The Fuzzy Future of Wireless Internet
David Pogue has a crush. A big one. Yeah, he’s sitting in a tree with the Novatel MiFi 2200 k-i-s-s-i-n-g. It is a cool device that is basically a wireless router that connects with the Verizon 3G network and up to 5 people can connect to it at once. Indeed, a step forward in wireless internet.
But what does the future really hold for wireless internet? The MiFi is an interesting gadget, but it seems like a transition device, something cool, but that’s just a sign of better things to come, much like the laserdisc. After all, if the iPhone can connect to the internet, why do we need to have an external device to help us connect to that same wireless data network?
But this does present the long awaited opportunity for wireless internet everywhere. Instead of buying internet for your home, you’re just buying internet. For everywhere. Period. That seems to make far more sense, and in fact, makes you wonder why that hasn’t happened already.
But again, while this scenario seems likely, so many different routes to “internet everywhere” exist. We’ve heard about municipal WiFi projects, companies like Meraki creating public networks of networks and now the wireless carriers may possibly be stepping up their game. With the power and monopolistic tendencies of the big five wireless carriers, it seems likely that however they want to provide us internet will be the way it is, but it will be interesting to see how we are accessing and paying for wireless internet 5 or 10 years down the road.
Aggregation: As Good as the Sum of Its Parts
Aggregation. It’s a funny word. One definition of aggregation is “a collection into an unorganized whole.” Today, aggregators are omnipresent–from entertainment sites to food blog search engines and music sites, we seem to increasingly rely on others to serve up content for us in one convenient place. In a way, aggregators are a little like shoeboxes filled with notes, but ones with little sticky labels that you could easily sift through.
It took me a while to start using an RSS reader–it seemed to take out the fun of visiting individual sites. But these days, aggregation is the only way we can consume more information, with more immediacy, and with more personalization, in fewer places across the Web. While human instinct is to hunt and gather, the amount of data that exists out there today and the power of search algorithms beckon the question: Why should I do the work when someone else can do it for me (and spit out more relevant information much quicker than I would ever find it myself)? Increasingly, we want more quality content and we want it all in one place, where we can easily sift/click through what interests us most. Looking for television shows online? Browse through Hulu. Want to find a good recipe? Try Epicurious (which pulls from Bon Apetit and Gourmet Magazine, among others). Better yet, want to check out recipes tested by food bloggers? Real people like you and me? Take a look through FoodBlogSearch.com. Looking for some new music? Look no further than Elbo.ws and Hypem.com. Are you in the mood for top tech news all day/every day? Techmeme‘s the spot. Top Blogs on all sorts of topics? AllTop. Even the way we consume news these days is often an aggregate of a host of news services (ie Google News). More, aggregators of aggregators now make sifting through conversations (ie, TweekDeck for Twitter) a much more streamlined process.
The overarching theme? Customization. Personalization. Efficiency. Some aggregators are generated by smart algorithms and some (like the Huffington Post) are created manually, by human beings that spend their days sifting for information for you (imagine that!). Increasingly, we think less about where we find information and more about capturing that information and having it be filed and searchable. If MTV was your gateway to new music in the 80s, today, it’s hard to distinguish were you may have first read about a new band. It could have been on your RSS reader (filled with music blogs), via a Twitter search or on an aggregator Web site. Most days, I hardly take note of the ‘original source’–unless it’s for a breaking news story. I trust that most aggregators are serving up quality content, and my RSS reader is my own customized aggregator of my favorite sites. As promised by definition, an aggregator has no table of contents, and the information it serves up is really big laundry bag that I am able to sort through at my convenience, by keyword, date and relevancy to my topic search.
Some may argue that aggregation is the killer of independent Web sites and publications, but I would argue against that. Aggregation points me in the direction of great content, and given that the aggregator is a collection of sources, it’s only as good as the sum of its parts.