mip's scan

The WiFi Effect

Let me tell a story to set the context for this post.
I remember when I had dial-up internet at home. I was basically the only person who was using the internet in my home.  My wife had an email account that she never really used.  I would show her things online like the newspapers available for reading but it never really flew.  Magazines available, same thing, a no-go.  Online grocery shopping, no thanks.  To be honest, even my use was somewhat limited.  I'd jump on and off the internet maybe a half dozen times in a day.  It was frustrating because I thought there was so much available and yet as a household, we were hardly using what was there.  When I asked my wife one day why she wasn't using it that much her response was telling - "It is too much of a hassle.  All this dialing, waiting for things to load, dropped connections."  Then an interesting thing happened back in 1997 (wow that is a looooong time ago now) - we got highspeed internet access.  Not just highspeed...but always on highspeed.  It radically changed the way we interacted and leveraged the web.  This has been the case for many families I'm sure.  However, for me, the integration of the web/internet as a part of daily life at home came when we went completely wireless using a WiFi router.  Moving to highspeed from dial-up freed us from the limitations of speed and the need to connect (which took time).  Moving from highspeed to wifi freed us from the limitation of where.  Without WiFi, we'd have to go to a certain place to get our internet, namely, wherever the computer was setup.  With WiFi, the Internet is where you need/want it to be in your home.  So what?  Yeah, you're right, this isn't revolutionary news is it?  Well, I read an interesting article late last night how they have found that people with WiFi do more online.

People who use wireless internet "show deeper engagement with cyberspace," according to an American study.

This doesn't come as a surprise to me, but it is nice to see it is a broad phenomenon and not just something that was taking place in my household.  And it takes me to the next step: really highspeed wireless.  That is what will make "the network"/the web/the internet really a ubiquitous part of our daily life in and out of the home.  I can already see some changes just having moved from 802.11g to 802.11n in my home.  The faster throughput allows me to stream video content from one machine (my iMac) to any other computer without and hiccups. 

So how about you?  Have you moved to WiFi and if not why?  If you have, how has it changed things for you?

Where Does Your Significant Other Fall?

So I'm here in a hospital lounge.  Brought my trust Macbook Pro to pass the time (how else can you pass 6 hours in a waiting room?)  and what luck....WiFi access. 

My wife sent me an email to cheer my mood.  It was titled....Too Bad I'm Not One of the 3 out of 4 eh? 

What the heck are you talking about mip?!?!?  Ok, ok....it was a link to this article that provides the results of a study that shows that 3 out of 4 woman prefer tech over traditional things women would desire.

An Oxygen Network survey released Tuesday found that more than three out of four women said they'd choose the TV over a diamond solitaire necklace. Women preferred a top-of-the-line cellphone to designer shoes by a similar margin. And a little white iPod narrowly trumped a little black dress.

Hmmm.....so I married the 1 out of 4 who wouldn't choose a diamond necklace or shoes but most definite a box of gourmet chocolates (and what woman wouldn't). 

All kidding aside though, this got me thinking of an important aspect of technology.  Men get sold on features.  Women don't.  Why?  I think it is because women just expect technology to work!  I know quite often I'll say to my wife, "Come over here and let me show you how my new Mac can do this....blah blah blah...." and she'll simply reply "Isn't it suppose to do that?"   This is an important thing that computer manufactures, software developers and electronics companies need to recognize if they are to gain marketshare amongst women:  bells and whistles but poor user experience won't cut it because women just expect things to work. 

The article says "Advertisers are best served communicating lifestyle benefits of tech products by showing what's useful about them, rather than focusing on specifications" but I think it goes beyond just a marketing pitch....the tech products truly have to be useful!  And the only way that products can be useful is if they are designed to be user friendly.  They need to provide a positive user experience and add value.  Otherwise, what's the point.  Apple is a company that gets this right.  My wife loves to use my Macs...why....because they work the way she expects them to work.  When on a PC...she doesn't want to hear "oh to get the network to work you need to type ipconfig /release then type ipconfig /renew....blah blah blah".  No!  She just wants to turn it on and it see the network and that's it....you're on.  The technology can't get in the way.  I think that as women become target users (like men have all these years) we'll see a continued reshaping of products...and that'll be a good thing for all of us.

Now if you have any ideas on how I can get my wife to move to the 3 out of 4 women category...I'd love to know.

Just How Big is Podcasting?

I recently gave a talk to a group of IT and non-IT executives in the evening and the topic was blogging and podcasting.  I thought I'd share a few stats I'd sourced on the web as I'd prepared for my talk.  Specifically I found the info at Bridge Ratings to be interesting, as they speculate that podcasting will reach a critical mass by 2010.  From the research we see:

The study estimates that 4.8 million persons have at some time during 2005 downloaded a podcast from either a radio station or other source. iTunes was referrenced as the most often accessed portal for podcast downloads. This 4.8 million estimate is up from 820,000 podcast users in 2004.

From the current sets of stats, they attribute Apple's iTunes as being an accelerator from the sense of really beginning to propel podcasting into the mainstream.  Looking at conservative and aggressive estimates for 2010:

By 2010 podcast audience growth is expected to reach a conservative 45 million users who will have ever listened to a podcast. Aggressive estimates place this number closer to 75 million by this date.

So for those people who think that podcasting is just a fad - harken back to the mid 90's when I heard the very same thing about that fad called "the internet". 

A Recap of Stuff

Wow its been such a hectic few weeks.  Shame on me for not having written.  With a flurry of client work and the launch of a new client web site (welcome aboard Casualty Care!)  I've not been able to write as much.  I've missed it and this sunny but crisp Sunday here in Sauble Beach I now have  a chance to recap some things I've been reading.  So in this post, I wanted to point out two stats that caught my attention:  one about digital music, the other about Firefox.

Interesting Stats

40 percent
Percentage of Barclays Bank's IT budget spent on regulatory compliance — primarily Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel 2.
Source: ComputerWeekly.com

$11 billion
Projected spending on Web services by 2008, according to a new report by IDC. Given corporate conservatism, however, some analysts say we should take this number with a grain of salt.
Source: internetnews.com

18.2 percent
Predicted compound annual growth rate for CRM applications in the Asia/Pacific region (excluding Japan). The prediction for the U.S. is in single digits.
Source: Tekrati

Interesting Stats

Here are a collection of interesting stats that I'm sharing. I have created a new category where I will post Interesting IT Stats that I come across in the various pieces of work I do with clients.

$733 million, 11 percent
First quarter security hardware and software revenue, and increase over the last quarter of 2003, according to Infonetics Research.
Source: Next-Gen Data Center Forum

$1 billion to $5.5 billion, 4 percent to 44 percent
VoIP spending and portion of business lines that use VoIP now and in 2008, excluding contact centers, according to the Radicati Group.
Source: destinationCRM.com

175 million units, 13.5 percent
Projected 2004 PC shipments and increase over 2003, according to IDC.
Source: smallbizpipeline