New T-Mobile G1 Phones Inspire Futurist Predictions

This past weekend my wife and I each purchased new T-Mobile G1 phones. The impetus for this decision? Both of us heavily use Google services (GMail, Google Calendar, Tasks, etc.) and the G1 is the best phone currently available for working with our GMail accounts (for now…).

However, as we spent some time this weekend playing with the phones and showing them to the in-laws, a few things occurred to me and I find myself inspired to tell the future. Here goes:

1) The internet is going to be on mobile phones more and more. These G1 phones are cool, but they’re only the first effort. As technology advances, consumers become more comfortable with more powerful “smart phones” and the number of people accessing the internet from their telephone is going to increase substantially. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people wouldn’t access the Internet from their phone exclusively.

2) The technology is becoming less of a barrier. I’ve had smart phones for a few years now that could access the internet, but this is the first phone I’ve had that actually made it sort of easy. Apple’s iPhone deserves a lot of credit for making this type of easy use accessible to the masses.

3) Download speeds will be slow for a while. Unlike my home internet connection, my G1 phone struggles to download most things quickly. That’s not to say that it’s slow, but there’s definitely a lag time. This is yet another reason to make sure that your company website is easy to download at slower speeds.

4) The “phone” is becoming the “device.” Cell phones used to just make calls – then they took pictures and made calls. Then, they took pictures, sent text messages, sent and received emails, and made calls. Then it was internet access, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, high resolution cameras, full email capabilities…etc. etc. Marketers would be wise to stop thinking of phones as “phones” and start thinking of them as “mobile devices.”

5) Local search is going to explode at the retail consumer level. GPS-enabled cell phones easily allow consumers to find nearby stores, restaurants, etc. and sort them by distance and popular rating. People looking for food are probably going to lead the charge (so restaurants would be wise to be early-adopters of local search marketing strategies), but it won’t be long before every sort of business – from gas stations to dry cleaners to shoe stores – will be required to register with Google Local, Yelp, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle, and a half-a-dozen other local search engines to make sure that consumers can find them.

The bottom line: Does your business depend on local customers? Are you listed with all the important local search engines? If not, now is the time. Based on your particular industry, it might also be wise to start testing some mobile ads as well.