The third in a series of posts on geolocation. For an introduction to the subject see the first post: Reason 1: Because of the opportunity Reason 2: Because of the threat Reason 3: Because it fulfills the ancient prophecy Reason 4: Because it brings back the social dimension of reading But now we draw things to a close with…

Reason 5: Because the web will die

The Web, according to Wired magazine, is dying, perhaps already dead (The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet): ‘Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting’. If, like Stephen Bourne in the second of these posts, you are contemplating a future in which up to three-quarters of your business is in the process of migrating online, then rumours that your soon-to-be primary delivery platform, the open web, is about to go down the toilet, ought to ring a few alarm bells. Too many publishers seem to want to create an online analogue for the library or bookshop. Perhaps it’s time we stopped thinking about sites altogether and started thinking ‘services’. iTunes would be a better role model for publishers in this regard, perhaps; because while there is an iTunes site, iTunes itself could not be remotely be described as a site. Continue reading →

You may have heard us say before at Semantico that the mobile internet could pass desktop internet access by as early as 2013 (Gartner). We believe it’s a stat worth flogging. Because as the mobile revolution draws on apace, it is beginning to transform the ways in which users access and consume published information quite radically. Geolocation is the latest way in which it is doing this. Smartphone users will already have noted geolocation’s fine Italian hand. It’s why all your apps keep asking if they can use your location. As a publisher, though, should you care unduly about this new feature of the landscape? We think you should, and in a series of posts we give five compelling reasons why. Continue reading →