Signal to Noise

From Mark Evans saying the word VoIP confuses consumers to the constant barrage of anti-2.0 tactics employed by the 1.0 powerbrokers, it seems that the effort required to get our message through to the masses is growing by the day.  The problem is, in order to effectively market a concept, you have to describe your service, and this is something we fail at.  Before I get into that, check this–To me, here’s what our movement, our 2.0 revolution, our VoIP mission, can accomplish for people:

1. Create a framework for multimedia networked applications in manner  similar to what the web did for data and messaging in the mid 1990s.

2. Eliminate consumer reliance upon, and subsequent tarriffing and pricing fixing by, the big telcos.

3. Re-define the last mile operators as access networks, not application providers–which will give consumers two things: (1) access network companies more focused on providing access and (2) application providers which compete against each other, not against the access network companies.

4. Leverage WiFi as the rule for ubiquitous access, not the exception. This means less 3G and more IP for consumers.

People who think the 2.0 world is too eggheaded for consumers to grasp are wrong. 2.0 is ALL ABOUT consumers. It empowers them. Democratizes their preferences. Lets them vote with their feet.  So naturally, it’s a threat to the 1.0 power brokers, who subsist by locking in customers and essentially putting artificial contractual limits on choice.  You don’t think consumers want a palatte of best-of-breed solutions instead of an “on-off button” of an expensive, mediocre compromise solution boiled down to the least common demoninator, like we have today with cellular data services and AT&T/Verizon? No way… Consumers are smarter than that.  They’re just too accustomed to there not being ANY OTHER OPTION than the mediocre compromise, and they settle for it.

At the core of enabling technologies like VoIP, WiFi, and other “free-to-use” technologies is the notion that the consumer, not the specialized infrastructure player, has the power.  Just look at what happened with the Web. People said consumers weren’t ready for the web, or that they were too stupid to use computers, or that hackers would destroy the web’s chances as a real business network.  Remember when Bill Gates referred to the web (and the Internet) as a passing fad?

Are we going to relent to the same unimaginative thinking, as it applies to what WE do?