Misjudging The Market

[image : mobology]

This morning Geoff and I received this following email in our inboxes.

Not only is it fantastically thought out , it is as we both agreed a really interesting take on where POV could and will have an impact as we humans gradually become more accustomed to wearables rather than just wearing ‘ it’.

We both also commented that John’s take on the whole concept of looking at location enabled body wearable technologies from a socio-ethical and cultural perspective is very topical and of great interest.

Here is a snippet of what John had to say:

“……..Dear Geoff, Alexander, and Leo,

Thank you for the important work you are doing. Education is a great use for POV. If I were going to disassemble the engine of my car I would definitely like to record the process using POV so that I might have a fighting chance of getting it back together again. I used to write software for a company that rented industrial sound systems to theaters and stadiums. Each piece in the system had it’s own rather complicated test procedure. It would have been great if our experienced technicians could have been able to make a video library explaining how to do these tests. I could have used a POV system myself for recording complicated network administration tasks.

Nearly any technician could find a use for the POV systems you are selling and those who can afford them will need a place to host their content. So it seems you guys are well positioned to sell and service to these select and privileged few.

Why not sell and service everyone who has a mobile phone. To get that market you will need to find a POV camera manufacturer who is willing to sell their cameras without the controller box. They would need to unlock the firmware on their camera so that it will work like any other webcam. Then you could put a mini USB connector at the end of the cable and it would provide audiovisual content to your phone in exactly the same manner a webcam passes audiovisual content to your computer. After all, a phone is a computer. Writing the mobile phone software application to emulate the camera controller box is the easy part. Even I could do that if I were still in the game.

*****Geoff Wrote*****
To me it seems the mobile phone manufacturers are a little behind in where they could be going with this stuff even if in the short term they came up with a wired version of an ear mounted camera audio headset to fulfill the gap until the next generation blue tooth is here.

*****End of Geoff’s Comment*****

The problem is not with the service providers or the phone manufacturers. My service provider allows me to stream live video to
my YouTube account and all smartphones are ready to receive external camera input. If I were to put a mini USB connector on a standard webcam I could receive the audiovisual content on my phone just as if it were a computer. No one does this because webcams are so large they would look goofy mounted on a pair of glasses.

There is nothing the controller box does that an iphone couldn’t do. The problem is that the camera manufacturers have misjudged the market and think there is more profit selling a few cameras with the controller boxes than there is selling millions of cameras alone. I don’t think these people understand the market. They are choosing to sell to the few people who can afford the controller box. Why not sell to the millions that already have the controller box and who wear earbuds or bluetooth headsets all day long. These people would gladly plop down extra money for a wired POV camera if they could also use it to hear their music and receive a phone call the way their simple earbuds currently allow them to do.

I mentioned that there is nothing the controller box can do that a smartphone can’t. The converse is not true. A controller box can’t
stream live video in real time to YouTube or better yet to Streamfolio over a cellular network. Most smartphones can do this. So if we were to constantly record to a small (say two minute) first in first out memory buffer on your phone with the option to stream the buffer to your online account after you realize that you have seen something worth saving, then you are recording everything that happens in your life with a two minute window of opportunity to publish your experience. Give this power to everyone that has a cell phone and you will change the way that people treat each other. People will stop exploiting one another and start cooperating wherever mobile phones are used.

If you guys can pull this off, not only will you become very very rich, but you are going to save lives and make this planet a much much better place to live.

Good luck and may God bless your efforts,

John Shearing