My non-cellphone friends always ask me what the point is in having one. I usually recount what it took for me to convince a friend to get one: it means that you can procrastinate making plans even more!
But seriously, i’ve envisioned and wanted to live in a mobile culture for a long time. I love the fact that no one knows where i’m at or from (particularly since i live in California and have a Rhode Island phone number). I love that i can choose when and where i will answer my phone (and i’ve definitely developed a strict set of personal social norms that i believe everyone should follow… kinda like my road rules). That said, the US is still sooooo far behind in mobile culture (compared to, say, Japan). SMS, mobile web access and moblogging has not permeated US culture because of our corporate pricing structures. Cell phone are still predominantly post-18 year olds (the result of early credit card requirements). It pains me to realize that we continue to get further and further behind in mobile culture…
What do you mean about “corporate pricing structure”? In the case of SMS, I think it hasn’t taken off mainly because we have so many different wireless systems that aren’t integrated. As opposed to in Europe, where knowing someone’s mobile number is enough to be able to easily text-message them.
I don’t think we are falling behind. On the contrary, in a lot of ways we are a little ahead. We are coming from a different user-history and yes, SMS has been hard to push through mainly because it wasn’t possible to send SMS accross networks for a while (fault of corporate competition myopia). We now have pay-as-you go plans that do not require credit cards, the have appearead about 6 months ago and are gaining momentum (check out Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City offerings). The lastest CTIA show in New Orleans was huge and with high European attendance, showing off lots of cool stuff. Qualcomm’s CDMA standard is getting permeated through out Europe and Asia (look up the Qualcomm attempt to claim Iraq as its development space, I think its either on Agonist.org or on Warblogs.cc). Mobile phone web traffic in the US is not much less than similar types of services in Europe (but we are behind in SMS and MMS). Yes Japan is kicking ass in all those services but their culture is very different and teh way cell phones change their culture is also an interesting case study in itself.
No I don’t think we are falling behind, we just have a different adoption pattern for this technology and that’s not always bad… no need for such sadness.