The Jeff Pulver Blog: Q. And How do customers at large see Communications functionality?

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February 07, 2007

Q. And How do customers at large see Communications functionality?

These past few days I've been spending time thinking about: service providers, customers and new services. While there is a part of me that wants to believe that one day customers will self empower themselves with "roll your own" custom services, even if this was made possible, chances are that less that 1% of the user population would take advantage of the platform. But with the advent of the ability to use tools to in effect "socialize the service", I imagine it would be possible for the community at large to in effect "Digg" the service and perhaps this is a way that "cool new services" eventually evolve and propagate. But I digress.

So today I'm thinking at loud about the customer side of the question, and by that, I don't mean the VON community, but how customers at large, see communications functionality. How can they envision the power of new apps?

I would argue that most people see communications very simply. In fact, I could also argue that the biggest advance in "communications sensibility" in the last 20 years has been the association of fashionability with communications, adorning what was always seen as a basic utility. That's led to the cell phone replacement cycle (which has been a lucrative phenomenon for the whole food chain), the importance of cameras, services like ringtones and ringback tones, and the startlingly-large industry of cell phone embellishments like cases and paste-on jewels. The biggest enhancements to basic functionality have been instant messaging (text, picture, video) and message storage, things that are simple to explain and understand.

I've come to believe, over the years, that most people just can't "grok" or even "Digg" (for lack of a better term - it seems appropriate) more complex or intelligent communications functionality. They just want to communicate, mostly with the same people, at the time and place, and with the media, they choose. If this belief is true, then it makes sense that enhanced messaging, cell phone-photos and video, etc., will continue to be augmented as a source of revenue - that's where the research and development will go, versus other service types that continue to come up at our VON events discussions over the years.

So where are sources of opportunity, in terms of enhancing service? One might argue that they lie in the areas of vanity and fear.

Vanity: Fancier cell phones. Cell phone accessories. Even more strange-looking Bluetooth headsets. iPod tie-ins. Better pictures. Celebrity tie-ins. Pop-culture apps, like something tied in to "American Idol," beyond just voting via text, and so on.

Fear: Kid-monitoring. Access controls on cell phone web-browsers. Location services. Elder alerts. Enhanced versions of OnStar (which, by the way, I think was a brilliant app - and it never seems to make money!). Emergency broadcasts to cell phones. And more presence + location based service apps in the future.

I'm looking forward to continuing this discussion next month in San Jose at Spring 2007 VON. I will add it to the topics to be covered in the Bloggers Panel / General Session.

Tags: VON, Media 2.0, voip, Purple Minutes, Jeff Pulver