Beating the stationary

Commerce is one of our favourite segments, as there are some highly suitable use cases for our technology. Not that the following articles/excerpts were especially crucial regarding the current state of the industry or anything, but those may shed a little light upon our case.

So, I managed to bump into a couple of earlier articles regarding “mobile commerce”. The first one was saying something like this:

Being able to buy and sell goods/services over mobile devices is an important step towards achieving an anywhere, anytime paradigm. Location and time will no longer constrain people from completing their transactions.

— in “Commerce, e-commerce, and m-commerce: what comes next?”, Communications of the ACM, Dec 2003, pp. 251-257. (Access required.)

Good stuff, but this was already four years ago—ancient history in Internet time. I’m still not yet seeing any major consumer adoption of mobile commerce services. Pardon me, but I very strongly believe that it is not feasible with current services yet. It’s extremely awkward to use eBay with a mobile browser—with the devices it’s at all possible. And you need to constantly refresh it!… Not going to happen with a mobile, was it iPhone or whatever. So, I’m not wondering why the ‘anywhere, anytime paradigm’ is still waiting to be realized.

But wait, that’s actually the head-ache we have the cure for. :) (I know, you knew it coming… ;) With iPhone—for example—it’s probably Meebo who’ll implement our channel. Infrastructure for your next servicing paradigm is being built at a very satisfying pace.

Another excerpt from the same 2003 issue, describing the previous:

The mobile Internet system differs from the stationary Internet system. First, the mobile Internet system usually offers a lower level of available system resources. Second, it provides instant connectivity, which makes it possible to use the mobile Internet at the moment of need, anywhere and anytime. Third, it is more personal than the stationary Internet.

— in “What’s so different about the mobile Internet?”, Communications of the ACM, Dec 2003, pp. 240-247. (Access required.)

In the article was also observed that consumers prefer buying low-risk products over mobile. This was due to limited search and information presentation capabilities, which aren’t going to catch the desktop configuration—unless the next iPhone is going to introduce a 20″ display, which I hope not. :) However, this isn’t the whole truth. For example, with auctions you’ve probably studied the targets in advance; you just control your bidding with the respective mobile application, or search for more instances of the same item. Ok, this was the case which sparked the whole Xernel into existence, so it’s pretty self-evident…

Tags: Mobile, Services, Instant Messaging