I’ve been talking and posting about the concept of “Information Snacking” for some time now. I want to be at the center of my data consumption, instead of trapped in an application, site or a specific device. We want to call up our data whenever, wherever we want it.
I envision a site that lets you customize multiple views of your data:
- The PC / Browser view
- The Mobile view
- The 10-foot view
.. and maybe more variants.
Seems simple, right? Pick your content; your stocks, your MySpace or Facebook summary, your team scores, your weather, your mail. Assemble these widgets onto the pages for each view and voila! Information Snacking.
The rub: making money. Will one site allow other sites’ ads on their pages? Or will they pay a fee for the content and try to charge for it? Or something else?
Seems Yahoo! is opening this Pandora’s box a bit with their Yahoo! Mobile product; a starting point on your mobile device that includes the stuff you want (maps, email, etc.), plus the ability to add third-party content via Mobile Widgets. The site is boasting eBay, MySpace and MTV News widgets, along with a ton of other widgets in their widget gallery.
Update: As I point out in “The next thing: Mobiles, Minis, Flakes, et. al”, a mobile device is, an Information Snacking device .. a composite application, with you, the data consumer at the center.
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