Breakout 2008 ahead. I was looking at a chart of broadband penetration worldwide and the US is dismal compared to a country the US went to war for: South Korea. And another country the Americans went to war with: Britain (yes, it was back in the 1770s but…).South Koreans live in information at their fingertips world. Blip, click, blam. They don’t know what a world without broadband is like.
Britains more and more are enjoying cheap broadband. Northern Europe is the hot spot for widespread broadband. Not just Internet but mobile phones also. Backbone over hype. Example: here’s what the Apple marketing evangelists won’t tell you — having struck a deal to provide the iPhone exclusively to the largest mobile phone carrier in the US, AT&T, the iPhone is stuck with AT&T’s slow network: reportedly between 75 Kbps and 135 Kbps. Try checking out a website with that bandwidth, it’s like trying to suck a milkshake truck through a straw.
New name for iPhone: iWait.
City-wide wi-fi projects in the US have run into some bureaucratic and business bumblings. Earthlink, which had ponied up to San Francisco to offer free wi-fi, is pulling the wire. EarthLink’s cutbacks are part of the problem. The main part, I believe, is that Earthlink is simply a billing system/reseller of OPB, other people’s bandwidth, whoever owns the network. Earthlink (NASDAQ:ELNK) cannot compete with the cable and telcos who bundle services like web access, wi-fi, voip, tv and dvr in a buffet. In my view it is undercapitalized to play at the new table.
But the innovation vacuum is not just US, Europe, Asia broadband rates compared. The vacuum includes the financial markets and lack of diversity among choices for investors. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is no longer a growth stock. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) has serious challenges, mainly trying to stay standing in the ring against Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).
However, the once lean and mean Google that once danced like a butterfly and stung like a bee now looks like George Foreman with a beer belly selling grills. At the whale size it is, it is increasingly hard for Google to post outsize growth results. Its tribble-like Ad Sense growth that propelled it to widespread adoption with publishers is all but tapped out. Ads By Google looks more and more like spam every day. It no longer is innovative. In 2001, yes. In 2007? not by a long shot.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Moore’s Law no longer drive tech either. INTC used to be the bellwether with Microsoft, the Wintel alliance that set the tone for technology. No more.
The solution to the innovation vacuum? People are the new software. They are the new algorithm. PageRank is dead. Sponsored results are dead. Clutter-free is in. Clean is back. Unfettered access. Ad-free information, like a park bench without graffiti, a restroom without gang scribbles.
Seeds of change are planted today and I think 2008 will pave new ground for new ideas, better ways and means. New names and players emerging.
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By the way, I wanted to share with you an inspiring story. Car phone salesman Paul Potts entered Britain’s Got Talent (similar to the US show America’s Got Talent). Looking at Paul you’d never guess he would go on to win the contest. There may not be a Santa Claus, Virginia, but underdogs do win. See Paul’s performance that got it all going…
see the reviews and ratings for Paul here, a must-see:
click on reviewers Koolio and Kimberly’s videos they added of Paul singing. See their Video, Music or Image Attached links.