Earlier this month, you shared your 2009 resolutions with us – thank you! We were amazed with the dedication to kicking bad habits, making new starts, shedding the post-holiday pounds, appreciating the family… now the decorations are long gone and longest month of the year is nearly over, are you sticking to your guns? We hope so!

To keep you going, have a look at what other members are doing to make the most of 2009.

You are working from the general:
• Get ontop of my life!

To the specific!
• Going To Try And Resist Haribo x James in Doncaster x
• Learn a language, learn a chat up line from it, try to pull and give blood! Ha!
• Less time on guitar hero and more time with family
• i am going to do more charity work and volunteer my next 26 weekends to a kids workshop who also help with reading and writing difficulties.
• Help even more people then 2008 with what ever is wrong with them e.g helping then get through family problems etc.
• Give up cheese, chocolate and bread… Get slim people! X
• 2 try n b mre eco freindly by mking simple changes such as recycling waste
• Achieve a maximum weight lifting rep of 140kg
• 2 donate blood as i hav a rare blood type
• Being able to wake up a year from now and think to myself: im glad i did all that in 09. My resolution is to live without fear,restrictions and doing what i know i can achieve.
• For 2009 i want to remember that life is short so im going to break rules, forgive quickly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes me smile
• Eat less chocolate
• Eat more chocolate!

A lot of you gave Blyk an ego boost:
• To save all the money i used to spend on texts with my previous network before blyk and use it to buy me my first driving lessons! I can’t wait! Thanks blyk!
• To always keep my fone on 2 keep my refill date
• to succeed in getting something posted on the blyk blog.

Well, we’re pleased we can get you published and save you some money for bigger things!

Last but definitely not least… it’s Colin in Poole:
• Ive thought long and hard about my new year resolution and Ive decided to go with 1024×768. Colin in poole .

Good luck with sticking to your resolutions,

Desi.

Blyk has just reached 100,000 members!

The Blyk team just want to say a big thanks. Together we are building something special and we’d like to thank you all for being a part of it. The members make Blyk what it is today. We really value all your feedback and thoughts about the network, so please keep them coming!

As your friends join, and the Blyk community continues to grow, you can say you were there when we hit 100,000!

Shaun, UK Chief Executive

We’ve welcomed some exciting artists into the Blyk stable over the last few weeks, especially on the indie/rock tip. First up we have some wicked new talent from Peckham, South London in the form of The Metros. These guys are destroying right now with their infectious sound, and you can expect nothing but big things from them in 2008. Check out their Myspace page.

Moving on to one of the biggest bands to come out of the UK in the last few years, Blyk have linked with Brighton’s finest, The Kooks to bring audio and video around the release of their new album ‘Konk’ this month. We’ll also be giving Blyk members the chance to win tickets to their sold-out shows plus signed artwork from the boys themselves. Again, take a look at their Myspace page.

Sticking with comps, Blyk members will be getting some massive prizes coming their way. We’ve teamed up with Nizlopi (of ‘JCB Song’ fame) to offer one lucky Blyk member the chance to get the band playing in their front room. That’s one hell of a personal show. Also Stateside newcomers The Envy Corps will be offering two Blyk members the chance to fly to the U.S. and watch them play in their hometown from the comfort of backstage. Can’t be bad eh?

Also look out for some special artist takeovers coming very soon to Blyk music. We’ll be teaming up with some favourite Blyk residents to bring you guest list, exclusive tracks, artist voicemail and a shed-load more. Rumour has it there will be a Blyk artists gig especially for Blyk members happening pretty soon, but you’ll have to keep your phone on to hear more about that. Keep it locked…

During my time spent in the Blyk office today, two things have surprised me. Firstly, the alarming rate at which the little remaining desk space I have is being consumed by mugs upon mugs of ginger tea, and secondly, how many people have seen Step Up 2.

I’m not a dance movie person myself. I’ve never seen Step Up 1, or Save The Last Dance, Shall We Dance, Dirty Dancing or Happy Feet. Ok, I have seen Happy Feet, but that has penguins. No, I’m not a dance movie person but I always thought that, within the genre, Step Up is the kid that always gets picked last. But reading through the torrent of eager Step Up 2 reviews you lot sent in, one thing has become perfectly clear – I’m an idiot who knows embarrassingly little about new films for someone with a film degree.

However, I must admit all this Step Up 2 talk has been a bit of a MacGuffin, used solely to aid my safe navigation to this third paragraph. It’s been emotional. However, our winner this time is not a Step Up 2 review, although one about a bear eating his friends came very close but lost out for not really having anything to do with the film.

Our winner is concerned with the altogether different kettle of fish that is 10,000 BC, a film that had a surprisingly muted release for one of Roland Emmerich’s CGI-bonanzas. Still, plenty of you lot scampered to the cinema to soak up its woolly-mammoth sized charms. And one of you found enough to hate in its furry embrace to win our competition and share your fury with the whole of Blyk. Keep an eye on your Blyk phone next week to find out who…

Eagle-eyed new Blyk members out there may have noticed that their Blyk SIM pack, shown below, doesn’t look exactly like the pack images on the Blyk website.

That’s because, based on the member feedback we’ve received about the old pack, we’re now trialling a new SIM pack design.

The trial pack replaces the plastic SIM holder with a cardboard CD case style design and just one information booklet to keep things simple.

As ever, please let us know what you think via the Blyk Forum or fill out our online Feedback Form.

Blyk SIM Pack re-design

It’s surprisingly difficult, deciding whether a joke is funny. Humour is such a subjective, personal thing that no two people could ever react to a punchline in exactly the same way. So you can imagine how the dilemma multiplies when it’s not just one joke, but almost 4,500, and it’s not just two people, but a whole crowd of outspoken, highly opinionated Blyk employees. When it came to picking a winning joke, ‘needle in a haystack’ didn’t quite cover it.

