FYI and for making up your own mind on this subject.
Regards Roland
---------------------- Forwarded by Roland Baartscheer/EHV/CE/PHILIPS on 07/17/2000 11:21 AM ---------------------------
list-admin@e-harmon.com on 07/14/2000 04:32:13 PM
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Subject: [Internet Insight]2000.07.14: Wireless Web, Listen Up
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2000.07.14: Wireless Web, Listen Up
By Steve Harmon
Chairman & CEO
Don't believe the hype. Wireless web hype. The funadamental flaw in
investors chasing Internet stocks with wireless dreams is that the model
for monetizing wireless content and commerce is far from figured out.
My study on this also says that the basic technology to make the Web
wireless is far from figured out. The early PCS or minibrowser attempts are
not ready for prime time. These are the small screen cell phones with
limited Web browsing functionality.
I tried the Sprint PCS MiniBrowser once -- that's right, once -- and found
it to be akin to sticking your tongue on a frozen lamp pole.
The flaw with the cell phone as browser approach is fairly straightforward:
a 3-inch screen can never offer what a 21-inch PC monitor can offer.
Yet scores of engineers at some of the world's top tech firms toil on this
shrinkage approach daily. I call it the 'Honey I Shrunk The Web' approach.
It's not a good idea to take visual elements that want to be 21-inches
diaplayed and put them on a 3-inch display.
Ot to take a stock quote, news headline or chart and force it on the baby
screen.
The logical disconnect is quite large.
PC monitors are meant for visual interaction. Cell phone and PDA screens
are meant for text or number display. Pushing stock charts and news to cell
phones ignores the fact that the phone has always been an audio device.
Much ado about audio drives the buzz surrounding companies such as
privately-held TellMe Networks. You dial up a number and get a stock quote,
weather report, etc. Endure an ad is the business model.
AT&T invested in the firm and no doubt, it's where the portals and phone
companies may someday collide. It's also an area that I can foresee the Web
music firms breaking into. MP3, Napster, what's stopping them from becoming
"mobile radio networks" streaming out music with ads. Nothing. And they pay
a royalty to BMI or ASCAP for songs played.
A few Internet content companies claim that they can garner dollars from
delivering content to wireless phones and getting a monthly fee. Perhaps.
But I expect this number to be in the pennies per month per subscriber and
not the dollars per month being bantered about. With 500 million cell
phones I don't see the wireless phone providers paying content providers
$1.5 billion per month at $3/subscriber. Especially for text content.
The larger problem with wireless Web comes in the lack of audio-ized files
that have been tailor-made for the wireless phone experience.
With concerns over cell phones and cancer from overuse it's unlikely that
anyone wants to listen to an audio book via the phone. You're left with
stocks and news headlines. Sounds more like mobile radio then doesn't it?
Short audio bursts followed by ads.
If the model proves true then what's stopping basic phone service from
becoming ad supported? Or voice communications as a form of mobile radio
since data is data whether it's your voice or music. Airtime is airtime.
I tend to believe that the wireless Web will be more audio driven than text
driven, that the current crop of Web to cell phone efforts miss the mark
and intrinsic strength of the phone as audio device, that several companies
to be created will be the ones that could dominate what wireless means
rather than PC-based Internet companies.
note: Steve Harmon is traveling and returns with more investment insights
July 24.
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Received on Mon Jul 17 12:18:03 2000