|
One day, indeed one day, we will have the ultimate wireless device, writes Philip Hennemann, CEO of Infostrada Sports. It will be always online, with an indefinite battery life, have more than sufficient wireless bandwidth, and maybe even have a foldable screen that is readable in bright light with the resolution of a glossy magazine.
Even better, it will have robust software that is always on and does not need rebooting, operating on sturdy and reliable hardware, even handling a spill of coffee, accidentally poured in the keyboard, now and then. Packaged in trendy, light and user friendly housing, with standard functions such as GPS, credit card, translation services, audio and video recording, and weather station etc, it will be a device that nobody can afford not to have, especially those now using its predecessors.
But such a device will also need the ultimate infrastructure, which can deliver the desired depth of content and functionality over sufficient bandwidths. Users will enjoy online music, video and other content boxes automatically feeding the user with the content of their preference. Yes, we will watch the 8 o'clock news wherever and whenever we want, we will video-conference with people around the world, while the device will also suggest the best place to park, pay for your soft drink out of a machine, plan your route and suggest places of interest when your are passing by.
Waiting for the promise
But when will this 'one day' be? Five years, 10 or 20 years from now? We have been here before.
From the early 1990s the PC, hardly after a decade of its existence, was supposed to be the ultimate device in the wired world. Around 1995 we were meant to believe that the paperless office was on its way, that the TV was about to be extinct. In 2000, internet users were supposed to number as many as TV viewers and so forth. But we all know what happened: the TV is here to stay and basically we have a new media channel 'internet', besides all the ones we already had.
If we can't do with wires today what we dream of doing without wires, we should be a little bit more skeptical about how fast it will develop, more specifically for a number of reasons:
- In general, the average user will keep his/her device for at least three years. Many users just want to have a phone, because it is a just a phone to them. How many mobile users actually use SMS, let alone synchronise calendars? So why buy a new one every time there is one? The technology push in the PC industry came to a hold when new hardware did not bring new user satisfaction with basic functions like word processing. Somewhere in time the mobile phone industry will be faced with the same challenge.
- Mobile device software is getting less robust with increasing functionality. The more like a PC it will become, the bigger the manual and the more you will have to reboot it. Although one day this will be turned around.
- Great new features - but will the average user understand them, want them, or how long will it take before he/she wants them or needs them?
- Multimedia features: are they a nice to have or a must have? Let alone all the provider, browser, and device compatibility issues. What is roaming GPRS today? When will it really work and how it was envisioned?
- Although market penetration cycles of new technology tends to get shorter with every new technology, doesn't it always still take longer, cost more and bring less functionality then we had hoped for?
Looking to the future
All in all, this will make the availability of the ultimate device later rather than sooner than most of us would like to believe. But at the same time, although we just have started, we can see this future in the state of the art device of today.
Given the above, where lies the success for mobile sport content providers at present:
- First, it is worth investing and enjoying the ride much more than the previous internet roller coaster trip, since the internet hype didn't have a payment structure. The mobile hype has a payment system and even better the user is perfectly used to paying for transactions. Basically it is a bank account or credit card, which you can use as a phone as well. Moreover the device itself is highly penetrated and truly portable.
- The multimedia opportunity will be foremost a success in peer to peer messaging, because also peer to peer SMS is by far more successful than push SMS. What can be shown on one device will not necessarily have to work on a large number of devices at the same time. Even at present, larger numbers of the same push SMS-message to a large number of users can take more than 10 minutes, with just text. Imagine what will happen with MMS or associated video clips. Will users want to be informed as it happens or will they rather enjoy a very expensive out of date multimedia message? Switching on a mobile phone Monday morning, receiving multiple expensive messages of the day before is hardly user friendly.
- In general, content push will be more and more replaced by content pull. Today's mobile internet offers the user to access the information, when and where they want it. And statistics prove this need: average users are online for just a matter of minutes.
- CeeFax proved the need of being informed all the time, a classic pull model, very successful and still in great use. The mobile internet of present is the most sophisticated CeeFax a user could ever had wished for. Always with the user, more colorful, even pictures, faster performance, easier navigations, more interactivity, but in essence with the same key success factors. Content as it happens and up-to-date all the time. In a restaurant, at a birthday party or family gathering the true sports fan can discretely follow what he/she would miss a few years ago.
- Content providers should build their subscription base not on the state-of-the-art device possibilities but on the satisfying the real information needs first. All the fancy multimedia features are a 'nice to have'. Until it becomes a 'need to have', that is when we will get close to the ultimate device, operated within the ultimate infrastructure, making use of superior digitally organised content resources. And that will be one day in the foreseeable future.
About Infostrada Sports
Infostrada Sports is a worldwide provider of comprehensive sports information products and services. It is a leading source for statistics, historical results, biographies, news, reports and infographics ranking from soccer and formula 1 to fencing. Operating in five countries, the company is dedicated to giving access to the best sports information available anywhere. Infostrada Sports answers research queries, offers full services for internet and mobile platforms and onsite and offline projects. It also supplies information digitally or in print to newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, websites, SMS and WAP providers, event organisers, federations and sponsors. For the mobile market Infostrada has its own label available on multiple mobile platforms in the Northern European region. Up-to-date and reliable sports information is provided to a fast growing user base via a wide range of mobile operators.
Contact Philip Hennemann, CEO of Infostrada Sports at: philip.hennemann@infostradasports.com; tel +31 (0)30 600 71 71
This article was seen first by people who receive the monthly newsletter, join them.
|
