What are you doing with mobile?
Attention (nonprofit) world: mobile isn’t the next frontier. That frontier is already here.
There have been a few key milestones that have brought mobile to the mainstream where it lives today.
President Obama and his Blackberry
Most recently, the world waited with baited breath (*sarcasm*) to see if President Obama would be able to keep his beloved Blackberry. Well we all found out last month that the President of the United States would be allowed to keep his cell phone.
I believe this is the latest in a series of tipping points that have popularized mobile as many now know it today — not simply as a way to have voice and text communication, but a full-featured web device with virtually innumerable number of uses.
The iPhone Tipping Point
And arguably the most major event in recent times was the release and subsequent proliferation of the iPhone (disclaimer: yes, I do own an iPhone, and yes, I do in fact love it as much as you can an inanimate object).
The iPhone didn’t invent anything new. But what it did do was perfectly meld together a lot of technologies that previously were frustrating to use. It made a lot of really incredible tasks completely routine — which is why it’s so amazing.
Among the things I’ve done in the last week or so with this little wonder device:
- Checked in on friend’s latest happenings via Facebook
- Read some of my favorite blogs
- Took a photo and sent it to a few friends
- Watched a video on YouTube
- Got driving directions
- Read from the Book of James
- Found the closest Subway restaurant
- Updated my Facebook status and posted a picture
- Watched a movie trailer and checked the latest box office totals
- Showed a friend some of my favorite photos from vacation in Hawaii this summer
- Read and responded to email
- Checked the ski conditions at my favorite local mountain
- Texted with friends
You may have noticed that you can do ANY of these things with other cell phones available today. But I don’t think anyone would dispute how easy the iPhone (and the app store to be sure) make ALL these things possible.
