My Take

WiFi, WiMax, Wireless Techs...

So I've been thinking through the various developments in the communications space such as VoIP, WiFi, WiMax, UWB, etc. trying to make sense of it all and figuring out who the winners and losers are going to be.

For example:

Will the cable guys come out ahead using VoIP as the club to hammer at their telco rivals in the race to own the pipe and services at the home? Will the telcos come out on top by rolling out higher bandwidth products and content partnerships to their massive customer base? Will WiFi combined with mesh networking technologies and WiMax mean that the RBOCs will no longer be needed for much of what they're currently collecting tolls for? How about the cellular guys? What happens when all wireless access (via WiFi, WiMax, etc.) is pretty much ubiquitous? Who's going to make money from that?

I haven't really figured out anything definitively yet. But, I ended up with a couple of surprising thoughts as follows:

#1 - The fight between cable and telco for control of the home is understandable BUT I think misses the bigger opportunity. That opportunity being: who owns everything (I mean, everywhere) else. No question that the home is important. But someone better wake-up and figure out the much bigger question of who owns you when you're not at home. If not, no one will (or, to put it another way, everyone will) or the current horrible service providers will get the best crack by default, which really sucks!

#2 - I think the real story behind all these trends is that the mobile / cell phone is the only true winner. (Yeah, I know there will be a select few in the cell phone ecosystem that will win out...) As I've explained previously, the mobile phone will continue to take the functionality and features so that it is THE ONLY mobile device that you will need. What I hadn't really thought about and now am beginning to realize is that, by default, this also means that it will end-up being at the center of the home as well...

What happens when you think of the cell phone in the context of being in the home and being an always-on connection device. What are the possibilities?

TiVo+Strangeberry Hype

Article on B2.0 hinting (actually, clubbing its readers over the head) that TiVo + Strangeberry could do wonderful things. Basically, seamless multimedia networking using TiVo's UI and making it really dumb proof.

Here's are some excerpts:

"A number of analysts and other third-party observers who've seen the fruits of van Hoff's labors believe that his team may well have succeeded. Strangeberry software gives users the power to do things that no other set-top box or PC has been able to do. You can stream any content from the Net, watch it on your TV, or route it wirelessly to any other device -- MP3 player, PDA, laptop. It can all be done with the ease that TiVo's 1.6 million subscribers already have come to relish: You'll never need to click more than a button or two on a single remote to pull entertainment into any room in your house. "Nobody else has technology that comes close," says Daniel Ernst, managing director of New York investment bank Rodman & Renshaw."

"Strangeberry works and it's totally cool," says Marc Canter, co-founder of Web media tool maker Macromedia, who was given an early view of the technology."

It always troubles me when the industry starts to go gaga over something that's not even out to market yet. Haven't read anything with this much hype since... the Segway - remember codename Ginger?

Here's a thought. The Evil Empire, MS, should buy TiVo - that's right, you heard it here first! Would give MS a legitimate play / tech in the video space - both in the PC (with MC) & the CE realm. The Evil Empire could then bankroll TiVo's profitability, market share, and have a pretty substantial and interesting customer base / service. This could also give them leverage to broker some mutually agreeable terms and biz propositions with the cable cos, etc.

Cell Phone vs. Walkman

Ran across a blurb in Adweek that mentioned the following:

"Sony has sold more than 400 million Walkman-branded items worldwide since the device's introduction in 1979."

Then, I recalled the following factoid that I ran across yesterday:

"LGE, a Korean handset company, has produced a Mecca-finding handset with GPS technology in it. So it's a tool of religious devotion. They anticipated selling 300 million units in the first couple years."

I think this gets at 2 things. First, the pace of technology adoption is exponentially faster than ever. Second, there is probably no tech device that's sold faster than cell phones.

Cell-Phone related Innovation

When it comes to innnovations in mobile technologies, we're far, far behind... Check out what's happening in Korea.

I've always said that the TRUE Killer App for mobility is robust voice recognition. Imagine the possibilities... Dictating email messages on the go, for example... Ahhhh...

Tech for the Under-served Masses

The vast majority of people on the planet don't have the wherewithal to get a PC. Does this mean that there's no market? Well, consider this article in the New York Times, describing an effort by Raj Reddy, a prof at Carnegie Mellon and his new PCtvt project.

The PCtvt is a wirelessly networked PC that doubles as a TV and DVD player for $250. Efforts like these have been started before but it seems this one may actually go somewhere - MS is on board, TriGem (from Korea), and researchers from IIT are on it as well.

It'll be very interesting to see how this proceeds... No doubt there will be snags and issues along the way but there's also tremendous potential for innovations that to this day have not been broached due to perceived economic barriers...

Education & Economy, Correlation & Causation - NOT!

Interesting article that I haven't fully digested yet basically puncturing a big hole through the argument that better educated societies lead to better economies.

