The Internet of things is not paying the rent

infoworld.com

Purportedly, the market opportunity for the Internet of things is gargantuan -- but development in the space clearly isn't paying off yet

The Internet of things may be hot, hot, hot, according to the Valley, but it’s not paying the bills. In fact, less than 10 percent of IoT developers are making enough to support a reasonably sized team.

That’s one key takeaway from the latest VisionMobile Developer Economics report, released this week. It’s a sobering thought for the companies jumping into IoT as they chase IoT’s purported $11 trillion jackpot.

As with every other business, the only way companies will realize this value in terms of revenue will be to attack the IoT market with a clear idea of what they’re selling and to whom.

A big market, but underserved

In its “Unlocking the potential of the Internet of Things” report, McKinsey & Co. highlights nine areas where IoT will unlock value:

Unfortunately, much of that value never gets realized, both because a dearth of IoT standards has logjammed its potential and because most IoT data simply isn’t used.

As the McKinsey report concludes, “Currently, most IoT data are not used. For example, on an oil rig that has 30,000 sensors, only 1 percent of the data are examined. That’s because this information is used mostly to detect and control anomalies -- not for optimization and prediction, which provide the greatest value.”

In other words, that oil rig may derive value from its current use of IoT data, but the vast majority of potential value remains unexplored.

This may not be the IoT customer’s fault. As the Developer Economics survey data suggests, it could be that IoT vendors still aren’t sure of what they’re peddling -- or rather, to whom.

IoT sells, but who is buying?

A full 59 percent of IoT-focused developers can’t scrape together $500 per month, putting them below the “poverty line” established by VisionMobile. If we set the bar at $5,000 per month, 79 percent of IoT developers fall short.

Indeed, of the four areas tracked by the Developer Economics survey, which tracks revenue and other things for 13,000 developers, IoT comes in dead last in terms of current market opportunity:

Part of the problem is that these IoT developers don’t know who they're developing for. According to the report, “more than a quarter are still not sure who their eventual customer will be.” Another third is focused on consumers, but may find itself grasping for other straws as consumers prove a difficult market to crack.

IoT developers, in other words, are guessing.

They probably need to do more guessing about enterprise applications of IoT. McKinsey posits that 70 percent of IoT value will be found in business-to-business scenarios -- and that may be low. While a horde of developers is gravitating to wearables (like these Indiegogo wannabes), “boring” applications like tractor sensors will drive far more value, not to mention developer revenue.

Developers, and the companies that employ them, would do well to follow the advice of Mike Olson, chief strategy officer and co-founder of Cloudera. As Olson told me in an interview:

It's important when you start thinking about IoT to think about why it matters. What are the business problems you want to solve, what are the optimizations you want to make? And then design your systems to address these problems.

[We can get caught up in] the "shiny object syndrome" of engineers who want to play with new technology. But those projects generally fail because they don't have clear success criteria.

For far too many companies, IoT remains a science project. This reveals itself in how they’re funding their IoT initiatives and what they’re building. For example, many developers are taking to crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo to bankroll the next big wearable, not taking into account the difficulty of subsisting on low margins at almost universally low volumes.

Others are trying to sell IoT-related software but, as VisionMobile notes, “The market is not yet mature and too many people are building generic solutions to device connectivity and management problems.”

But to tap IoT's $11 trillion potential, developers need to get real about what they’re selling and to whom. That probably involves a “dull” enterprise-facing business -- not to mention a lot more planning than we’re currently seeing.

Riding Out the Digital Tsunami

gamesindustry.biz
Why Latin America's mobile gamers are ready to play ball with the West

 

There's an unspoken rule within modern day mobile that, unless you're a major player with a Clash of Clans level of hit under your belt, you don't attempt to make a move on any territories outside of the West.

Leagues of talks and presentations at games conferences in the world lay out the opportunities provided by massive markets like China, Latin America et al, but still the majority shy away from launching games in any regions outside North America and Europe because the barriers to entry - localisation, distribution, monetisation, possible cultural differences, etc - seem too numerous, too insurmountable to even contemplate taking on.

