Podcasts to be played on cell phones, not iPod’s and MP3 players?

Microsoft founder Bill Gates sees mobile phones overtaking MP3s as the top choice of a portable music player, and views the raging popularity of Apple’s iPod player as unsustainable, he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper.

As good as Apple may be, I don’t believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run. You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field before, with its Macintosh and its graphics user interface — like the iPod today — and then lost its position. …If you were to ask me which mobile device will take top place for listening to music, I’d bet on the mobile phone for sure.

Podcasts, brief audio shows recorded by bloggers, use the same basic technology as music being played on MP3 players, whether Apple’s iPod or another device. If Gates is right, we may be listening to Podcasts on cellphones before too long.

But as Gates says, “The consumer is always unpredictable. In principle, you can only throw products onto the market and then learn from your mistakes.” Boy is that contra to the large legal players like LexisNexis where you do surveys and study things for years or sit back and wait until your existing customers are beating the door down for a new product or service before putting your foot in the water. Is it any wonder that the legal industry is not too innovative?

Source of Post: Kevin Dugan at Webpronews