Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

image credit: wired

Editor's Note: For the entire month of September, the year of Google's 10 year anniversary, they will be marking the occasion by asking their experts, "What's going to happen in the next ten years?" Since their philosophy is that the best way to predict the future is to invent it, their vision of the future of the web comes very much from the flavor of the Google Kool-Aid.

So Organic felt that this would be a good opportunity for us to respond to Google's vision of the future as they tell it, with our vision of the future.

The Future of Mobile by Andy Rubin, Engineering Director

Reading through Google's views on the future of mobile, there are major elements of the emergent mobile world they have completely missed due to their focus on practical function and utility. Where are the opportunities for entertainment? And what about furthering our personal growth?

It's like they are stuck in the same mentality people had about "personal computers" when they became mainstream. Many looked at the practicality and the functionality, but had not focused enough energy on how this device would become part of our homes and part of our lives.

There are two huge points that Google missed:
1. How does the technology engage us?
2. How does the technology transform us?

The knee-jerk way to look at the mobile web and the growth of the smart phone is to think of it as a personal computer in your pocket. But I prefer to think of this intelligent device as always on, always there, and always running in the background. In the future, you won't have to choose to engage it, it will engage you based on the stuff you need to know.

Another big mistake that people make with the way they look at mobile objects and applications is that they tend to think of them as an extension of personal character. They think of blogging and other public reporting mechanisms, and they miss the possibilities of this more private device that is always with you, giving you feedback in real time.

If you look at what is happening in the automotive industry right now, they are building in technology that communicates consumer diagnostic data in real time. The data is analyzed and available so that the consumer will know when their vehicle is in need of repair or whether they could be getting better MPG. It's not unreasonable to think that someday our mobile devices would digitize our life diagnostics, our health, our brainwaves, and let us know when we might be in need of repair.

In the future, the mobile web won't just be an extension of character, it will transform your character.

Tomas Roldan