Famine City

Meet the New Digital Native

In full disclosure, the child in the video is one my children. While he is my child, my hope is this post does not appear narcissistic. 

Meet Brady. 

Brady is 4 years old. 

Brady knows how to read. 

Brady knows how to do basic math. 

Brady knows how to use Facebook. He doesn't have a profile, but he likes to play Fishlife on Facebook.  

Brady plays games on the Wii.

Brady knows how to use the Tivo. He also knows how to skip your commercials using the Tivo. 

Brady knows how to watch his favorite cartoons via Netflix.  

Brady likes to watch movies on YouTube.  

Brady knows how to use Google.

Brady knows how to use an iPhone.

Brady is a digital native. 

As a reminder, Brady is four years old and he knows how to use a variety of digital technologies. He is the new testing standard if an application is designed well. If someone needs to explain how to use your application, tool or website, you might be in trouble. And Brady isn't alone. 

Our little digital natives are raising the bar on digital design, whether on hardware or on your website. I was discussing with a colleague at another company and we were exchanging thoughts about how our four year olds use technology--desktop computers, websites and mobile devices. We were discussing the question of usability, especially around the Apple devices. Has the usability of the devices become so good that our digital natives can figure it out without prompting? Or might it be they don't have any "ghost rules"? Meaning they don't have preconceived notions about the way things work. Therefore they aren't annoyed when things don't work the way they expect them to and hyper-learn around any usability issues. Welcome to our future consumers.

How can a four year old child use the applications and devices that still confound many adults? After much thought on the subject, I'm going to borrow the thinking and approach from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, it's rapid cognition. Our little digital natives have been exposed, actively and passively, to so much digital behavior that the usability of technology, hardware or software, they are able to rapidly deduce the usability of our devices without thinking. They don't deliberate on how something works or why it should work in a certain way. They simply find the critical pieces of information and try something else, but without actively thinking of it. If it doesn't function one way, they apply the other hundreds of other ways to use/consume the information. They no longer actively "think" about the technology or usability. They simply act with critical pieces of information. Our digital natives may grow up to be the most transactional users we've ever seen.  

In the new world of applications and devices, they have to work like you'd expect them to work or so easy that a four year old could use it. Perhaps we need to stop testing with all of our target markets and bring in legions of pre-schoolers. Then ask them if they can find or locate a desired result on our applications or website. See what happens. While this is partially tongue in cheek, get ready for the new users of our applications and websites. Our little digital natives are going to be more transactional than ever. With so many digital tools at their disposal, they'll navigate around whatever experience you want them to take--obvious implications for marketers everywhere. You'll get two clicks on your website, if you're lucky. Be usable or be forgotten. 

Our digital behaviors are having major impacts on media consumption as a whole. Little digital natives no longer need to watch television, though they will. They can find their favorite shows on YouTube, Netflix. Sure we can still market to big audiences on the big tube, but gone soon enough will be the days of channel surfing. It will be channel searching. The most important screens won't be the ones in the living room either. It will be the ones in their hands. Transactional behaviors and omnipresent media will be the expectation not the exception for these little folks. 

Where to start? Easy. Make sure your apps and sites are so easy a four year old could use it. Ask the adults about brand impression or favorability. Ask the kids about the usability of it. They don't think. They use. Start there. 

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Comment: I expect some feedback about my kid's use of digital technology from a parenting perspective. We are probably more conservative than most about the information they consume, it's a constant conversation in our house. We are a digital household, my wife and I are both into technology for work and play. Our kids will be digital experts. I appreciate comments about the core point of this piece. However, if you are thinking of leaving a comment about parental education or proselytizing to us about how we're raising our children, please don't bother.  

follow me on twitter @marty_b

Delta Electronic Boarding Pass = WIN

A couple weeks ago I had the good pleasure of visiting Vegas. As a technoid and a traveler, I was pretty excited to see there was an electronic boarding pass option for my flight when checking in on Delta's website. Finally, an easy way to get my boarding pass to my phone, one less piece of something that I need to think about during travel. Previous to this experience, about a month ago, I tried an to use an electronic boarding option for United with no success. So I was excited to see the option and used it successfully, but not without considerations. 

