Always playing catch-up

Newspapers are the slowest, most hidebound, head-in-the-sand businesses in the world. The people who work for newspapers are good people, smart people (I love them; they are my people) — but they keep looking back when they should be looking forward.

I see evidence of that in the stats for this blog. I write about Craigslist (yesterday) and the post gets clicks like crazy. I write about mobile data (here, here and here) — which I have a feeling is the next big thing — and almost no one clicks.

The time to look at Craigslist and adapt, evolve, was 1995. The thing to look at today? Mobile data.

Any responsible journalist does not let popular taste prevent her from running the news you need. So, in that tradition, I would urge you to look at this post about Understanding Mobile 2.0:

What we mean by ‘mobile 2.0′ is another (r)evolution, already started, that will dramatically change the web and the mobility landscape that we currently know. The idea is that the mobile web will become the dominant access method in many countries of the world, with devices that become more hybrid and networks that become more powerful - everywhere in the next decade to come.

The rapid penetration of Wireless Broadband Access (WBA) technologies such as 3G/UMTS, the migration of traditional telecom networks to internet technology, the availability of affordable and functional Wi-Fi and dual mode Wi-Fi/mobile phones… will all boost VoIP over broadband internet and ultimately blur the distinction between fixed and mobile services, since both become wireless and IP based.

With my phone (a BlackBerry with an unlimited Internet package from T-Mobile), I looked at live Google Maps while I was walking down the sidewalk in San Francisco last August. I checked and answered my e-mail multiple times a day while I was in Bulgaria (yes, there were some roaming charges). I checked my BBC headlines as well as my blogs in my room in a hotel that charged 20 Euros a day for Internet access — without using the hotel’s Internet and without paying the 20 Euros.

Please, start thinking about mobile data.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006, at 3:14 pm and is filed under business, data, mobile, newspapers. 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.