Killing time with a genius...idea #47/100...

I hate that phrase - "killing time". It ought to be banned. Time is much to valuable to think about killing it. Strange how that expression, despite its use of the ugly word "kill", is a polite way of saying "wasting time". This is a whole class of mobile applications - "time killers", or "time wasters". Someone in marketing has to work on that phrase and.....kill it off!

The only expression worse than this, with the same word, is "killer app". The phrase isn't the problem, so much as the whole mindset that often goes with it. People often ask "what's the killer app for 3G?"

Who knows? It's like asking, who's going to win the lottery. We only know after the event and all speculation is practically meaningless. Killer apps - all of them - are random events. They only appear non-random after the event (with hindsight bias) Meanwhile, most of us have to focus on the more mundane world of producing services that don't kill (or cannibalise for that matter).

Forgive me for wasting your time by using three paragraphs (and now four) to get to the point. Let me kill the suspense...

I do like the idea of spending time productively, even those otherwise unplanned or uncontrollable moments where "killing time" becomes "necessary". I have often thought about mobile video content and decided that I would like - and be prepared to pay for - access to tiny documentaries (doculets?) about genius people, ideas, theories and moments.

Not only is it spending time productively (of sorts), but also "buying" time that I probably won't have to watch full-length documentaries, or read books, about such topics.

If it hasn't happened already, then I'm convinced that it will come..."Genius TV" on a mobile in your pocket...

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