Web2.0 and Our Wireless Future

In this article I am going to discuss the death of the iPod, Second Life and Microsoft Office. Perhaps this might seem a tad controversial to some for only my second post here but I guess it will show if we are on the same page.

I’m basing this prediction on two important trends of the successful technologies

Consider Tivo and other DVRs. That is the freedom of time factor at work, or “Time Shifting”, if you want to get technical. Choosing when you consume media is very liberating. No longer do we have to sit down to some fixed schedule, we can watch whenever it is convenient to us.

Why was the Blackberry so successful? Freedom of location. No longer did you have to be sat at your desk to get vital emails. In fact email is a good example of time freedom too; while email is almost instant you don’t have to reply right away.

Why do we love the iPod so much? Both freedom of location and time. We can take our entire music collection with us anywhere we go, and look stylish doing it.

A huge part of being productive is working to your own schedule, this means having your tools fit your time and location not the other way round.

I believe this is going to get more and more important. We will see devices and services mutate to serve these needs, hence the death of those products mentioned above.

It has been predicted for a while that Microsoft Office would go web-based. I am going to go one step further and predict that the suite will have to be rethought to cater to the needs of mobile users. At the very least the interface will have to react to a user navigating a tiny screen and using a less than perfect keyboard.

The same goes for Second Life. I believe Second Life is doomed unless they go open source and totally web based. While you can dip into Second Life at any time, you can’t from anywhere. The best you can do right now is text chat in a sub-par experience.

What about my prediction for the death of the iPod? I don’t see it going away right now, but I do predict the iPhone taking its place, and it is not because of the current incarnation. The major feature missing from the iPod is wireless connectivity, which the iPhone has. Presently iPods are sold in large part by storage capacity. I predict in future storage will not be an issue because all our media will be stored online and streamed; wireless roaming connectivity and user interface will be the crucial issues. A future generation iPhone with excellent high-speed wifi and 3G capability (obviously partnered with a decent data plan) will make both a killer portable music device and the client device for services I mention above.

It’s not just about these particular products, I believe any service or product that succeeds in helping people achieve freedom of time and location will be more competitive. As our lives get busier we expect to not be tethered by wires, boxed software or someone else’s schedule. This is something all companies must think about.

So those are my predictions, what do you think? Am I making sense or are these the drooling rantings of a mad person? Let me know in the comments …

Posted on August 10, 2007 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

3 Responses to “Web2.0 and Our Wireless Future”

  1. Yoav Ezer on August 10th, 2007 9:52 pm

    Hi Chris,

    Great post. I was talking to a friend about the exact same issue a couple of days ago. And two points came out of the conversation:

    1. Holograms and micro-projection devices as a location independent display device.

    2. movement sensors as input devices (3d virtual keyboards)

    I also believe that this is the future, but it will require a couple of technological breakthroughs to get there.

  2. Chris Garrett on August 10th, 2007 10:36 pm

    There is (kind of) the keyboard available right now.

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