Correction: I received a tweet with the more accurate standard. If you're interested visit: http://2d-code.co.uk/iata-standard/

So what is an electronic boarding pass? It's a QR code, or more accurately 2d bar code that contains all of your flight and ticket information which allows TSA and the gate agent to scan the details of your ticket. For Delta, when you select an electronic boarding pass during check in on their website, they ask for your mobile number. You are then sent a link via SMS message which you can then browse to via your mobile device to retrieve your electronic boarding pass. This allows for any phone with SMS and mobile web browsing to use the electronic boarding pass functionality. The QR code appears as a JPG on your phone. You present it when needed at TSA/gate. Simple enough. 

While traveling out to Vegas, my comrades and I mostly used the electronic boarding passes. I was surprised to hear the gate agent say this was the most that he had seen on any single flight--personally I was waiting for sirens to go off, but all went off without a hitch on the way out. <<< Notice the use of foreshadowing here, eighth grade literature wasn't lost on me Ms. Jenkins :)

What would make this little bit of easy even better? Being able to sign in from their mobile website and send the electronic version of the boarding pass back to your phone. This way, you can completely bypass the whole desktop user experience. Well needless to say, it's available. Delta uses a portal technology, Usablenet.com, which basically creates a mobile site from your existing site. It allows you to check in, change your seat and send the boarding pass to your phone. I'm in love with taking one less thing with me and had zero problems with this. It's expected that by 2011 all airlines will be using this technology. If it's not available to you today, it will be in the near future. 

As a sidenote, if you are a frequent traveler consider adding http://www.usablenet.com to your boormarks or favorites. They have content for many hotels and transportion options via their mobile portal. Good to have handy. While I've talked to a few folks that are not as keen on the mobile site from Delta and other Usablenet.com supported sites, I'm to the minimalist side of things. Provide basic functionality, verify it works and then extend the functionality as mass use comes to fruition. 

Like many things, this electronic boarding pass system is far from perfect. We had one person that had the electronic boarding pass up on their phone before they arrived at the TSA agent. He switched browsers or something on his iPhone and when he got to the TSA agent, he could not show it to the agent. This was problematic. However, if your phone happened to run out of juice that could also be a problem as well. The worst case scenario in either case is that you'd have to go request a paper ticket. This did not cause any significant delays for him, but if you were tight on time or something like that I could imagine some stress. However, these odds are about the same as other travel woes in my guesstimation. 

I love this system of of airline boarding. It just makes sense and is a great use of technology. Though this has been available in Western Europe for a number of years, I'm very excited to see it take place in the airline industry. The airline industry is what I would consider a highly protected industry. If QR codes and 2D barcodes can get government adoption, I imagine that things like mobile coupons will have a much better opportunity to be adopted if standard is set in the airline industry. 

Adopting new technologies one day at a time. 

follow me on twitter @marty_b

Will Haiti increase awareness of mobile commerce?

 

According to an article on Inforum the text to donate program for Hatian Relief has been extraordinarily successful:

The American Red Cross has raised more than $22 million for Haiti earthquake relief, all from text message donations. By texting the word "Haiti" to the number 9-0-9-9-9, a $10 donation is automatically sent to the Red Cross Earthquake fund. That donation amounts to about a fifth of the $112 million the Red Cross has raised to help Haiti so far.

I am very excited and pleased that this effort has been successful. However, after much reluctance for mobile commerce to take off here in the US, I'm left with a number of questions? Are people donating because of emotion? Is it because they do not have to setup a new payment service? Why are people embracing donations in this way? And then, beyond the unfortunate circumstances in Haiti: When is mobile commerce going to take off? Will this effort be the catalyst that finally germinates the seed of mobile commerce in North America? Unfortunately, I don't have most of the answers, simply more questions. 

I am left confused why people have not exploited mobile commerce. In tough economic times, taking on a new way that might allow more commerce seems like an easy call to make. Even though (my guess) is that providers like Mpayy might have high transaction costs in some cases, in a down economy even marginal sales could be important. It would also enable credit at events where cash has traditionally been king, like outdoor festivals and events. 

On the upside, I am seeing more and more mobile payment applications in the app store. While that obviously only applies to iPhones, it seems this user based might be more apt to use mobile payments. There are applications like FonePays that allow for SMS based dollar exchange. There's also services like YAP which basically is a credit card like system with an SMS interface. It's a system where you load money into it, accessing and transferring dollars from your mobile device. For a service like YAP, if they prove it works, it'd be easier for a company like American Express to simply offer this service. However, there always has to be a trailblazer and YAP might be that trailblazer. 

