Our mobile phones are quickly replacing the laptop as the screen of choice for the digerati. More and more can be accomplished on the mobile phone platform that we used to reserve for the laptop with a high-speed connection to the Internet. Today our mobile phones are coming equipped with GPS and could include RFID readers soon as well, turning them into gateways for almost unlimited amounts of information.
On the Mobile Internet Device front, I personally think that Amazon and Apple could corner the MID market overnight with a Kindle built upon the same OS as the iPhone. The Kindle is too large to replace the iPhone, G1 or any other smart-phone, but Amazon could offer us the larger screen we want for web browsing, Wi-Fi connectivity, and a cellular phone. Not to mention the idea that the titles bought for the Kindle could come from the iTunes store or Amazon, then be stored inside the Amazon cloud for when you need more space on the Kindle device. This is a wishful stretch, I know, but it is a nice thought. Not to mention all of the other problems that would stand in the way of these two companies working together, like the Amazon MP3 store, and Apple’s long-term goals of cloud-based computing as well.
There has been some movement in taking the virtual world platform Second Life to the mobile market. Both Sun and Samsung have demonstrated working applications of the online world in the past, but just last month Vollee released a Second Life client for the Nokia N96 3G phone. This ties into the idea that our online world is coming closer and closer into synch with our real life persona.
If you have ever spent any time in the Google Earth application, you might have seen the 3D buildings inside the application. To the left, I have included a screen captured image of downtown Denver, Colorado. Notice anything peculiar about the 3D building? They have accurate images of their exteriors! People went out and built factual representations of those structures, right down to the images on the exterior walls. The current problem is that there are no interiors within the Google Earth application. So if you office on the 38th floor of a building in your downtown metro, too bad… people will never see your logo in that area. Google Earth has no way to get someone into a building. Oh wait, Google bought an in-game advertising company called Adscape almost two years ago, and has recently been rumored to be in talks with Valve, maker of fanboy favorite Half-Life. So why don’t we just assume that Google is serious on the virtual words front? And we already know that Google is serious about mobile.
Lastly, I want to consider the paradigm of the Three Screens. It all began on the all mighty television screen. Content was created for that screen in abundance, and still is, but then something happened. The Internet sprang forth the second screen, the computer screen, and for a long time we were content with those two screens. Then we wanted a convergence of the content between screens one and two, and so we had that, too. Then the the mobile phone market gave us faster download speeds and more power processors — so now we want that same content there, too.
Only AT&T has made a concerted effort to develop a Three Screens strategy so far. The rest of the providers seem to be attacking on disconcerted fronts, under leadership of various offices and without a noticeable strategy. If you have seen some good examples of a combined Internet, television, and mobile content delivery mechanism, share it with me in the comments below.
By the way, if you are not already on Twitter, start tonight. If you are in the twitterverse, follow me here, and also follow Amazon MP3 for some really great music deals. Amazon is using marketing on Twitter to huge benefit, is your company?
Links of Interest:
Matt Williamson
twitter.com/mattwilliamson
matt@technologystory.com