Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The Killer App For Mobile

The announcement of Google patenting the click to call hyperlink brings up a point I have been trying to make on the Pondering Primate. The personal computer hyperlink is very valuable, the physical world hyperlink will be invaluable.

You probably don’t even realize how many times a day you use one. You used one to see this site. You clicked on your favorites, or did a search engine search query and used a bunch. You will probably use one when you read this post.

I bet if you counted the number of times you use one in just one hour, you would be amazed. Try going 5 minutes without one, you can’t. They have made using the Internet easy.

Call it the Web’s “Easy Button”, or productive Web surfing. Whatever you call it, I think it is the killer app for the PC Internet. Imagine if we had to type in EVERY domain of EVERY website we wanted to get to?

Do you realize that search engines are really hyperlink generators for us? Type in “NY Yankees tickets” and your search engine spits out hundreds of sites and the hyperlinks to to get there. Just imagine if you had to type in every one of those domains to find the site you wanted.

The next platform for the Web and search is the mobile. When there are more phones connected to the Web than PCs, what kind of value will hyperlinks have then?

Sure you probably can type in those lengthy domain names and go to the site of choice, but do you really want to on that tiny keyboard and screen? Or would you rather have a different kind of hyperlink that takes you there directly.

Wikipedia describes a “killer app” as a computer program that is so useful that people will buy a particular piece of computer hardware, gaming console, and/or operating system simply to run that program.

My guess is the first killer apps for the PC were Windows OS (icons to use programs) and the mouse (allowed navigation in the digital world).

The PC has its mouse, so does the laptop. Have you ever considered what the “mouse” will be for the mobile phone?

When the surveys start asking “what will the killer app for mobile be?”, I want you to consider what will allow the mobile user to navigate in the physical world.

I think SMS (text messaging) for mobile navigation is the equivalent of “cut, copy and paste” for the PC world. Yes, it’s a nice tool, but it isn’t the hyperlink.

What will make getting information on your mobile, anywhere and from anything, as easy as a hyperlink?

What platform or software will prove to the mobile’s “Easy Button” and be the killer app for mobile?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

You know what I think the easy button will be? I think it will be the ME button - think about this for a moment. If you go to Disney world, you can travel the magic kingdom with ease. Why, you have a card that recognizes "me"... currently all mobile browsers are stupid and web sites are even worse - and yet Me never changes (well maybe sometimes) - so think about this, I fire up the mobile, engage the browser and the first thing I do is hit the ME button. From that point on I can travel the magic kingdom (the internet) and others will recognize ME... Web 2.0 is about advertising, Web 3.0 will be all about ME

Anonymous said...

The world will be a different place when we're all interacting with physical objects to obtain information or promotions. But I still think that the Next Big Thing is the healthy doughnut.

Anonymous said...

For your records:

Been keeping track of my hyperlink
clicks since reading this post.I do a lot research so I am always
"clicking". So, as of this of this
comment i have just passed
three hundred forty (340) clicks.
Where is MY EASY BUTTON.

Anonymous said...

Soooory I'm late--couldn't respond when you 1st posed this (easy) question....and the answer is???..........the camera/camera button on your phone, silly!!!!

Anonymous said...

check out www.411Sync.com

URLs replaced by simple keywords bring the PC internet closer to your mobile !

Anonymous said...

Killer App is Roboo Mobile Search! You can search anywhere anytime and it knows the "Me": who? where? when? what? how?

For Example, a mobile search company I know:

Roboo was founded in 2006, backed by leading venture capital firms and quickly became a top player in the Chinese mobile search market. Roboo's mobile search was released for public use in December 2006 and its personalized mobile search features attracted millions of young crowd to find music, photos, games, videos, and other entertainment contents. In August 2007, Roboo was honored Red Herring 100 Asia award, which is a well-recognized award for promising innovative companies, and Roboo was the only mobile search company that received the award. Roboo has recently set up offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and other major cities in China, with the aim to dig the gold mine in mobile internet in China.

Anonymous said...
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