At a base level, I don't see why businesses have not even tried to exploit PayPal? PayPal is an easy way to integrate all of your online and credit card payments. There's also a PayPal app as well for the iPhone. You can pay your bill via PayPal. I'm simply wondering why I have not seen it somewhere outside of the online space. While I do understand that cost can be prohibitive at times for some businesses (PayPal isn't cheap), but it's also the cost of doing business at some level. 

Will 2010 be the year of mcommerce? No, I cannot say it will be. However, I will say that the events in Haiti will lead to increased awareness mobile commerce. Additionally, I do hope and anticipate that towards the end of the year we may see some of the mobile pay services pop up in the largest of our US metropolitan areas. I would also expect that a company like Google, PayPal or American Express will be the that does have payment services will lead the way in this arena. 

follow me on twitter @marty_b

Location based services: please suck less

Last year, Gartner reported some strong potential of location based services. Gartner even claimed the users would more than double from 41-million to over 95-million while revenue would top over $2.2 billion. Being an early integrator, I love the thought of what location based services could and might supply, but I just have one message today: suck less. 

For background, a location based service or LBS, courtesy of Wikipedia A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. LBS services can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life, etc. LBS services include services to identify a location of a person or object, such as discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereabouts of a friend or employee. They are an example of telecommunication convergence.

Every year a group of friends and I head out to Las Vegas a week before the Super Bowl. It's a tradition now that we're on a third year. It all started as a hallway conversation and the next thing you now we had 7 guys heading to Vegas the following weekend. On our third year, our group has grown around 20 or so. At twenty people, it becomes harder and harder to manage who is with who and where in Vegas. It's pretty typical for a group to go one place while another goes someplace else. This year we've been trying to plan more than ever since the group has grown. A number of us have been testing out location based services and it as the titles says, sucks. 

What makes this technology near unusable or at the very least very unreliable in Cincinnati? I'll just bullet point a few thoughts here (I've heard my blog posts are too long). 

• It's accuracy is less than perfect. I can be sitting next to my wife, both with iPhones and Google Latitude whipped out. According to the application, we're miles apart. This happens with many people on my friend list. 
• You may say, try another app. It's not the app. Most LBS services on mobile phones, where the real potential lies, typically use the Google Maps technology/algorithm. This includes most of the popular applications like FourSquare, Loopt and Google Latitude. Note: if someone knows this to be untrue, please let me know as I could not locate it from a quick API scan. 
• There are numerous locating methodologies from AGPS (assisted GPS) to WiFi positioning to triangulation, all available on the iPhone. However with my friends and I trying the different apps and phones, the HTC phones seemingly are the worst offenders (thinking they are triangulating). If you're interested in such fanaticism (as I am), you can find a trilateration model here, the suspected iPhone location modeling and a comparison of the locating models here.

Warning: bout to get geeky. 

There is hope. It might not be the technology or the phones,  AGPS or HTC. It might be the cellular network here in Cincinnati for AT&T. This has been the one consistency between everyone that is trying the service with our group of friends. Because of the nature of transmitting that much data, most celluar phone companies use a bit of triangulation on top of the GPS signal. It keeps the cellular provider from having to provide that much data to the phone/network. It also explains why a regular car GPS, which may use between 5-7 satellites is more accurate. The more satellites, the more triangulations and points to do some math, ergo a more accurate location. Therefore, perhaps the accuracy problem for the phone's GPS is the cellular networks. Cincinnati notoriously has one of the worst cellular networks ever. My hope is that Vegas will be more accurate, at least for our trip. 

End geeky explanation. 

If you are a typical consumer, you just want this stuff to work. You don't care how it all works underneath. Just live up to your expectations. You are right. Just work as you intend. Simply put, you want it to know where you are and tell you where your friends/services are located in direct proximity to your existing location. Now that you expect things to know where you are, there's a real service and growing reliance on these services. In other words, it's a burgeoning channel for communicating with consumers. Albeit less than perfect one today, still a growing model for all intent and purpose.

Because of that potential, it would seem to me that mobile phone carriers would be upgrading their networks systematically. Especially in large cities with big companies that spend millions and millions of marketing dollars. One could say that they should prioritize such locations, one such might just be Cincinnati. If they can prove the quality of these services, they will grow their potential opportunities by providing value added services back to the consumer. This means for higher adoption, more profit and more data gathered on mobile consumers they can sell back to big companies.

