Forum Moderators: phranque
I got a call from a client today. They asked me to email their logo to a person who says her company will send text messages to people telling them about his business and it's promos.
Suddenly my visions of a monetized, search engine optimized web guide, oriented to local search for brick and mortar businesses, and my visions of just about any website where people come for any reason, are starting to look as old and outdated as I do.
On the surface, this marketing scheme may seem like little more than a new kind of spam. But every morning on the bus to work I notice that everyone around me is on a handheld. Some are watching videos. some are reading. Many are going through lists, and some are texting.
These devices are opening up a dimension of intimacey in the 'cyberspace' of digital media and communications that is, for me at least, completely unexpected.
This phone call, and the revelation it contained, has hit me like a frisbee in the head.
I'm not angry, but suddenly I feel like Rupert Murdoch - without the money...
small screens are the next big thing.
more often than not i drain my phone battery before the day ends - since i updated to an android phone, that is.
It's not even the WWW really. It's a new digital medium. Here I'm imagining a sort of old style 'web ring'. Someone with a handheld may join a club or forum etc. Then they get 'posts' sent to them. They will rarely have to visit a website or even google for things. In this near future, the internet comes to them.
It's a 'proactive' approach. A list of phone numbers is more important than a page of properly stacked 'h tags'. Data mining, tracking and profiling will become mission critical for this kind of internet business and communications.
Imagine riding the bus, and webmasterworld calls you up with a text for every post in every forumyou want to keep track of. Some members never actually bother to 'visit' the site in the traditional way.
In this world, html is no longer the foundation of the internet. Cellular connections are. True 'word of mouth' replaces SEO. Websites don't go away, but some of them fade into the background. Many people will be 'pluged in' to a worldwide digital network, but they won't even really be on the 'internet' as we think of it. Nor will they be clicking on ads on webpages.
My point here is that there is a whole new dimension emerging. It is person to person. Or at least web/business to person. Everything that I have just spent so much time and effort learning is defunct in this future. The kids who have taken up iphones and texting etc. will inhabit an entirely different 'cyberspace'.
So the Web is going back the way of the TV (sit and wait for information instead of going out and getting it)? I don't think so. At least not completely. Like most things in life, the pendulum will switch back the other direction. After a few months/years, the rebellious youth will refuse to be slaves to the push technology and will rush to the "new" technology of being able to get what you want when you want instead of waiting for it to come to you. Throughout it all, there will always be non-adopters who continue to use the "old" technology.
This one company using it that I know of has a website. It has rows of discount offers for local businesses. Apparently, they also contact people via texting, when 'hot' items come in. You get a digital coupon of some kind, I guess.
Handhelds are opening up so many options that we are seeing a revival of old tricks. They are being done in a new ways, and sometimes for new reasons.
It is the same as what some are pleased to call 'viral' promotions. A campaign gains momentum until it seems self- propelled. This is because 'consumers' are repeating and propagating the buzz with no additional help from the campaigner. In the movie theater business they call it ' legs'. A movie has 'legs' when it gets up and walks. Everyone is talking about it and the studios don't have to do much to help it along. Even further back 'viral' was just plain old 'word of mouth'.
All of this and more is coming back into play as the personal touch of cell user to cell user and central node to cell user communications evolves into another part of the internet.
so my thinking is that this business is as revelation because it made me realize that this new potential provides a way of getting 'visitors' and 'clicks' or whatever it is somebody wants, by actually utilizing the ability to contact individuals. It is active, where the "traditional" website is passive. Working out SEO and praying that the search engines put you on the first three pages. What makes it different from email and mailing lists or webrings, is that it's all on handheld. It's personal and it's also immediate. Anywhere, anytime. I felt, when I learned of this company from my client, that it was something I should pay attention to, and understand. It's new and it's different, even when it's old and it's the same old same old.
Imagine this, I decide to learn web design. I Google for a bunch of terms. Next thing you know, I get a text message out of the blue that reads _ "Looking for advice on 'floats'? Check out webmasterworld.com.", and in this particular instance, anyway, I'm saved !
