Re: Strict DTD a new twist

Paul,

I *almost* agree with you, but . . 

No one expected anyone to actually be willing to buy anything off the
Internet. Really, you know this - because I'll bet you still hear people
react with "you bought that ~where~?!?!?! You must be CRAZY!".

Preliminary estimates I am reading are saying about a BILLION bucks were
spent on the Internet by "normal people" during the month of December
(2000). In my humble opinion, that is a significant amount of money and
thus, a significant volume of merchandise.

The other thing . . . Video Phones. I wouldn't rule them out yet.

As I understand it, two items were primarily responsible or their "failure":

1) Available bandwidth
2) Cost of the devise

All of us must realize that (I can only speak for the US here) in just the
last year TelCos and Cable TV providers have been stringing glass (fiber
optic cable) like a 5 year old decorating a Christmas tree. Additionally,
we have finally gotten 56K throughput on copper wire. I do not believe that
bandwidth is currently an issue any longer (again, in the US).

[on a potentially interesting side note: In the last year, here in
Tallahassee Florida, both the Telco AND the CATV providers have worked
together to complete a fiber optic Municipal Area Network. Really, they
ringed the entire city with fiber! Area's that did not even have CATV six
months ago, now have Digital CATV and 1.5MB cable modems - not to mention
the availability of DSL, ISDN and the like.]

Personally speaking, the last time I saw a "video phone is coming"
commercial personal computers were still cost a few thousand dollars. Now
it is EASY to find FREE computers (well, if you can live with MSN or
CompuServe for four years)!

This *must* impact the potential cost of these devises . . . I would think.

Don't get me wrong. I believe the video phone as strictly a devise to let
you see and hear who you are talking to IS a dead issue. However, I could
easily wrap my tiny mind around the concept of a "public phone" that had
that ability AND the ability to "surf" the Internet too.

Fuzzy
P.S. This speculation is fun isn't it? Even if it IS off topic :-(


At 07:45 AM 1/7/01 -0500, Paul Wilson wrote:
> I don't agree.   These little devices may get capable enough, but will
>people really want to surf the web and even buy things from a very tiny
>screen?  I seriously doubt it.
>
>  I think it's like video phones.  That was something that was touted first
>in science fiction, then TV and movies and finally even the phone companies
>started talking about it.  It was suppossed to happen years ago, but to this
>day I cannot walk up to a pay phone and see my my in-laws at home in
>anorther part of the country.  It really wasn't practical.
>
>Paul Wilson
>webgooru(at)gte.net
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