Comments on: Mr Watson — come here — I want to see you

By: DE

DE — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:36:24 +0000

Was commenting only yseterday with my long time colleague that the one thing that no one seems to do with their iPhone is use it as a phone. In fact I hardly remember anyone speaking into one.

Thats no comment on mobile telephony – its just the word and the image are favoured by the net.

By: Wednesday Wrap Up Long Time No See Edition | Bootup Labs Blog

Wednesday Wrap Up Long Time No See Edition | Bootup Labs Blog — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:11:29 +0000

[...] the telephone for the first time. And that’s a lead in which gives me an excuse to link to Confused of Calcutta, which made me aware of that fact. It also happens to be a fantastic blog, which you should [...]

By: JP

JP — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:26:25 +0000

Peter, Andrew, Dom, thanks for your comments. I’ve never believed that voice is the only thing. What I have believed is that voice is not to be disparaged or cast aside.

You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.

By: Dominic Sayers

Dominic Sayers — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:20:42 +0000

Several lifetimes ago when I worked for a call centre agency, the prevailing wisdom was that most people are either oral communicators or written communicators, and this predisposition is so deeply embedded that it’s futile to try to turn one into the other. I’ve seen nothing since to overturn that view although there are obviously individuals who are comfortable in either medium (and some in neither!).

The point is this: commercial success probably depends on removing friction from your transactions. One way to approach this is to be agnostic about the channel people use to buy your services. Voice is an important component of this – many people prefer to talk than write – but we are some way off integrating the two channels in a way that favours neither. I guess JP would say that Ribbit is a big part of the answer.

By: Andrew Back

Andrew Back — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:23:57 +0000

I have to admit to having joined BT for similar reasons: voice communications has always fascinated me, whilst the company has both an amazing legacy and unparalleled opportunities.

I’m almost still as awe-struck by voice communications as when I built my first crystal radio, aged around 7 years old (I tuned into Live Aid on a home built transistor radio some 3 years later). Spending hours sitting on the floor, with it attached to the central heating piping for earth and straining to hear the more distant stations. Generating sounds from afar, with a device that took no batteries! All those voices, running side-by-side, in the ether and there for the taking. Never ceases to amaze…

@Reggie +1. Things like integration, micromanagement, business model engineering, brands and call centre excellence are all very well, but we’ll end up in a very bad place if we cease to create. I want to see more local innovation, and with it the sort of wacky failures that appear to be commited to the past, but in amongst which creations of sheer genius were to be found. As @san1t1 suggests the land grab is still on, and we just need to ensure that we are part of it and not on the periphery.

By: Peter Orlovacz

Peter Orlovacz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:34:20 +0000

JP,
I couldn’t agree with you more. But however great and useful communication is, telecommunication itself (or rather the companies providing them as a service) became a bad word so many times. Think the ’70s or ’80s when it was scarcity. Think 2000 when it was abundance and eventual bust. Think today when everyone (oops, or not, really… probably we just wanna talk and that’s it) wants the 2.0 of everything and instead of that, bust again.
So many things are happening, yet the phone call Mr. Bell made 130 years ago is not distinctly different from the one I can make today.
Let’s explore what can be done, but also start telling people what’s possible. All the technology is just a small piece, change in mindset is much bigger I think.

By: JP

JP — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:46:04 +0000

@reggie, thanks for your comments and encouragement. You’ve given me an idea. Maybe I should index and list blogs that excite me from an amateur science perspective; they may not be populist or even popular, but usually contain what a passionate youth may want to see.

By: JP

JP — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:44:01 +0000

@san1t1, I agree with you, we’re still at the exploratory stage. That’s what makes all this so exciting.
@stuart, thanks for dropping by. Of course I am aware of you and what you do. Let me know next time you’re anywhere near St Pauls and we can have a cup of tea together. We’re doing a lot on Caller ID 2.o at Ribbit, I can take you through where we are on it.
@anant, delighted to hear you’re writing a book. I have been tracking what’s happening in India, but mainly remotely and vicariously. Is there some resource on the web that will help me learn more?

By: Anant

Anant — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:47:03 +0000

JP,
It’s been a long time since you’ve been to India and you might not completely appreciate what is happening here with the growth of mobile telephony.
Mobiles are making the poorest of traders more efficient — and helping them break their income ceilings. For example, vegetable vendors with no permanent shops and no fixed address share their mobile numbers with their customers and, subsequently, increase their business with added home delivery revenues. There are traders with no fixed address trading in mobile recharge cards, in laundry services, in food, in flowers, you name it, it’s available. Marginal farmers use the phone to get a fix on the best prices available for their produce.
The mobile phone is doing more to create a level playing field for the underprivileged than, perhaps, the right to VOTE.
This is no exagerration.
And this is extraordinary, in a country where, when we had two phones at home, we were privileged.
Working on a book called ‘Ten last calls’ which, hopefully, will point to what the mobile is being used for. Book will be based on at least 1000 interviews with mobile phone users from all demographics.

By: Reggie Greene / The Logistician

Reggie Greene / The Logistician — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:31:28 +0000

Very nice post. We need more blogs like yours in the blogosphere so that more young people will become excited about science, engineering, and inventing things. The western world is beginning to fall behind in this regard.