Challenges of Journalism (chapter from my book)

The recent News of the World scandal left me dejected. The rot in media has reached epidemic proportions. 

Amongst all the institutions in a democracy, media has the most powerful role. It is not a pillar of democracy without reason. It is an active observer of the world. It is, to a degree, omnipresent. Therefore, it often acts as eyes and ears of the law enforcement setup. Media is not impartial. It is partial to the public interest and public interest alone. But the foremost role of media is in its ability to view the world through the changing social lens. It has the power and knowledge to debate the changing values and, to a certain degree, influence the course of the society. It is unfortunate that media has failed us.

The revival of journalism must start with examination of its shortcomings. The very definition of journalist is no longer clear.

Who is a journalist?

Journalist clearly does not refer to employees of media institutions. It would be unfortunate to call celebrity experts as journalists. (The term celebrity expert refers to those people who specialise in affairs and the private life of celebrities. It does not refer to experts who are celebrities.) Neither should sports reporters be called journalists. In today’s context, some of the real journalists are simply bloggers. It was never more important to define journalists than today. Journalist should be defined as agent who furthers the principles of the democratic system we discussed earlier. Only journalists should be allowed the privileges embedded in the democratic setup. Thus, in my view, News of the World should not get journalistic priviledges. It should be treated differently. 

Social connectedness of journalists

The degree of separation between journalists and any individual should be as low as possible. It should be closer to one. Unfortunately, the journalists of today are no longer connected to individuals and their issues. That is why we need celebrities to further genuine causes like planting trees etc. It is imperative that journalists go closer to the individuals and communities.

Focus on speed

The other factor ailing journalism is the focus on speed. That takes away any opportunity for in-depth analysis. Top newspapers are shifting to a two-step approach, journalists usually report the facts on the ground and the section editor thereafter goes through with in-depth analysis.

This model is well developed in financial media. There, providers like Bloomberg, Reuters provide data at varying frequency while the teams of analysts from various brokerages analyze the data and provide the expert perspective.

While I understand the motivation behind this setup, I think it is inadequate. Journalists, in certain cases, operate more like detectives and there is nothing to replace real evidence. Even financial analysts regularly meet with companies and validate the information they receive from data sources.

Further, journalists are more than detectives. They have to sniff out stories where there is no report of a crime. This requires, what experts call, “nose for the job”. The depth of journalism, at least in such analytical stories, suffers to a great extent.

Journalists need an aggregator of facts

In the context of current problems, media should at least function as an aggregator of facts and data. Here we refer to media as separate from journalism. The journalists, even if external to such organisations, may be able to mine the data and evolve their analysis. These facts, once established, should be available in public domain. It should be possible to augment and improve them through subsequent fact-finding missions by other media employees.

Journalists, in such a scenario, are moving away from traditional media hierarchy. We need to create recognition for this new breed of journalists.

Problem of continuity

Journalism requires longer follow-ups, particularly for important issues like WTO negotiations, carbon emissions, financial crisis etc. As the events continue to unfold the scope, severity and depth of investigation and understanding changes. Journalists today, are not able to follow through with their stories. In a way, it is easy to follow the scandals of top sportsman or politicians. However, the important debates, related to US healthcare, foreign policies etc, are very difficult to follow.

Popular bloggers, with their subject focus, are able to do a better job at following stories with arguments as commentary. The quality of discussion is enriched. It is probably the reason why top journalists now have their own blogs.

Imperatives

It is critical to design a system where journalists are able to work for the democratic system and further its goal. The system should start by redefining what journalism is supposed to be at its core. Such a system may be actually evolving as a network of bloggers, but it needs to be nurtured and expanded. Further, the current model of subsidising journalists with revenues from corporates or entertainment will not be enough to sustain this key pillar of democracy.

From my book Subverting Capitalism and Democracy - chapter titled Challenges of Journalism

---

My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon and Kindle.

Media Pricing and Anti-Piracy

Mark Cuban raises an interesting point in his TV everywhere post.

While anti-piracy proponents have a valid point of view, there is other side that needs to be fixed as well. We pay for the same content multiple times. I have bought same song (as part of same or various albums) multiple times.

