<<Remember the "Information Superhighway" hype of the mid-90s? >>
wow i just realized I have not heard or read that phrase for the last 10 months at least!
<<The technology sounded cool, but I could never figure out what the market was. It turned out that nobody else could either, and we ended up instead with dial-up internet access over the existing phone lines.
FWIW I think this may turn out to be a mostly European and Japanese phenomenon, since in those countries people have time on their hands when they are riding public transit to work.>>
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) has been a big flop in Europe. IN Japan, DoCoMo has the mkt wrapped up but even there the mkt is almost completely teenagers and 20-somethings. Old people like me don't use it or pay for it.
<<I also think that it will take time to develop something that works well on the very small screens involved and that the content may end up looking different from the web.>>
Looks different, (jttery, B&W, slow, unreliable, limited sites.) It also costs you. How would you like to pay $1.25/minute of access time to order a book or cd? Would you bother? And rememeber there is a good chance you will lose the connection 3/4 of the way through your ordering process, and still pay the fee!
If land-based, cable modem-speed (free) e-commerce cannot make it, how in the world would any sane person conclude that m-commerce has a prayer??
m-commerce is dead on arrival. And OPWV keeps bleeding mkt value these days, btw......
Victor |
