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Two Views on: Why WAP is a $0 Billion Industry
Geoff Goodfellow
Wireless Wednesday - Praha
Introduction: Geoff Goodfellow
High school & American drop out Involved in the ARPANET & Internet
development at SRI (1974-1986) Founded RadioMail: First Wireless Internet
Service Provider in 1988 Today: DJ & Aspiring Restaurant Critic, as
well as Private Investor , Portfolio Manager & Entrepreneur
WAP View 1: It’s a Guy Thing
Guy’s love to buy new technology Toy’s Guy’s make more money than women Guy’s have bigger ego’s than women Guy’s like to show off their latest Guy
Toy’s to other Guy’s
WAP View 1: a Guy’s Observation
Surfing the “wired web” is not a pleasant experience, now try this wirelessly?
WAP phones are bought on The Buzz factor WAP euphoria (excitement) seems last
about 2 weeks Some don’t even activate the WAP features
WAP View 2: The not real issues for WAPs failures
HDML vs HTML 40 second circuit connect times vs GRPS Walled gardens vs the open Internet Screen sizes Keyboards
WAP View 2: Latency Issues
VOICE: Extremely latency sensitive WAP: Very high latency sensitive SMS: Low latency sensitive
WAP View 2: Phones are devices for talking & listening
Phones interface really well with “ears” and “mouth”
Phones interface poorly with “eyes” and “fingers”
WAP View 2: Where & How
Listening & Speaking can be done almost anywhere successfully: walking, driving, jumping out of an airplane, making love
Reading & Typing requires User Dexterity and requires a different type of attention (you can’t be doing much of anything else)
CONCLUSION:
WAP is a wonderful “by product” of the “foo-foo” and “la-la” nature of Silicon Valley where there is a great proclivity to create new “gee whiz” technology in search of questionable (non-existent?) markets
The Mobile phone vendors got “sucked in” to the “gee whiz” and Internet Buzz factor
So did the Network Providers!