Anti-piracy movement has one idea to sort out. What are customers paying for? Is it media (CD or DVD or tape or flash drive etc) or the song/serial/movie etc. Then we can ask why same movie can be priced differently on blue-ray disc, CD, or from the web or cable TV. This part is almost never part of the debate.

Newspaper or Waste Paper

Every morning my local newspaper reaches a new low in journalistic performance. The matter has come to such a state that I can trash my entire newspaper without even looking at it once and I wont miss anything.

Newspapers as they exists, seem doomed. They cannot fight television in terms of speed. The Internet beats the newspaper in terms of ability to cross-linkages ease of being discovered.

On top of it, it is really difficult of attract and retain a set of readers that advertisers would love to sell to. With money in the hands of people across the intelligence and vocations spectrums, tabloidisation seems the easy solution. Yet, it is now time newspapers realised that tabloidisation is not going to get them anywhere.

When I read in Indian express the interview of two very senior journalists - Tina Brown and Harold Evans - about this very subject, I hoped change would be round the corner. But apart from the comment that highlighted the importance of websites for the newspaper there wasn't much to look forward to. So what do newspapers do?

Step 1: Differentiate or Die - Playing the marketing game right!

Jack Trout provides clear solution, that must be the answer. Newspaper publishers should differentiate among themselves, within themselves and within their readers to survive. While most companies know about the strategy, few know what to differentiate between.

Differentiating the consumers - i.e. the readers!

Typically, for a family newspaper, readers are diverse. At the most macro level, diversity exists between families. Drill down and there also exist a diversity within each family unit in terms of age groups, maturity and gender. The appeal of each class, as created above, to the advertisers actually decides the target group. Analysis of consumption basket of target group coupled with typical annual advertising spends by brands in corresponding categories will logically decide best target segment.

Differentiating the content - guiding the eyeballs

Within a target household, there also exists diversity between roles of the readers. These can be classified into Skimming (glancing across headlines) and Analysis (in-depth coverage on headlines that catch attention). The content layout needs to be optimised for guiding the relevant household member to relevant page.

Standardizing the layouts effectively guides eyeballs. It also helps guide eyeballs if used creatively, case in point being the Google logos!

Differentiating within - between the covers

First and foremost, newspapers must differentiate within the pages. Newspapers have a systematic classification that puts city news on one place, political news on other place. From users point of view, it hardly makes any a difference unless the user can read into the classification. Newspapers seem to have forgotten that the classification must be based on users rather than news. That is the reason, why page 3 is called page 3. It would be great if newspapers can create brands out of their pages as successfully as "page3" brand was created.

For example, any mainstream newspaper may decide to addresses families of working families as their core target audience. Newspapers/periodicals are also known to target college going kids specifically. But as their audience is generically diverse - it is necessary pages are segregated properly so that advertising efficiency may be increased.

Step 2: Playing the production game right

Newspapers need to address "news production" a little differently. Current news production process can be classified into event reporting, reporter investigation, content generation, editing and finally delivery. Let us first enlarge this process by adding "follow-up" to it. As far as I understand, it is the news agencies that do the event reporting. The real winning strategy for a newspaper, therefore, needs to reside in the later part of the "news production" process.

Using reporter investigation better

As Goldratt mentioned in The Goal!, newspapers must optimise the process on their constraint. Clearly world class reporters are the constraint in this case! Using the same reporters and content they have generated, can a newspaper publisher create various stories that can move from plain event reporting to analysis of social issues behind the event. I believe they can. The process is called versioning. Content generated by reporter investigation can be versioned to feed into the headline breaking news story, the reporter's blog or a deeply researched piece. In fact newspapers often have lots of versions of the story write-up ready. (These days they literally have lots of versions of facts - hence had to specifically mention "write-up"). To be able to achieve this, content created by the reporter needs to be redefined. On this redefined content publishers can unleash different sets of editors to make the story readable for different audiences.

In essence one set of reporters can create many newspapers without much cost addition. Alternatively, news can be versioned across editions. E.g. City in the story can have detailed write-up whereas other city editions can have shorter versions!

Follow-up!

Once my boss remarked that if follow-up was an industry it would be the biggest industry! Websites give newspapers a mechanism to follow-up with their customers. Still if you read online content, it is an exact replica of the printed content. This, to my mind, defeats the purpose of the website.

