It makes me sad and annoyed when I see companies with great ideas execute with such poor marketing. A recent instance of this is with the newly announced TeaShark web browser. TeaShark is meant to be a hot new web browser to contend with the likes of Opera Mini, bringing the desktop internet experience to any mobile phone using Java and server-side processing. Tremendous, and it’s actually quite fast and gives a great experience.
However, as a blogger, the first problem I see is that there’s no logo on their homepage. None whatsoever. In fact, the only 2 places the logo shows up is 1. in my phone’s menu, where it’s incredibly small compared to the rest of the icons and 2. when you first start the app, a nice sized logo is shown. However, this doesn’t show after you’ve already opened the app. That makes it difficult for me, the blogger/media, to write about it.
The second major issue that I have is that the download URL is ‘wap.teashark.com’. Tell me, what comes to your mind when you see the word ‘WAP’ ? If you’re like me, you’re seeing a monochrome display with dark grey font, text-only webpages, and dial-up internet speeds on a 1.4″ display. That’s not exactly the starting image a company touting a next-gen mobile web browser should be going for. Where’s the more current ‘m.teashark.com’ or even ‘mobile.teashark.com’ links? Why on EARTH would you want to remind people of WAP internet?
I suppose it works to set low expectations for their new web browser, but color me unimpressed.
Ricky Cadden 