It's a worthwhile read simply as a primer that correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. Just because there's a correlation between 2 variables (for example, Hot Dogs consumed per capita and GDP), that doesn't mean that 1 causes the other (i.e. Hot Dogs consumed per capita does NOT drive GDP). This is something that we need to be reminded of daily - we're way too quick to jump to conclusions just because of "perceived" correlations. Here's a fascinating article about the NBA and the lack of shooting that gets to the same issue - the perception that shooting is down (effect) because NBA players can't shoot (cause) anymore.

A couple of personal thoughts about the correlation between education and the economy. My guess is that there's a "tipping-point" factor somewhere that is required for education to make a difference in the economy - would be very interesting to look into this... Secondly, the degree of emphasis on defining one's social stature on the RELATIVE position of an individual to others in the society is probably over-looked - this is something that I'll have to flesh out as well...

Technology in Context

Great articles about Genevieve Bell's research for Intel on the use of technology in other cultures - specifically, Ms. Bell researched the use of technology in 7 different countries in Asia. Results? Here's a brief blurb that I think sums it up:

"Technology, per se, is uninteresting... Technology in context is interesting."

Here are some other interesting quotes:

"One of the things that I found interesting, and in many ways most provocative, when you start thinking about the digital home, is that most people's homes in Asia are much smaller than the average footprint in the U.S."

"In the West, one of the critical metaphors we use to divide up our time and our space is the idea of the negotiation between work and leisure. Those are the two categories into which most of our activities fall, and when you think about the kind of models people assume for technology use, it's one of those two things. But what if there's a third set of activities that are really important? What if there are things around play, or religion or health and wellness that don't neatly fit into the work or leisure category?

One of the things that became clear in Asia, and is becoming true in the West, but we're not really good at seeing it, is that people are using these technologies for those third activities. In Asia, it's visible in the way people use mobile devices to support religious activities. The nicest example is people using their mobile phones to find Mecca. LGE, a Korean handset company, has produced a Mecca-finding handset with GPS technology in it. So it's a tool of religious devotion. They anticipated selling 300 million units in the first couple years."

I think work like this is going to be increasingly important, particularly for U.S.-based companies because we've been the most egregious in assuming that the world revolves around us.

The interesting thing is figuring out how to incorporate more of this kind of thinking into organizational behavior.

Furthermore, I would even go so far as to re-phrase Ms. Bell's quote above, "Technology per se is uninteresting... Technology in context is interesting" to:

"Technology per se has no value... Technology in context creates value."

Asia and the U.S. - Ongoing...

This is yet another sign that the U.S. economy will exhibit less and less of an influence on Asian economies. Granted, this is 1 country in Asia for the time being going against a single monetary direction of the U.S. Stay tuned as the decoupling of major Asian economies from the U.S. will continue to accelerate.

The real irony in all this is that the manufacturing competency, which is now squarely in Asia guarantees that the Asian economies will continue to reap disproportionate benefits from a strong U.S. economy while also reaping disproportionate benefits from a weak U.S. economy because people can't live on information alone - we require material goods and products in order to live day to day.

EA & Item Trading

Very interesting discussion of a corporate guy (from EA) basically not getting the significance of virtual item trading to the online gaming industry.

Here's a comment from the discussion thread that I want to highlight:

"It's not a question of whether this is a waste of time or not, but realizing the economic implications of virtual item trading. This "niche market" already acounts for millions of dollars of revenue and some people actually make a living of it."

I really think that this part of the online gaming experience is being massively overlooked. For example, there are sites like GOM that enables virtual item trading. Check out this little experiment mentioned in the thread that gives you an inkling that there's some monetary potential in virtual item trading.

Based on my experiences in Asia, there's no question that virtual item trading is a fairly large biz - all of my friends into MMORPGs in Asia have "bought" or "sold" a virtual item at some point in their gaming. In fact, I kno a guy that basically makes a living doing.

It may be tough to understand but a big reason that this is the case in Asia is the "clanning" / social aspect of MMORPGs, where you play the game with a number of different people. People want to keep-up with their "clanmates" and are willing to pay for it. There's also a competitive aspect to it - why spend 5 hours to do something when you can buy it for $20? Basically, MMORPGs allow for patterns of behavior that are eerily similar to society - game theory in action as well.

Anyway, this is a very interesting dynamic that I think could be fertile grounds for innovation by someone - above and beyond just brokering virtual item trading...

Ubiquitous Computing?

Download project_roar.ppt

Interesting take on ubiquitous computing... Makes you think of it in a slightly different way. The part that I think is most interesting is the following:

"I think this is why people in ubicomp are suprised that phones are winning out as the dominant computing platform. Because people want devices that do survival and entertainment-related tasks well, not a general purpose computer (like a PC or laptop) that can play me a videogame, render 3D, or simulate protein folding."

I have been saying for a long time now that it's the mobile phone that will ultimately win-out in the mobile computing game. I've mentioned it here and here.

The PPT above was put together sometime late last year to try and convince an Asian tech company to really start driving this concept home - guess who? It's a bit sanitized but basically all there... Basically, my thot was and is that the mobile phone's killer app is digital music.