Using IT effectively!

Internet should have allowed all the newspapers to have faster reporting. If all the reporters could upload their stories onto a central database, tag it properly. An intelligent editor with local knowledge can simply check-mark and get the edition out. This will enable the newspapers to create as many papers as they want.

In sum

Newspapers are an area where there is lot of potential for creating value. Steps indicated above are just outsiders view of the industry. Insiders can really create more and better avenues delighting us readers with well created, updated and analysed news in a crisp newspaper!

"In-tell"ing the "idiot box!

I have just been disappointed with my channel surfing experience. This isn’t the first time and surely won’t be the last. Indian television is at its lowest ebb. Not surprisingly, the advertising rates are among the lowest in the world.

Making the idiot box smarter - adding intelligence!
I believe television today is simply too dumb! Most of the soaps tend to take generation leaps making some characters as old as 800years and counting. I guess it is time to use television as tool for information dissemination. Look at the videos of John Bird and John Fortune, about sub-prime crises and credit crunch. They use humour to make people aware about some aspects of happenings in the financial world that are, in all probability, soon going to make life miserable for common man.

Yet all we have managed is to put humour to some crappy idiotic use in prime-time news.

Possibly only Vir Das (below) and Cyrus Brocha have managed to entertain intelligently using humour on news channels.

Intelligence is waning - Channels please wakeup!

I guess this is but just one example. But I guess it should suffice as there is not much opinion against my views. It is time channels and advertisers realised that programming catering to intelligent audience tends to be sticky. The intelligent viewer is intelligent enough to come back to the program and builds a solid "discussion universe" around the program attracting more "intelligent-aspirers" to the fold.

In Sum

Its time to rethink about the customer, about our assumptions of their intelligence and relook at what we are offering to the world. In the long run, well made intelligent programs will create their following and will bring viewers back to the channel. I am sure by making programming relevant to the people the channels can create a sticky customer. Let us hope the channels have some "intel" inside their organisations! Now isn't it what advertisers want to pay quality bucks for?

Strategy for Corporates’ under media scanner

Just today an employee is suing KPMG for sexual harassment at workplace. The company’s apathy towards her internal complaints forced the lady to involve media. The company, like many others, now finds itself in a precarious situation. A lot of its brand-building initiatives are nullified through one indiscretion of the management. Surprisingly Corporates are not able to deal with media attention. Yet corporate chieftains can draw parallels with two people to learn the do’s and don’ts of media behavior.

Learning the Don’ts
Her story would read like a normal girl’s tale if it weren’t for one critical detail. The name is Britney Spears. Britney was a siren who lured media with her simpleton charm. Media noticed her for her talent and then seduced her into letting her guard down. Relentless media pressure has driven her to wits ends. Once a girl media darling and now the one media loves to hate, Britney epitomizes the way one should avoid dealing with the media.

The do’s
On the contrary Sachin Tendulkar is still standing. From the time he was sixteen a billion people have been crazy about him. In India cricket is a religion and Sachin is the God. Yet that hasn’t affected him. He distances himself from the media and maintains impeccable conduct. The master blaster has always said that he will let his bat do the talking. And boy has he done that! Just today he became the second Indian batsman to score 1000 runs in 2007 and the first one in cricketing history to achieve the feat 7 times! Yet he rarely interacts with media and almost always gives rehearsed answers. To him media a siren whose lures with her song but like Ulysses he never left his boat.

In Sum
If you maintain an impeccable conduct and refrain from acting smart with the media you will go a long way in avoiding such blunders. Impeccable conduct and cautious nay over cautious approach is the best way to deal with the media.

Web 2.0 and New Yahoo!

Internet has revolutionised everything! How many times have you heard that phrase? By now surely a million times and you will hear more of it as we enter Web 2.0 era. Because it is true!

What is Web 2.0?

Simply put Web 2.0 is the next generation Web applications. You can look at the links (del.icio.us and Yahoo! mail) and flip through the pages in detail to know more about Web 2.0. So now with the new version Yahoo! gives me an option to right click in browser window and search through Yahoo! Search engine. Google does one bit better through Google Desktop by searching within my computer, out in the web and maintaining a record through personal search. Yet one person is still not seen. Believe me, he has aces up his sleeve. And that would be Mr. Bill Gates!

