In the first century AD, the city of Pompeii in Italy was covered in ash from the massive eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius. The resulting solidified volcanic debris left behind hollow molds from which casts of victims caught in various poses by the eruption were recreated. They provide fascinating and vivid details of a day gone horribly wrong, as the eruption caught the city’s residents completely by surprise.
The body casts of Pompeii are poignant reminders of just how unexpectedly your environment can change and how quickly you can be blindsided by seemingly inescapable dangers (excerpt from Slingshot: Re-Imagine Your Business, Re-Imagine Your Life).
A recent news story describing the threat to wireless carriers against their highly lucrative text messaging offerings reminds us of the tragic outcome in Pompeii, and made us wonder which carrier will be the first to begin re-imagining the wireless landscape and escape the impending doom?
From New York Times:
At a time when e-mail and many other forms of electronic communication are essentially free, wireless carriers are still charging as much as 20 cents to send a text message to a phone, and another 20 cents to receive it.
Paying so much to transmit a handful of words is starting to look as antiquated as buying stamps.
There are now a growing number of ways to bypass text-message charges using an Internet connection — much as Skype allows people to make calls without relying on a traditional telephone line. If these services catch on in a big way, analysts say, they could take a big bite out of the profits that text messages generate for wireless carriers.
[Image via Google Images.]
