Rudy wrote an excellent article on Vodafone’s Receiver on how music will turn mobile.
First, I don’t believe in Nokia’s vision of mobiles turning into computers. Actually, my girlfriend did a hard job trying to find a new mobile without camera; because her phone should do what it is supposed to do: call. And more people like her are popping up around me looking for a KISS-phone. Besides of that one needs to be honest and admit that all manufacturers of mobiles failed in creating a real interface which truly caters all this glitter of ‘mobile connecting’; no wonder all hopes are on Apple taking the opportunity with their iPhone-to-be.
Which brings me to some conclusions:
- I think mobsharing (mobile file sharing) is still ages ahead. How many people do you really see walking around with music tapped into their ears? People listen for 90% to music in their cars or at home and despite the massive success of iPod, this is not going to change. On sundays the beaches in Rio are packed with zillions of people and sofar I’ve not seen any of all those beautiful people wearing an mp3 player. Admitted, some of the fashionistas jogging around Lagoa sport an iPod Nano. Conclusion 1: I don’t believe people are looking for ‘downloading-on-the-go’; storage will be centralised on the good-old-computer.
- The idea of people wanting to project their holiday-pictures and videos from a server (Flickr,…) on the Internet to a big screen when with friends is an old one. I don’t believe in all these features. Taking pictures with direct upload to Blogs / Photo Albums has been here for more then 3 years now, 3 years ! And still the whole experience is basically a drag compared to connectting your mobile over USB while coming home.
- Admitted, tickets for concerts will becoma a matrix code on my mobile; I will eventually pay with my mobile while checking out at a bar.
- And most importantly: promition for concerts will fundamentally change. I agree with Rudy that eventually a concert recommendation will be presented to me like a new song on pandora. I don’t believe though it will happen on my mobile; why bother?
No, the real conclusion is that there’s no such platform (yet) where such a recommendation for a concert would be presented to me. Because what’s out there:
1. Yes, last.fm knows every track I’m playing on my computer.
2. Yes, Pandora is slowly learning my taste of music.
3. Yes, Orkut knows (some of) my friends; though there’s no syntax whatsoever organising that data in Orkut.
4. Yes, 43places was supposed to learn something on my travel preferences (but eventually I gave up feeding it)
5. Yes, Amazon knows some of the books and CDs I bough; but it has been 14 months since I bought something on Amazon.
6. Yes, iTunes, Bleep and Beatport have some information on some tracks that I bought there.
7. Yes, Google keeps track of my searches.
That’s it roughly.
And here I am, in Rio de Janeiro on a Tuesday evening. A town of 8 million people, the “party town of the world”, supposedly culturally buzzing, with probably around 80 people I’ve (vagely or not) met the last 9 months. And my girlfriend and I want to go out after a hard day of work. Nothing fancy: a movie, a theatre,…
First challenge: Brazil (and Rio) cater very few guides like Sherpa and many other consolidated cultural guides in Belgium. Probably Carioca’s will say I just know them, don’t bother, I know every cultural site there’s around. And I do really know good sites like Rraurl for (electro) music are around. The point that I’m making is that there’s nothing consolidated out there. Guia da Semana comes closest. And the conclusion there was that (1) no movies worthwhile visiting are playing (2) no theatre plays on Tuesday.
We ended up having Guiness, which was as entertaining considering the company; but the point that I really wanted to make is the following:
We have thrilling friends around here but basically there is no knowledge sharing whatsoever happening. Which restaurants did Duncan went to lastt month? How did he liked them? Which movies did Ana see and liked last months? To which clubs did Hudson went? Which new shops did Karina discover? Which beaches did Daniela surf last week? Which plays did Adriana see and like? Etc….
Meanwhile some friends leave a tag on our Orkut (rarely) to go sailing, give a call to go for a drink in Cobal or the bravest like Duncan send around e-mail invitations for concerts. Or we ourselves peek on the site of Ticketmaster to see what’s on.
Contrary to what many think I’m not this ’spring in the field’ kind of person only craving the hippest and always seeking the latest ‘en fashion’. I do however shiver from anything that is mediocre. Rio is extremely densily populated, the traffic is horryfying which makes us live on a space of max 10km2 for 98% of our time. We tend to go to the same 10 bars, visit the same 3 restaurants for lunch and listen to 5 radio stations which have been playing roughly the same tracks for the last year.
And there is so much more happing in this town. But it happens like they say in German ‘üm die Ecke’. And to discover new experiences yourself you need a hell lot of energy, and be able to accept many bad experiences of trying the unknown.
So, what I’m really missing Rudy, is… (fill out yourself).
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
J, Joining different technolgy in mobile handsets only reflect the intellectual masturbation and joy of techies productdevvers and marketeers. Sometimes, killing apps make it to the world, boosted by influencials, picked up by the crowd.
Above innovation efforts tap into some real-life problems. Although good apps make to the outside, and some joining efforts do help, I still reckon two major prolems (that support your article)
1. they still do not cover my basic problem: I want a credit-card size basic tech instrument that keeps my basic data together. Something that can keep at least half a terrabite, and that is intelligent enough to interpret where I am, connects to my home when at home, to my car, etc… without having to change the tech apps in my direct environment every year.
2. Once you have set up a workable system, a bunch of new and better apps are presented. So, in the end why do the effort to learn it again, organize your life again, pay a lot of money for new tech, again. Should we invent a new job: personal high-tech integration manager that keeps you apps at full speed, updates it regularly… In that case, I don’t even wanna know what’s behind, which systems does the work, just let me enjoy the result. Tech should facilitate my life, not create an additional workload. (remember our discussion a few years ago
And between us, even in tech, the antiques have some romance…
(for the critics, I’m a guy who loves intelligent innovation, i’m not the driver of new high tech but am considered to pick it up before the mlass does)
Excellent reply, John!
The article was asked to be a visionary view on mobile lifestyle, clubbing culture and social media which means the things I decribe in the article are probably close from 5 to 10 years from here before they’ll happen on a mass scale.
I find the culture we’re moving to an odd mix where market demand is that everything will be personalized soon, very self-centered in a way, leading
to a crying need for community. The juxtaposition is fascinating.
I saw my first mobile video in 1999 in Helsinki and it’s still not mass market, on the other side, saying DJ’s would be the god’s of the nineties in 1987 was laughed away; also, who knew the internet only 10 years ago in 1996? Yes, you and me were there and some others and still it took a couple of years before everything took really off to collapse later, it all comes in circles in different speeds…
One thing is sure is that cultures can be very different in adopting technology, we cannot compare Finnish and Brazilian cultures, neither African or Arabian, all cultures have their own habits and lifestyle and most probably it will still stay like that for a while.
I tend to refer also to the behaviour of my teenage daughters who use the phone completely different then we do. I’m especially interested to see what’s going to happen in 5 years from here, they are the first real generation that grew up with the mobile. They simply cannot imagine I have spend my youth without a mobile, a computer or the internet
(btw: they send you many greetings!)
But you’re right, to get there we need a lot of innovation, thus entrepreneurs with ideas. I just know there are a lot of good ideas out there just now and there is a lot happening on the entrepreneurial side, that’s great, but probably never enough.
Things move at their own pace, some evolutions go fast, consumer adoption can take ages and sometimes it’s the other way around. Current clubland and it’s music can use a new creative injection of revolutional change too if you ask me.
Please doo keep this blog still up for a couple of years, I’ll be checking the post again and be curious to what of all I say in the artcile will be old skool by then and if not, no big deal. Who knows I’ll be running a succesfull startup with you over there by then, planting trees in the Amazone
BTW: have you tried MyStrands.com ?
Cheers,
Rudy