12 Days of ‘Staircase Wit’ for 2013 (Day 5)
Treppenwitz or perhaps more correctly ‘l’esprit de l’escalier’ is the expression for when you think of the perfect thing to say, but long after the moment you should have said it. In this series of blogs I given myself a second chance to comment or correct topics I’ve covered this year.
May
In May, I outlined the difference mobile has made to how we travel, and what we bring along. On reflection, I realized I forgot to mention a few more things I used to schlep: a Gameboy and, rather more importantly, I carried an OHP LCD panel, which whilst huge (and a tangle of cables) meant I didn’t have to carrier the binder of acetate slides for the standard overhead projectors. It also would cause huge confusion with airport security, as travellers with laptops, etc. were still a rarity. Trying to explain what one of these devices did was never easy, and on occasion would draw small crowds of puzzled officials I needed to convince to let me bring the panel on the flight.
In June, Google bought Waze, which I still rely heavily on for navigation. Early improvements include support for boosting search with things like Google’s autocomplete. I hope it’ll continue to run. I’d be lost without it (pun intended).
First Online Home Shopping: 1984!
My post on the first (UK) online shopper drew a number of comments from a French colleague regarding the runaway success of Minitel in France, something that, whilst not mobile, I may cover in a future post. With a start in 1978, Minitel certainly was more of a first than the UK example I gave. Can anyone beat that date?
Mobile Commerce Getting Bigger All the Time
Our 3rd Mobile Commerce guide launched this last May, and going by the download figures, many agreed that mobile commerce was, indeed, getting bigger all the time. The guide was a view of mobile commerce from the industry’s perspective. If you’d like to get a consumer angle, then I’d be very happy to direct you to our Mobile Consumer Survey.