Telepocalypse

Read this now

As Stuart Henshall has been pondering the economics of attention, I thought I'd add in my own experience.

Way back in 1991 I had a summer student job at a small company called NextBase that produced mapping software called AutoRoute. I did sundry C programming, box packing and digital map editing. Soon after I left the founders sold out to Microsoft, getting considerably richer in the process. People paid big money -- hundreds of pounds -- for the full-featured versions.

Now you can pull scrollable, zoomable maps off the Web in moments and have directions from any A to any B returned in a flash. Client PC apps are relegated to niche applications for disconnected use, or with a GPS receiver. Instead, the value of the map is the attention of the user and a momentary opportunity to highlight a few relevant ways they might choose to spend some of their money in the vicinity.

Now, how hard is it to imagine a multi-modal device where you make "free" calls to businesses, but their upsell marketing message is displayed at the crucial moment? And any guesses whether it's the telcos or the Net giants who are likely to capture any such revenue?