Features
Above the Fray
Follow the Money
Market Research
Big Ideas
Technoptions
Developer Insights
Q & A
Opinions

Archives
Calendar of Events
ASP Directory
Other Cahners Pubs

Submit a Release
Meet our Staff
Contact Us
Advertise
Magazine Subscription

Smell the Coffee:
Keep it simple, make it relevant

by brad smith
March/April 2001

A friend of mine who is a Denver-based professional photographer has spent a good portion of the last couple of years in northern Italy, working on a book on the wines of the Piedmont region. On a recent trip she was walking the vineyards near Turin when she received a phone call from her husband, who was on a business trip in Houston.

Big deal, you say? It was for my friend, who shopped every wireless carrier in the United States last year to find the one that offered her the best coverage domestically as well as in northern Italy. She settled on Nextel Communications, which launched its worldwide service in April 2000 with the i2000 iDEN/GSM dual-mode phone. The service also lets her receive text messages via the Internet from her husband, who travels quite a bit as a sales manager for a sports equipment manufacturer.

What has all this got to do with the wireless Internet?

It’s my way of illustrating my viewpoint for this column. I’m certainly enamored of technology, but technology alone isn’t relevant unless it is useful to real people like my friend.

Figuring out how to make the wireless Internet useful is the biggest challenge for the industry. Every end-user is going to find his or her own way, but it may not necessarily be the path some people in the industry think is the best, or most profitable, use of the technology. But no one will make money, and technology will have lost its promise, if the wireless Internet and the applications that ride on it don’t serve real needs.

Another anecdote illustrates how some wireless Internet offerings can miss the mark.

Colorado Ski Country USA, the industry’s promotional arm in my home state, last fall offered to e-mail the daily ski report to anyone who requested it. The organization now has about 2,500 people signed up and the service is available to people on wireless devices that support e-mail.

I can’t imagine trying to read a ski report on a wireless phone, or even a Palm or PocketPC device. Even sillier is the application that some ski gurus envision when GPS meets the wireless phone.

“Using a GPS system, you could follow a specific trail down the mountain, and if the ski area was keeping the Internet up to date about on-mountain grooming and runs that are open and lift lines, you could pick up that information as you skied around,” ski consultant Jerry Jones recently told the Denver Rocky Mountain News.

You don’t have to be Picabo Street to realize no one is going to stop in the midst of a ski run, take off their gloves and punch in a Web site address on a cellular phone keypad, then drill through Web pages to find current conditions for Vail’s back bowls. The application doesn’t fit the situation, and adventurous skiers will not accept text-based information in place of exploring with their own senses.

That’s where the industry that offers us the wireless Internet has gotten itself into trouble. First, carriers, WASPs and vendors promised more than they could deliver. The desktop and the handheld are vastly different, each with their own strengths. The mobile ’Net has its own unlimited potential, but not as a poor cousin of the desktop. Secondly, the industry has nearly squandered its debut by offering services most people don’t want.

Where does that leave us? What do people really want from the wireless Internet?

One example is my photographer friend, who was truly excited that she could talk to her husband or receive a text message from him while she was in Italy. Technology brought value to her pursuits. Join me in the months ahead in exploring what works and what doesn’t. I’ll bring the coffee.

Brad Smith is IP/Data editor at Wireless Week. Technology has enabled him to work out of the office, tempting editors to liken him to Edward Abbey’s fictional character, “Seldom Seen” Smith. Readers can reach him at bsmith@cahners.com.