Microsoft Advantage

One wonders what he is upto these days? Where are his best programmers? What products is he thinking of through his .Net platform? How do they compare with Web 2.0? Believe me if that person is worth the operating system I am using, he is making MS Office on Web 2.0! Also I believe he will surely come up with the new innovations for browser, search engine, OS that will tightly integrate web and computer!

Web 2.0 changes the way we communicate

With the advent of the internet the modes of communication has changed considerably. We now no longer believe in snail mail, we look at computer screens more than we look at A4 sized papers, we spend as much time looking at websites as we do looking at newspapers or TV, our first stop for information is almost always the web. Yet all this has not been incorporated in our habits. One needs to question why I have to read reams and reams of paper electronically published. The website interfaces need overhauling to suit the new lifestyle. Web 2.0 will make that easier. Yahoo Mail looks like Outlook, soon word processors and other programs will be available in similar formats and then we will be totally integrated.

To conclude

I remember looking at a stand-alone computer with wonder and amazement, with even more wonder and amazement I looked at LAN in my college lab, still amazing wonder was when I signed up for email and chat program and made friends across the globe. Today I am looking at Web 2.0 with even more wonder and amazement! Now I am going to buy Microsoft shares! I welcome myself to the next tech boom!

Mobile Devices - The New Business Model

Currently almost all the "valuable" functionality of the mobile phone is derived from connecting with the network. Almost all business models are based around this central theme and already there is a lot of clutter in this space. However there is a lot of space for innovative business models to exploit inter-device interactions. The next stage of development of mobile devices will be in exploitation of the inter-device interaction.

The "Close-By" opportunity
One serious impediment for exploitation of mobile services is the lack of location tracking at close range. At the most a phone can be tracked to the nearest tower. Lets imagine if it were possible to track a phone right down to within 5-10 meters. We all know Bluetooth can enable this very effectively.

The stumbling block
First constraint is that people switch off their bluetooth communications. Can one overcome this constraint? Of course, if offers are flashed only on bluetooth then people will switch on their bluetooth.
Second is privacy. People will not welcome spam on their mobile devices. Frankly the messages one gets while roaming are extremely irritating.
Third is security. Why will I enable my bluetooth connections for others to send messages to me? Will it mean I will be exposed to Viruses or any other threats?

The Bright Idea
To avoid this advertisers need to place constraints on themselves. These could be enforced technologically too. Like for example imagine a program, a bluetooth message trasmitter server and a receiver client, that makes sure the messages are customised and welcome. How?
Imagine the "client program" has options that let me choose the products for which I want offers. The "server program" knows and only sends me those offers that I have asked for!! This "client program" can be freely distributable with mobile phones (just like our dear Adobe Acrobat). The "server program" will be bought by local advertisers (shops, malls, bus service providers etc) and telecom companies will run them. We all know that the "client Program" can be configured to be independant accepting only from "known" "server programs" thus eliminating security threats.

In sum...
I think this means my mobile experience will be much more valuable, there will be additional revenue for Telecom service providers, and local advertisers will have lower advertising cost enabling highly targetted advertising. Wont it make a better world? What Say?

A new way to advertise online!

Long time ago email was a big thing and to get it free I did not mind my information being shared. I also agreed to look at some ads in the bargain! Not so today! Today I have a keen sense of screen map of my favourite email programs Gmail and Yahoo! Today my eyes conveniently ignore what is flashed across the screen that is not relevant to my email!! So can you make ads better? I thought of one way!

Do you know Yahoo! gives you an option of Avtars where you design a web personality for yourself. Now can you put that in the ad? Along with flowers and Avtars of my buddies (from my contact database of course) and can you not create an on-the-fly ad that makes sense for me? Like can you not describe a flash presentation of my Avatar giving a watch (Omega, Esprit, Casio etc) to my friend's Avatar with an option of buy a gift click here!!

I think thats a good way of inducing me to click on the watch site and I might actually buy something relevant. The key will be to identify the relationship between me and my friend correctly!!! Can Yahoo! or Google do that? Sure they can scan the emails through a web-crawler-like program and figure out what ads suit best. In fact Google can call it Relationship Rank algorithm!! (Hey if you are from Google and reading this post and planning to implement this please name it Rahul Rank!!) The Ranking can be based on frequency of emails, content in emails, key word search in emails and many more parameters.

