Generation Mobile: Tap Tap Tap

Forget Generation Y, Z or X. It’s Generation M. Mobile.

Companies that made their mark in technology for the Web and PC industries are out of date and out of style.

Look at any kid between 8 to 18 using a mobile device (I won’t call it a phone since that’s like calling a car a horseless carriage). Bart Simpson may be the perfect example, despite the fact that Bart is technically over 25 years old he hasn’t aged a bit on TV.

Through research and observation I’ve seen the number one use for kids ands mobile is games. Numero dos? texting. A recent study said teen girls text about 50 to 100 times per day. And what’s coming my faithful readers:  shopping. It’s here.

If you ask many who grew up with rotary phones or fax machines as the machina du jour they often scratch their head at why anyone would want to use a 3 x 5 inch screen to watch a movie, video, photo, game, or shop.

This is where habit and laziness show up. It’s not a generational thing as much as it’s a habit thing.

And the habit of the 8 to 18 year old is mobile. 100%.

The only time they sit down is to play a console like XBOX 360 or PS3, maybe a few TV shows on the LCD TV.

In 1994 when I did some of the first forecasts for the Web when there was no “Web industry”, no online ads, no Web video, no Web audio, no “ecommerce”, not much except for some research sites, FTP and Gopher, many scratched their heads and said the Web was the new CB Radio.

A few Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook and Googles later the Web did indeed turn into an “industry”. It’s still turning.

But mobile is now in its early years. Apple has the first lead in understanding the need for mobile data of all types. Google is trying to catch up with Android. The mobile carriers are wondering whether to play the software, commerce or hardware side or all three.

Everything is boiling down to a 3 x 5 screen with finger controls.

And in that 3 x 5 space is going to pass 95% of the world’s commerce at some point. As most commerce is “offline” (by which I mean “away from the PC”) the rest of commerce will be done “in person”. The see, touch, buy, take it home kind.

But that commerce will be enhanced by mobile services. One reason I founded Taleee is to bring the world’s opinion to the purchase to help buyers save money and time.

There will be many mobile services that will augment our everyday lives for shopping, health, education, government and more.

There are 4 billion mobile devices in the world today. That means over half of the world’s population uses one. And it’s only going to increase.

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Get the Taleee app free, click here and download from Apple’s App Store

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At age 9 I had my first paper route and was introduced to the “news” business. News was printed on paper, once per day. Bundles of newspapers were dropped “hot off the press” at the local district manager’s house where a bunch of kids, their Schwinn Sting Rays, and canvas carrier bags gathered to fold, rubber band and pack.

Neighborhoods waited for us bicycling entrepreneurs to zoom in and toss with precision the world to their porch. I could hit a porch from 50 yards with an accuracy that John Elway may admire.

My route had about 75 homes, up and down hills, curves, houses large and small. The newspaper was the Riverside Press-Enterprise and was fairly hefty. The first Sunday morning I soon discovered that when, after having folded all the inserts and comics into the paper, that each weighed more than double the normal paper during the week.

Having put my carrier bag on the rack at the rear of the bike it immediately made my front wheel pop up off the ground — too much weight at the back, probably 60 pounds worth of newspapers. And Sunday was the only day I delivered in the morning, up before sunrise and pedaling around in the dark. How many kids would do that these days? Or parents would let them?

One of the highlights of delivering the Sunday paper was finishing the route and it still being early in the morning, about 7am. The reward was a ride over to the local Winchell’s donut shop where fresh baked donuts baked their sugary scent into the air. There’s nothing like the smell of fresh-baked donuts.

Recalling my intro to the news biz got me thinking about how news has and hasn’t changed. Here’s a quick comparison:

Old way: editors sit around a table with reporters and assign stories
New way: editors IM or text reporters and assign stories and may not even know them face to face at all

Old way: kids fold and deliver papers to homes via bicycle
new way: News is just delivered online.

Old way: tree pulp is mashed, bleached, pressed, dried, cut, delivered in 1-ton rolls to newspapers to load into their massive printing presses
New way: html

Old way: news was always a day old since by the time it was selected, assigned, written, edited, printed and delivered it just took time
New way: instant news as it happens play by play

Old way: place-based news: New York, Los Angeles, London, etc.
New way: global

Old way: one source per town
New way: the world is your town

Old way: all the news that fits
New way: no fitting required

One of the biggest things the old way gave kids like me was an entrepreneurial start. You had to go out, work, do, meet customers, collect payments. Do the math.

And for that I am forever thankful we had a world where I got a start as an entrepreneur at age 9.