First Tuesday in Jo'burg discusses the future of communications

and present was my good friend and co-author Tomi Ahonen describing PC's like Zeppelins when air travel started to get off the ground. Nice analogy Tomi :-)

Business ignores mobile Internet at its peril is the headline at Moneyweb reporting on the event

Forget the personal computer. By 2010, the dominant device will be the 3G smartphone and all internet content will be formatted for the cellphone. So says internet guru and telecommunications consultant Tomi Ahonen, who was speaking at a First Tuesday event in Johannesburg this week. First Tuesday is non-profit organisation that hosts forums about technology, innovation and policy in 18 countries. Locally, the Communication Users Association (Cuasa) and the electronics Industries Federation count among its supporters.

And

Ahonen says the PC is a transitional type of device – much like the Zeppelin was when air travel was first introduced – and that the mobile phone is the platform that the internet will be designed for in future. “Just because the first type of technology gets users does not mean it will always dominate that form,” says Ahonen.

What we see as the future is already happening in the Far East, especially South Korea. Ahonen says 30% of the Korean population maintains a blog from cellphones (called mobile blogging, or moblogging); 14% of videogaming has moved to the mobile phone, and 95% of TV interactivity (for example, voting on reality TV shows) is done via cellphone, not the PC.

But there is another important point Tomi made which goes to the heart of our work here at CDB that, Business has to understand the digital community and the various implications and challenges that those communiites represent.

The power of digital communication – encompassing blogs, online forums where people discuss anything from local politics, cooking recipes and how to fix washing machines, and always-on options SMS – has resulted in the formation of “digital communities”.

These have become a force to be reckoned with, with Business Week labelling them as “the biggest change since the industrial revolution” – a strong statement, given electricity and flight only happened afterwards.

People are able to keep government, news organisations and business corporations in check with the power of their digital network.

And

It’s not just Ahonen who sees the future as mobile. The editorial in the July 29 edition of The Economist reads: “There is no question the PC has democratised computing and unleashed innovations; but it is the mobile phone that now seems most likely to carry the dream of the "personal computer" to its conclusion."

The new head of internet darling company Google, Eric Schmidt, was quoted by the Financial Times in May as saying: "Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have internet access. Mobile is going to be the next big internet phenomenon. It holds the key to greater access to everyone – with all the benefits that entails.”

Comments

[fake oakley sunglasses]

Thanks so much for the wonderful post on us! We’re going to send this around .The blog looks great!

[coach replica handbags]

There virtually is no limit to a watch’s design or to the pocket cost of a watch.

[tiffany outlet]

That was a great piece of information, I enjoyed reading it.