(((Jan Chipchase explains why cellphones are shattering paradigms.)))
http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/small-objects-travel-further-faster
Link: Vodafone | receiver » Blog Archive » Small objects travel further, faster.
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But have you ever stopped to wonder why? Why, regardless of culture, age, gender and increasingly context you're likely to find a mobile phone in the hand, pocket or bag of the person next to you?
Put simply – the ability to communicate over distances in a personal convenient manner is universally understood and appreciated, and it's easy enough to get the basics without going to night school or taking a PhD. It certainly helps that, as a functional tool that can be used discreetly or with a flourish, the mobile phone makes an ideal vehicle for projecting one's status and personal preferences – from the choice of brand, model, ring tone or wallpaper, or simply that (because you're connected) you've arrived.
Today over 3 billion of the world's 6.6 billion people have cellular connectivity and it is expected that another billion will be connected by 2010. (((Those are awe-inspiring statistics. They soar past the awesome and straight into the uncanny.))) But what is often overlooked is the disproportionate impact of mobile phones on different societies, which is one of the reasons why, as researchers, we increasingly prefer to spend time in places like Cairo and Kampala: there is simply more to learn.
These are places where for many, it's the first time they have the ability to communicate personally and conveniently over distances – without having to worry whether someone can overhear the topic of their conversation – communicate with whom they want, when they want. It makes new businesses viable and creates markets where there was none.
For many it's the first time they can provide a stable fixed point of reference to the outside world – a phone number, which in turn creates a new form of identity that in turn enables everything from rudimentary banking to commerce.
And not least – each new feature on or accessible through the mobile phone brings new modes of use – unencumbered by my, and probably your entrenched (and increasingly outdated) notions of entertainment, the 'right' way to capture and share experiences, the internet. If you work or study in the mobile space and you're expected to innovate, these are places that bring fresh thinking and new perspectives.
Much of our research started out as an attempt to understand the similarities and differences to what we already knew in order to create products and services that are more in tune with local markets. But increasingly we've had our eyes opened to the sheer ingenuity of people who figure out ways of doing a lot with very little – highly relevant for a planet having to make stark choices about sparse resources...
