I often have the opportunity of sitting through elegantly constructed demos of mobile technology. With CTIA just a little over a week away I'm sure that I'll soon be (willingly) assaulted by the latest crop. And that's all fine and well but the fact is that mainstream (read big dollar) acceptance of new technologies and services is something that happens "in the field."

When I was involved in broadband digital media I sat through many compelling demos that showed me how I'd eventually order a pizza through my interactive TV. And I always scratched my head: I already know how to order pizza and if I'm sitting in front of my TV I'm probably not far from a take out menu and a phone. So what's the point?

A couple of weeks ago I was at the local co-op staring at fresh peaches, hungering for a recipe for peach cobbler and I turned to my mobile phone for help. The results after ten minutes? Nada. Fortunately the co-op had a copy of the Joy of Cooking which I'd intentionally ignored as I worked through my mobile experiment, so my cobbler dreams were realized.

You haven't seen my byline on blog entries of late because I took a vacation. I make an annual trek out to the desert and get off the grid--the power grid, the sewage grid, the mobile grid--for over a week. I recommend it. But getting off the grid requires planning and logistics and hours before I'd intended to disappear into the desert dust I realized I needed help. And so I turned to my mobile phone.

I needed--very quickly--a couple of things: a place to dump the sewage from my RV and a place to buy some blankets. Apologies if these use cases are less appetizing than pizza purchasing, but my point is that the needs I want technology to meet are the ones I have at the moment, not the ones which are carefully planned by marketing departments.

Texting GOOGL and YAHOO "Reno Nevada RV dump" and "Reno Nevada Target" rapidly produced information that made my life better. I actually had half a dozen of these incidents and my non-scientific study has made me a fan of Yahoo!'s service. Google returns basic results that are essentially the same as Yahoo!'s. Google always includies a cryptic message that my destination is some number of miles away. Not helpful, seldom accurate. Yahoo! goes the extra distance and provides a very helpful set of cross streets which, map in hand (or accessible via WAP), actually helped me find my destination. Dear reader, don't worry. The sewage was successfully deposited and and we had warm blankets.

And what are the lessons from this vacation episode? First, I only care about your technology if it makes my world better when I need it to make my world better. Second, I haven't dialed 411 in three months--ouch, that just knocked $4 from my ARPU. Third, SMS works, it's ubiquitous, and the experience of texting an address and using T9 is much closer to they way I navigate Web search than the WAP equivalent--companies focused on today's market will work to exploit and transform technologies that are widely deployed and understood. Fourth, while I love Google and it's my default webpage, I have to step back and note that Yahoo! is, rather quietly, getting it right.