Mobile Imagineering

Nothing you do for today is likely to survive progress. To make it survive, you need to think ahead, into the future, imagine the way things could/will be done then.

Then develop solutions for that today.

Why do I bring this up?

Many “mobility products” today tend to address present day needs. We tend to take the desktop paradigm, and build products around it. We take present-day situations, and then try to invent a better mousetrap.

From my perspective, that is wrong. The desktop is a paradigm beaten to death, and if you look closely, it has never attained the kind of traction that the walkman or TV did. And the next billion people (and they are already here – we call them the “iPod Generation”) will not be interested in such an archaic approach to dealing with information, communication and entertainment (ICE).

And those billion people are our customers of tomorrow.

To understand what I am talking about, let’s consider the concept of mobile games.

Most people would understand this to be “games on the mobile”. I.e. standard games (like quake, or Doom or just plain old chess or even tic-tac-toe).

That is addressing the old world, the existing desktop users, where everything happens within the confines of the desktop or (by extension through the Internet) in the virtual world.

That’s not addressing the next billion people.

However, have a look at this.

Go ahead, click the play button on the video.

You are watching someone play a game on a mobile device, but with a startling difference – he is interacting with the real world.

That is a very simple, but effective example of taking into account what the world of mobility will be like for people in the future – even a year from now.

We have to stop thinking about these short-term, “let’s do this for today” kind of “innovations”, and start thinking ahead.

Things we can assume about devices in the future (and I am talking about the future that is 12 months away – could be less):

1. Devices with full colour screens
2. Devices with higher screen resolutions
3. Devices with far more memory
4. Devices with far more storage
5. “Always on” connectivity
6. Widespread coverage
7. Low bandwidth costs
8. Fairly high network speeds
9. Better CPU performance (does not mean “faster”)
10. Users who are not tied to PCs

If you take all of the above into account, what kind of application would you build for people who live in that kind of environment? What would they want, what would they need (and remember “want” and “need” are two different things).

I watched endless discussions about “social networks” over time. I didn’t comment, because disagreed with the notion of the existing “social networks” being the next big market that mobile computing should address. Social networks like MySpace are a “today” phenomenon. They are fairly closed systems that leverage their captive audiences and won’t open up to outsiders. Some of them are opening up (e.g. FaceBook) by offering APIs for third party applications, but in the end the environment is still tightly controlled by the people running that particular network.

The real social networks that will be created in the future will not be controlled by commercial entities like MySpace, Hi5 or Facebook – they will be created by users.

The actual IM network providers (MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc.) will be less relevant. They will facilitate, but they won’t control. We will see explosive growth of Organic User-Driven Networks (OUDNs) and content, and they will not be controlled by any single large entity.

Google has known this for ages, and that is why they chose not to go proprietary, but used a standard, XMPP based messaging system.

AOL has already rung the bell – adopting OpenID is a clear sign that they are going to start falling into line with Google’s plans, and Google in turn is making deeper inroads into the AOL control mechanics, and it would surprise no one if one day, the world wakes up to an AOL owned by Google. MS and Yahoo are retaliating by combining forces.

So you have Google+AOL+ICQ on one side, and MSN+Yahoo on the other.

Who wins will be decided not by the might of either camp, but whom the OUDNs side with.

And given that these OUDNs already use open standards like XMPP, guess who is going to win?

Success will come not to those who control the most users, but to those who facilitate and enable the most users.

The future, as I have always maintained, is open.

And our business is with the future. “Today” is history.

In a way, there are already products out there that address this future scenario. MunduIM (a product by the company I work for) has Jabber/XMPP support, which allows it to connect to most of these OUDNs. And MunduRadio provides access to almost limitless, user-created audio content.

What we need to do now is think outside the box.

How can we use these technologies to enable users to do things that they can’t do today? Things no one has even thought of? What other technologies will become feasible, given the specs of future devices and networks I listed above?

Streaming video is a given. And that probably means that we will have thousands of user-created Internet TV stations that a user can tune into. What video protocol/codec will make it? Do we assume today’s jerky, 160 pixel wide videos, constrained by both device performance and available bandwidth? Or do we realise that in the future, these limitations won’t exist?

What about plain old Instant Messaging itself? Do we really believe that IM will only be used to communicate with other users? Other humans? Or will we accept that it is possible that in the future, we may want to interact not only with other humans, but services? machines? Think that is farfetched? Try adding mama_pendse to your yahoo messenger and interact with it.

Think of unusual applications and situations. How would our technologies work there?

Two keywords that will play a major role:

1. Location
2. Presence

Given these two factors, an unbelievable range of possibilities begins to open up. We should be focusing on these possibilities.

So how about a round of reckless “imagineering” here?

Can you think of a short description of an idea for a mobile product that, based on information about user location and presence, can provide him/her a facility that can’t be availed of today?

Don’t think regular stuff like targeted advertising. That’s boring. Think of a scene in a movie like “Total Recall”. What would Arnie do with a mobile device like that?

Remember – every idea is worth discussing – no matter how small or silly *you* may think it to be – maybe some of the ideas can be combined into a completely new product!

Take the 10 points I listed above into account – these are not wild predictions – but are already becoming reality, so can be safely factored in.

None of the ideas need to be well-formed, with a business plan behind them. Let your imagination run wild. The more far-fetched, the better.

Now you are imagineering.

This entry was posted on May 30th, 2007 and is filed under Mobile Computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.