I feel fine

In preparing this final column of the millennium, and with my muse on vacation, I turned on the radio seeking entertainment, if not inspiration. There it was: "It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)."

The countdown to what some believe will be an apocalyptic moment is a propitious time to take stock of where we have been, where we are, where we are going and how we should feel about it.

First, where we have been: Placed high on most lists of great innovations of the past century is the proliferation of the telephone. At the start of the century - along with the automobile, flying and electricity - the dawning of the age of interactive voice communications was the next big thing. How delicious - as we start a new millennium, interactive communications is once again at the core of transforming the world.

Where we are is in the middle of a technology-enabled value revolution. We may not be capable of seeing the forest through the trees in the mad dash to disintermediate everything. Yet, the benefits of constant availability, access to pervasive computing resources, the ability to deliver near real-time responsiveness at consistently lower costs, the order-of-magnitude gains in productivity and the engineering of the greatest wealth creation engine in history clearly outweigh the costs of potential loss of privacy and, possibly, our free time.

Where we are going is anybody's guess. A world where global availability of personal wavelengths with virtually unlimited capacity is not science fiction. What Marconi started by spinning off communications from transportation remains somewhat the domain of engineers as they rush to replicate the full sensory experience of close-quarter communications over dedicated media to remote places. However, it is a foundation for what visionaries will build on top of this new-age "infostructure."

How should we feel? Fabulous! The impact of roiling industry restructuring and the dot-comming of almost everything is great news. The marketplace will be a cruel taskmaster, but so what? Nobody promised everyone would win.

Five years ago I predicted, to the derision of many readers, that within three to five years, I would not pay for communications service. This was based not on the view that the cost of transporting bits was going toward zero (which it is, but it will never reach that point), but on a perception that the Internet had changed the value equation.

The history of networking was that value arose from us being connected to the network and from the fact that we were willing to pay for the privilege. The new world of networking says time and distance don't matter - what is valuable is a myriad of service providers being connected to me. Compelling content (read stickiness) is the hook for owning the transactional me in all its shapes and forms.

I no longer expect to get my communications for free. I expect to be paid for being connected, potentially without intrusive commercial interruption. Permission-based marketing will be the order of the day. My transactional activity will flow to those who compel me to give them permission to sell me things. However, in a world of more perfect information, the cost of acquiring and keeping me as a customer will likely be far less expensive than the haphazard world of today. It will pay to pay me.

This may be the end of the world as we know it, but I do feel fine.