I have tasted the Mobile KoolAid...
Leading up to the election last fall, it was interesting to see people give a damn. I'm a Gen-X'er, I'm not used to seeing this. But, strangely, the outcome of the election made me realize what a funk I'd been in for the last few years. And, looking back, there was really no reason for my ennui; I was getting too affected by things out of my control.
So, like any good techie, I scanned the trend horizon for interesting developments and for the next, next big thing, or maybe the small thing between the two next big things. Now, I've been at a lot of startups in the last ten years and I've seen a lot come and go, and frankly, I'm not very excited about a lot of traditional online stuff anymore. There are some really cool things going on these days on the Net, but I've got a sort of detached, "been there, done that" feeling to it.
Anyway, last November, I took a BART(subway/commuter) train to work instead of my usual drive, and it seemed like everyone on there had a cellphone. Old people were blabbing away in various languages, kids were texting, geeks were playing games. It blew me away. It's funny, when I'm coding something, I generally envision my target user(s) and have a mental picture in my head based on the app....hardcore techie, slick salesdude, family on the home computer, whatever. This may reveal my age bias, but I was not prepared to see senior citizens showing off their ringtones to their friends that day.
The Revolution had already begun, and I didn't even realize it.
I started scouring the Net for a new phone that day, and the following week my smartphone with an all-you-can-eat data plan arrived from Amazon...
Posted on Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:04 by Seni Sangrujee (2314 day(s) old)
