(Un) Wired for Reality

Landline Voice is declining at 10% per year.  Not 3%.  Not 5%.  10%.

If the existence of Twitter and Facebook at their current size (Facebook at 400M Users?) point to anything,  Humans are becoming more transactional, and better at handling store and forward "conversations".

As an old believer in the value and intimacy of interpersonal voice conversations, I'm starting to feel a little superfluous.  ( I'm not really worried - I expect that wireless minutes more than make up for loss of land-line minutes)

But this begs a question - how do the real-time interpersonal and the broadcast transactional mix ?  Both have communities.  Both communicate intimate thoughts and feelings, and in both cases occasionally create speakers remorse.  Are they two sides of the same coin, or different currencies ?

If forced to take a side in ignorance I would have chosen that they would mix well.  I might (gasp) be wrong.  Perhaps mixed modalities don't always mix.

I went looking apps on Facebook (more than 50,000 apps) that would enhance my communications capabilities with other facebook users, and with other humans.  If there were lots of apps, or some really well used ones, that facilitated real-time interpersonal voice communication, that would indicate that the modalities mix.  What did I find you ask?  My search was not comprehensive, but after trying long enough to get discouraged I had only discovered 20 apps, where the most popular was charting less than 1500 usages a month.  Pretty anemic for a community of 400M users.

ok - keep lookin'.

I found a  voice app for gamers toggles in at over 4000 usages a month.  Still not great, but at least a blip.  Note, however, that this is voice as a part of another app.  This isn't voice.  This is just a sideline.  The core business of gamer voice supported by this application's creator is more than 2B minutes a month.  The Facebook app is a drop in the bucket.

So what?    The facts are the facts.   Land-line voice is on its last legs.  Social Networking tools will not replace the real-time interpersonal voice experience: the modalities don't mix.  All other conclusions are left as an exercise to the communicator.

What is Google Wave's FFT ?

If I recall my college Physics courses at all (which I really don't) a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) amounted to a decomposition of a complex waveform by representing it as a series of parameters that each represented a simple (Square?) wave.

So what is Google Wave's FFT?   What constituent parts does it decompose into?

Another way of asking the question might be to exploit the parable of the blind men and the elephant.  You know the one.  It's the story where 3 different wise men determine an elephant to be different things, because they can each only see part of the critter.  They each individually represent the component of the decomposition that they perceive as the entire nature of the elephant.

So on to further thoughts on Googles, Elephants, Waves, FFTs and (of course) communications.


We can, like, start speaking metaphorically, like, what is wave like?  (I'm practicing to become a, like, teenager).

• Wave is like IM, hmmm, no, more like email, well, not email, perhaps threaded email.  This train of observation is like grasping the elephant's tail.  Certainly the observation is correct, but i'm like, missing so much of the picture.  Lets try again.
• Wave is like a Wiki.  Again - correct, but a little incomplete. Combining two correct interpretations that are as disparate as WIKI and Webmail certainly leaves a lot of room for interpretation.  Perhaps the 3rd time will be lucky.
• Wave is like a Twitter stream.  Oh sure.  Climb on the bandwagon, dude (he mutters to himself). Certainly watching some of the usage of wave  it appears that this modality of use is something that meshes well with the user population.  Again we suffer the dissonance of inequality.  Wiki != Webmail != Feed.
• Gadgets and Bots make it like sort of like a Facebook, or potentially like an application in a cloud-based  SaaS offer.
• Of course it is a Social Networking site / tool / whatever, ...
• and Google has just proven that it is not a Buzz (for that is something different).

The essence of my point is that 1) everybody thinks of it in existing terms, which blinds us somewhat, and 2)  we don't really know what it is yet - usage will change it.  Just like Twitter morphs and evolves, so will Wave, and so will our use.

So if it is hard to understand, and hard to determine how to use it, or what it is for, then is it significant?  I would not want to bet the farm, but I will note that Wave is real-time, and so are most people that i know.  It is also supported by a large and patient company - it will have chance to grow (or die a slow death).

I await the mobile and native clients (perhaps embedded in Chrome OS), and enough of my community becoming users, in order to make it useful.  Time will tell, but I certainly will not bet against it.

180 Degrees of Freedom

There otta be a rule that says that if you don't like the way something looks, you are duty-bound to turn it around and look at it after a 180 degree perspective change.

Up until now the big telecoms have been resisting encroachment in their wireless voice domain. iPhone App Store keeps rejecting Google Voice. Over the Top VoIP applications have been prohibited. In general the carriers have been "defending" their network.

The appropriate change has started. There are rumors about Skype being enabled by AT&T. Google Voice is something that Verizon will apparently now permit on android devices. It is starting to move from defend to leverage.

