This all popped into my head at once. I will no doubt write abut this in greater length and detail with Mike as part of our ongoing research.

 

We were watching “$40 A Day” and Rachel Ray was in Salem, Oregon (for some reason). She pulled out a newspaper clipping and showed a breakfast recommendation that was listed in an old story. I told my wife that’s really inefficient, but couldn’t think of a better solution. I mean who doesn’t have reams of newspaper clippings in folders, on desks, clipped to bulletin boards that turn yellow around the edges, outliving any usefulness.

 

On the other hand, consumer content management is hot. Ask Jeeves buys Bloglines, Yahoo! Adds a denser RSS-based My Yahoo!, plus all those companies at DEMO (most notable, Pluck). The problem is that all of this content management happens on your PC. So, in the case of content foraging, you don’t have access to all that “managed” content outside the PC.

 

So, here are a few premises:

 

  1. The mobile phone guys will never get it. They will never figure out how to deliver content other than ringtones and maybe some MP3 tunes. They will never understand the user needs to be in control. They may try, but historically, they have not been able to pull it off, plus, in the future WiFi and other broader high speed connection schemes will knock the heck out of their commodity cell phone service. (Skype plus WiFi= the death of mobile phones)
  2. If Adam Curry can build a simple software product to manage Podcasts, Ipodder, then it could be just as easier to build an RSS engine that transports text and other formats from PC to device.
  3. If the iPod is a hard disk with lots of storage, it can handle a lot more than just music.
  4. If the iPod has a cool interface that simply facilitates music management, it could do the same for any content.
  5. If the iPod (well, any device) employs a black & white interface, it could build a color one just as easily.
  6. The world of content management is striving to manage content on any device.

 So, imagine this: you have a RSS organizer that allows you to stream headlines from The New York Times (or stories from this blog) onto your iPod (or any similar device). You can save and organize these feeds using one of the emerging content management interfaces. So, when you go to Salem, Oregon, and you want that breakfast review, you take out your “MP3 player” and there it is. On this device you have your directions, your reviews/recommendations, your news, etc.. And, by the way, you still have your music.