One of our recurring themes is the importance of mobile as the dominant form of net access in the future, and Russell’s lately addressed this point both in regards to Microsoft’s off-base mobile strategy, as well as how mobiles will become people’s primary means of net access in developing markets more quickly than in mature ones.
But why will this happen? Well, apparently, one key driver in the US will be that we love to use the Internet in the bathroom, according to a new survey on Internet use here, with more than half the people that had used Wi-Fi saying they’d used it in the bathroom.
I’m going to resist the temptation to take this in one direction (I’ll leave that to you all to do on your own), and actually make a reasonable point here: I wonder how many people have messed with their phone, looked at old messages (or sent new ones), or played a mobile game in there. So, if people get bored enough in the toilet to want to take in a Wi-Fi equipped laptop, I smell an opportunity for mobile content.
I’m not necessarily advocating bathroom-focused news or something, but think of the bathroom experience as a microcosm of the many other empty moments in the average day where people are looking for something to kill some time. “Is this something somebody could do in the bathroom?” might not be a bad question to ask about your new service or application.
First, in my opinion people take their Wi-Fi to the bathroom as a substitute for books or magazines - remember those paper-thingies?.
Second, operators shouldn’t trouble themselves with supplying any content, new services or new applications for those private moments of “bathroom experience”. I’m sure that anyone who has entered into any public toilets lately could hear many different ringtones and a lot of calls made in that “microcosm of the many other empty moments”…