Recently there were rumors of Facebook developing a phone (article in the WSJ). The company said this was not true but left the door open. It seems that the next war is going to be about who controls the consumer's contact list and major players in the industry want that list.
With this in mind, I was thinking about what is a phone anyways? A phone is no longer a phone the way we though about it when feature phones were dominant. A phone (meaning a way to communicate via voice) is officially a software layer within a device or even cross devices. The "phone" traditional capability is a commodity.
What do you think a phone is?
This summer my iPad was my phone as I used it to talk to Angela in China via Skype.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, my mobile phone (in the traditional sense) is hardly ever sending or receiving calls. Far more often it is functioning in data transfer.
I completely agree. Our phones in 2010 are basically our computers. They access the internet, create documents and also store private information and data. Like Anne, I find myself making less and less actual "calls" while engaging in more email/text communications.
ReplyDeleteTono, I didn't see this post and just posted a similar posting on the blog. I came across this article on cnn.com that once again stirs up rumors on the Facebook phone. I think it's doomed for failure, similar to the Microsoft Kin and that Facebook should save itself the time and money of pursuing this venture.
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