>It may take the full 50-year horizon of this chapter to come to pass but eventually there will be a usable wireless Internet. When that day comes imagine Joe Traveler, getting tired after a long day of sightseeing, pulling out his cell phone and saying "show me the nearby available hotel rooms for tonight". The phone company knows approximately where you are, based on which tower your handset has connected, and they ought to have enough marketing clout to establish links with hotel chains' room reservations systems.This is very nearly here in europe as I write this - for example, already (January 2004) I can ask my phone what time the next train (or last train, or whatever or time) will be from the station nearest me to anywhere else. It will also give me live running info for a large part of the rail network.
-- Nickoli Wilde, January 21, 2004
Mr. Nickoli Wilde does have a point in the fact that 50 years are to much. Though everybody knows that the internet is not such a common thing in Romania, themobile internet(WAP) is a preety common way of getting information on the road. The only problem is that you will find verry little merchants willing to invest anything in taking their business on the web.(In fact I do not think there are any)
-- Victor Tanvuia, April 30, 2005
You don't list a subscription fee as a way of making money from the application site. I would have expected this to have been mentioned and then examples of why this did not work, or where it does work. One examle of this is http://www.myGoals.com . I don't know if they are profitable, but it is fee based.I particularly thought your take on the "community" was valid. A basic retail site like Amazon, or Netflix shows the power of community.
Thanks
-- Tom Pax, January 5, 2007