LBS, please suck a little less next year. Mobile carriers, please upgrade your networks. Vegas, please have a great network ready for me. 

follow me on twitter @marty_b

Mobile phone etiquette on the potty, best practices while you go

You may say there is not a need for this guide, but you know there is a need for this guide. Believe it or not, I actually wish there wasn't a need for this guide, but according to a Wired article "75 percent had no objections to anyone using laptops, netbooks and cell phones in the bathroom." Though I fall to the 25 other percent, I thought I'd give some best practices if for mobile usage "while you go".

1. Hit the silent button on the keyboard/ringer. We know what you're doing. We pretend that we don't know. So help us out, keep the keyboard beeps to a minimum por favor. We don't need to know that you're banging out a master treatise while taking your constitutional.
2. If you are surfing the web reading textsfromlastnight.com or failblog.org, keep giggling to a minimum.
3. May as well cover the talking thing. I consider talking while in a public restroom tantamount to going with the door open. I did this when I was in the military, no real duty to do this today. I prefer that you did not, but if you do talk:
   1. Carrying a conversation into the bathroom is more favored than striking up a new conversation or calling out. See point 3e below.
   2. Answering a call is also more forgiven than starting a new call. See point 3e below.
   3. You may not take calls, in or out, if people are waiting. House rules. See point 3e below.
   4. New outgoing calls are seriously frowned upon. See point 3e below.
   5. In any event, should you encounter other people during any of your bathroom journey; we ask that you hold your phone by tilting your head to your shoulder type thing. We all know what just went on, but we don't want to believe that your dirty nubs were all over your phone.
   6. You cannot tell the other party of your presence in bathroom. It's like peeing the lake when boating, everyone might do it. We just don't want to know about it.
4. It can be awkward for a courtesy flush while talking, we all understand. Therefore, you must mute, hit pause or hold or call them back momentarily. It's really a benefit to everyone, immediate company included.
5. Beyond simply the courtesy flush, you are still required to flush. No exceptions. Uno y dos, you're still required to flush. If you follow the Brocode, you know what rule that you'll also need to follow.
6. Commit to a hand. You can't swap hands for swiping, wiping and/or aiming purposes while you are midstream or otherwise.
7. If you are wearing headphones into the bathroom, co-workers I have seen this, you may not touch them or your mobile device within the site of others. I consider this confusing and disorienting to other people in the facilities.
8. You must still wash your hands. Don't do the running water over the hands like I'm the cleanest thing in the bathroom routine either. Soap, hot water and towels must be used, by you.
9. When exiting the restroom, you must quietly let your other party know that you need just a moment. Then you must do the following. Though I could describe it, there's a much better line in The Godfather that Clemeza said to Michael Corleone. "Just let your hand drop to your side and the gun slip out. Everyone will still think you've got it. They're gonna be staring at your face, Mike. So walk out of the place real fast, but you don't run. Don't look nobody directly in the eye, hut don't look away either." In this case, it's not a gun, but rather your mobile device.
10. If you drop your phone in urine water, you are permitted to retrieve it. Though you must tell friends about said incident. If you drop in any other situation, you must buy a new phone. Flush it away, away. That's the risk you take. No exceptions. If you need to repair your phone from the urine incident, see this site.
11. It's OK to wipe off your phone with a towel, though people may think that is weird. When you return to your desk or other safe environment, it's required to add some sanitizer to the mix.

Like I said earlier, I wish these did not need to be stated. Yet, they do. Have a horror story about this? Be sure to share in the comments below.

Follow me on twitter @marty_b

More stories on the subject:

Stats: http://www.virtualpressoffice.com/publicsiteContentFileAccess/112095/112095.html/?fileContentId=112095&fileName=112095.html&fromOtherPageToDisableHistory=Y

http://www.websavey.com/viewpost.cfm/1/43734/ (pretty foul)

http://randomactsofunkindness.blogspot.com/2007/08/cell-phone-and-public-bathroom.html

Midwest uses mobile different than East Coast

On a recent family vacation to DC/NYC, I couldn't help but notice that people on the East Coast use their mobile devices far differently than we do here in the Midwest. I cannot go so far as to attribute it to a reason "why",  but I'm going to guess. Nevertheless, there was a clear difference in what people were doing with their mobile devices. 

First, what are people doing differently in NYC/DC than here in the Midwest?

