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24 février 2007

Jouons un peu avec les Microformats

Je commence tout doucement à me mettre aux microformats, et le moins que je puisse dire c'est que ça n'est pas simple...

Il faut dire que le concept de microformat n'est pas évident à comprendre pour le grand public : il s'agit d'informations incrustées dans le code html d'une page, pas forcément visibles à l'œil (petit jeu : j'ai caché un microformat sur ce blog, saurez-vous le retrouver ?), et dont la valeur ajoutée est loin d'être évidente.

Ensuite quand on souhaite jouer un peu avec les microformats, ça se corse : il faut tout d'abord arriver à comprendre comment les générer (une petite recherche Google s'impose), comment les incruster dans la page, et le plus difficile : comment les représenter (bon courage à ceux qui ne sont pas familiers du CSS).

Cerise sur le gâteau : si vous voulez détecter les microformats qui se cachent dans une page web, il faudra installer une extension à votre navigateur (Tails pour Firefox est très bien). Bref tout ça pour dire que cette techno a clairement du potentiel, mais on est encore bien loin d'une adoption par le grand public. Mon pronostic ? Encore 2 à 3 ans à attendre avant que monsieur et madame tout-le-monde (Odette ?) s'y mettent.

12:50 Publié dans Web | Lien permanent | Commentaires (6) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : microformats, hcard, tails

08 février 2007

Putting 2.7 billion in context: Mobile phone users

Grâce à Thomas Landspurg j'ai découvert hier un article absolument époustouflant écrit par Tomi Ahonen. L'article original est un peu long, alors comme je suis sympa je vous recopie ici les extraits qui me paraissent le plus percutant.

Quelques éléments de contexte pour commencer :

THE CAR AT 800 MILLION. Worldwide there are about 800 million registered automobiles. About a hundred years old, this innovation has literally altered landscapes, the way we work and live, and introduced countless huge support industries from the tyre manufacturers to petrol stations to the motel industry to service and repair garages etc.

(TRADITIONAL) TELEPHONE 1.3 BILLION. The first home phone connections were sold as serious alert services, such as fire alarms for the wealthy. The original concept of the phone never included an idea that people would use that device for idle chat. Today there are 1.3 billion fixed landline phones in the world.

TV 1.5 BILLION. Invented before the war, but introduced to the mass market in the 1950s, today there are about 1.5 billion TV sets in use in the world. TV changed our home. The TV transformed the mass media industries soon taking the lead of it, today dominating the media landscape.

CREDIT CARDS 1.4 BILLION. Credit cards came along in mostly in the 1970s. Today 1.4 billion people carry at least one card. A dramatic innovation in the use of money, there now are many forecasters in the financial world who suggest there will come a time when traditional cash will disappear totally. Credit cards changed human consumption.

PC 850 MILLION. The personal computer turned into a mass market device with Apple, about 1980. A lot of computers have been sold, but they also become obsolete very fast - the typical replacement cycle is now three and a half years. The majority of those are still desktop PCs, it was only last year that worldwide more laptops were sold than desktop PCs worldwide.

INTERNET 1.1 BILLION. While the Arpanet was developed by the US military for decades, the internet emerged into the mainstream in 1994. Very rapid growth resulted and today 1.1 billion people around the world access the internet. The internet "changed everything" according to the mantra.

You might be tempted to think those access via a personal computer, yet already in China, Japan and South Korea the majority of internet access is via mobile phone. During 2007 the first cross-over will happen, with more users accessing via phone than PC. Its no wonder Google's new CEO Eric Schmidt, says the future of the internet is mobile.

 

Et les téléphones mobiles ?

THE GOLIATH, MOBILE PHONES 2.7 BILLION

Now we have context. They sold 950 million phones last year and the total worldwide mobile subscriber base grew from 2.1 billion to 2.7 billion. Phones are replaced every 18 months (and this is still shrinking). America, USA and Canada are dead last in the industrialized world, yet even USA reached 75% penetration. The Western European average per capita penetration is already 110%, leading countries like Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Israel have penetration rates at about 140%. And the non-industrialized world? Catching up really fast. China adds 6 million phones every month, India adds 7 million phones every month. Bear in mind that the total phone population in countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark and Portugal - each countries with 120% or more penetration rates - is less than 6 million units total. China and India both add that amount every month.

