In the 1998 movie “
half baked”, the main characters sell weed to various buyers to get their friend out of jail. Not the most sophisticated movie, if I may say so, but decently funny. While they’re selling, you hear a voice over by the main character Thurgood Jenkins (Dave Chapelle) telling about the type of people you meet. One of them is the “enhancement smoker”, the one that thinks every deed is better done “on weed”. It boils down to quotes like:
- Enhancement Smoker: "Did you ever see Scent of a Woman?"
- Scarface: "Yup."
- Enhancement Smoker: "You ever seen Scent of a Woman... on weed? That's the way to see it. It's just wacked." (yeah, I know)
Let me tell you something: people in the valley are enhancement “smokers” too. Only they’re not using weed (or they might. I’m not judging). They’re hooked on the iPhone (and the “app economy”). Hey man, did you ever play console games? Ever did that…
on the iPhone? Ever acquire a payment on from a credit card? Ever done that…
on the iPhone? Seriously, guys, smart phones are cool, but international market adoption is still slower than one would imagine looking at the hype around the iPhone. Not that it won’t succeed – it will, but it will definitely take more time, and personally, if I had to bet on apps vs. mobile web, I would bet on the latter (late addition: see
Giff Constable's post about the app store, especially the first few paragraphs). See my (future) mobile #3 post on technology and risk for more thoughts.
What Square is, and what it isn’t
Don’t get me wrong: the new
Square gadget on the iPhone is cool. How cool? Way cool, not only because it’s a smart idea but also because they managed to pull it off in such short time. Kudos. It’s going to allow people who always planned to charge cards to start doing so – seemingly very comfortably and quickly; in developed countries, where credit card and smart phone penetration is high, Square has the potential to become a smashing hit. But among all the crazy positive coverage and superlatives it is getting, I’d like to keep a few things in proportion.