One of these apparent hurdles, however, is about to be cleared from the path according to Naranya. The Mexico-based mobile internet specialist has spent the last decade expanding its hand in emerging markets, helping to (in its own words) "connect the communications, entertainment, and mobile commerce ecosystem in the emerging markets". Both its business, however, and those of all other mobile entertainment firms operating in said regions are about to ramp up.

As CEO Arturo Galván told GamesIndustry.biz, there's a wave of new opportunities heading the way of developers in the West if they embrace emerging markets in Latin America - something they'll now be able to do thanks to fundamental changes in the way consumers in the region will be able to pay for their purchases in the months and years ahead. "In the next three to five years, 80 percent of the population in emerging markets will have access to the internet, growing from 30 percent now," he told us, laying the foundations for what he claimed will be a "digital tsunami" that developers won't be able to ignore.

"The challenge now will be enabling the consumer to have access to digital content and services in a region where credit card penetration is below 15 percent"

"In Latin America alone, 300 million people will become online citizens thanks to the arrival of low cost smartphones. In all emerging markets, this number will top 3 billion new digital consumers," he continued. "The challenge now will be enabling the consumer to have access to digital content and services in a region where credit card penetration is below 15 percent. The traditional US App Stores, Apple and Google, have not been successful in the emerging markets because they only accept credit cards as a payment method."

Naranya's solution has been to develop a mobile commerce platform that it claims enables 550 million consumers in Latin America to both discover and pay for digital goods, which the company believes will "establish the underpinnings of a huge digital market in the region including consumers, brands, app developers and content providers." All wrapped up together, the platform combines an Android app store, Naranya Market, with the firm's carrier based mobile payment network Naranya Pay.

It's all about making Latin America a more palatable prospect for overseas developers; if you make it easier for consumers in the region to find games, and then also make it possible to pay for them too, then the developers will come. It's a strategy Naranya thinks makes Latin America as appealing a prospect for studios in the West as China currently is.

"The Chinese and Latin America markets are extremely similar," continued Galván, advocating western developers making a move on both regions. "First, both markets will boost their Android smartphone base exponentially over the following years. In addition, carrier billing is the most effective monetisation solution, since financial services are not yet massively adopted. In comparison, Europe and the USA have already reached a smartphone saturation point that will keep growing a very low rate and since the financial services penetration is high, credit card has become the most popular payment system."

"While in China there is a large and solid developer community generating thousands of apps per year, in Latin America is at an early development stage"

There are differences between China and Latin America for developers looking to make their mark in both parts of the globe, however, but they may actually make the region a more compelling prospect for foreign developers: "While in China there is a large and solid developer community generating thousands of apps per year, in Latin America is at an early development stage," noted Galván. "Where as in China the top downloaded apps are from Chinese developers, in Latin America the entire top app downloads come from other regions. It means Latin America represents today a great opportunity for outside developers to explore."

That appears to be the essence of Naranya's vision for mobile. While there's been a lot of talk in recent years of mobile opening up new markets to Western developers, only now are the platforms that studios will rely on to make the leap from Europe or North America to regions like Latin America actually falling into place. Mobile in the years ahead, Galván asserted, is going to be a far more connected industry. "The Latin American mobile market is huge," he added. "It's half of the size of the Chinese market - both are a massive opportunity."

Nevertheless, whatever your hand in mobile games, the nature of how revenue is generated from users has changed in recent years. Naranya's platform may be designed to help consumers in emerging markets pay for games in an easier manner than before, but one other staple of free games - advertising - is perceived to have fallen away a touch since free-to-play games began to build their design with in-app purchases in mind. For Galván, the movement away from advertising as the sole revenue raiser for free games represents less of a challenge and more of a "huge opportunity". Indeed, Galván welcomes the notion that in-app revenue in mobile gaming is on the rise, likely to reach $30.3 billion in 2015.

"Latin America should have close to 10 percent share of that, and we are at a 2 percent share now. A huge growth opportunity in the next three years," he continued. "Thanks to new distribution and monetisation platforms, the mobile gaming experience is becoming more accessible for users in the emerging markets. We are embracing this fact with Naranya Market." Most importantly for developers, it's Galván's belief that its games are already "the leading content" in Latin America. "Naranya has been distributing mobile content in Latin America for more than 12 years and during this time mobile gaming has been always at the top of the list. The opportunity now is to take advantage of the growing new mobile consumer using their phone as the device to connect to the Internet for the first time.

