Interesting article Cellular Industry Insiders Indifferent To Mobile Data, about how people who work in the wireless industry is not putting in practice what they preach… i.e. not downloaded data (or consuming data services). David Haskins in his blog goes on expanding on the same topic — Surprise! Nobody Cares About Mobile Data.

And I agree with them. The current services and content are not compelling enough – things like ring-tones and wallpapers and pictures can get old pretty quick. And the cool handsets with the cool features are few (or not offered by most carriers), and cheap are not; mass adoption requires easier access to such handsets. The state of affairs is pretty dull right now. But it doesn't have to be that way. You know, handsets are first and most, a communication apparatus, a social device, to connect and interact with other people – friends, family, work. It is not only about ring-tones, and access to weather or stocks, and so on. This is why email and IM and voice! and blogs (i.e. communication) are the killer apps. We need to continue to improve, innovate how people communicate. And there is a lot of innovation to be done, to enhance the people-to-people communication (and social) experience. And with the new generation of handsets (cost and ease of access permitting), with music and (2-way) video support and better graphics and network speed, a new generation of content and services and user-experience we should expect — I have my own ideas on this. It is up to us to come up to come out of the dull, with new cool software and services and user interfaces that will disrupt and mark the entrance of the new generation.

In early 2000-2001 I thought (and even bet) that mobile data usage was going to be first about businesses and enterprises adopting wireless data and services, but today I believe it really is about enhacing communication and the social aspects – access to people, to our friends, family and co-workers. I do believe mobility and wireless data usage in businesses will be huge, but only second to “communication and access to people”.

Update: To my point on the previous paragraph, read Two Faces of Mobility Comingle Freely at CTIA 2005

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