Re: The next big thing

From: Kim Brooks <kbrooks_at_bardo-brooks.com>
Date: Tue 20 Feb 2001 06:11:33 -0600

BRANDI JASMINE <brandi_at_brandijasmine.com> WROTE:

>KIM BROOKS <kbrooks_at_bardo-brooks.com> WROTE:
>> Oy, I'm gettin' tired of that example of passing a
>> Starbucks and getting a coupon for a cheap latte. It's
>> just not real, and won't be for years if ever.
>
> That was part of my point. The other part, which you
> missed entirely is that there is a greater amount of
> hype for making money from WAP portals.

Sorry if the email sounded like I was disagreeing -- I
actually agreed with many of your points, but had to
disagree with the perpetuation of the wireless
location-based advertising myth. With current US
technology, it's just not happening and it's too
expensive to make it happen. I would be interested
in hearing if it is otherwise in Canada, or elsewhere in
the world. Anyone?

>> you have the internet at home and at work, how many
>> people need it on their phone? From the looks of it,
>> maybe 1 in 20? So 5% of the population that can will
>> use wireless web.
>
> I figure news, information, games, and entertainment
> services (horoscopes) will do well enough to make the
> cell phone companies happy.

My point exactly: this medium, the content, the
proposed advertising schema are designed to make
cell-phone-companies- happy, not their customers.
They want to make money off infrastructure investments,
they want to figure out how to make e911 pay off --
and they need ways to compete against each other through
bells-n-whistles, now that low pricing & competition is
making cell air time a price-based commodity game (in
many areas). So they throw in things like "free news!"
 -- nice enough, but it seems that only 1 in 20 of the
users actually take advantage of it, so maybe it's
not so useful?


>> I'm amazed that so many analysts, marketers,
>> media buyers, creative agencies, and dot-coms are
>> putting so much credence behind the idea of wireless
>> advertsing pushes.
>
> So am I. That was my point. A lot of people are acting
> like this is the "next big thing" because they are
> hoping for another big bubble in the stock market to
> take over for the vacuum left when the dot.com bubble
> burst. It's really that simple. Basic greed and
> psychology.

Exactly. I think that too many people are trying to
relive the early days of the Internet -- hype, wild
IPOs, unproven business models, lotsa VC for all,
and bubbles-bubbles-bubbles. Wireless web is its own
can of worms, not another web phenom, despite the hype.

Kim Brooks




Received on Tue Feb 20 2001 - 06:11:33 CST