Kim Pearson (E-Media Tidbits) wonders if Sprint’s “Now” widget might be the future of mobile news:
“What if a mobile Web page like this was truly customizable, so that you could arrange the content of the boxes to suit your interests, and you could save that widget to your desktop, phone and blog? Your cell phone provider becomes your ubiquitous information provider. The feeds become something like the programming on basic cable. Instead of news as a product that delivers eyeballs to advertisers, it’s news as part of your basic broadband information package. Perhaps, continuing the cable analogy, it’s a platform for developing premium news services as well.”
I’m convinced the future of all media is mobile. And I’m gonna have to break down and get an iPhone. If our accountant says I can deduct it as a business expense, I’ll probably take the plunge. Not having a smart phone is like not having a TV in 1960.
Andy is correct on all points. He clearly read –and thought about– this post more than I did. Upon reflection, I should have said all (most?) media will need a mobile component.
This reinforces my sense that I have to start experiencing media in a mobile environment before I can talk about it intelligently.
I am not so convinced that the future of ALL media is mobile. I would say the future of a great deal of media is mobile, but there are certain experiences which do not lend themselves to a three-inch touchscreen.
While one dimension looks to shrink our media into the Personal Area Network, another aims to make information and architecture one and the same. For instance (http://oblong.com/) Oblong Industries’ g-speak system looks to make some pretty radical departures from the traditional notion of information spaces, and it is decidedly attached to the architecture of the space you are occupying. And, this is one of many examples of tangible, ambient, immersive architectural computing.
The other thing I’m not sure about with your post is the idea that a service provider and the content they are carrying should be so intimately tied together. What expertise, for instance, does Sprint claim to have in weaving a compelling narrative from my personal gestalt? I thought they were good at moving data, not telling stories. The fact that they want to provide content makes me worry that they might not want me to choose NOT to make use of their dubious editorial motivations. Our mobile media utopia requires a federation of services from different places, each person assembling what’s most appropriate for them, or building it themselves– not subscribing to some empty suit’s paleolithic mass-media notions of what convergence is supposed to be. No thanks!