Need a laugh? Check out www.phonebashing.com, where
you'll see people
disguised as giant cell phones separating users from
their precious
handsets. To really make a dent in usage, however, those
blokes would
have to stop traffic, literally: 70% of cell-phone calls
in the U.S.
originate in cars.
That's one of the juicy tidbits thrown out at Seattle
Online
Network's "Wireless Internet Panel" last
Tuesday, at the 1960s-brick
and mortar-style Shilshole Bay Club in Ballard. All
parking spaces
and seats were taken by the more than 300 people who
attended the
event, many of them intrigued by the possibility of
making their
company's web content accessible to cell phones. In the
audience were
developers and marketers from ThinkView, RealNetworks,
VoiceStream,
Onvia.com, you name it. The place was packed. Drinks
were relatively
"cheap" ($4 for a beer), and appetizers good
and plenty (served by
authorized personnel).
Special guest was Jonathan Roberts, one of the founders
of Ignition
Corp., basically a group of wealthy former execs from
Microsoft and
McCaw Cellular looking to invest in 25 wireless Internet
companies in
the next three years (so far, they've lent their money
and collective
brain power to six.) Roberts asked more questions than
he or any of
other panelists answered, which underscores the great
uncertainty
surrounding the future of this nascent industry.
"Who owns the
customer?" "Are the carriers a dumb or smart
pipe?" "What's the
customer's identity--his email address or cell phone
number? "What
will become the operating system?" Roberts did
stress the importance
of strategic partnerships and alliances in this sector.
A lot of
companies' products will have to work together
seamlessly to
effectively deliver the Internet to handheld devices, he
said.
The panel speakers included: Ken Arneson, President/CEO
of Seattle's
Xypoint, a wireless locator service, and Sarah Van Dyck,
VP Marketing
at eTrieve, which allows cell phones to receive email
messages.
ETrieve is one of the companies that Ignition Corp. has
invested in,
and listening to Van Dyck, one understands why.
Most interesting panelist: Rika Nakazawa of The Web
Connection, a
web-dev firm with strong ties to Asia. Rika said that
millions of
Japanese consumers are paying the equivalent of $1 a
month to put a
screen saver on their cell phones. Now there's a good
business! She
warned, however, that Japan is a "pedestrian"
society (people don't
drive much), and that we should not extrapolate from
their experience
too much. Rika also said that in Japan, cell-phone subs
are billed by
the phone companies for any Internet-related services
that they tap
into, which is good news for companies like Seattle's
eCharge and its
NetPhone account.
Will instant-messaging via cell phones become a craze
here like it is
in Europe and Asia? First of all, we don't yet have the
tech to send
and receive messages, one of the panelists pointed out.
Panel
moderator was Steve Oroszlan, Director of Communication
Services at
Go2Net/InfoSpace.
