On the walled-vs-wild controversy, Jeffrey Funk writes:
> - I think we need to think about the mobile Internet not just from a short
> term perspective where
> - simple and interesting contents are important but also from a long term
> perspective.
Thinking long term (for pay,anyway) is a function of governments,
and of certain research efforts, efforts that are typically
government-funded anyway.
I think I've spent half my career in the software industry urging
my managers to "think long term" about how to approach the
engineering of one thing or another.
I've spent the other half getting used to the fact they won't, and
often simply can't, and in most cases arguably *shouldn't* think
long term.
As Peter Drucker has pointed out, hardly anybody gets rich working
on what somebody thought people might need or want some time
in the uncertain future. They tend to get rich (somewhat
accidentally in the case of high technology) on whatever it was
that people turned out to want *right now*.
> In the long run, the value of the mobile internet will be a
> function of the number of linkages between sites just as the linkages
> between sites on the fixed-line internet are critical.
If, by "mobile", you mean "portable," you have something of
a case. People will want that same internet experience they
are used to from desktop computing - WHEN they are using
equipment that can offer that experience. Otherwise, though
....I think you (and Zimran) might be overapplying an increasing-
returns argument here.
Metcalf's Law is a great theory. But it hasn't killed AOL
in practice. Because in practice, AOL gets the best of both
worlds - the Garden *and* the Wilderness. (Which is why, I
suppose, I hate AOL more than ever.)
> Mobile phone screens
> will become bigger and the growing use of other types of handsets (PDAs,
> e-mail handsets) to access the mobile Internet will make these linkages
> indispensable.
Here, you really lose me. Mobile phone screens can only grow so
much before impinging on the physical convenience of the phone.
I want something I can put in my pocket. ("Is that an internet
capable mobile phone, or are you just glad to see me?" I already
feel geeky enough carrying my eiwa-jiten in my pants wherever
I go.)
Palmtops and mobile phones are categorically different
platforms from laptops and desktop computers, and they cry
out for different interfaces, different modalities of use, and
different ways of organizing content. And I think people
instinctively know this, which is probably why WinCE couldn't
seem to catch a break in the palmtop market for quite a
while.
Among these platforms, mobile phones are more different than
the others, since you really CAN use a mobile phone while
walking down the street. It's not just highly portable, it's really
*mobile.*
Arguing that, since they *can* run the same networking protocols,
*do* contain CPUs, *can* run downloaded programs, *do* offer
screens and keyboards, that they therefore *must* obey the
"rules" of Internet-connected devices thus far, well....that's a
little like saying that birds should be gigantic, and tromp around
on the ground, chewing up plant fiber in bulk (or each other, in
bulk), because they happen share most of their genetic code
with dinosaurs.
> If Docomo continues to restrict the linkages between official
> and non-official sites, I-mode will never become the truly valuable system
> that it has the potential to become.
This is sort of an argument with success, isn't it? Are you intentionally
implying that people don't already find I-mode "truly valuable"?
Quality isn't "conformance with theoretical expectations." Quality is
what the customer says it is.
-m
leap@gol.com
> - (Jeff Funk)
>
> Ren Kuroda wrote:
> I don't actually think this holds true for wireless. I honestly think the
> value
> of a wireless network is in the quality of contents, not the quantity.
>
> Which is why a limited walled garden of only 650 quality sites is much
> better on
> a cellphone than thousands of random sites...
>
> Then again your point of networking people to each other (vs people to
> information) is relevant -- email on i-mode is successful partially b/c
> it's
> connected to ALL email networks by default (note for example J-Phone can
> only
> SEND to any email address; to receive from a non-J-Phone email address you
> need
> to sign up and pay extra).
>
> r en
>
>
> Zimran Ahmed wrote:
>
> > The problem with walled gardens is when they fragment a network into
> > several smaller networks. Just as Metcalf's law states that the value of
> > a network grows by the square of the size of the network, as you make
> the
> > size of the networks smaller the value of the network FALLS by the
> square
> > of the size.
>
> --
> ascii: r e n f i e l d
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> morgan stanley dean witter japan
> e-business technologies | engineering and strategy
>
>
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Received on Mon Oct 23 08:26:57 2000