{"id":3111,"date":"2001-06-25T17:48:19","date_gmt":"2001-06-25T22:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smperformance.wordpress.com\/?p=3111"},"modified":"2001-06-25T17:48:19","modified_gmt":"2001-06-25T22:48:19","slug":"stratvantage-consulting-llc-mikes-take-on-the-news-062501","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stratvantage.com\/index.php\/2001\/06\/25\/stratvantage-consulting-llc-mikes-take-on-the-news-062501\/","title":{"rendered":"StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 06\/25\/01"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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From Evernote:<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 06\/25\/01<\/h1>\n

Clipped from: http:\/\/www.stratvantage.com\/news\/062501.htm<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

T<\/strong>he News \u2013 06\/25\/01<\/h1>\n

Here\u2019s To Looking Up Your Old Address<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying that wireless is one of the hottest emerging technologies.<\/strong> Scarcely a day goes by without some breathless prediction of the growth of wireless devices.<\/strong> Some samples, which I used in my presentation <\/a> at the CAMP Designing a Handheld Strategy for Your Enterprise<\/em> conference in Chicago last week:<\/p>\n

\u00b7 480 million mobile phone users today will become 1 billion by 2003<\/p>\n

\u00b7 US mobile phone users will spend more time on the wireless Internet (75 hours per year) than making wireless phone calls (30.<\/strong>2 hours) by 2010<\/p>\n

\u00b7 34.<\/strong>4 million mobile Web users in Asia, an increase of 29 percent in 3 months<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Triple digit sales growth of wireless devices until 2004 \u2013 will soon replace PCs as most popular Net access method<\/p>\n

Sounds great, I guess, but in this brave new world of wireless interactivity, how are we going to find each other?<\/strong> This problem is twofold, comprising a human element \u2013 remembering everyone\u2019s contact info \u2013 and a technical element \u2013 the Internet will be out of addresses, probably within the next year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider the human problem first.<\/strong> Remember how business cards used to look back in the day?<\/strong> Name, title, address, and phone number. Seen a business card recently?<\/strong> Name, title, address \u2013 some things don\u2019t change \u2013 but also main office number, direct dial, pager, cell phone, FAX, email address and Web page address.<\/strong> We\u2019re so connected we could scream! And, if you\u2019re like me, it doesn\u2019t end there: How many email addresses do you have?<\/strong> I have at least five, but I\u2019m probably forgetting a few.<\/strong> How about phone numbers at home? I have seven.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unified messaging <\/a> promises to consolidate some of this clutter, but it\u2019s not making tremendous inroads.<\/strong> The idea is to consolidate voice and data messages in a single mailbox and access methodology.<\/strong> Thus you could have a single phone number (voice and FAX) and a single email address, and they\u2019d reach you wherever you are.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you really needed multiple email addresses (one for work, one for home), you could always have them consolidated programmatically for delivery to a single device.<\/strong> Oh, wait. No, you can\u2019t, because Research In Motion <\/a> just received a patent on the technique of combining multiple email boxes for delivery to a single device.<\/strong> Their patent covers figuring out that emails have arrived from multiple addresses and rewriting the addressing and reply-to fields so you can reply from your device, which might be, for example, RIM\u2019s Blackberry pager.<\/strong> RIM is currently suing <\/a> Glenayre Electronics for infringing this less-than-a-month-old patent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now I don\u2019t want to get off on a rant here, and I don\u2019t have intimate knowledge of the patent, but from what I read at the US Patent Office <\/a>, it hardly seems like a remarkable bit of programming.<\/strong> But I guess if Amazon can patent one click purchasing (involving the stunning technological breakthrough of saving your payment information for reuse), any obvious lame-brained hack can be patented.<\/strong> Not that that\u2019s a bad thing.<\/p>\n

Regardless, we\u2019re going to need some way to contact folks that is independent of the access method.<\/strong> It would be nice to have a worldwide white pages of email addresses, but unscrupulous spammers make this an unworkable idea.<\/strong> And on services such as InfoUSA <\/a>, WhoWhere <\/a>, Yahoo People Search <\/a>, and BigFoot <\/a>, I couldn\u2019t even find my own current email address (BigFoot had a bunch of my old ones).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Services such as iname.com and others attempt to market themselves as permanent email addresses, but you\u2019re really at their mercy if they ever go out of business.<\/strong> There has even been a suggestion to base one\u2019s email address on one\u2019s Social Security number (please, no!<\/strong>) or other government identifier. I don\u2019t think schemes like this will fly.<\/strong> It\u2019s much more likely that people will be assigned a permanent phone number, perhaps with extensions to designate business from personal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Any way you look at it, this is a burgeoning problem.<\/strong> Once your house or your refrigerator have an email address, it will be orders of magnitude worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, about those dwindling Internet addresses.<\/strong> We\u2019ll address this problem in tomorrow\u2019s SNS, but it looks like the solution, IPv6, is slow a-coming, and will cause a lot of pain before it\u2019s in place.<\/strong> See you tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Information Week <\/a><\/p>\n

Briefly Noted<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n