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The Search Race
Mobile
Mobile internet/web services also seem to be fairly important.
While some of the services offered by Google, MSN and Yahoo! are
only available or sponsored in the US, enough people worldwide
use cell phones to make these tools useful, and possibly
practical. Simple mobile tools include web search, email and
instant messaging, which is different from text messaging. You
can also receive alerts from Yahoo! and MSN when your favourite
web content is updated, search satellite maps of your area with
Google Local, or play Yahoo! games. Normal Internet-over-phone
charges apply, but these are an attractive set of tools that
many of today's technology users are comfortable with.
To find out more about mobile services:
mobile.google.com,
mobile.yahoo.com,
mobile.msn.com
What does it all mean?
So what does this race to be the "best" at offering connectivity
tools mean? Based on our Internet experience, we see it as the
beginning of an emergence of Internet-based technologies: voice,
data, video, audio, telephony, television and more. If
conditions are right, the Internet will become the super-medium
on which all other media travels. By utilizing the Internet as a
streaming medium, companies of all kinds can add vast amounts of
functionality to media by combining them with logic and data,
the backbone of technology. We see this happening already with
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and videos and TV on iPods and cell phones. |
The question to ask, though not necessarily
to be answered, is who will become king of Internet
technologies? While Yahoo! seems to offer the most options for
Internet based technologies, Google became a major influence by
being innovative. Of course, Google is a very good example of
how easily a new company can break into Internet technologies –
another unheard-of company could come along, and with the right
set of tools, take the current web players by storm. It's still
an open game, and might possibly stay this way.
This battle over who will take the lead in
Internet media is also somewhat a battle for who will "control"
the desktop. A clear leader in Internet media has the
possibility of quickly outpacing their competitors and becoming
the influence Internet users listen to. Should a company become
powerful enough, they would garner massive revenues, and could
change the software, programs and utilities many Internet users use. |
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