Great Service is Semi-Permiable

Agit Jaoker at Open Gardens is always interesting to read when it comes to the future of mobile communications. He has a great article on a conversation he had with a Vodafone executive. While their service were great, and he had no problem with them, Agit realised that the service was so great in fact that Vodafone had no real reasons to contact him. Yes, when travelling he received an announcement welcoming him to the new geography, but that's about it. This is one of the real challenges facing every virtual service:

If they (and by that – I mean any Operator) can work this out i.e. the ability to work with the best customers, interact with bloggers, be human, be open to feedback etc etc .. they have a good chance of succeeding in the next wave of Mobile data apps

I've always thought about this from a networked organisation perspective. It was called "having a semi-permeable membrane", i.e. people/ water could get in or out, but the boundary still had integrity. In a way, this is a useful way to think about click to call functionality and presence technology. Of course, being available on your desktop and IM is one thing, but to be really useful it has to extend to the mobile phone, and this is why Agit argues that "mobile 2.0" must be considered in tandom with and in the context of, Web 2.0.

technorati tags: customer, interaction, voice, messaging, customer, contact