if connected

This era is so much more than just a ‘Post PC’ age. Numerous other devices are being sidelined too as both their reasons to exist and their business models are disrupted.

Yes, we have switched from a unipolar PC world to a multipolar device era where smartphones, eReaders, tablets, connected TVs and many other smart connected devices are finally becoming viable. In this new digital era the PC remains extremely important. In every country, household PC penetration is rising, even in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden where PC penetration is already 92%, 87% and 87% respectively. [Source: Eurobarometer 335, E-Communications Household Survey, European Union].

Yet despite this continued success, the PC is still being sidelined.

The most significant innovations are now happening outside of the PC market. Even at Microsoft, the major user experience innovations that will be incorporated into the upcoming PC OS, Windows 8, were pioneered on Microsoft’s smartphone OS, Windows Phone 7, or on the xBox360 games console.

For those companies that lost out in the PC era, like Apple, it’s useful to market this era as a ‘Post PC’ one as that re-defines the market battlefield in a way that favours the strengths of their products: around highly mobile iOS-powered iPhones and iPads, rather than Windows PCs. Steve Jobs successfully changed the battlefield in just this way with his speeches about the iPad in early 2010. Yet Apple continues to innovate with its traditional computer products with imminent launch of iCloud and Mac OS X Lion.

So, when Apple talks about ‘Post PC’ what Apple really means is that this will be a ‘Post Windows’ future.

But whether we call this Post Windows’ or ‘Post PC’ both terms are too narrow a view of the innovative disruption that is transforming the Internet, consumer electronics, media, advertising, navigation, retailing, and almost every aspect of life.

It’s not just the PC that’s being sidelined. Numerous devices are becoming obsolescent as they too are disrupted, so this new era is also:

• Post Phone — Mobile phones are now routinely smart and consumers often choose to buy a phone that is not the best phone but instead choose a mobile handset with the best apps, Facebook access and Internet browsing delivered with a great user experience. If call quality, signal reception, and battery life were the key factors for consumers buying phones then Nokia’s market position would not be in free fall.
• Post Print — Paper books, magazines and newspapers are being replaced by digital distribution and business models on PC-accessible websites, eReaders, smartphones and tablets.
• Post TV — The TV set is no longer the only way to watch TV. Increasingly, it’s not even the main way. Traditional broadcasters are offering live and recorded TV programmes on their own websites or through special services such as Netflix, Hulu, iPlayer or many others. People are choosing what device to watch TV on based upon whatever screen is most convenient. Old metrics such as the number of TV sets per household are irrelevant. Instead, the new metrics are how many TV-capable screens does each person have available, what size is that screen — from very small such as on a smartphone, to enormous living room projectors — and is it mobile and usable at any time of the day or night wherever that person is?
• Post disc — Music, TV, software and games used to be distributed on physical media. With the arrival of digital games distribution systems such as Valve’s Steam or OnLive, streaming video and music subscriptions, people no longer need optical disk drives. The latest generation of light laptop computers forego that drive. Games consoles and home music systems will go the same way soon.

Those that are talking about ‘Post PC’ are right that this is a new digital era. We’re long past ‘Web 2.0′ but the term ‘Post PC’ does not describe this new era adequately. It’s so much more. It’s post so many many devices, business models, and companies.

In a future post I will set out how to describe this new era.

Why do I blog so much more here compared with other blogs? Simple: It’s much more convenient as the WordPress mobile tools are superior.

Take the respective platform’s iPhone support as an example: All three blogging platforms offer iPhone apps. But only the WordPress app allows editing of published posts, comment moderation, and the creation or editing of static pages.

Typepad, only offers post creation as does the iPhone Livejournal app. I find that I often wish to amend or add to published posts. I’ve also discovered that on mobile phones it’s easier to hit ‘publish’ by mistake. Or, to be unsure if a post has published successfully due to the vagaries of mobile phone networks. In both situations, being able to edit published posts overcomes the issue. On any important blog I find that lack of ability to edit published posts unacceptable as it leads to error-ridden mobile blog posts staying live until I am back near a PC and able to fix them.

WordPress also has richer post creation options: It has full support for category selection and tags; draft posts can be stored online as well as locally. Storing a draft on the phone enables offline support, and allows the quick storage of posts with large photo attachments, that can be later published when there’s a fast 3G connection or WiFi available. Typepad only has limited local draft support and doesn’t work with the categories in my experience.

On other platforms, WordPress also seems better supported. I’ve found a competent, although unofficial, app for Android in wpToGo, but nothing good for the others.

WordPress:

Typepad:

Livejournal:

Hutchison Rabbit was a wireless pre-mobile phone that only worked at specific locations where the Rabbit sign was displayed. Years ago when I started advising clients about public WiFi hotspot models I referred back to the weaknesses of Rabbit.