First and foremost, I saw more people using mobile devices as an entertainment medium or device. While a crude measurement, I saw many people connected to their phones via headsets. Admittedly, I was looking over some shoulders. So I saw this first hand that people were listening to music or watching videos. This means a number of things. Though on the surface this may not look like a big, difference, it is huge. Entertainment on your phone, whether video or music, means that your phone is hooked up, most likely, to your desktop computer. If it is not connected to your desktop computer, at the very least it requires an internet connection. *Note: In the subway systems in both DC/NYC, internet access was not available to the devices, where I was noticing most of this use. Even most people that I know here in Cincinnati that own iPhones, which means they both a desktop and internet connection, I don't often see them using their devices for entertainment. Entertainment goes beyond the basic use of the phone as a text, email and phone device.

My suspicion in this case is that as people have more down time with their phone, waiting and commuting on public transportation. They will be exploiting the capability of their mobile devices. Before I travel, I load up my iPhone with video and audio. Before I had an iPhone, I did the same with my Treo device. Point being, I believe that travel and commuting gives you both the reason and downtime to figure out how to load up your mobile device. When you are car commuting, you simply don't have time to interact with the phone as much. So the need obviously isn't as great. Additionally I would add that commuting on a regular basis also requires a notion of efficiency. You're always going to take your mobile device with you, why not let it do more?

The last thing that I'd add here is that this wasn't just iPhones. I saw people with Nokia products, BlackBerry Devices and Motorola devices. iPhones are easy targets to know why and how people are using their devices differently, but loading up some of the other devices simply isn't as easy. As I mentioned, in the Midwest, there is less of a need. Our commutes here are largely in our personal vehicles. Simply said, the need is not as great. Most of the folks that I know, even with smart devices, they use them primarily for email, text and phone service. Clearly, the needs and use are different. The more that people expect and want of their phones, the opportunity/need will exist for developers and marketers.

~marty follow me on twitter @marty_b

DroidDoes Not

My only estimate for this commercial is that Verizon and Google could not come to an agreement or they were caught in a time crunch. With that said, I cannot believe that the DroidDoes campaign made it out of the gate. Here are Verizon and Google ready to take on the iPhone, coming out of the gates with guns blazing, calling out the iPhone for everything that it doesn't do. Showing a super-sexy futuristic television promo and then telling you to head to the website, www.droiddoes.com. When you get there, you are met by a remnant of the television piece, once you move past this, you come upon an email box where you can enter more information to be sent to you via email or text when it is ready. Again, my guess is they could not agree or it was caught in legal. Nevertheless, let me give you five solutions that would have been better.

1. Join the revolution. Start today, friend us on Facebook where we'll give away a phone for every {insert number} people that join the revolution.
2. Find us on Twitter...
3. Want to see more, Google Android Video to see what pre-release footage is out there (of course legalese it).
4. Show your own videos. Something that you shot, forget video, how about the anatomy of a droid in a cool Flash piece? Beyond just meta and description tags, you should have some content that is getting indexed behind the scenes for search.
5. Want to hit an iPhone with a donkey punch, show a planned coverage map.

Look, these are not the best ideas by any means. However, sticking a 2001 coming soon email box for a release like this falls into the lame spectrum. I'm excited about the phone. I actually own a G1. I also have an iPhone. I'm a pretty solid voice of reason in this case. I went to the site with tons of expectations, but was let down. I'll leave this post with this: if you are going to compete with the iPhone and the kids at Apple, I think you're going to need to step up your marketing efforts.

follow me on twitter @marty_b

What do all of these electronics have in common?

 

These are all of the electronic gadgets that my wife and I are taking on our upcoming family trip. We are taking a train from Cincinnati to DC. Then from DC we're heading up to NYC for a few days of site seeing. It's going to be a fun week. As I looked at all of the electronics that we're taking it seemed like we're way too connected, then I realized, it's normal. Right?

You may think this is abnormal, but it is not. We live in a connected world. A world that is connected by media of all sorts. I would not (even) consider us early adopters. We're not gadget people. If you look around our house, you'd find an amazing lack of gadgetry. To give you perspective, for a week away we're only taking two roller, carry on size, suitcases and each of us will have a backpack. We just aren't gadget people, we're fairly minimalists in our purchases, lifestyle etc.

With that being said, I would describe us as early integrators. When we find gadgets that help interconnect our lives, we adopt them. One of the examples that stands out to me is that we purchased the Flip video camera as an alternative to our digital camcorder. Why? It was easier to share and transfer video. We've used the Flip far more than we ever used our digital camcorder. Technology in our life may be a bit early on the spectrum of adoption, but it is highly integrated. So what do we do with all of this stuff on a trip?

