Waiting on WAP
By Ray Valdés
For several years much of the frenzy surrounding the New Economy has been fueled by the notion of first-mover advantage: When there's a land grab, the first player in a sector has a significant advantage over latecomers. Amazon.com, Yahoo, and eBay are blue-chip Internet companies that have fully exploited their first-mover status. The stock-market drubbing received by both business-to-consumer and business-to-business Internet companies hasn't yet cast doubt on the first-mover assumption. Instead, investors have migrated to other sectors looking for first-movers with the next Big Thing.
Internet companies that are less established than Yahoo or eBay are nervously looking around to make sure they don't get blindsided by the next wave, and also don't miss an opportunity to gain first-mover advantage in a new playing field. Mobile commerce (otherwise known as m-commerce) has been the rage at trade shows this past year, and if you're a site manager whose content isn't yet accessible to wireless devices, you may be worried that you're arriving too late to a party where all the goodies have been consumed. Having looked at some of the technology choices offered lately, I have to say: not to worry, the good stuff is still hidden somewhere on the top shelf.
Growing Industry
First, a recap of the opportunities created by the wireless industry: IDC predicts 500 million mobile phone subscribers worldwide by 2003, of which about 100 million will receive text messages while 40 million will be able to browse the Web.
