Early adopters – that's not us

Some ten to fifteen years ago when tech- and ebusiness-journalism evolved also in Austria we were frantically writing about new eras, great technologies and killer applications.
Well, the beginning was more moderated; the main topics were curiosity, content and communication.
As business pressure started to rise and advertising customers wanted to sell something (I still believe that they did not know what they wanted to sell, but they tried anyway), we also had to sell something in our stories.
In 1997 Bertelsmann started a digital tv project – we hyped interactive tv, ecommerce merged with soap operas and a revolution on the living room sofas. Nothing happened; just some boring technical tests. In 1999, the 3G-umts-licenses were auctioned in Europe. Telco companies paid tremendous money, we wrote stories on location based services, mobile tv, mobile commerce, mobile dating services and video conferencing. Nothing at all happened. In 2000, Telekom Austria and ORF closed a deal that did not mean anything – just some vague cooperation. And againg, nothing at all happened.
We were doing some more stories, were heavy users of some pilot applications (I especially enjoyed the mobile public toilet finder for London and Paris) and then got bored and went to something new.

Yesterday my wife who does not care at all about technology, told me that she will buy a new n-Generation 3G mobile phone, because she wants to use the gps navigation tool, use the phone as a mobile video camera and because she wants to use the mobile shopping guide features: “It doesnt matter in which city I am, it can always tell me the address of the next drugstore and show me a way with some satellite-pictures.”

I had not spent a thought on these services for years. I'm a heavy user of mobile email, sometimes I'm quickly browsing the mobile web for exchange rates, travel schedules or footballl results, but I don't spend any money in the mobile world.
I've just been making up my story. And it seems to be up to others to live it. - No problem; Im always finding new stories. We just should not forget that what seems like looking back may be a great outlook in the future: Ok, we invented the stuff, we've been there, done that. But others live it. And they tell us, if it works, if what we've made up makes sense.

And it's been a while since she has been asking for the ip-based tv-service of Telekom Austria, which finally had come out in 2006 (without much ORF-participation). Fortunately, it still does not work outside of big cities.