• Nintendo DS: This is for the boys to play games will on trains or traveling. This would be probably the first device that we could drop off our to take list. Note: Our train ride from Cincinnati to DC will end up being about 14-hours. So we'll need some distractions.
• iPod: This device has content that I ripped off the web for the boys to watch while en route to places.
• SLR camera: We'll take this for high end photography.
• iPhones: Keeps us connected to work, keeping the inbox somewhat managed, Twittering, games for the boys and pics.
• Flip camera: Shoots video. 
• Laptop: This device lets us blog, watch Netflix in our room, work in the case of emergency and upload content. 

If we had to give any of these items up, in order of priority what I'd give up first, camera, iPod, Flip and DS. Our iPhones take pretty decent pictures and can store some of the media that I had planned on grabbing for the kids to watch, plus the iPhones will allow the kids to play games.

Alright, so once I started writing this post I realized there was a lot of stuff that we're bringing with us. So I brought it up to Shannan that this seems like a lot of stuff. Therefore, we may need to reconsider, so we're debating. We're thinking that we might subtract the Flip and laptop. Good thing that we have a few days to still figure this out.

What could you live without? How does your techno family travel?

follow me on twitter @marty_b

The future of the small screen: Part IV

This is the fourth part of a series of blog posts. You can find the previous blog posts at:

• Birth of the small screen
• Birth of the small screen: Part II
• Triumph of the small screen: Part III
  

At this point within this series of blog posts, we're going to take a look at the future of the small screen. The modern day catalyst has been the mobile phone. However, the beginning started in the 1950's with the transistor radio delivering choice of content, convenience and portability. It is these three principles that continue to dominate the core principles of the devices. Soon enough, the transistor radio was followed up in the 1970's & 1980's with the Walkman, then gaming devices. However, the modern day addition to the core three principles has been personalization. Now that we've caught up to today, it is time to look at the future of the small screen?

First, the most important thing to take away from the series of posts is this: The screens where we consume the majority of our media aren't going to be on the screens that at the most beautiful, HD capable or anything like that. The screens that will be the most important to our lives will be those that are the most convenient. Instead of focusing on the devices as we know them today, I will just call the future screens of convenience because these will continue to change in the future. 

The hardware changes.

We are seeing major advancements in hardware all the time. I really believe some of our most valuable advancements are going to be in the area of display technologies. In terms of size, portable screens are probably going to net out somewhere between the current iPhone size and a netbook. These are probably just about the largest portable, yet useful screens. Meanwhile,  I do anticipate that we'll see similar advancements like the Kindle's screen technology, which may be used to handle portable reading and for preserved battery life. However, the real advancement that I'm anticipating is projection and eyeglass wear with screens. Check out these devices from Wowwee, amazing. Connecting to larger devices is going to occur, but experiences will originate from the small screen. 
 

Consumer behavior is already changing. 

Consumer behavior is already heading to the small screen and we may not have even thought about it. For example, my kids, which are seven years old and less, will never have televisions in their bedrooms. Their main source of content will be the computer and mobile phones. Unknowingly, their adoption has already began. Think the portable DVD player in the car that is already smaller than a netbook screen. Yes, both of my children know how to use my wife's iPhone to access content or play games. And our digital millennials are already connected to their iPod touch, mobile phone or computer. In a conversation with another 30-something friend, he tells me that he seldom watches the television with his laptop in hand anymore. He's traded it for an iPhone, a behavior that will continue for many more of us. 

The television won't die. It will transform. 

Television will still be around, it simply is transforming and will be more of an event based medium. Families will gather around the television to actively watch a movie, sporting event or live events (think American Idol). However, passive engagement on the television will go down. We'll set our Tivos in the house and stream content to our convenience devices. If there is programming from television that we want to watch that may not already available on hulu, Fancast, YouTube, NetFlix or peer-to-peer file sharing services. 

Confluence will continue. 

Up to this point, we had separate devices for separate utility. The devices, especially those of the small screen, are advanced enough to handle multiple applications and utility much more gracefully than just a few years ago. Phone technology is simply an application. YouTube is simply an application as well. As our phones are getting more complex, with memory, bandwidth and processing power, the more functionality that will be available to us.  The advancement is eliminating the time that we spend with other devices, this is a trend that is here to stay.    

Globalization will continue. It will explode in the coming years. 

