Dropping the Ball in 2007

In a discussion with my son last night, way-too-late-youshouldstopaskingquestionsnow-late, he asked what "dropping the ball" meant (in relation to New Year's at Times Square). Of course, we also talked about winter in Antarctica and the governing system of Finland (constitutional republic, if you wanted to know).

Dropping the ball means more than that -- it means leaving things, goals, responsibilities behind that you didn't mean to abandon. So, equally in the spirit of the New Year, I share the great MEX manifesto for mobile user experience. Let's hope this is the year that there's at least some semblance of motion towards these goals -- my favorites are #2 and #9, and I offer my humble tweak to #8:

#2) Tearing down the walled garden will enhance the mobile content experience and release value for the industry. The objective should be a free market for content and applications, based on open standards and accessible to all. We think the current fragmentation of formats and channels to market is holding back growth.

#9) The mobile experience is limited to voice and text by in-efficient search and discovery mechanisms. We think any service should be accessible from the standby screen and it should be as simple as dialling a number.

#8) Mobile devices are the natural choice for interacting with communities. Sharing experiences through your mobile device should be as simple as making a voice call. Wegravitymonkey thinks the success of user-generated content, social networking and community interaction through mobile devices will depend on enhancing developing innovative, mobile-specific paradigms of communication rather than replicating the desktop experience.

Go read it all, and don't drop the ball in 2007 (unless you're this guy, in which case, drop it!).

photo by c0nd0r2 Posted by juechi at January 3, 2007 09:57 AM