"This is what is so exciting - we have a 300 million strong mobile market ready to use and pay for mobile games. This is why we developed the first app store that any consumer can access to buy mobile games in Latin America." 

Mobile, Galván claims, is an especially important device in emerging markets such as those in Latin America because, for many gamers in these countries, it represents the first time they've been able to play video games.

"Mobile gaming is a trend that's here to stay - it's all part of the digital tsunami that we're currently living through, especially in Latin America. This is why Naranya is taking advantage of its presence in 17 countries in Latin America and its payment platform connected to more than 30 mobile operators in the region, and its marketplace to connect the digital consumer of the region to the game developers of the world, especially those from China, who has developed expertise in creating and distributing games to the emerging market consumer."

"This is what is so exciting - we have a 300 million strong mobile market ready to use and pay for mobile games. This is why we developed the first app store that any consumer can access to buy mobile games in Latin America"

Studios looking to move on either region require two things in Galván's view; massive distribution to the aforementioned gamers in these emerging markets and, just as importantly, an effective monetisation solution. "Massive distribution with a non-effective monetisation solution will result in obtaining users but no money," said Galván. "On the other hand, having an effective monetisation solution in a game that's not widely distributed will result in few money since there are only few users." For its part, Naranya has partnered its app store with what it claims are the "largest mobile operator groups" in Latin America, while "million of phones are now pre-loaded with our platform" according to Galván.

"Our payment platform is integrated with over 30 mobile operators, connecting hundreds of millions of consumers, most of whom have no credit or debit card. We are the only marketplace that can offer massive distribution as well as a payment platform that reaches 100 percent of the population. In addition to this, we also have integrated an advertising platform, Naranya Ads, that will enable app and game developers not only to increase their downloads, but also to monetise its audiences with advertising from our platform."

But what about China? Given Naranya's background is in Latin America, how is it looking to expand the influence of western mobile developers in China - a market it admits is twice the size of Latin America - or is the company in fact more interested in helping Chinese developers make their mark outside the country's expansive borders? "The Chinese market is a crucial market for us. In the short term, our interest in the Chinese mobile game ecosystem mainly consists of reaching local developers and publishers that are looking new revenue channels from overseas regions and to persuade them about the impressive potential of the Latin America," Galván concluded.

"Latin America has not been a huge market until now, mainly because of the lack of local marketplaces reaching the masses, but that has changed now with the availability of Naranya Market. Latin America is the next frontier for the Chinese game developer - it's a huge market to conquer."

What is the Future of App Store Optimisation (ASO)?

go-mashmobile.com

Promoting an app in the app stores has changed a huge amount over the years, as the competition has increased. Gone are the days when you could simply create an  app, put it in the app store and expect multiple downloads with very little effort. Now you need to stand out and App Store Optimisation (ASO) is one of the key elements of a mobile app marketing campaign.

But as Google changes more and more to offer more targeted results to its users, and therefore generating more and more money from advertising, changing the landscape for SEO, it is clear that the app stores will change too, adjusting the landscape for ASO.

We spoke to a number of experts in the field about where they believe ASO is going. Please do share your thoughts in the comments box below!

Rob Holmes, CEO of IPCybercrime.com LLC“An app store is essentially an online marketplace, no different than eBay or Amazon where thousands (and sometimes millions) of sellers compete for visibility. Because of this, optimization within the marketplaces has become big business. Marketplaces themselves make a lot of money by upselling features to their merchants with the promise of more visibility. eBay has done this practically from the start. Alibaba charges thousands of dollars for priority ‘Gold’ status. App stores are somewhat new, but the model is no different than any other marketplace. Where there are customers there is competition.”

Eric Wroolie, Director at Overpass
“ASO gets more and more difficult every day. As the number of apps submitted every day increases and the market gets more and more saturated, it seems to be all keywords are getting overused. We’re all begging for reviews and 
optimising our screenshots. I think the only way to truly gauge how good an app is will be by the number and quality of reviews. I truly believe that the app markets will give more credibility here. It’s chicken and egg . . . so we’ll need to start looking at ways outside of the app store to get people in. We’re all working from the same ASO plan books . . . and most ASO material out there is geared for iOS. We’ll see ASO change to favor 
Google Play a lot more.”