The small screen will connect our globe in ways no other technology yet to accomplish. If we thought the television was a game changer, watch out because devices of convenience will dwarf the reign of television. Most importantly, the entrance into the global market is the mobile phone. Mobile phone penetration has already dwarfed internet penetration by upwards of 2.5 billion. People that make less than $2 a day are adopting mobile devices. Simply upping the ante with better devices is a much simpler proposition AFTER the devices are in their hands. They will have the internet, social networking, mass media, communication devices AND entertainment in their hands. This makes the possibility of true global brands a much better reality. 

The guiding principles are already in place. 

Throughout the series of blog posts I already cover the defining characteristics of success. They are choice of content, portability, convenience and personalization. However, I think there is one  more principle driving force outside of these. Compression. 

Our lives will continue to compress. 

As you begin to create new markets, opportunities and increase information globally, our lives are going to continue to compress. Competition increases and with that the amount of information we need to consume then rises. Compression in this case simply adding more content into our lives. The need to do this requires us to ignore more, do more and consume more. Screens of convenience are the perfect compliment for this task and compression is the key to driving adoption of the small screen from a convenience to need. The need will be that quick moment of content, entertainment, escape or extra-work that we need to fulfill one of our human needs, as it relates to Maslow's hierarchy. It is this human condition that will continue to transcend cultures and economies. Ultimately, being the final key to driving us to the small screen and why it will triumph. 

As a marketer, what to do? 

Don't stand pat. You can consider what happened in the last ten years with the internet and consider what you would have done different to get your message in the right place today. 

• Be global: realize your audience and growth of your brand is going to be global. Do you focus your time and effort on getting people to switch to your product or people that never have experienced your product.        
• Be mobile: audiences around the world are going to experience the internets and all of it's offerings on mobile devices well before traditional media. You may say hey, they aren't buying products today. However, what did Microsoft do when they realized that they were getting ripped off in China?
• Be opportunistic, adopt early: Don't try to create the magic bullet. Follow trends and hedge bets early, like with the iPhone apps for example. 
• Think long tail: Placing your flag in many internet services and outlets may be the winning model at first. There simply isn't going to be a magic bullet for every society globally. However, information, much in text form, may be the first step for most. Simply having your content available might be the most important first step. 
• Follow human needs: Human need transcends culture. We have a need to communicate, connect and safe. This is the basic building block of the mobile phone. It is also why mobile devices will continue to flourish. 
• Keep an eye on soft product industries: Soft product industries, those like software or music, will be required to figure out the small screen and global presence first for survival. Learn from them. 
• Untapped minds: Perhaps the biggest brain trusts on earth will be interconnected via the small screen. How should you take advantage of it? 

Summary

I cannot believe what started as a lunch conversation has occupied so much of my time the past three weeks. Throughout this process, I've done a lot of research and may publish a more formal paper with research citations as well. For the non-reading types,  I'm going to evolve this into a presentation on SlideShare. Clearly, I'm excited about how the majority of our content consumption will be on the small screen. There are many opportunities and implications abound. I love the unknown. To think that it started with the transistor radio, but was propelled into worldwide penetration by the mobile phone is an astonishing consideration. However, the real driving force simply is a corrollary of all of modern technology, compression. It is this need, a human need, that crosses borders, economies, and language. Human need fostered by technical evolution will continue driving us to the small screen on a global basis in the future. It isn't what we've done in the past that is so exciting, it's where we're headed in the future. 

find me on twitter @marty_b

Triumph of the small screen: Part III

In my previous two posts I cover where I believe the small screen was born and how it has developed in the last roughly fifty years, specifically outside of the realm of mobile phones. From transistors to portable gaming devices, the small screen is going to continue to be the dominant form of where we consume most of our content. In other words, we're going to consume more content on screens of convenience, than on televisions or desktops computers in the future. We establish four principles that have lead to screens of convenience dominance: choice of content, portability, convenience and personlization. 
 

We set the stage for the entrance of the mobile phone revolution. The mobile phone covers the aforementioned principles and then simply extended a known technology. Both of these factors have helped with the mobile phone success, but why do mobile phones have widespread success across so many cultures and economies? 
 

The phone is a killer application. A killer application is one that is so readily apparent that its value cannot be disputed. I like the example of email in the 1990s. Everyone understood email, saw its value and raced to sign up for internet service providers because of it's innate value. The phone shares this value, it's a killer application. 
 

The telephone, when Alexander Bell invented it, was immediately understood. He knew exactly the possibilities of it sans explanation. People immediately understood the concept that you could communicate with someone in a distant place immediately. We connected our worlds with telephones. 

