So yesterday at Mobile Jam Sessions there was a pretty provocative and passionate discussion about influencing the wireless operators to evolve. Gregory Gorman started an ineresting and passionate debate to refute the idea that carriers are just a bit pipe. At first, I was really puzzled as to why I would even care. Then, after explaining the interesting challenges and stellar opportunities that come with a Billion dollar dinosaur that handles virtually all your personal information, location, and frequency of behavior- like who do you call, text and even email and how often… with the potential to even data mine tex messages and so on. Well, after all that, I realized they actually are a platform after all! They just may not have the right talent or experience/focus to monetize these assets in positive ways that would give consumers another reason to switch carriers besides the typical free phon and cheap plan reasons. Now THAT is pretty compelling food for thought. Here is an idea I have come up with so far…
If an operator treated their “older brother” program as an opt in beta for customers for which, in return, customers got either free or subsidized billing to test out ways to use data to make consumers lives EASIER instead of an advertising aproach for monetization (like throwing it all to Google). I think that would be worthwhile. I’d love to be part of an ideation brainstorm in any operator labs that may be thinking the same thing.
The truth is in the mobile and even web world, convenience is in all the little use cases where people are hassled to get stuff done. I bet if you consciously logged each and every little hassle you have in an average day it would be staggering. Now back to this Billion dollar company that you already pay anyway. Wouldnt it be great if it got better at other things besides logging your minutes,texts, and kB transfer, tracking your billing info, and giving you quick access to 911 and information. What if there could be a two way conversation? I wonder what Mace would say to that!
Also, check out Cellspin on your mobile. It’s pretty close to the intent of a mobile flock browser. 
