In this video, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, declares a gigantic shift in their business strategy: “Mobile First”. He talks about 3 converging technologies driving their decision:
- The computing power of the handheld device.
- The increase in capacity of communication channels.
- The collective processing capability of the internet (cloud computing).
Are you taking advantage of the widespread availability of the smartphone to expand your business?
Keep in mind that this video was recorded about 10 months ago, and they were showing a few amazing capabilities back then:
- language translation
- speech recognition
- video search
Well, they’re still amazing today. The difference is, it is literally in the palm of your hand already.
Note: Click the title of this post, if you don’t see the video in the multimedia box on the top left (It’s worth watching the first 3 min).
Technology has made leaps and bounds, within less than 20 years of the internet’s recent history. Here’s a short historical perspective:
Web 1.0 (1991 – 2003) – the initial incarnation of the internet, where the flow of information was one way. People surfed the web, and they can only read information, limited by whatever the websites were telling them.
Web 2.0 (2004 – present) – the interactive internet. Visitors have a 2-way exchange of information with the websites they visit. They contribute content, and they provide feedback. YouTube was the first obvious example, where all the videos are provided by the users. Today, Facebook is the biggest example, with a mixed bag of text, photos, audio and video materials.
Web 3.0 (20??) – the “semantic” internet, where computers will understand the meaning or semantics of information. The smartphone will be a major contributor. Real-time language translation is one significant example of the semantic internet: you speak English on your cell phone, and it automatically translates to Mandarin for a Chinese businessman in Beijing. We’re not quite there yet, but it will come sooner rather than later.
Shop Savvy, in my opinion, is another practical example. You scan the product code of an item on the grocery shelf; it then compares the prices for the same (or similar) item, from other stores that are nearby. This becomes practical because of the built-in GPS on the mobile phone. (Note: This technology is NOT quite working ideally yet here in Spokane, because of the limited database of items to compare. It is more reliable in the bigger cities of San Francisco and New York.)
In conclusion, the mobile phone will revolutionize (yet again, even as the last revolution just started!), our day to day lives. Change is coming whether we like it or not, and as business people, we need to adapt and serve our customers in new ways.
What are you doing to move forward? Or what is stopping you from taking the next step?