Of course, it wasn’t too tough to narrow the list down. There were plenty of entries to the Blyk joke competition that lots of us found either too offensive, too vulgar or both, so that was them out (although there were a few ashamed scribbles as they were jotted down by some for a piece of pub ammo.) Whittling down further, there was a small show of support for the simple charms of a good ‘Your mum…’ joke, but the more level-headed amongst us were quick to point out the rather too immature nature of these charms.

A classic joke, then, something concise and timeless that everyone could appreciate was what we were after. And there were a lot to choose from. Lots of entries received our universal approval, but we’d heard so many of them before. So, after much deliberation (and a couple of fistfights), we finally settled on a winner. A joke which perhaps did not provoke the most individual belly laughs, but was found funny by everyone, objectionable by no one and which none of us had ever heard before. So, a big congratulations to our winner, Paul Odell, for:

A man comes out of surgery and says to the doctor, “I can’t feel my legs.”
The doctor says, “Yes, that’s because we amputated your arms.”

And a special mention to the joke about the man escaping from prison and being nagged by his wife, which I thought was really funny. Sadly, nobody else agreed with me. And they won’t talk to me anymore…

Members can now top-up their Blyk account at any of the 13,000 Post Offices® in the UK. Vouchers to the value of £5, £10, £20 and £50 (for those of you who are flush) can be purchased - just ask at the counter.

Topping-up allows you to do more with your phone - you can continue to talk and text once your free balance has been consumed, and you will be free to browse the mobile internet (^its always free to browse the Blyk mobile portal where you can access balance info and the like). Check the Price List for information on costs.

We live in an impossibly techno-savvy era. It’s perfectly normal for Nicole Kidman to advertise computer games to my mum without a hint of irony. Something as inherently geeky as having the stock market synchronised, 24 hours a day, with your mobile phone is somehow a fashion statement as measured as anything pulled of by Mmes Moss and Miller. And the phrase “multimedia hub” actually makes sense.

Yet, somehow, amidst this carnival of gadgetry a humble SMS, the most popular form of communication in the world (apart from shouting at traffic wardens) is still limited to a paltry 160 characters. That’s not even enough to break the back of the first verse of Nelly’s “Hot in Herre”. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Yes you can send long SMS messages, but they’re just not the same. More often than not each part of the message arrives at random, if it even arrives at all. In fact I’d like to say I’ve missed hundreds of dates because the second part of a message, telling me when to get to the restaurant, never arrived. But I don’t really have that much of a life.

So disparate is the experience of a long SMS that it’s been decided you won’t receive any from Blyk. Which is great, since you can rest assured that any SMS ad you get will arrive in a single, concise message. But, for me (very often the writer of said SMSs) it can sometimes be difficult when faced with the prospect of having to squeeze a product’s details, launch date, review from The Guardian and endorsement from the designer’s mum into the dreaded 160.

So please, forgive me for any rare occasions when you see something like: “Check out new toaster that makes all others look like prehistoric relics. It’s out on 14/04/08. ‘Brilliant’ – The Guardian. ‘I’ll never burn toast again’ – Mum.” (160 exactly, natch). Sometimes, as I’m sure everyone can appreciate, information has to take precedence, but I do promise to try and follow it up with something tasty like: “Gorilla attack, thousands injured, bananas stolen, zookeeper fired. Would you like to know more? ^Y”.

To bring me back to my original point, as I negotiate the learning curve of professional SMS authoring I often think that 160 seems a ridiculous limit in this day and age. Surely Nicole Kidman and my mum would laugh at the idea of such limitations in this day and age.

But then I think, maybe the reason for the enduring popularity of SMS is its enforced brevity. Sometimes it’s nice to not feel pressured to carry on talking (and we all experience that pressure every time we leave a voicemail). With such obvious boundaries on our communication, uncomfortable ramblings are eradicated. Indeed, the true power of SMS is its ability to make even the most nervous of cowering wrecks give out an impression of nonchalant cool. Long may it continue.

Andy

A big thanks to all those members who have taken the time to share their feedback on all things Blyk. We take all your comments and ideas really seriously and it’s your feedback that will help Blyk continue to develop and improve. So, whatever you want to say, share it with us on the Blyk Forum or fill out our online Feedback Form.

Here’s an overview of some of things we’ve done already in response to your feedback:

We’ve had lots of comments about the tags at the end of text messages. Some of you think they’re a great idea - some of you don’t. So, Blyk is working hard to find a compromise…

We now only tag 50% of your messages and we’ve made them shorter so they don’t get in the way as much. We’re also looking at ways that we can reduce the number of tags sent on any given day. So, for example, you might only get one tag in any text conversation - no matter how many messages are sent.

Lots of you told us you want Blyk to add Maestro to the list of debit and credit cards that we accept for online top-up. Well, we were listening and are happy to say that Blyk will be able to accept the Maestro card soon. We’ll update you again when we know the specific date when you can use Maestro cards.

Blyk is working hard behind the scenes to make it easier for you to find the nearest shop that you can buy top-up vouchers by designing a web-based store locator. Just put in your postcode and we’ll tell you where the nearest shop is. Simple. We’re planning to launch this service in April so keep checking back on this blog for updates. Please note that you can now purchase Blyk top-up vouchers at all Post Office shops in the UK.

For all your Member Care enquiries, start with the Blyk Manual and if you can’t find what you’re looking for send us an email or give us a call on 147 from your Blyk phone or 0845 702 1021 from any other network.

Thanks again, Nicola

Blyk will be carrying out routine maintenance on Thursday, 21st February between 3am and 4.30am. This may temporarily interrupt SMS messaging during these hours. Blyk apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.