Now let me hope that they make better ads to help me enhance my relationships!!! Fine trade-off for viewing ads!!!

Advertising the "New Age"

Can you recall 10 ads that you saw on television yesterday? Ok can you recall 10 ads you saw today? No? It is reasonable to expect that I am part of the target market for a lot of companies for a lot of their products, yet I do not notice their communication on the television. As a marketer I guess its the worst problem. A 30 sec slot at prime time costs a bomb and no one notices!! Today advertising is facing it worst crisis.

There are far many number of channels today than I can care to recollect. And there are absolutely no programs that can make me watch through the commercials till the program begins again. Invariably I switch the channel and find something more interesting. I wanted to see the channels of similar profile co-ordinating the timing of the ad-spots so that even if I switch to other channel of the same profile I should see the same ad. Not so yet! I think channels should sit together and set-out rules (for say coordinating ad-spot timing)so that they can assist the marketer to reach their targets.

If you have noticed, barring Cricket and Tennis there arent many games I know of wherein you get regular breaks to show your ads. Cricket is a marketers dream there is a break every 6 balls!! I think marketers / channel owners must make a co-ordinated effort to popularize this sport. They will get more bang for their buck. But even here some channels get greedy and show only 4 balls encroaching the ad space into first and last ball. Obviously, if the viewer has an option he switches to other viewer-friendly channel.

Broadcasting Technology is changing with launch of Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition that lets you pause "live" broadcast and play it back. Soon some geek will invent a program that will "catch" the commercial and elimiate it while recording to the hard-disk. So viewers will actually prefer the media center rather than "live" broadcast!

Advertising the future!

I believe, advertisers should also look at their business and really alter the mechanics. If I draw parallels between watching a program and driving a car then ads currently are like "Red Signals". Rather effective model will be the "window shopping" model. So ads come and go they do not hinder my driving / walking but they are attractive enough to entice me to stop and have a look. the "Red Signal" approach has killed the ads ability to woo the prospect. What say advertisers?

Music to My Ears

I have always been a fan of Old Hindi Music. Except for Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Sheryl Crow and some pop numbers my love of English songs is quite limited. Few days back, I discovered Frank Sinatra and Elvis (Can you believe I never heard them before except some remixes!)

I have found Sinatra and Elvis quite unbelievable. The songs are really good and best of all I can understand the lyrics when they sing!!! Now that reminds me, I have to go out to buy another Frank Sinatra CD! See you soon...

ICE: The Telecom / Technology story PART II

Introduction
In the last articles we had examined how some of the issues with Communication revolution are resolved. Now, will it be possible for the communication revolution to hit us as hard as had been predicted? Again I do not have the answers.

Yet, when I observe the ICE space evolving in the Indian context, I see a clear dichotomy of evolution. Service Providers are seeing great business models in the application segment. Hence they are pushing applications to the consumers. Some of the very basic applications have been a hit. “TV on the mobile” has not really taken off but downloading ring tones has been a money spinner. Consumers are accepting some and rejecting many applications. The service providers and instrument manufacturers are eager to understand what the next money spinner could be.

I believe the key to the success of new applications rests with the device. Let us look at the device in more detail.

Device
A device is a piece of equipment we use to access the bandwidth. These devices are tools for processing information, communicating tools or entertainment platforms.

Components of the device
Any component can be disaggregated into:

• Processor
• Memory / Storage
• Human Interface
• Identification
• Power unit
• Network Interface

Processor

A significant development is happening from each of the devices getting a piece of silicon in them. Things from alarm clocks to washing machines to cars to televisions everything has become “smart”.

If you look closely, you will realize that in devices where there was enough space and supply of power people have thought of putting a processor. Nanotechnology is making these chips smaller and faster and cooler (lower heat generation). This is assisting the development.

Applications can be developed for devices that have a general purpose processor with an operating system. The Application based business model will imply that environment will favour these devices. In fact, many of the applications that currently use special purpose processors (Fuel timing chips in cars) will start using this business model. But just wait before you start dreaming about the kind of possibilities.