Maya Mikhailov, co-founder and CMO of GPShopper
“Just as Google has improved it’s SEO algorithm over the years to reward useful, quality content and penalize optimization “tricks” (like link building and keyword-stacking), the app stores are increasingly following suit. Factors such as installs and uninstalls, reviews and ratings, and even use frequency will soon dominate app store search success.”

Aykut Karaalioglu, CEO of Mobile Action
“App Store Optimization continues to become more sophisticated today than it was yesterday. In the future, Apple and Google will recognize install/uninstall rates, engagement, retention and ratings/reviews data. This will allow app developers to focus optimization efforts on keywords, images, descriptions and, most importantly, on in-app user activity.”

What do you think?
Do you see the future of ASO being much different to current ASO?

What Can Periscope Do for Hospital Marketers?

healthleadersmedia.com

Twitter's livestreaming app, Periscope, is beginning to show its potential as a way for hospitals to engage with patients and amplify a health system's brand, says Mayo Clinic's social media director.

Usually, when hospitals and health systems begin using a new social media app for marketing purposes, I've already had the app on my phone for months. So when I started reading about hospitals using Twitter's free, livestreaming broadcast-video app Periscope, I was surprised. And, honestly, I was a little alarmed. Was Ithat far behind?

An informal survey among friends, family, and acquaintances to determine if I needed to step up my social media game taught me that baby boomers had no idea what on earth I was talking about, fellow millennials had heard of it but hadn't bothered to download the app, and my friend's teenage sister had it but said she liked Snapchat better.

I did find one demographic of enthusiastic, early adopters. People who worked in advertising. Fishy, I thought.

This discovery lead me to launch a more in-depth investigation into Periscope's audience, potential benefits, and an exploration of whether hospital marketers should really be spending time on the latest trend.

The Basics
Periscope is a video app that lets users broadcast glimpses of their lives. It's similar to Snapchat's stories feature, except it's live, more interactive, and has no time limits. Twitter bought the platform for $100M back in January to compete with Meerkat, its live-broadcasting predecessor.

The app, which gained popularity around March, syncs with your Twitter account and sends you alerts when someone you follow is broadcasting. If you catch the feed live, you can like and comment in real time. Otherwise, you can watch the recording for 24 hours after it was posted, without the interactive elements.

Both apps have their share of high-profile users, though Periscope seems to have attracted more celebrities. One of the most successful is Ryan Seacrest, who has 93,000 followers— a feat that is less impressive when you realize he has 13.5 million followers on Twitter.  

Periscope gained 1 million users in its first ten days, but it's unclear how many have joined since then. It's fair to venture users have increased significantly— Periscope users shared their livestreams on Twitter 1.5 million times since its inception through May 22, according to Adweek. And the official Periscope account has 5 million followers.

Hospital Early Adopters 
A few pioneering hospitals and health systems began testing the Periscope waters this summer. Mayo Clinic, unsurprisingly, is a frontrunner with 3,100 followers (versus more than 1 million Twitter followers). The health system used the app to broadcast a tour of its Historical Suite on July 7. Mayo reported that the tour went well, with 466 live viewers and nearly 5,000 hearts (likes).

"Mayo Clinic has patients from every U.S. state and over 140 countries every year, and we saw the opportunity to help those considering Mayo Clinic get a preview of what they can expect when they come here," says Lee Aase, director of Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media.

"We also think it will be great to offer behind-the-scenes views of some of the unique features that make Mayo Clinic special. As we've explored it further, we see many more opportunities."

Aase and his team have created a landing page to explain Periscope and its purpose to patients. The health system has also found a way to give its broadcasts longevity beyond the 24-hour window by posting the recording on its YouTube channel.

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, another Periscope early adopter, has 221 followers (versus 15,600 on Twitter). The hospital has made several broadcasts, including a triathlon on July 26 and an achilles tendon repair surgery on June 22. Both are no longer available for viewing.

The Verdict
I'll admit, when I embarked on this little investigation I was skeptical— Periscope broadcasts seemed like an awful lot of work for only 24-hours of exposure to a limited audience. I wondered if it might go the way of last year's trendy video app Vine, which even Mayo Clinic hasn't updated since mid-March.

