Technology Futures

The phone is dead. After a couple of months with my Treo 650, which integrates a Palm PDA and a phone, I'm convinced. And equipment manufacturers are releasing more and more smartphones that integrate similar functions, meaining I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

One of the big differences is the availability of a real keyboard. I never used my cellphone for anything except phone calls because of the incredible awkwardness of using a ten button phone keypad for text. It's not accident that Blackberries are popular--they were one of the first portable devices with a full keyboard.

Another big advantage is a larger screen. Cellphone screens tend to be small, and have actually gotten smaller over time. It makes using any of the packaged applications awkward and difficult. My Treo has a large, bright, easy to see screen that is big enough to use comfortably for things I never would have bothered trying to do on a cellphone screen.

I think over the next three or four years, the traditional phone design will fade away. We will see fewer and fewer models available, and they will be mostly "basic" phones--good for kids or as an extra phone line, but most of us will have a well-designed multipurpose wireless device that works just about everywhere, makes phone calls, connects to the Internet, has email, a Web browser, and lots of useful applications and services. And it will play music.

One thing it won't do? It probably won't take pictures. I'm guessing that we will see more and more smartphones that won't bother with a camera feature--it's a gimmick that most people are figuring out is only marginally useful. And cameraphones are being banned in many places--locker rooms, government facilities, even some businesses (too easy to take pictures of sensitive information).

Google's share value has declined 23% of late, mostly fueled by investor worries that the company has really overreached on its plans for global domination. Google's plan to build its own, parallel Internet just smacks of a "Let's party like it's 1999," when numerous high flying firms burned through billions of investor money chasing the same pipe dream.

But there are other fires burning in Google's house. This CNet article has an edited transcript of a Congressional committee that quizzed Google, Cisco, Yahoo!, and Microsoft about getting buddy-buddy with the Chinese communist government. The congressmen asked some rather pointed questions about how these companies are helping the Chinese government round up protesters that violate rules against free speech, and the circumlocution is sad--these guys have helped the communists arrest people that just want freedom of speech, and dared to say so. We're not talking about child molesters or hackers.

But that's not Google's real problem. Take a look at this press release from the W ketchup company. The company has cancelled all advertising with Google because of Google's aid "to help the Communist regime in China suppress liberty and free expression in that country."

Canceling advertising? That hits Google right in the pocketbook. And it takes just two mouseclicks to cancel a Google ad campaign.

But as always, I think Google is in trouble because their core competency was search (notice I'm using past tense). That's what made them successful. And now their search engine stinks. They have taken their eye off the ball and are busy pursuing dozens of other initiatives, like wireless in San Francisco. How does that make their search engine better? It doesn't. It will take a while for most people to switch to other search engines, but as Google fiddles, other competitors are going to catch up.

Anybody remember Alta Vista? It once owned Internet search.

Rocketboom is creating a buzz online. It's a daily video Web log, or vlog, for short. Video blogs have been around for at least a year, but Rocketboom's minimalist approach, couple with an eBay auction for advertising, may just catch on as a model for both managing video content/commentary and for selling ads.

Unlike a lot of other video sites that are using a shotgun approach to video with lots of video clips, leaving it to the viewer to sort out what is worth watching, Rocketboom has a single video clip of about three minutes per day. It's mostly tech news, with a smattering of current events, loopy jokes, and a video newsperson named Amanda that relies on a steady stream of wildly exaggerated gestures as she moves from one topic to another.

It's cleverly done, and the exaggerated gesturing seems jarring at first, since we have all grown up on the talking head model of the news. But I think Rocketboom is on to something. Studies already show that when watching video on our computer, many of us quickly move on to other tasks. We may leave the video running, but in the background, often covered up, while we just listen to the audio portion.

What Rocketboom has done is taken fast cutting, inexpensive special effects, and the exaggerated mannerisms to keep our attention. And the whole "show" is short enough and entertaining enough to keep you watching all the way through. Some shows are a collection of short news items, but other segments are single story that looks at something in depth. Vist the archives and take at a look at two or three different shows to get a better feel for the variety--which is also likely to bring people back. Unpredictability is very effective for keeping people's attention.

Auctioning a week of ad space on eBay breaks out of the now boring (and largely ineffective, I think) approach of just sticking a string of Google ads up. Rocketboom provides a daily plug for their advertiser along with a link to the advertiser home page. And the auction allows Rocketboom to maximize revenue but also gives potential advertisers a chance to control prices.

Like so many other things that are emerging, you have to ask yourself, "Who predicted this one?" The answer is, "No one." But we've got both a new business and a new business model emerging. Google has competition now, and that's a good thing. And we will see many other ad models emerge as more and more businesses figure out that Google ads don't work very well.

I've borrowed the title of Jeff Chester's article in The Nation. Chester raises alarm bells about the plans of the incumbent broadband providers to create walled gardens that give them near monopoly control over what their subscribers can do and access via their broadband connections.

With the encouragement of network equipment giant Cisco, these companies are beginning to plan for massive snooping into every packet of data that flows in and out of our computers. Using Google as an example, these broadband providers want to build massive dossiers about what you watch, who you call, and what Web sites you visit, so that they can sell advertising space to companies eager to sell you something. The broadband providers are ready to jump to IP-based TV, but not the free-ranging, free for all of the Internet. Instead, you will be able to access only that programming your broadband provider will let cross their network, and it will be packaged much the way Google packages everything--with space for ads.

And if a business wants to use its broadband connection to videoconference with a distant client? Well, that may not work at all, or it will work only by paying special fees. Without the counterbalance of public infrastructure, open to any broadband service provider, this will come to pass in many communities.