Never mind that the recipient of the call foots the bill, paying for the privilege of being spammed. To sort the hype from the reality, Context turned to Larry Keeley, an expert on usability, and to David Reed, a renowned technologist. Later, Reed was vice president of research and development and chief scientist at Software Arts. The software firm, now defunct, was famous for creating VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet. When we look at wireless, we see the same exuberance we see whenever there is a new technology.
People make wild predictions.
What people typically miss are the deeper patterns that govern how people will actually use their new possibilities. Most of the predictions I have seen are that the wireless Web will be the most successful medium in the history of technology. That is probably true, although it won t develop at the rate predicted, and certainly not in the form expected. People will make wireless their own in surprising ways. There are too many buttons, they say, too many things that they don t understand.