As you read this today, I'm busy representing Airborne Entertainment at Playback's Annual Mobile Forum Conference in Toronto, trying to wake up the post-lunch crowd with a keynote about what's wrong with the burgeoning mobile industry and how to fix it.
I could go into great detail (and if it goes well, perhaps I will), but one of the three "starts-with-I" fixes (along with Integration and Integrity) I talk about is Inspiration; in other words, mobile media folks have to come up with content more inspired than the ringtones, wallpaper and handful of games that have been driving the industry so far.
One of the paradigm-expanding, eye-popping examples I'm using comes from a Surprising source, namely HP. Yeah, you know them for printers and peripherals, but the company's Mscapers mobile project shows that, like Apple, these guys are looking to change the digital landscape by doing more than just chugging out hardware.
Although only available for GPS-enabled Windows Mobile Devices at the moment, the project's promise is to "expand the world around us with a simple tool that builds compelling interactive experiences that you control as you move from place to place."
A little too tech gobbledygook for my liking (particularly since the games and apps are simple to the point of being pedantic), but the fact that these guys are getting serious about doing some mobile dreaming can only augur well for the advancement of my biz. Check out the demo at www.mscapers.com.
Meanwhile, right now in Toronto, they're either applauding or throwing half-eaten bread rolls.