Life is grand

I was just reading Arrington’s humorous tale of having his electricity cut off and was struck by the following line:

I found the phone number for PG&E but the vonage line was out because it needs electricity.

Crikey, of course, VoIP needs electricity. It is a lot more dependant than “old style” telephony. I remember always being amazed as a kid when the phones still worked when the power went out.

Now imagine a world of VoIP and the electricity goes out and your grandpas home heart-lung machine fails. No life saving phone call possible.

We definitley need to think through our rapid adoption of cool technology. We also need to be careful how we use metaphors and portray new technology in old shells e.g. selling phones that rely on electricity and IP networks to people who, on seeing a normal looking phone, think it will work in blackouts and without broadband coming into their homes. Or cars that break down in the desert and require an engineer from Intel to fix rather than your wife’s stockings and a bit of elbow grease.

So he’s kind of like a Jeremy Clarkson of Web2.0 ?

This was said by Walter Higgin’s wife about Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. I laughed so hard.

So. Spot. On.

A pity our friends over the pond won’t get the reference. They’d do well to watch a few Top Gear episodes.