Future of all HiFi is Wire Free Connectivity (high speed and low - bloody low - cost).
Why?
1. As people move around geographies, and leave behind their emotional anchorage, they would want to reconnect, recreate, share the times gone by, with people who are closest
2. This is also linked to another universal truth – as people grow older they tend to have fewer and fewer friends. As a result, the reliance on emotional bonds formed at a younger age increases
This desire to stay private (fewer newer friends), stay connected (feeding older bonds formed earlier in life), clubbed with the new technologies, that virtually allow us to be in touch with anyone, any time, anywhere and all the time, makes a compelling theme for, what I call, nostalgia in real time.
(In its extreme form ‘nostalgia in real time’ is known to have broken marriages, for ‘her boyfriend was much more available, on ‘scraps’ and through ‘text’, to listen to her, than her husband!’)
While a large chunk of Web 2.0, through social networks, is exactly this – staying connected all the time. And also exploring new connections around old passions (from miniature cars to the city one belong to). Its real potential would be unleashed when it becomes the substitute for what we see today as the Short Text Messaging (SMS) mobile hand-held devices.
In other words, when a girl listening to James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” can scrap (or ping or poke) her friends about how they felt about the same song, back in the college dorm..
The key difference, among others, between the SMS days of today and on the move Scrap days of (not very distant) future would of course be
1. Unlimited Text and Picture and Audio and Video capabilities (in contrast to the Short & Text Messaging of today)
2. Cheaper (if not free) connectivity
3. Not needing to boot the computer to do it
HiFi in future, would have to be driven by WiFi (or WiMax should I say) because the real frontier for all devices and interface designed for the mobisapiens (mobile mankind) of tomorrow, would be seamless connectivity everywhere (space) and always (time).
In other words for a device and interface to win the ‘is intuitive’ vote it would need to be ‘impulse compliant’.
Devices and Interfaces that would successfully erase the gap between what is felt by one and is shared with many others, almost anywhere instantly, would be the HiFi of tomorrow. (I assume that this would happen without any ‘transmission loss’ that results from poor connectivity and prohibitive pricing).
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Of mobisapiens, impulse & HiFi of tomorrow
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Here are some things to keep you thinking:
-India has about 291 million mobile subscribers
-According to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Report, the number of Indians using their mobiles to login to the internet has almost doubled from 16 million to 38 million just last year.
-That number is slated to grow.
The total number of people who have used broadband internet at-least once are 42 million, the number of active users (those who use the internet atleast once a month) are pegged at 32.2 million. So there is potential for as much action (business wise) in the mobile space.
Microsoft bought WebFives recently, WebFives is a mobile social network. So social and web 2.0 players are realising the importance of specialized content for the mobile that takes the current advantages of social and web 2.0 to the mobile (and more).
In India, the government is still not looking at alternatives such as Wi - Max or Wi Fi for mass deployment. BSNL discussed it briefly but so far no steps have been taken. So one can get a hint of where the market in terms of numbers as well as ideology is headed. The flawless delivery of what is expected remains to be seen.
Theres a lot written about this on www.watblog.com
Do check it out if you have the time.
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