---

 But now that I've seen the creative ways hospitals are using the app and adapting to give the videos more staying power, I'm beginning to see its potential. Marketing tips include announcing your Periscope broadcast on Twitter, turning on location tagging, and engaging with followers in real time.

"We see Periscope as immensely more practical in healthcare than Vine because it allows in-depth and interactive communication," Aase says. "We're in the first six weeks of a six-month pilot with Periscope, and based on the response we're seeing so far it seems likely we'll continue with Periscope beyond the pilot phase."

Down the road, Mayo hopes to broadcast more tours, as well as some "Ask the Doctor" segments and "Day-in-the-Life" profiles. It's also looking into using Periscope as a recruitment tool. Outside of healthcare, Periscope was recently used to broadcast Twitter's earnings call.

10 ways to monetize your mobile app

thenextweb.com

Building a mobile app these days is easy. However, monetizing that same app has become nearly impossible, given how saturated the market is with free options (and potential customers unwilling to pay).

So to find out how founders can make money from their app, I asked a group of entrepreneurs from YEC the following:

Monetizing a mobile app has only gotten harder. What’s one overlooked strategy that actually works?

Their best answers are below:

1. Signups and Emails

If you have a newsletter, push it through your app. There’s nothing wrong with having an app that drives consumers to your website. It may not be the easiest thing to track, but it works. Remember that your app is just another leg of your brand chair. It does not have to survive on its own but does need to add value to your audience. – Brendon Schenecker, Travel Vegas

2. VIP Levels of App Useage

I think that having two versions of your app, a free/cheap version and a paid version is important. It’s part of the strategy of giving your customers a taste — a trial period to get a sense of all that your app can do — and then building from there. You want your customers to integrate this app into their lives and then realize they can’t live without it when it comes time to upgrade. Beefing up your upgrades is a big way to establish your product’s importance and value to your customers as well. – Rob Fulton, AudioLumin™

3. Advertising

Despite developers adding in-app purchasing and subscription services to their applications, users prefer to get a service for free and only a small percentage of users will ever pay real money. Diversified ad products with multiple units of different sizes work the best on mobile. Pair these ad products with an eye for data and metrics, and you can command great CPMs and CTRs. – Catherine Cook, MeetMe

4. SMS Marketing

Part of your app’s strategy should include asking for your customer’s mobile numbers. SMS marketing tends to be very efficient. Plus, you’ll be able to stay in touch and communicate with your customers. So whether you want to showcase a promotion, a contest, ask for feedback or build your brand loyalty, SMS marketing will help you. – Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

5. Partnerships

Partner with a company that has a similar customer base, and findways to integrate their offering into your app for a referral fee. The key is that the partner can really benefit your customers, and that you can create an integrated experience. If you find the right partner, this can be a great source of revenue. – Randy Rayess, VenturePact

6. A Solid Content Strategy

If you’re going to take the time and effort to develop a mobile app, you’re going to have to put just as much effort into maintaining and populating it with great content/features. It’s often believed that once you’ve finished and released the app, you’re done with the job. However, that is only the beginning. It’s important to have a three to five year strategy in place after the app is released. – Cassie Petrey, Crowd Surf

7. Multiple Payment Options

If you’re monetizing through subscriptions or in-app purchases, give multiple options with one that’s asymmetrically dominated. The way The Economist did this with its subscriptions was: Option 1) Web Subscription: $59; Option 2) Print Subscription: $125; Option 3) Web and Print Subscription: $125. The most subscriptions were received for Option 3, which readers found to offer the most value. A similar pricing strategy can help you convert more and at a higher value by adapting to your mobile app’s core offerings. – Rahul Varshneya, Arkenea LLC

8. White Label Your Code

If you build an awesome app and get enough traction with a free model, you can license your code to other developers and make money without disrupting the experience for your users. Nobody likes in-app advertising, so it’s a great way to turn people away from your app. On the other hand, if you build something powerful and useful that has enough users generating buzz, you’ll attract the attention of other app developers. You can deliver value to them by helping them save the time and effort of writing code for what your app already does. – Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

