> <i>the smartphone emerging as the platform of choice vs the desktop browser</i><p>This is repeated from blog to blog but is it really true?<p>Smartphones outsell desktops because you change phones every 18 months while a desktop will last maybe a decade or more; but do people really <i>prefer</i> to use their phone if they have a choice?<p>It would seem to me people who use a phone most of the time are people who don't have easy access to a desktop: young people, or people who don't have a job or whose job keeps them away from a desk (lucky them!)<p>When I'm around people who use a smartphone, I never see them engaged in anything more complex than listening to music, texting, or playing some super-simple game such as CandyCrush; they're never "browsing" anything, searching, writing, composing, etc.<p>So if you're doing social or communications, sure, mobile first makes a lot of sense, but how about other domains?<p>Do people use Github from mobile platforms? The Github app for Android apparently has "100,000+ downloads", which doesn't seem like a lot?<p>It would be interesting to know the numbers for Github (for example), of mobile vs. desktop usage.
He lists the following as big innovations over the last 20 years:<p>TCP/IP, HTTP, the browser, search, social, mobile, and blockchains.<p>I know that it's got something to do with Bitcoin, but have no idea what a blockchain is. Wikipedia only references it in a link to blockchain.info, which talks about blocks but not blockchains. Nobody I've asked can explain it to me either.<p>If it's such a massive innovation (is it?), what is it, and why isn't it easy to discover what it is?
He missed something..<p>Let me explain, what are big networks buying?
Think Yahoo, Facebook, Google, MS, etc..<p>The mobile app now represents user data to buy...and that is what we are seeing in some of the acquirehires buying sprees is that the mobile app is kept alive after the buyout because the firm doing the buying is buying user data.<p>Thus we still will see some $1B or more home runs if we know and understand what they are buying
We surely reach a more mature phase in the 'mobile apps' market but I believe products will gain in quality in the future and that there are still some opportunities to be seized:
- there was a tremendous amount of apps released over the last few years, it is no wonder that competition is getting fierce: products will have to adapt in terms of quality with better and more curated contents.
- there is still a lot of room for innovation in re-engagement (<a href="http://tomtunguz.com/mobile-reengagement/" rel="nofollow">http://tomtunguz.com/mobile-reengagement/</a>), deeplinks (www.urx.com) are a very good start