Losing Our Religion...
With the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony conference currently taking place in San Francisco, I thought it was about time to present my view of the Future of Telephony.
It seems to me that there are a number of important factors that are influencing the development of Telephony, but first thing to do is to define what I mean by Telephony. It is not merely having a voice conversation. We have to go back to the days before the Internet to determine the true scope of the term.
Telephony encompasses all conversations and conversations define relationships. Telephony will become the definintion of our relationships with others. A relationship mashup!
Let's explore the possibilities here a little.
How do we define ourselves in our day-to-day lives? We move through a number of different states as a day progresses and as situations arise.
Presence is bigger; It's bigger than you, And you are not me. Presence is defining what we want to say, and to whom we want to say it. It is extremely personal and it ensures that our conversations are valuable because it defines (or is defined by) our relationships.
The idea of valuable conversation is like a marketing holy grail. If we can ensure that our conversations are valuable then we save time...and companies save money.
To a large extent we already have a lot of Presence out there on the Internet, but we are rarely in control of it. Cookies, access logs, subscriptions, blogs, email etc. Thankfully no-one is in a position to correlate it all together and come up with the big picture...so far!
So where does this leave Telephony, as we know it now? It's not going to be about minutes or bytes or bundles. It's like the old adage about quality, for the mass market the only quality level that matters is 'good enough'. In the case of Telephony, the only number of minutes or bytes that anyone cares about is 'enough to enable me to maintain my relationships'.
Telephony is a dying religion, Relationships and Conversation, made flesh through Presence, are the new Gods.
Or perhaps that was just a dream; Oh no, I've said too much!
It seems to me that there are a number of important factors that are influencing the development of Telephony, but first thing to do is to define what I mean by Telephony. It is not merely having a voice conversation. We have to go back to the days before the Internet to determine the true scope of the term.
Telephony encompasses all conversations and conversations define relationships. Telephony will become the definintion of our relationships with others. A relationship mashup!
Let's explore the possibilities here a little.
How do we define ourselves in our day-to-day lives? We move through a number of different states as a day progresses and as situations arise.
- Early Morning - Family, and possibly friend, conversations. Intimate details of our state are passed to people we trust.
- Morning - Colleagues at work get to know our state as far as it relates to work, we share the relevant information and mask the rest.
- Lunch - Friends and close colleagues might get different information from that presented in the office. Your team may be allowed to know where you are, but your boss??
- Afternoon - Conversations with suppliers, but you don't want them to know what your colleagues know, even if they're your friends.
- Evening - Family and Friends are welcome, only I want to prioritise close friends over acquaintances, and do I really want my Mum to know what film I'm watching?
- Midnight - If I like you and you've got a bloody good reason, then I might respond to your messages.
Presence is bigger; It's bigger than you, And you are not me. Presence is defining what we want to say, and to whom we want to say it. It is extremely personal and it ensures that our conversations are valuable because it defines (or is defined by) our relationships.
The idea of valuable conversation is like a marketing holy grail. If we can ensure that our conversations are valuable then we save time...and companies save money.
To a large extent we already have a lot of Presence out there on the Internet, but we are rarely in control of it. Cookies, access logs, subscriptions, blogs, email etc. Thankfully no-one is in a position to correlate it all together and come up with the big picture...so far!
So where does this leave Telephony, as we know it now? It's not going to be about minutes or bytes or bundles. It's like the old adage about quality, for the mass market the only quality level that matters is 'good enough'. In the case of Telephony, the only number of minutes or bytes that anyone cares about is 'enough to enable me to maintain my relationships'.
Telephony is a dying religion, Relationships and Conversation, made flesh through Presence, are the new Gods.
Or perhaps that was just a dream; Oh no, I've said too much!
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