Ad infinitum

There was an old Twilight Zonesome show episode, which took place just before the invasion of Berlin, and Hitler realising his war was lost, about to get into a time-machine so he could go back and change the course of the war. However, he was interrupted by a disheveled, and slightly deranged man who was yelling and warning him not to do it. He had his SS guards shoot the man, and promptly gets into his time machine. Much flashing of lights later, and Hitler now finds himself back in time, as the disheveled and slightly deranged man trying to warn his past (or is it future) self not to do it. And the cycle repeats, ad nauseaum.

The cycle of technology applications and concept is similar to this, like a mobius strip (pictured here). Let’s take a simple analogy, my most favourite example to illustrate this. When computing first started, the architecture was all about big mainframes and simple, dumb terminals for data entry and output. This model went on for a bit, before the introduction of the personal computer pushed some computing to the edge, and thus client-server computing was born in the 1980s where the computing load was shared between the PC and the server.

The we had the web in the early to mid 1990s, with the browser just being a mere display container for the processed data and information from the backend webserver and database server. The model had cycled back to how things were in the days of the mainframe, albeit with much more prettier aesthetics. Soon however, browser and plugin developers brought us Java, JavaScript, Flash and HTML5. All technologies which return some measure of computational processing back to the browser, harking back to the days of client-server computing.

See the cycle repeating itself now, like the fictional Hitler in that Twilight Zone episode ?

Similar cycles exist in our communications technology as well. We’re slowly beginning to see the shift from circuit based services to pure IP based services, which give us the exact same functionality. Recently, I downloaded the WhatsApp Smartphone Messenger, available for iPhones, Blackberries and Symbian devices. It basically, and simply, allows SMS type message sending and receiving. However, instead of using the SMS service transport, it uses an IP connection through your EDGE/3G/WiFi link, thus allowing you to bypass the pay per SMS fees levied by the telcos.

No doubt, the efficacy of this application is only available to anyone who uses it. You would still need to send a regular SMS to someone who does not use the application. However, it signals a shift in how cellular companies should be looking at their mainstay cash cow services. Applications like WhatsApp threaten the revenue stream, pushing celcos into a utility role as mere pipe providers.

With the Skype application becoming more widely available on different smartphone platforms, soon even voice will be taken away from the cellular players, if they do not respond quickly and concisely.

In Whither the celco, I had put forward that the cellular companies are only saved by the incompetence of many of the ISP players. Perhaps now it would be better for them to drop any pretences of being a celco, and realign their considerable resources (and cash hoards !) towards becoming ISPs in their own right. To finally realise that the Netheads have won out over the Bellheads, and to transition into being Netheads themselves. The cycle on this is inevitable, and the faster they realise it, the more secure their future would be.

Increasingly, the internet mass market is moving out of North American and Europe, towards Asia and specifically South East Asia. Already, Malaysia’s Twitter proliferate users has put us in the top 10 globally, for a country with less than stellar internet penetration. It has been our love affair with the mobile phone which has been responsible for this, creating a giant kopi tiam for us to gossip, pass comment and to just basically do what we always do. Its this level of engagement which celcos (and business !) would need to tap into.

And its this kind of interactive engagement which will decide the make or break. Like the recent wildly viral and successful Old Spice campaign, subscribers of data and telecommunications services are no longer mere receivers of the service. They are stakeholders in the network itself, a vibrant and rapidly evolving tribe of dynamic nodes. The economies of scale of recursive retweets, forwards and information dissemination would mean that it would be a narrow-minded business which chooses not to pay some attention towards harnessing this.

And it heralds a cycle back to the 1950s, when technology was custom made and custom built for its users. When the rapidly evolving needs of the market become the driving force to rapid technological development and innovation. When it is the bazaar which decides the technology of the future, instead of the high priests within their cloistered cathedrals. The open source model, played out wide.

But this iteration is not a bad thing at all. Through it, each cycle it makes, we see greater progress and more efficient technology and models being put in, even if on the face it, it looks like old wine in a new bottle. It is however expected, and predictable, leading to a repetition of what sells and what does not.

Like a mobius strip, going along its surface will lead you back to the same spot. Where you started.