I predict that humans will divide themselves into two kinds of handheld portable multi-media groups: Blackberries and iPhones. You may be thinking that this idea is preposterous. Maybe you currently don't even have a smart phone. Maybe you don't even text all that much or even have your cell phone on all the time, but look around you. The multi-faceted digital media (re)volution is at its beginning.
The Federal Communications Commission sold a large swath of airwaves for 17.5 billion dollars to cell phone companies. This is true. Yes. This is true. The change over from analog television to digital television has nothing to do with providing America with better quality television. It has everything to do with money. There wasn't enough space for analog television anymore once the airwaves were turned over to the cell phone empires. Hence, forced digital television for all.
It was once thought that airwaves were free. They belonged to the people. When we were too busy plugged into our various media outlets or working to buy our status branding Manolos or to pay for our huge mortgages on large homes we don't really need, our government sold our airwaves and only offered a redeemable coupon for a digital converter for those few of us who still watch television with bunny ears. Lucky us.
As a citizen of this country, where is my cut? Those were my airwaves, too. I want a piece of that $17.5 billion. Instead, this is what we are getting. The cell phone companies are using that money to advertise (manipulate -whatever you want to call it) us into using our cell phones as our primary media source.
It's working.
Apple just released its third quarter earnings last night: $8.34 billion, a 12 percent increase from last year. Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones, a 626 percent leap from a year ago.
The iPhone, I argue, is the main competitor of the Blackberry, dividing most Americans into Blackberries or iPhones. For those of you who have Trios or other smart phones, I predict that these will never catch on like the Blackberry or the iPhone and will die off due to natural (consumer) selection (or mass market appeal driven by clever marketing and relentless advertising.)
In my research (very limited research and not based on any kind of scientific rigor, but my own self-serving observations solely assembled to write this blog), the Blackberry and iPhone have contrasting personalities, which will divide us as a human race.
The Blackberry person is pragmatic and uses their phone for practical matters: keeping up with their appointments, listening to NPR news updates, and paying for their bills. These tend to be the older counterparts of our cohort (the late twenties to early thirties bunch.)
Now, the iPhoners, are the hipsters of the digital handheld revolution. They want to look cool and be cool. Appointments? What are those? News? They use their iPhones to facebook-on-the-go. These are the kids that grew up with e-mail and the internet, while those of us born in the seventies, remember undergrad in the late 90's when we were honestly skeptical of this "e-mail" when it was introduced to us.
I'm not saying my categorization is based on hard and fast rules. It's not based on anything. I'm pretty much just bullshitting for the hell of it.
Be ready. We will all be plugged in. Newspapers, the kind we actually hold, will be obsolete; we will get this on our phones. Communication as we know it will be a series of ones and zeros transmitted through our phones by e-mailing, texting, and rarely, if ever, actually verbal conversation. We will watch our favorite television shows at ease on our tiny screens. Relationships will live and die through our handhelds. Who we really are will be lost in our on-line plugged-in persona.
All the while, the cell phone empires will grow and grow controlling our means of communication, acquiring information, and ultimately how we socialize with each other.
You will either be a Blackberry or an iPhone. If not, you will fall off the face of this Earth, at least to the rest of us, plugged-in people, for that matter.
