The year of the mobile: Last year, this year, next year?
Just like when you’re writing software, a trend is nearly always “90% there” – We always expect next year to be bigger, for the grass to be greener, and we wouldn’t recognise it if it stared us in the face. In the same way, everyone is waiting with bated breath for “the year of the mobile” to arrive, as obvious as the pizza delivery ringing the doorbell.
However, on Monday night, Marek Pawlowski, who was on the Mobile Monday panel on Mobile Media and Marketing, made a refreshing observation in saying it IS the year of mobile and that it’s been the year of mobile for some time now. While it isn’t at the center of most people’s world, the mobile phone is an essential tool for most. We would have been a couple of panelists short if it hadn’t been for Google Maps on their phones, and Helen wouldn’t have been able to share her every thought on Twitter that day had it not been for the mobile web.
Later on, Simon Maddox mentioned a recent survey in which Brits were asked to say which of television, computer or mobile phone they’d be able to live without: Mobile phones consistently came out as the one electronic no one wanted to go without.
If we’d rather get our left arm chopped off than lose that lifeline to friends, business and the rest of the world, I suppose Marek’s statement is right!
For more soundbites from the latest Mobile Monday, check out what James Cooper and Ben Matthews have had to say. They’ve clearly taken better notes than I have! And many thanks to Dan, Alex and Jo for organising yet another great event.
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June 5th, 2008 at 11:29 am
It certainly feels that the key enablers (better browsers, cheaper data, new services) are starting to fall into place. Thx for the link
June 5th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
the year of the mobile = every year!:)
Natali Yeşilbahar
Mobile Monday Istanbul
Board Member
June 7th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I went to a talk about living in africa, given by a missionary/teacher, and he said that it was not uncommon for people to choose to go hungry in order to buy credit for their mobile phone – since it was their only method of communication outside of their town/village.
In many cases traditional telephone services are unreliable because people steal the wires for their value in scrap copper – you can’t steal the airwaves!