Memory / Storage
As with the processor chips, memory chips are getting smaller. Sure, but there is a difference. Let me bring your attention to the different business models. They demonstrate the evolution discreetly.

Your Mobile Service voicemail, which is a form of storage of information, resides on the network, but your SMS messages need to be stored on your device. Have you thought why?

Well the simple answer is that Voicemail was bulkier than SMS and memory in the device was scarce so smaller size application moved to the device first. So does this mean that eventually when we have “a lot” of memory all the data will sit on our mobile phones? I guess not.

The key question one needs to ask is what happens when the bandwidth access speed becomes so fast that we can access most of the application on the fly. To answer this, look at the email. Email for most cases is stored on central servers.


What I am stating is that there are various models, the email model wherein data stays on the server, applications stay on the mobile. There is SMS model, where in the data stays with the person and the application goes to the server.

Where what is stored is decided by the bandwidth available at your disposal. Consequently, as the bandwidth increases, we might shift towards fetch as you need models.

Moving further…
The components that I am discussing below are a little far fetched. I am not sure if they will happen as there are some economic / strategic / competitive reasons for suggestions not happening. If you know any reason what are the reasons these would not happen please write to me.

I will however, continue with the series of components of the devices. The next being the human interface.

Human Interface
Human Interface is something wherein we are able to interact with the device. This is also an area where least development has taken place. The reason is just that collectively we take a lot of time to learn the new ways to interface with machines. In one sense “driving a car” is an interfacing function and so is interacting with a computer.

But beyond the weirdness, if you simply concentrate on computer – human interface, you will find discrepancies. For example, computer screen is now our primary media, yet we type documents in A4 format. Does that make the documents more readable?
Mobile phone manufacturers are telling us that we should watch television on the mobile phone screen. No one asked me am I comfortable watching it.

There are some developments worth noticing. People have put television screens in cars, behind aircraft seats and possibly wherever they could. Also the projection technology is improving substantially.

What can drastically alter the interface aspect is the internetworking of all these interface technologies. Like your laptop keyboard can be used for your mobile. And your television can show the photo you just received on your computer. We get the hint with the new software that comes with the cell phones these days that allow you to peek at the Cell phone contents thorough your computer.

So it means that we will use what ever screen we have in close proximity to us. The software that will allow for this versatility will have to hit the market. But there is a strong case for such internetworking to happen.

Sounds weird doesn’t it? But there is no reason it should not happen. And though it has already started sounding magical there is more.

Identifiers
Identifiers are those parts of devices that enable the network to know your identity. The SIM card in the mobile phone is one such identifier. On the computer there is a login-password mechanism that is used as an identifier.

As is well known the identifiers are key to security! (PUN intended) In fact a lack of developments in convenient scanners has limited the growth of the online transactions. It is primarily why Bill Gates is tracking security closely. That is why he is such a visionary.

There are two / three elements in the security environment. One is scanning the user input and second is transporting it across the bandwidth securely.

Public Key Infrastructure promises to deliver this very functionality. Coupled with a hand held reliable finger-print scanner, this will transform the way we conduct business. I think we need to watch for a day when hand held scanners can be connected with or embedded in a cell phone.

There will be a substantial discontinuity in terms of electronic transactions when that happens.

Yeas of course there is still more.

Power
Every device needs power. Mobile devices carry their power pack along with them, rest of them are plugged to the wall because of power.

Improvements in battery technology have allowed us to have longer battery life out of a smaller battery. It has allowed us to have lot of applications running on our mobile devices.

Battery has played a critical role in the number of applications the mobile device can take. The better the battery the more applications you can load on it.

Charging technology has also improved. Apple has made some progress in this area by making the iPod charge while we play the songs from it.

Yet, have you noticed that the device manufacturers do not have a standard battery packs. Each device comes with its own charger and its own socket. We cannot use a Nokia charger with Samsung Phone, or we cannot use a cell phone charger for a laptop. If these devices have interchangeable power plugs, it will mean a lot more convenience for the consumer.

When we will see a movement in that direction is God’s guess.

Summary
We have seen how the different components of the devices can change and unleash a new wave of applications. At the outset some of the thoughts may seen outrageous, but it is not that far fetched.

