Wireless Integral Part Of Life - InfoSpace CEO
By Michael Bartlett, Newsbytes
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
03 Apr 2001, 2:28 PM CST
Wireless is here to stay, and is poised to become a primary part of our everyday lives.
That was the message from Naveen Jain, chairman and CEO of InfoSpace [NASDAQ:INSP]. Jain drew numerous comparisons between the future of wireless and the recent rise of the PC and the Internet in his keynote address on the second day of the iWireless World conference.
"When a paradigm shift is happening, most people do not believe it is happening," he told an audience at the Beverly Hilton hotel. "The current paradigm leaders do not shift, and their greatest assets in the old paradigm become liabilities in the new paradigm."
Jain recalled the emergence of the market for home computers in the early 1980s. "At that time, the experts predicted that companies like Sperry and Rand were going to dominate. I am sure many of the young people in this room are wondering who those companies are," he said.
When the Internet was scratching through its shell six years ago, people said content was the king, and companies like Disney and Time Warner would dominate, said Jain. Instead, Yahoo became a popular success because it realized the Internet was a completely new medium. Through the Internet, information became available that made ordinary people more aware of stock prices than the brokers they used to depend on, he said.
"What can wireless change that has not already been changed by the Internet?" Jain asked. "The key is that when you are mobile, what is important is no longer personalization or who you are; it is about where you are and what you are currently thinking."
According to Jain, the mistake many industry analysts make is they assume that people will access the Internet from their cell phones in the same manner they do from their computers. Nothing could be further from the truth, he said.
"People will be looking for information that is timely, relevant and actionable. They will not use a mobile device like a PC. They will not browse, because they do not need access to every page on the Web. The cell phone will become a tool to merge your life. It will become your address book, your credit card and more," he said.
The factors holding this change back are similar to the constraints in the early days of the Internet, Jain said. Five or six years ago, low connection speed by the few consumers that accessed it, limited the content that could be created. Until recently, he said, the same limitations existed with cell phones and their tiny screens.
"Keep in mind, however, that every single challenge of the Internet was met by entrepreneurs," he said. "Cell phones are starting to evolve. Networks are getting faster, and cell phones are getting bigger screens that can be used as touch screens."
In the new paradigm Jain foresees, cell phones will take over the functions of bankcards and credit cards. He pointed out that transactions involving these pieces of plastic involve the merchant swiping the card through a telephone device for approval. "Why couldn't your cell phone do that?" he asked.
In the not too distant future, people will use their cell phones to order coffee at Starbucks while en route, walk into the store, pick up their order and pay with a prepaid card, he predicted. Other uses will include scanning the bar code of an item in a store and being able to check which merchant has that item at the cheapest price - all through the cell phone.
"The companies that are successful in the future will not be pure Internet companies," Jain cautioned. He reminded the audience that catalogs did not kill department stores, and the VCR did not kill cinema. "The Internet is just a channel, like a catalog. People still want the social experience, they want to go out, to touch and feel things. They also want to build a relationship with a local merchant and take things back if they do not like it."
The wireless industry must seek tomorrow's "killer applications," said Jain. Wireless e-mail was thought to be one, and while it has proved popular in the financial industry, most people seem content to wait two hours until they get back in their offices to receive e-mail, he said.
"A killer application has to be based on location. Location-based services will be vital," he said. "Voice is the killer input. Speech recognition that allows speech input will become the way for us to communicate with wireless devices."
What must change, he added, is location-based services must be extremely accurate in pinpointing the location of the nearest ATM, or whatever the user is seeking. Presently, locations are delivered in a two- or three-mile radius, which is too large, he said. "It is up to us. We must not do location-based services until we do them right."
"All things are possible with a different paradigm, if you look constantly at the kind of things people will do when they are mobile. Do not look at what they do on a PC. Yahoo will not be able to make the shift," he predicted.
As bandwidth becomes more ample, all devices will be connected wirelessly, Jain said.
"With enough bandwidth, every device becomes a broadband device. Your cell phone becomes your PC. This is important, because all devices, including PDAs (personal digital assistants) and PCs will be wirelessly connected. This means service and content providers must be device and network agnostic," he said.
IWireless World is produced by Michael and Zahava Stroud. The Strouds also produce the iHollywood Forum, which sponsors monthly discussions of the impact of the Internet, wireless devices and emerging technologies on the entertainment business.
IWireless World continues through Wednesday. |
