CELL PHONES: THE FUTURE OF PORTABLE MUSIC
MP3.com (a remade Cnet owned site that shows a great deal of potential) columnist Eliot Van Buskirk has written a good overview and commentary on the future of music via cell phones.
Here is an excerpt:
“We covered a lot of ground that day, but one thing Foreman (of real Networks) said really took me by surprise. He said that as early as next year, the bottom could fall out of the MP3 player market. Why? Because people will use cell phones to listen to their music instead, Foreman said.
My reaction was similar to the one you’re probably having right now: “Yeah, right. Keep dreaming, dude.” Aside from the fact that people love their iPods too much to replace them with phones, his idea violates one of my central theories about portable electronics — that people will end up carrying two devices, because they need two different batteries. My reasoning is that you wouldn’t want to watch movies and listen to music to the point where your battery dies, thus rendering you out of reach of your coworkers, friends, and family. In other words, you need one portable for fun and another one for the more serious stuff of life.
But as we talked Foreman’s idea through, I saw that it had some merit. Besides, several phones already support MP3.”
