View From the Phlipside Radio - The Top Story of 2011 (and 2012)!

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

End of the year and I like to take a look back at the topics that we’ve talked about here.  This year I thought I’d do a best, worst and dumbest ideas of the year.  These are topics that bubbled to the surface this year that will carry forward into 2012.  This time let’s take a look at my best topic nominee.

Of all the topics I looked at this year the one that I think will have the biggest impact in 2012 will be mobile computing.  This is something that got a lot of discussion throughout the media world this past year.  Smartphones have been coming on for several years but the number of people who were doing significant percentages of their online computing through devices like them really began to sky rocket this year.  But I think that smartphone mobile computing is only the surface of the changes that are coming our way.

The iPad made a huge impact when it was introduced just two years ago.  The long sought tablet computer finally had a successful well designed version out there.  But I think the iPad won’t remain the core of this market or the mobile computing movement.  And the reason is simple.  The iPad is simply too much.  Too much when it comes to capability and too much in the price tag.  There has been a huge movement towards simpler and significantly less expensive tablet computers.  I know that even my own Nook Color which isn’t really a tablet at all meets my primary needs for quick internet contact.  When you look at devices like the Kindle Fire, the Nook Tablet which offer all the primary functions most people need at well under $300 then even the lower cost iPad competitor tablet computers become less imperative for purchase.  And if the movement toward sub $100 tablet computers takes off then iPad and the other high end tablets become much more in the line of speciality items.

Small computers that are easier to carry, that give us the versatility of smartphone apps and all at prices that the vast majority of the market can easily afford will be a game changer.  Just the way the personal computer was 20-30 years ago.  And that would be a very good idea for 2012.

Here’s to the New Year.

Call that the View From the Phlipside