Pressing Questions of the Information Age:14 Apr 2005
The gadget that ate everything: The move to cell phones as a computing platform
Mark Donovan
Senior Analyst, M:Metrics
Some think it's a fashion accessory; many consider it a necessity. It's been banned, it's helped solve crimes, and it's been classified as a 'terrorist weapon.' It's the mobile phone, a device owned by over one quarter of the world's population. As the capabilities of these devices expand at a rapid clip, so do questions about privacy, openness, and the social role of a technology that is both ubiquitous and connected to the Internet. Today's mobile handsets allow people to connect (via voice, text messaging, email, IM), consume (ringtones, news & information, music, video), and create (photos, video, blog, broadcast). And it's not just early adopters who are turning to their phone for more than phone calls: more than 58% of US mobile phone users use non-voice services and applications. In this talk, Mark Donovan (UW, PhD'98) will explore this technology and it social implications drawing on personal experience in North America, Europe, and Japan and proprietary data collected by his company, M:Metrics, which conducts the most extensive analysis of mobile content and application consumption in the United States. |
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