October » 2011 » mobilegroove

Hands down, the most anticipated presentation for all of us in the mobile and Internet space comes from Mary Meeker, a former analyst at Morgan Stanley and now a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Silicon Valley.

Over the years, Meeker has been quoted in a variety of sites and publications worldwide. And her most repeated forecast -- the prediction that more people will access the Internet on a mobile device than on a personal computer by 2015 -- is a key data point that continues to get play in industry presentations, conferences and research around the globe.

Indoor navigation -- and services that map and understand our mobility patterns - lay the ground work for a slew of exciting new location services that combine advertising, marketing, couponing and analytics to deliver people offers they truly can't refuse. What is the role of mobile operators? Where are the growth opportunities? These are just a few of the questions I explore with Phyllis Reuther, manager of the advanced analytics lab run by the major U.S. mobile operator Sprint.

Much like I remember where I was when I learned the tragic news that John Lennon had been shot (I was watching Monday Night Football and heard it from broadcaster Howard Cosell), I’ll now never forget where I was and what I was doing when I learned of Steve Jobs’ passing.

It's rather fitting that I was 36,000 feet in the air connected to an in-flight Wi-Fi system working on a MacBook Air at the time. Thus, I was able to benefit from the technology advancements made possible by visionaries (like Jobs) who have brought us all advantages that generations before us would never know.