It's a powerful medium. It doesn't need to be rationalized, it simply works. We all begin life with a need to communicate. This basic innate need to communicate and experience relationships hasn't changed, nor will that need change. It's widely adopted and it's value innately understood, appreciated. It appeals to everyone of all incomes and in all societies. 
 

The basic function of the phone hasn't changed too dramatically, it still transmits voice at the heart of its function. However, the ubiquity of the networks that provide the service have grown dramatically. With that growth, the marginal cost of using telephone services has never been lower. 
 

Mobile phones in developing countries has been made available because the infrastructure to support them is wireless. It's much cheaper to turn on a tower and transmit phone services than running cable to our homes. Quickly, this network designed to transmit wireless telephone traffic became the groundwork for a global communication grid in data form, meaning both telephone and data (internet) services. It makes perfect sense as data is much easier to handle than phone traffic. Additionally, once the call becomes a data service the long distance costs become largely too cheap to meter and we can connect to people wherever, whenever, all for the same cost. Remember long distance? The cost of providing a wireless tower to an area is much less than physical cable and today we have connected vast reaches of the world with mobile technology. Yes, still reception can be spotty, but the infrastructure is largely in place for at least 4.1 billion of us. Even those that make less than $2 a day see value in communicating with people in distant locations. Clearly, the phone is a killer application. 
 

The telephone is also a lifeline. Most people leave their homes with their keys, phone and purse/wallet. Our mobile phone is almost always with us. The reason mobile phones appeal to us is simple, it ladders up our pyramid of needs as humans. 
 

The telephone transcends multiple levels of our  hierarchy of human needs. That's what makes it an especially powerful medium. Remember the power of the transistor radio: music, talk and connection changed generations? The telephone has done no less. As we revisit Mr. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the telephone can cross the top four needs of the pyramid. We take our telephone to be safe. In fact, it's generally why most parents give them to their children. To build our relationships fueling our sense of connection. Achievement is handled by the status symbol that started with just owning a phone, and today the most advanced phones appeal to actualization. It's the appeal of the iPhone, our sense of potential and creativity. It's an outward reflection of our inner selves (we hope). And the devices are planted into our psyche and on our person. And we are ingrained into upgrade paths (see previous post for more explanation). And services are more ubiquitous than ever. And mobile devices keep getting, faster, more sophisticated and have greater potential everyday. 
 

The raw computing power or potential that mobile devices serve is exploding. Let's first revisit Moore's Law (courtesy of Wikipedia):

Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. Since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years.The trend was first observed by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in a 1965 paper.

The net result is that we have mobile phones that can offer way more meaningful experiences than computers from 10-15 years ago. Quick trip back to 1994, a computer purchased for college had a processor that was 25 MHz. It had a 20MB hard drive. Comparatively, the iPhone has 16gb of storage or 800x larger, just 15 years later. The 620mhz ARM processor in an iPhone is approximately 25x the speed of this college computer. The pipe to the internet was very fast at a 14.4kb. The iPhone has reputation of pulling 384kb or 27x the average dial up computer in 1994. With this growth in computing power, the potential of the mobile device has exploded. 
 

Because of mobile computing capabilities have grown at a rate consistent with Moore's Law, we're seeing that smart phones, iPhones and the like are providing computing experiences that rival desktops. Meaningful services are creating value for our consumers that were not before possible. Today, we are seeing applications that are providing clear value to the consumer and we have a marriage of capability, bandwidth and value for consumers that is driving adoption globally, quickly. 
 

The most important aspect of all this extra computing power has been applications that can be installed on our phones that serve a greater range of our human needs. Some of the extra computing power has been dedicated to things like Facebook which can serve actualization, love and belonging or self-esteem. Meanwhile, we can txt to our friends to build our sense of connection. Meanwhile, I can watch YouTube, all on the same mobile device. This is why mobile devices are here to stay. They handle a range of basic human needs at a much higher level than television, especially in developing economies. Even the prized iPhone will have a knock off that will be accessible to people in rural China within a couple of years. That's powerful. 
 

Now that they have crossed the threshold of being a basic need, they can ladder up to more meaningful experiences. However as we've built devices that handle our meaningful experiences, they have also become platforms of convenience. It is that aspect that is serving our more compressed lives today better than ever. These devices, with all of their extra computing power, broadband connection and global penetration, will be the dominant devices of the future. It is where we will consume most of our content. In the last post of this series, I'll look at the future of screens of convenience because our mobile phones have evolved well past the point of simply making a call. 
 

follow me on twitter @marty_b