together and get all that configuration crap out of my face, you can just forget about ROI for mobile data. If it takes a degree to use it, nobody will. Just hand the phone over to your mom, and let her do the “McDonald’s test” – watch and learn.

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