A Snap Shot in the Dark
The main networks in Ireland are launching their new MultiMedia Services (MMS). At the moment, these consist of the ability to buy a new mobile phone with built in digital camera for about EUR500 to EUR700 euro and send photo messages. Karlin Lillington thinks that to see one of these is to want one.
I think that the camera-phones are overpriced and gimmicky and the messages cost too much to send. And while every college student in the country might want to own one, the price tag will mean it will be in the same way they want to own James Bond's missile-loaded car.
I also think that the m-telcos have presumed their customers are novelty obsessed loons, who will go for anything shiny and new enough. In truth, the failure of WAP shows that people quickly tire of something they can't find useful. And they're even less likely to be taken in by hype the next time.
Think about it this way. SMS wouldn't have taken off if it weren't so expensive to call people. In a fantasy world where mobile voice calls were free, nobody would ever have bothered tapping out their little text messages.
Now the SMS world has developed to the point where it occupies a separate function to voice calls to a large extent. But it wouldn't have developed that if people hadn't started to use it in the first place.
I'm sure that you could come up with plenty of niches where camera phones might be useful, but it doesn't get past the fact that the MMS cost is too high and doesn't improve or replace something which people are already familiar with. Its this need to improve or replace something already existing which need needed to introduce a new technology to a mass market.
There are inventions which can extend beyond those limits and add new things for people to do. SMS has developed into that. But for take-up of MMS to be successful, and to be widespread, people first would have to intuitively and instantly understand how it could make something they already do easier for them. I don't see it having that hook.
Take Wi-Fi as another example. We can now imagine oodles of possible future uses for Wi-Fi networks and so on. But what made that possible was its widespread take-up. And what drove that was the fact that it replaced the mess of cables and connections you needed for even the most basic network at home.
That replacement function was the vital kick-start for the technology. Something similar will have to appear for the m-telcos to recoup even the cost of their advertising for MMS, let alone the cost of the upgrades to their networks.
But I can'' think of what that might be.
Can you?
8:00:13 PM 
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