A short history of consumer driven technology development

We’re in the midst of yet another evolution in communications. This one is the social networking transformation in which mobile devices are not merely used for voice and E–mail but now Internet terminals for the many social networks we all belong to. It’s yet another example of an activity that began on our desktop and notebook PCs that have migrated over to our handsets, just as text messaging and e-mail did before. And as with every disruptive social phenomenon, those trying to serve this fast moving trend have been caught unawares and are trying desperately to catch up.

In the early part of this decade, users in the 100s of millions outside the U.S.—Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Europe—began to use instant text messaging as a lower cost alternative to voice. The carriers supplied this data service in the spectrum unused for voice calls, which cost them next to nothing and for which they reaped large profits. Instant and short text messaging became its own social phenomenon, with a use model unique from voice and e-mail. The messages were likened to whispering in someone ear—especially during meetings or when you didn’t want anyone but the recipient to know what was being said. In The Philippines text-messaging, citizens-organized daily protests resulted in the ouster of Philippine President Joseph Ejercito Estrada in 2001.

While instant text messaging continued building a following in the U.S., Internet-base social networking on a PC started taking off in early 2004 with the debut of MySpace. Membership went from zero to a million users from January to February of that year and the numbers kept rising from there. Social networkers were now hanging out on MySpace with their PC, talking on their cell phone and/or texting on their cell phone. Cellular service providers in the U.S. were oblivious of the trend. They continued making it more expensive to text than talk, while in the rest of the world service providers did the opposite. Is there any wonder European cellphone users were texting more than twice as much as U.S. users (according to Forrester Research reporting in 2005)?

By mid century, U.S. service providers finally realized that data service was a viable business model. In 2005, CTIA-The Wireless Association, cited an installed base of 190 million cell phones and 90 percent could send text messages and 60 percent of those texting were aged 18 to 27. (A great many of the texters were voting for their favorites on “American Idol.”) By this time, too, the Blackberry demonstrated to telephone service providers that there was a business providing e-mail access via a mobile handset for enterprise users. But, who would want to surf the web with a mobile handset?

In January 2007, with the advent of the iPhone, the notion of providing total Internet browsing on a handset took hold. The idea wasn’t entirely foreign to service providers as they had dabbled with the notion by supplying radios you could plug into your laptop and access the Internet over the cellular infrastructure. And the Blackberry could be pressed into surfing duties, but the experience was painful and cumbersome. However, service providers had no idea of what it was going to take to keep up with millions of iPhone users accessing and moving large media files around the 3G network, something they are now reluctantly coming to terms with.

It took a year but the rest of the smart phone vendors with the service providers excluded from carrying iPhones finally caught on to how to provide web browsing and similar handset functionality—a compelling user experience. This is where service providers find themselves today, facing growing numbers of smart phone users disenchanted with the slow response from the web. And it’s only going to get worse as Apple is no doubt on the verge of introducing an iPhone with full 1080p HD video capture and playback, 20-megapixel still image capture, and no doubt higher fidelity audio capture and playback.

For wireless service providers the once the wireless spectrum is completely utilized, there is nowhere to go except to offload traffic onto the wired infrastructure. The handsets and wireless infrastructure will have to contain increased intelligence to route wireless connections so as to preserve bandwidth while still providing a responsive experience to the user. It’s conceivable that, like toll lanes on congested highways, wireless service providers will begin charging a toll for a faster browsing experience. Those unwilling to pay will be subject to operating speeds that will begin to resemble dial-up 64 kbits/s or less as large numbers of users flood the system during prime usage time.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Viral Marketing through Social Media

A couple weeks ago, I received a call from NZ, a serial entrepreneur I met a while back when I was an editor and he was a marketing exec at a high tech company. He was now teaching a class for the women 2.0 organization, which moves from venue to venue. This event was held in an office building on University near Alma in Palo Alto. NZ asked me to present 12 to 14 slides on leveraging social networking for marketing.

I had some free time and was already digging into the new phenomenon. I had been on LinkedIn for several years, pestering all the people I had met during my years in technical journalism to link in with me. Not only did it get me back in touch with long lost contacts, it also showed the power of all these connections, one being NZ. I also had a blog begun back in Autumn 2004, but I had not leveraged Twitter to help drive readership. I was also active on YouTube having posted some 30 odd videos. However, I was simply experimenting with a phenomenon.

I was now being asked to explain to a group of aspiring entrepreneurs how to leverage this social networking to make money. Where do I begin? In the world of on-line marketing, everything begins with a web site, the storefront where you meet your customers. Building a web site is pretty standard faire and I couldn’t add much to what was common knowledge.

Then it struck me. What modern marketing is all about is telling a story, the same story over and over adding unique twist with each telling. The most obvious example is the BMW-produced short videos starring Clive Owen in some clever plot twist aimed at convincing the viewer that BMW is “the Ultimate Driving Machine.”

The entire marketing effort at BMW from their commercials showing the construction of vehicles, to BMWs’ roles in movies like the James Bond series and more recently “Shoot ‘em Up,” keeps telling the story. As evidence of their success, the “BMW, The Ultimate Driving Machine” Facebook page has 30,873 fans, presumably owners or those aspiring to be.

How does an upstart entrepreneur tell their story with no money? For the short presentation to the Women 2.0 audience, I suggested finding an idea related to their business that goes viral. It’s a concept described in “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” a book by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s what BMW and every major brand has spent $billions over time producing.

For my example, I suggested a wedding planner business started by a couple, Jill and Kevin. I suggested that J&K might create a website called J&K Weddings. To promote their business they might plan their own wedding, film it and put it on YouTube with their company name and website on the ending credits. To make the video compelling they might do a different walk down the aisle to the alter.

The result might look like the YouTube video JK Wedding Entrance Dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0), which has garnered, nearly 23 million views in the month it’s been posted and still growing. Whatever business Jill and Kevin were in, it could have leveraged their viral YouTube video and the resulting mainstream publicity (appearance on “Good Morning America” and the Today Show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd79E6I5CV4).

I wonder if the idea took hold in any of those in the audience. I keep checking the hot new videos on YouTube just in case.