For example, the power units of computers are standardized across motherboards so it is not unrealistic to expect that we can have a standard for power plugs in mobile phones. These are changes that have happened and will happen sooner or later.


The way forward
In the next article I will examine what are the different kinds of functionalities that can be added into mobile phones as an example. I will propose a hypothesis that there is a convergence in devices as well in terms of components. I will also give you examples where components are added to the device to create better value and also examples where components are sold separately to create value.

Feedback
Please let me know what you think on this. Your feedback is critical and will enlighten me. And do check back again to read about the new devices and the future of ICE.

ICE: The Telecom / Technology story!

Introduction
Communication and Technology revolution has flummoxed many in the so-called "real" world. On one side, more people are comfortable in downloading ring-tones and watching movie trailers. On the other, there are others who are still wondering about what happened to the future when the refrigerator would talk to the online grocer and order groceries. In the business world the top management is scared that their ERP solution will become obsolete even as they roll it out. But will it actually happen is a question to which there is yet no answer.

I am as confused as everyone else. Yet, in the following these are a series of articles detailing some aspects of these issues that may provide an answer. I have read some literature on these issues from various sources and Telecosm by Gilder is something that I would like to recommend. Yet the views expressed in the following articles are my own and may be wrong. I invite you to please provide me valuable feedback and opinions on these.

The Issues with Communications Revolution
We all expected that communication revolution that started with the Internet to invade every aspect of our professional and personal life would hit us soon. We all waited but it hasn’t come yet. There are reasons that are apparent in the hindsight. Some of the prominent ones were:
1) Lack of Cheap bandwidth
2) Lack of last-mile access Infrastructure
3) Lack of Ideas.

Bandwidth Problem
The applications thought possible, during the peak of the 2001 tech bubble were conventional applications. Like “movies-on-demand”, a lot of these applications required bandwidth that is simply not available. Some applications like Internet based real-time ERP faltered because bandwidth across international borders was absent. This connectivity was essential as the businesses became more and more globalized.

But as of now, a lot of band has come up. There is a lot of fiber very close to where you are sitting and reading this article now. A significant gain has also been because of the price discovery of the fiber bandwidth by the service providers. Service providers now see fiber-optic cables as information pipes and are focusing on capacity utilization. This seems to be common sense wisdom and they were focusing on these earlier. But there is a key difference. I will highlight it as we come to it.

Last Mile Access Infrastructure
Last mile access was unavailable. By this I do not mean that we had no solution to last mile connectivity, but that it was expensive.
Often the accessing equipment could be used for little else. The desire was never urged on by a need. This is exactly what mobile-phone revolution has done. The coming of age of 3-G mobiles has given the mobile users different ways and means to be connected. The revolution has changed the lifestyle of people making them comfortable carrying a device with them 24X7.
Only two other devices in human history have created such a powerful change, first being wristwatches and second being the Walkman. Yet the key aspect of the mobile revolution is that now people carry with them in the form of a mobile phone, a processor, memory and a modem. And they carry it 24X7.
This has subsidized (mentally) the cost of getting the last-mile-access device with you.

Lack of Ideas
The foremost problem was the lack of ideas. Of course business has a way of weeding out the bad ideas sooner or later. But there are a lot of things that are starkly visible. Like for example, what Gilder says in Telecosm, we have voice networks (Telephones) carrying data (Fax) and we also have data networks (Internet) carrying voice (Internet Telephony).
Similarly we have different business models running on same “bandwidth”. Like we pay per minute for calls on mobile phones, but FM radio on the same device is free. Some of the data (voicemail) is stored on remote server, some on device (SMS, voicemail). Some data (PIM data) that ideally should be on a remote server is replicated on different devices; where as some data that should ideally be on the device we need to download (MP3, Songs).

Problems are solved…
But all these problems are getting sorted out. And a new reality we all were anticipating is emerging. But it is not something that we envisaged. The new reality is mix of partly things that we anticipated and partly of something totally different. So what is the new reality?
In the next article we will examine the future gadgets that can exploit these developments. We will also examine which gadgets can succeed and what infrastructure can profitably come up to serve the new information applications that will thrive in the new world.

Feedback

Please let me know what you think on this. Your feedback is critical and will enlighten me. And do check back again to read about the new devices and the future of ICE.