Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

Something surprising is about to occur, but I say it is right on schedule. Apple’s iPhone is going down a few pegs in the intrigue market and the app craze will quickly wash into a memory similar to playing pogs and listening to Sugar Ray.

Why will the app craze dissipate? Because the same thing has happened on your desktop already. Installed apps, for a variety of obvious practical reasons, have given way to web apps. Web apps are accessible from any computer. They don’t care what version your OS is. The installation step gives way to a much easier registration step. The configuration and data status information is 100% portable. Think of your email. Where would you be if you could not access it from the web? That’s right, stuck to one PC. How 2004 is that?

Now, with the recent emergence of Android and Palm Pre as competing smartphones to the iPhone, what do all touch smartphone users have in common? The webkit safari browser.. that’s what. iPhone web apps already have had a few advantages over their native app counterparts, but now that the safari browser will be the common denominator among all phones, the scales are going to tip dramatically. Web apps as a sub project will give way to the mobile web app being the core business model. Look how this new real estate application is built around this concept.

Also, in case you are skeptical about all this, Verizon, who has been the odd carrier out in the non-blackberry smartphone world is about to enter in with bang. Droid phones are due out before Christmas with the new Android 2.0 OS. They are also slated to carry the Palm Pre by January. You would not believe the amount of iPhone users who are ready to switch to a new phone only because of how much they hate AT&T.

What this means for radio, is new opportunity that maybe, just maybe, they might not pass by this time. Radio’s long-held media advantage of wider and simpler accessibility is being challenged again and again, but this time and through 2010, the shift will be felt more dramatically. We have been telling radio leaders to partner with us to head off the challenge and bring in new tools to lead in opportunity. Start adapting now, without abandoning your core. We share your ‘accessibility first’ principle, so let’s get moving. The future still marches on.

We are ready to help now by developing your mobile website assets simply by repurposing what you have now on your current website. We can work with your webmasters and engineers in a seamless manner to get a winning strategy working. There are lots of new possibilities for audio as well with a combination of web based, telephony based and mobile streaming tools for mobile phones.

We leave you with a quick video about how the fast and versatile Safari browser works at different speeds for the iPhone, Palm Pre and T-Mobile G1.

I ran across this post from moconews today, and had to laugh:

The Logic Behind Verizon Wireless’s New Low-Tech App
By Tricia Duryee - Thu 13 Nov 2008 02:22 PM PST
Mobile operators are falling over themselves to offer the latest mobile applications, from GPS services that help you locate your friends to chipsets that let you watch TV. So what is Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) now touting? A remarkably un-high-tech service that lets subscribers send photos from their phone to an album on the Web. The idea is that because nearly all cellphones now have camera phones, the target audience is potentially huge.

The funny part is the falling over themselves line… plus the fact that the “low tech” term shocks the sensibilities of the technorati that believes the mainstream can remain out of their target markets until they catch up someday. Do I have a ‘tude’ about all this? Well yes I do. The fact that targeting a product to a wider audience is worthy of a headline at all finally proves once and for all the point we have been making for over a year now. Cast the widest net possible by focussing on accessibility, AND build a mobile apps that perform the same function for the few phones that have new special powers.

Another funny part of all this… this app being discussed I’ll bet you if you took a poll of verizon users who could access it, would be used by less than 7% of them, with most of them citing they just don’t get the point of it, much less the how to portion of it.

The overall discussion about low-tech vs high tech is one of the areas where radio ‘gets it’ and new media lurches on the fringe. We are reconcilers of the two by design, but like to speak up any chance I get when the disconnect occurs on the geek side of the equation.

The cell carriers are right on schedule, following our predictions almost like a script.

Just last night I was dining with a fellow pioneer in new media and I shared with him that the big mega trend that is going to change the face of mobile media is the flat-rating of cellular minutes. We are not only banking on it, but hold it to be self-evident. Then today, Verizon announced it is launching $99/mo and up fixed-rate plans for unlimited minutes in the great 48. Not to be left out, AT&T did a “me too” announcement within a mere 5 hours, always ready to react in their sophisticated market-share retention mindset.

I hate to brag, but as they say, “It ain’t bragging if you can back it up”.

Back in Oct 07, I had the privilege to opine in Talkers Magazine that the wireless media adoption trends would first hinge on airtime becoming an open commodity, forever changing our attitudes about the conservation of minutes. I see this first step to have hit the tipping point today with this announcement. My first two predictions: 1) the commoditization of airtime and; 2) consumer adoption of fixed pricing are the major keys to the opening of the voice channel media portion of the overall wireless media revolution, making today an industry holiday. Mark Feb 20th on your 2009 calendar now and we’ll throw a party. We are now 31% through the overall revolution, and you should reconsider the other 4 points on my list with a new level of interest. Radio as we know it is about to change.