I am reminded of the story about how the market for the Xerox photocopier was initially computed. # of secretaries x # letters / day * average # mimeograph copies of each letter. The potential of the technology to affect the use of its outputs was ignored.
My wife and I recently upgraded our crappy mobiles to Droids. We hadn't at all considered the value of geolocating each other, but we quickly realized that a significant portion of the calls we made to each other were for the sole purpose of asking, "Where are you?" or "How close to X are you?" The potential uses of a new technology are not always obvious before adoption.
"We had difficulty reaching other users on the Bell apparatus, which Alexander Graham admits will have limited utility until they build a second Telephone."
"We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph, though fatigue from magnetic waves is inevitable in the use of each."
"Our tests show that users of the Telephone need not learn any "code," having only to shout in the plain English understood by all but imbeciles, foreigners, and the Chinese."
My wife and I recently upgraded our crappy mobiles to Droids. We hadn't at all considered the value of geolocating each other, but we quickly realized that a significant portion of the calls we made to each other were for the sole purpose of asking, "Where are you?" or "How close to X are you?" The potential uses of a new technology are not always obvious before adoption.