 

En avant pour la Grande Canibalisation !

Computers? The phone is a small computer. Nokia has started to call its top-end N-Series smartphones as mobile computers, not mobile phones. In fact a typical high-end smartphone can match the performance of mid-range laptop computer only five years ago.

Internet. I already mentioned that already three countries have seen the tipping point, more people now access the web via mobile phone than via PC in China, Japan and South Korea - and obviously all internet content in those countries is formated for the small screen rather than the PC screen. This is an inevitable trend and the future of the web is definitely on mobile.

Consider the biggest application, messaging. On the internet there are about 1.5 billion e-mail boxes, maintained by about 800 million people. But two thirds of mobile phone users are active users of SMS text messaging. Thats 1.8 billion people texting. Last year over 42% of Americans were active in SMS already. Meanwhile a British survey found that SMS is preferred over voice calls. Not among the youth, among the whole population.

Credit cards? Many mobile operators offer full branded credit card functionality on their phones from South Korea to Norway. The biggest advantage that mobile banking and credit on phones have over credit cards, is that there is no age limit to having a phone. So a youngster may be allowed to sign up to a pay-monthly (postpay) phone account. This functions as short-term credit. Eat your burger today, pay for it next month when the phone bill comes in.

TV? Last year was the big launch of various TV broadcast services direct to mobile phones. Yes we've had streaming and video clip download TV services for mobile for five years, but the true cable TV digital set-top boxes, inbuilt into the mobile phone - as well as video quality recording - into the mobile phone were introduced. Again South Korea leads. Two years from launch almost 10% of South Korean phone users watch digital broadcast TV on their phones.

WHERE IS THE MONEY

The mobile telecoms industry earned 725 Billion dollars last year. 135 Billion of that was mobile data revenues (the majority of which is SMS text messaging but over 45 billion dollars was mobile content revenues). The mobile data industry is rapidly cannibalizing other industries - global music industry earns 16% of its revenues from mobile phones (mostly ringing tones); videogaming earns 14% of its global revenues from mobile.

Data service revenues in mobile, at 135 billion dollars in 2006, are as big as - the total internet content industry, plus the internet advertising revenues, plus the global videogaming revenues, plus hollywood box office revenues worldwide, plus the global music industry, combined.

 

Et demain ?

Remember the car? Before the car there was no Motel 6, no Exxon/Esso. Think of how much the fixed landline phone and TV changed the way we work and play, and how many new industries they spawned or changed. Think of the credit card, PC and the internet, how radically our world today changed.

Imagine the near future. It exists in South Korea of course. Visa in South Korea will ask its Korean customers do they want the optional free plastic card mailed to them as well; this in case the Korean credit card user expects to travel abroad where they might need the old-fashioned plastic card for credit. In South Korea almost 100% of credit card based point-of-purchase sites accept payment via mobile phone credit (and charge) cards. Thus the locals no longer carry the plastic. Oh, and your phone can replace your keys as well, in Japan they're already building apartment buildings where door locks are operated by mobile phone.

The phone is bigger in its reach than the car, TV or internet. It will make bigger changes in the next decade than any of these did. The phone adds the combined utility of the fixed telephone, internet, computer, credit card, and TV. The phone will impact your life in more ways than we can imagine, because of its multi-functionality aspect, and its reach. And because it will cannibalize some or all out of every other pretender on this list except the car.

00:09 Publié dans Visions du futur | Lien permanent | Commentaires (2) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : futur, mobile, tomi ahonen

05 février 2007

La fin des blogs : provocateur ou visionnaire ?

Ce petit film très réussi extrapole à partir des problèmes que l'on pressent déjà aujourd'hui : l'omniprésence de nos traces sur internet, combinée au fait que le web n'oublie rien, pourrait bien nous amener tout doucement vers la disparition des blogs.

À méditer :-)

20:15 Publié dans Visions du futur | Lien permanent | Commentaires (3) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : futur, traces, 2010, identité numérique