When Microsoft was first catching on to the internet back in 1995, they had their hearts in the right place. They saw the internet as a way to replace television, telephone, and the computer, in an entertaining and content-rich way. Whatever you might do to have fun, you will be able to do it over the internet “too.” And someday you will do it over the internet “instead.”
What happened was they collected a bunch of artists, flash programmers, and culture visionaries together to participate in the early days of MSN. They created “shows” such as Mint and Riff, and a year later Laura Jennings pulled the plug and changed direction. It was time for metrics. Time to get serious about market share, about tools. Time to get serious about booking hotels and looking up addresses. Goodbye art school flunkies, hello MBAs.
The resulting success was indeed measurable as everyone had hoped. The new versions of MSN had so little to be opinionated about: the only aesthetic was functionality and numbers of transactions. So far it is unclear how a corporation can best set up a site on the internet as an entertaining visit, something to rival the experience you get at your local movie theater. As industry leaders and as consumers, we have settled for the internet merely being useful. And we cross our fingersg and hope that even that level of functionality sticks around.
But what about those early days at MSN. Was everyone at Microsoft so wrong? Because really all it would have taken was one hit, one “Tetris” or “Survivor” to keep the internet-as-entertainment mantra going.
On one hand, corporations are best suited to take these kinds of risks. Unlike individuals, they have the ability to create an infrastructure for success (paychecks, offices, coffee). In fact, having some loose visionary cannons out there is a great way to grow your company and ensure you don’t miss opportunities that slip under your radar. But as soon as management starts measuring things, they will change course ASAP. Bonuses aren’t awarded based on risks taken, but on results. You can’t tell your boss how long it will take to get a phenomenon together, or how much it will cost. And it may never even happen. So we turn to cash-strapped individuals for innovation in entertainment.
Wireless technology is mirroring the development of the internet circa 1995-1998, but with the added advantage of hindsight. The boundaries of what a wireless device can do have been well documented: they are a device to do something, fast, before the end-user goes out of range and has to start over. They don’t have a role in your den. Leave the den to the TIVOs, the stereo systems and possibly your desktop PC depending on your threshold for home decorating faux-pas. Surely this narrowing of scope will result in less money lost, of more transactions and higher market share for the companies that do it well. But I wonder: as wireless devices hit the big time, could we use everything we learned about the internet the first time around and do entertainment right?
6:53:23 PM 
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