CTIA Wireless I.T 2008 is in the rear-view, and the industry is performing the typical post-show analyses. My two cents:
1) Sprint’s Dan Hesse is my new favorite CEO. Because anybody with a fondness for Vans can’t be too far removed from this guy. Which is awesome.
2) Comes With Music – and competing services like MusicStationMax – may be the last hope for a mobile industry desperate to cash in on full-track downloads. If the music-and-hardware concept doesn’t work – and it seems like a longshot – mobile may simply have to be satisfied with eking every last dime out of handset sales, leaving revenues from music distribution to others.
3) After years of disappointing revenues and the navel-gazing that inevitably follows, there’s a renewed energy around mobile gaming thanks largely to the iPhone and the rise of high-profile application storefronts. And this time, maybe some of it is warranted.
4) I love what Yahoo’s doing in mobile. Really. But like my colleague Mike Dano said, I liked last week’s presentation more when I saw it the first time around, at CTIA’s flagship show last March.
5) This is a great place to see a ballgame. Not that this one has anything to do with the actual show. Sorry.
6) I’d like to impose a six-month moratorium on the phrase: “At the end of the day.” I heard it 13 times during the first two keynotes I sat in on, and I can’t take it anymore. Please, please stop.
7) Uh, mobile social networks are gonna be big. Just in case you hadn’t heard.
8) Yes, it was a quieter show than the last few I.T. events, but at least there was a crescendo after an amazingly flat day of pre-show activities. And don’t mistake a lack of hype for a lack of progress. As PlayPhone CEO Ron Czerny told me, “Last year there was a lot of noise, a lot of traffic, but the gorillas weren’t moving. The big gorillas are now moving, but they don’t make a lot of noise.”
