My killer apps

I don't consider myself a typical consumer. I like grapefruit juice but not orange juice. I like Manhattan clam chowder, German potato salad and almond (not lemon) poppyseed muffins. A market researcher once hung up on me when I said my favorite soft drink was Tab.

I'm not a typical technology user either. I've never put anyone's phone number in my cell phone directory. But I do use the table option in Microsoft Word, which no one else seems to have a clue about.

Perhaps I'm an unlikely person to come up with the next “killer app.” But talk to anyone involved in developing IPTV, 4G wireless or other emerging technologies, and they'll tell you there is no single killer app. Instead, the goal is to offer a lot of applications that will each achieve a modest level of popularity.

As devices and applications have proliferated, more people are choosing a range of specialized offerings — none of which are extremely popular on their own, but which in total constitute the vaunted “long tail” we've been hearing so much about lately. Even the most obscure special interests seem to merit at least a Web site, if not a cable network. I'm sure I could find other Word table aficionados or Tab devotees if I chose to look for them.

So maybe I shouldn't be so fast to write off my ideas for killer apps. I have two of them.

The first is aimed at the biggest problem I have with my cell phone: finding it totally dead because I didn't turn it off and haven't used it for a couple of days. As wireless operators roll out IP multimedia subsystem and add presence capability, I'm thinking they should be able to alert me when my phone has been turned on for a certain amount of time and no calls have been made or received.

My other killer app would put a text message on my mother-in-law's TV screen saying “phone off hook” whenever that condition occurs, which it does with some regularity. That capability would be particularly valuable because she doesn't use a computer or cell phone, leaving people no other way to reach her. It could also be a great way of opening up bundled services to a whole new market. Grown-up children would now have an ulterior motive for giving their parents advanced voice and video services for Christmas or Mother's Day.

Both of these applications would be very useful to me and, I'm sure, to some small percentage of consumers — and in the long-tail world, maybe that's all the appeal they need.

What's your killer app? Let me know …

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