Bryan wrote an interesting post today about his conversation with a cab driver in Boston. He notes it as Web 2.0 Quotes from a cab driver, but almost all quotes rave about iPhone (and Apple ofcourse):
Web 2.0 Quotes from a Boston Cab Driver
- I got a new 3G iPhone because I am in my cab all day and it is like a laptop for my cab.
- I use Classmates.com a lot to catch up with people from school and find old friends.
- I forgot my phone today and I am going crazy without it. Usually I am chatting on MSN with my friends all day.
Isn’t this unbelievable? The iPhone is probably going to be the computer that may be most widely used by all types of users all over the world and perhaps for more time then non-technical users ever users their laptops and desktops. If a cab driver who is busy driving all day is addicted to it, think about everyone else. This is going to have a profound effect on what becomes popular on the iPhone Web, which I would classify as web usage by iPhone users anytime, anywhere. Ultimately, if users spend more time on the iPhone Web, then companies will rush to re-purpose their offerings for ease of use on the iPhone platform. The winners, however, will be the ones who figure this out early…like now. This may explain Facebook’s new design (Facebook Readies iPhone-Inspired Redesign) and its rush to make Facebook work flawlessly and natively on the iPhone. iPhone developers and iphone development firms will definitely bubble up rapidly in this landscape and we are bound to see the iPhone emerge as the killer-connected-usable handheld that we have longed for.
“Every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet.”
This is Fred Wilson’s vision of social media and it indeed says a lot. It can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. I think this vision almost cannot go wrong at all if you consider the increasing amount of participation of end users on niche web/mobile destinations. Mike disagrees with this vision somewhat but I think he’s saying the same thing after all.
It funny how the unlikeliest of users can also share information online and participate when they have a need or see a clear incentive or value. If you look at the hundreds of pregnancy and baby related forums on even the not-so-well-done 1.0 sites, you will see how users participate willingly when they want information and give back to the same community later. Same is the case with immigration forums for example. And many of these users wouldn’t be the ones who like to share their “life” online via blogs and twitters at all. But they do share when they see the value. So Fred’s vision is not too far from reality I would say. Glassdoor.com is a perfect recent example of a platform where users share information to gain access to information they value - again the most un-social users would definitely share on Glassdoor to get information back.
Funny thing is - a lot of this now called “social media” has been happening in 1.0 looking forums for a long time now. The true value, I believe, will be in services that distill all the social media information into easily understood and consumable chunks on-demand. May be someone will come up with a name for them.
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