9. A Blended Model

In-App purchases are enticing and effective for some app users, while subscription and gated features push others to make a purchase. Instead of focusing your efforts on just adding a ton of in-app purchase options to your app, or only adding in-app advertising, try to blend a mix of a few different monetizing strategies. Include a few advertisements, some gated features and some virtual goods that can be purchased, and see how differently each user reacts. This is a great response to the fact that some users hate in-app purchases while others are addicted to them. This way there’s something for everyone. – Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com

10. A Data-Driven App Engagement Strategy

All too often, mobile app marketers are so focused on user acquisition that they lose sight of their strongest lever to drive monetization: re-engaging their current user base. In mobile gaming, the top 2 percent of users tend to be the biggest spenders, driving over 90 percent of an app’s revenue! According to a recent study by Localytics, 20 percent of users churned after using an app once. If you can leverage your in-app user data to improve retention and grow engagement by strategically targeting your current users with the right messaging, it will be much easier to cost-effectively monetize them. – Farzana Nasser, Gallop

What Will the Internet Be in 2025?

nojitter.com

A Pew Research survey hints at the future upsides and downsides of the Internet’s evolution.

Looking back can be used to help predict the future, but predicting the future of the Internet and its impact is a challenging endeavor. The history of the Internet has been populated by rapid growth of applications whose success and failure were difficult to foresee. By surveying those who are involved with the Internet, however, as well as connectivity and applications, some measure of the future can be obtained.

Experts believe that easy access to the Internet is a growth stimulator. Connecting people and the Internet of Things (IoT) will make the Internet a true utility that will become an even greater resource in everyday life. However there will be both positive and negative outcomes from the Internet's growth.

The Pew Survey

The Pew Research survey of Internet predictions, " The Web at 25 in the U.S., Digital Life in 2015" is the organization's latest report, marking the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The survey report was produced by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center. The predictions from 1,867 respondents were collected between November 25, 2014 and January 13, 2015.

The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends affecting the U.S. and the rest of the world. They do this by conducting opinion polls, demographic research, and media content analysis.

The Upside Predictions

Predictions are just that, a look into the future. Some are obvious while others are not so visible. The Pew report digests the positive predictions into eight statements. I have selected four of the predictions that I find most interesting:

1. Eventually the Internet will become so much a utility that it will be an integral part of daily life. It will be used so often that it will be expected to always there, just like electricity and water.
2. The Internet will continue to expand global connectivity, which will promote more planetary relationships and less ignorance. One of the respondents, Paul Jones, professor at the University of North Carolina and founder of Ibiblio.org, stated that "Television let us see the global village, but the Internet let us be actual villagers." I am not sure this will be true because the Internet also allows those with differing ideas and philosophies to only interact with those with similar ideas without really interacting with those of differing ideas. ISIS is an example of a body using the Internet to create a closed community of like believers.
3. The Internet will be used to make people more aware of their own behavior and the world that surrounds them. However, too much information means that some will be ignored. There are already cases where people have turned off their wearable devices because the continued data presentation was beginning to run their lives rather than benefit them.
4. One prediction that I fully agree with is the spread of education and opportunities that cost less saving real estate and teacher time while expanding the audience. Consider the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) movement that is delivering college/university education across borders.

The Downside Predictions

In addition to the beneficial predictions, the Pew report highlighted seven less hopeful predictions. I have selected three negative predictions to discuss:

1. The Internet will continue to facilitate the division between the haves and have nots. The result will be resentment from those who know what they don't have. Counterproductive, violent actions may be the result. What the Internet will do is offer plenty of images of the resentment and protests.
2. Human behavior will continue to exist with both good and bad results. We have seen online bullying, stalking, pornography, and crime flourish. One of the respondents who is an antispam and security architect predicts that "There will be an erosion of privacy and the use of dirty-tricks social media will emerge more and more in election campaigns. Abusers evolve and scale far more than regular Internet users."
3. To combat abuses, governments and corporations will attempt to assert power, invoking more security and cultural norms. These actions can be used to limit the user's actions even when positive because the actions may interfere with the status quo. Some governments value stability above freedom.

Caveats

These predictions will be influenced by factors that may not even be visible today. A restrictive government may become financially weaker. The result could be more restrictions or the government being unable to enforce the restrictions, thereby losing control.

The advice of the report is to make good choices now and not wait to see the outcome of the Internet. I like the quote from the Pew report that sums up the best path forward, "The best way to predict the future is to invent."