2.1 The onward march of third information revolution in the first  (Page 2/14)

Fifth Milestone : RIM Blackberry 6210 in 2003 – Research in Motion had two-way text paging. It had QWERTY keyboard, emailing facility, basic web browser and it was fully integrated phone(earlier version required a headset.

Sixth Milestone : PALM TREO 600 in 2003 – It had Palm OS and supported third party applications. It had integrated functions like it could maintain and use a contact list. It could check the calendar while using the phone.

Seventh Milestone : Apple iPhone in 2007 – It had multitouch, capacitive touch screen which allowed interactive use of the phone. It had Safari browser which made mobile Web browsing very convenient. Apple was able to get many concessions from Mobile Ecosystem which made it possible for Apple i3G to upgrade the data connection and it was able to launch the wildly successful application store.

(Mobile Ecosystem is a leading consulting and advisory firm focused on next generation mobile communications products and services. The firm is led by Mark Lowenstein, who is widely recognized as a preeminent industry executive and thought leader. Lowenstein most recently served as VP, Market Strategy at Verizon Wireless.  During his fifteen-year consulting career, Lowenstein was Executive VP at the Yankee Group prior to founding Mobile Ecosystem.)

Eighth Milestone : HTC EVO 4G in 2010 – It used Google OS Android. It had 8-Megapixel camera that could shoot high definition (HD) video and generate HDMI output. A HDMI high speed cable can be used for connecting the phone to HDTV and replay the video image on HDTV. It had 4.3-inch touch screen. It can act as mobile hot-spot connected to Sprint’s WiMax network, the fastest data network in USA at the time.

Technology 2_SOCIAL NETWORKING

With a few click of the mouse contacts can be made and meet like minded people. This is social networking. It started with SIXDEGREES in 1997 and today it has evolved to FACEBOOK.

In 1997, 28 year old New York businessman Andrew Weinreich launched SIXDEGREES at a party. Its users identified their friends, their friends’ friends and so forth. By 1999 it had 3.5 million members but this network had no provision for exchange of photographs.

At this time point-and-shoot camera were ubiquitous and broad band was cheap and available. In March 2003, FRIENDSTER was launched. A user could set up a profile, with personal facts and a picture, and invite friends to join. Friendster server would generate list of his friends as well as friends’ friends, mapping relationships out to four degrees of separation. But it was taking customers faster than it could manage. As a result people started moving to MySpace.

MySpace had a meteoric success. It had 72 million members in 70 countries by 2007. The reign of MySpace was short lived. In 2008, it had 67% of American Social Networking market. By September 2009 it came down to 30%. It could not develop tools that would help users organize the vast amount of shared information. This made the site too congested and people left for something simpler.