What’s striking to me now is how many so-called current mobile services still resemble Rabbit, and like Rabbit they’ll fail unless they’re available to people 24×7. Some examples from the many:

• iPhone applications that only work on WiFi, rather than 24×7 on the mobile/cellular network (e.g. Slingplayer, Skype, Pandora, etc.). I can’t see this model lasting.
• Handheld games consoles that rely on WiFi for connections and expect their users to search for the right location to go online. Effectively no one is going to bother, except at home.
• WiMAX networks that don’t have national coverage.
• Muni WiFi where the coverage is great in urban centres outdoors, but the signal doesn’t reach reliably into buildings where people are actually sitting.
• Cloud based services that aren’t available when there’s no Internet connection, e.g. Google Docs, the new Office Live.

The following advertising was inside a 1993 motorway guide book I found recently in a friend’s car:
(Click on an image to zoom in to read the text, it’s rather wonderful with the hindsight of just 16 years)

When I started this blog last November I agonised over the name. Implicit in “Being Connected” is the idea of an always-on Internet. But “always-on” is a term that we all use blithely without thinking about it.

Most of the time, we still use a PC to browse websites or create content. But the PC isn’t an always-on device, or if it is always-on, it’s not where people actually are living for large parts of every day. Home broadband connections may be “always-on” but only the infirm live their lives exclusively at home. Laptops enable people to enjoy mobile broadband out and about but laptops are too bulky to carry all of the time and take too long to set-up on a flat surface to deliver anything other than a part-time Internet.

The devices that create an always-on digital life are the increasing numbers of Internet mobile phones. These are carried 24×7 and  are carried in easily accessible pockets for instant Google, email, Facebook or whatever.

The mobile phone isn’t significant because it’s mobile. If mobile was the most important aspect of the mobile phone, then mobile’s role in people’s lives would be limited to ‘away from home’ or ‘out of the office’ situations. But people use their phones inside the home as much if not greater as outside: studies on mobile TV and mobile phone calling show very high usage at home. Plus people don’t leave their personal mobile phones outside of the office. No. They carry their personal digital lives into work on-board those personal mobile phones. This increases the collision between work and personal lives.

What’s important about the Internet mobile phone is that mobiles deliver a 24×7 digital life. One where people are connected all of the time, should they choose.

I’ve started writing about this idea, in the increasingly misnamed “day” job here:
How Mobile Handsets Will Deliver 24×7 Social Computing

Bootnote – If people carry Blackberries or work mobile phones 24×7, is it still a “day” job?

This post was originally published on my Forrester blog.

Too many firms are building their mobile strategies as a mere extension of the PC Internet, and are missing out on what’s now possible when mobile, but which remains impossible using a PC.

A PC is always going to be limited to deliver a part time Internet experience. They are too bulky, too heavy, too power hungry, and increasingly too dependent on the assumption that a super fast fixed-quality broadband connection is present to be something that people will have with them all of the time 24×7. If a PC evolved to be suitable for 24×7 use it wouldn’t be a PC anymore.

Today’s Internet mobiles offer people that 24×7 digital life. People are becoming connected 24×7 through their Internet phones and that must transform the strategies that firms adopt. Mobile enables a 24×7 relationship between brands and consumers. Mobile enables people to interact with websites 24×7, both to consume — read and browse — and to contribute. Mobile opens up new business models through the fusion of location awareness and a 24×7 Internet-connected device.

The first and clearest example of this new world is what’s happening with social computing. People are now able to lurk on Facebook or Bebo at anytime, or post photos onto Flickr that are taggged with where they were taken (as well as when).

Read this new report for more on 24×7 people:-
How Mobile Handsets Will Deliver 24×7 Social Computing

I’ll be developing this theme in future reports this year.

Emergency over: terrestrial TV has switched from rolling news on to children’s programmes. While, as my colleague Nate pointed out, Channel 4 never left the cricket.
A good summary of the events so far is on Wikinews. It doesn’t update as quickly as Reuters but it’s a good complement.
The best BBC site to read is the ‘low bandwidth’ version of their news site, as it tends to work even when there is a massive surge of traffic. Its main purpose, of course, is for mobile phones, PDAs, screen readers and other accessibility scenarios.
The current tube situation is summarised here, for those that need to travel from work to home this evening. Again this page is reasonably quick to update.

So, first thing I hear of more problems today is a text message from my sister (1.24pm). Mobile phones really are key tools these days, and SMS seems to be the most reliable fast communication method.
I check email (1.25pm). I have a news email alert from bbc.co.uk – but I can’t see the story on their front page. Can’t see anything on cnn.com; Reuters.co.uk have the story but Reuters.com aren’t pushing it (yet); Sky news online have the story, they are reporting rumour, it seems.
BBC Radio 4 is the best of the bunch. They confirm there have been three evacuations after reports of (my emphasis of their words) smoke and/or explosions. They emphasise that it’s not clear how serious and details are sketchy.
I always find important breaking news stories are a great test for news websites. They have to be quick without losing reliability or publishing rash stories.
More later.