So for now the big guys are demonstrating a willingness to be pushed to understand the value of the phase shift.

On the "what's next" front I'd advocate that the carriers continue the shift the recommended 180 degrees. The carriers are in a position where they don't control the application. They should reach out and contract for transparent-label variations of applications that might advantage their wireless/business/data/video/residential subscribers. Integrate with Skype and Google Voice. Retail the application value to their subscriber base at competitive prices(Free?). Terminate and originate calls on behalf of the application. Use the app rather than run from the app.

And most of all ensure that the income from data plans is "fair" (read profitable).

OTT is a reality. Leverage the future.

Postlet:

TechCrunch noticed Nokia Labs doing something that I would contend is an example of the anti-potlatch approach to Telecom applications. It appears to be leveraging Facebook to extend its own appliaction offering called Ovi Lifecasting. I can't try this App because it is restricted to the Nokia N97 device, but on the surface it appears to be an instance of leverage-and-reuse approach to Telecom Application success.

How APIs can really make us 'appy (or... turn around, dude)

Lets just take on "the industry".

And I'm not talking about the Telco 2.0 initiative, in spite of the fact that it certainly tries to take a step in moving telecommunications as an industry out of the dark ages. My concern is that Telco 2.0 does not go far enough to preserve the industry as a significant force in society (presuming of course that it is worth saving).

The subtitle of this perspective might possibly be: "this ain't a potlatch, dude!"

Potlatch: Within it, hierarchical relations within and between clans, villages, and nations, are observed and reinforced through the distribution or sometimes destruction of wealth, dance performances, and other ceremonies. The status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who distributes the most resources. The hosts demonstrate their wealth and prominence through giving away goods.

My understanding of the Telco 2.0 initiative is that it describes a strategy that focuses on exposure and near-gift of the telco treasured resources to the Web applications domain, perhaps in an attempt to maintain relevance (or status in the collection of tribes). I'd contend that the Telco 2.0 Potlatch perspective is backwards.

I believe that the telecoms carriers should be focusing on interpersonal communications excellence: improving the impact of communications across distance. That should be the mission, the holy grail, the nirvana. Gifting assets in an attempt to achieve this goal might feel good, but I believe that taking rather than giving makes more sense. Telecoms carriers should be building applications that are focused on creating communications excellence (see the "C"'s), and they should be stealing (OK - using) capabilities exposed by the 100's of interpersonal web applicationsto do so. Don't give subscribers away to Facebook - use the Facebook APIs to incorporate the capabilities of Facebook to enhance a carrier communications experience (See Yellix). Steal from any social applications that can contribute value. Create communications value within the carrier, and use other company APIs to add value.

Take, don't give. Nobody expects the Telcos to be nice anyway.

Can we "C" the light ? (it's a trick)

By now you might be getting sick of my sophomoric sense of humor. If so - I apologize (and continue).

I'm going to add another couple of "C"s to the current "C" theme of Communications, Context, and Closeness: namely the "C"s of Cost and Convenience. Before you get too carried away in concerns over this blog being awash in a sea of Cs, perhaps I should point out that this discussion could be construed as adding only the Cost "C-word" to the lexicon, except for the fact that the English language makes a distinction between the two that might be useful. Both Cost and Convenience are faces on the same coin - "Cost" often refers to the impact on the provider of a capability, where "Convenience" exemplifies the lack of cost for the consumer of the service.

So about now you should be slipping gently into slumberville. Before you leave, please consider this...

A great deal of money in telecommunications is invested in reducing / optimizing just these two attributes of communications. The industry investment in VoIP is a classic example. Where SIP could have been used first and foremost to enrich the communications experience, it has been blindly used to reduce cost. Untold millions have been spent on technology replacement initiatives where the focus has been on providing like-for-like replacement of existing voice systems. If we want to look to why the industry is struggling, I'd suggest that the focus on Cost reduction, rather than the creation of new fundamental value is one of the driving factors.

Similarly, even where cost reduction is not the primary focus, a great deal of effort is centered on reducing barriers to use (for example Skype highlights directory numbers on web pages to make it easier to place calls, and thus encourage us to Skype them). This equates to increasing Convenience, and, although not bad in of itself, it blinds us to more powerful opportunities.

So what is the plea, dear reader? My encouragement to the telecoms industry is to move beyond the barren waters of Cost and Convenience, into the Cs of increasing value for an evolving world. Invest in Context and Closeness.

and the implication is...

Share context with those with whom you communicate, and thus chose how and when to communicate in order to do so, and... Choose to find and communicate with those with whom you share context, whether you "know them" or not.