The Telephone - It's Still Good To Talk

British Telecom (BT) famously told us, "it's good to talk".

There are some things that are just better if done over the phone. 

Transactions and information transmission suit online and text, synchronous conversations work well on the phone or face to face.  Asynchronous conversations suit chat or text.

So far this year, I found the phone (voice) to be my channel of choice when; enquiring about holiday options, discussing sensitive work topics, ordering a taxi, speaking with my family arranging for a decorator to work on our house.

There are many high value transactions that are initiated over the phone.  High value, offline leads.  Buying a car, buying a house, booking a holiday, finding a tradesman, purchasing financial products.  Conversations convert.

Apart from talking, my phone has been my preferred device for the following activities; emailing friends, reading updates from family on their travels (Facebook / Blog), ordering groceries, renting DVDs, making bank payments, checking the weather, reading the news, tuning my guitar, finding out how to get somewhere, selling second hand goods, buying movie tickets, reading a book on the train, following content of interest (Twitter, Quora), taking photos, checking train schedules and using a calculator.

I may be stating the obvious but we are all becoming heavier and heavier users of phones.  We all have them, 62% of UK mobile phones are now "smartphones" and we generally have them with us 24/7.  17.4% of global web traffic comes through mobile devices.  49% of UK adults access the Internet on their mobile and the average household now owns more than three types of Internet enabled device, with one in five owning six or more.

Call volumes have been declining slightly but there are still over 233 billion minutes a year made (2012 data: OFCOM).

If my personal experience is anything to go by, I have moved transactions online where I find it easier to do so, however I will always use the phone for more complicated transactions or where a conversation is involved.

It's not surprising that investors have been piling money into mobile.  Latest figures show that in the US, in Q3 2013, venture capital investors poured $1.12 billion across 150 deals into U.S. mobile & telecoms companies, marking the largest financing quarter to the mobile sector ever.

As we look to the future, here's 12 2014 predictions  for mobile by app development company Goldengekko.

My 13th predication is that measuring all of the phone activity (on voice and in apps) will become increasingly used and understood by businesses  as they calculate the return on investment they get on their marketing where the response (call to action is a phone call).

In the same way that web analytics is now commonplace and understood by almost all businesses with a web channel, phone analytics will become known and used by all businesses that rely on the voice calls for their inbound leads.

It's very good to talk.

What Can Be Horizontal Will Be Horizontal

When you last took a flight, did you not just sit back for a moment and marvel at how so much complexity had been brought together just so that you could hop on a plane and skip across the planet?

Within the air travel industry, there are travel agents, global distribution systems, airlines, regulators, airports, aircraft maintenance companies, insurance companies, aircraft manufacturers, engine manufacturers, fuel suppliers.  When they all operate successfully together, you get air travel.

Passenger flights are decades into their evolution, it's a mature business.  And - it's horizontal.  Specialist companies support many airlines at the same time, the airline does not own and control all the parts of the value chain.

I'm curious.  What about the web?  How will that play out?

The history of human civilisation is full of examples of networks being built and exploited.

Canals, railways, ports, gas, airports, sewerage, roads, electricity, telegrams, telephones, mobile phone networks, social networks, logistics networks, GPS, the worldwide web.

One could argue that these networks form the most tangible poof of human social progress.  They provide the means for us to advance our society with learning, health, wealth, knowledge and lifestyle.  However, we often take them for granted.  We take more notice of the applications that are built upon these networks.

What's interesting is that in an early stage market, companies can form that create a network and also create and sell the products and services for that network.  It's a vertical market.   Think about how modern mobile phone operators run infrastructure, market to customers, own stores etc.  Increasingly though as the market matures, specialists come in that can supply a horizontal layer and do so incredibly well to multiple companies.

Eventually you end up with horizontal specialists.  Companies that specialise in applications, companies that run networks, companies that run services that connect applications to networks.

The internet is one hell of a network.  I'm really curious to see if horizontal will beat vertical.  What will be the role of Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, Intel etc in the next 20 years?  Will they try and own as much of the top to bottom (consumer to network) vertical themselves or will horizontal players dominate?  My hunch, just looking at the way that all other human endeavours seem to evolve, is that horizontal will trump vertical.

If that's the case, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for businesses to thrive is as yet under-developed horizontal services or specialist products and applications consuming those services.

The web at 25 years old is the 21st Century Gold Rush.  It's far from over.