Lost Contact with the Outside World, Part 3

Returning to yesterday's theme of Web access in twelve months' time, I repeat that everyhting that follows is already well documented. It's just that I'm putting it together in my own mind for the first time.

We will soon have mobile devices that allow us, through GoogleTalk and Skype among others, to make free phone calls using VOIP and broadband connections in wi-fi zones, which are spreading rapidly. Mobile phone manufacturers will be faced by the triple blow of this, the low take-up of 3G services and the likely concentration of future demand in developing countries where the need will be for cheap and simple phones rather than sophisticated ones where people have to pay to use the extra features. They will retaliate with low-power transmitters (using the currently protected but soon to be sold-off frequencies in the radio spectrum), which will automatically transfer mobile phones to cheaper calls when within range. This won't be enough, however, to stave off the threat of free phone calls.

Instead, the whole financial model of Web access will have to change. In an extension of AdWords at Google, advertisers will pay for the services we use in return for placing targeted advertisements based on three factors: geographical location (determined by GPS), known economic profile and spending patterns (determined by credit card and loyalty card use), and any information sought by the user via his or her browser. This will be fuelled by the coming revolution in television advertising, the result of businesses being unwilling to pay for expensive television airtime when more and more people use Sky+ or equivalent to zip past the advert breaks.

The implications of this are many, but at the wider level, it will mean that there are fewer shared cultural references, as each group of people, based on age, spending power and lifestyle, will have their own little worlds, even further apart than they are today. My fellow students will be tempted to aspire to fast cars as they eat their fast food and play with whatever replaces the iPod, while I'm berated about retirement plans, BUPA and Saga (if I start to make enough money as a designer, that is). Society will fragment further and faster as we understand each other less and less.

And I haven't even got started on the wider use of video or the introduction of television (HDTV or normal) and video on demand.