seperated at birth?

a. the invaginated, rubbery modo device. | b. biopod from cronenberg's existenz

September 2000: we hit New York for the kind of weekend that sounds romantic but really consists of two jet-lagged, thirtyish types trying to recover from jetBlue's seating arrangements while running a whirlwind orbit of friends and museums and restaurants.

We did get to see the new Rose Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, Christian de Portzamparc's LVMH Tower, and some great stuff at MoMA (Harry Callahan!). And we only narrowly missed a fresh batch of KrispyKremes. But I have to admit the thing that really caught my eye that weekend was an intriguing ad for a new wireless device - as I was later to find out, part of a spare-no-expense, $20 million Wieden+Kennedy ad campaign.

The thing was called modo. It looked great - sorta orgonic, if you wanna know the truth; one reviewer described it as "Cronenberg-inspired blob, and I mean that in a positive way"- and it seemed to promise instant street cred. Modo touted itself as a realtime guide to all the mystery and density of city life, selling for under $100. That's right: one-time purchase, no service fees.

Two conflicting thoughts leapt to mind immediately: one, where is the business model? And two: where can I get one?

So I rushed off to the now defunct modo.net, very consciously betting $99 on a dark horse. I was captivated: it seemed like here was a company that had decided to invest everything on design, offering a precisely-targeted service to an audience that was likely to appreciate that salient fact. A little digging revealed that modo was produced by a company called Scout Electromedia, one of the idealab! stable of incubees. Undeterred by the idealab! reputation, I clicked on order now.

A week or so later, the package arrived. My first reaction: mmmmmm, modo. As appealing physically as its business model was nonsensical, it consisted of a palm-ready milkylucent pod with a spiny, rubbery lip to protect the screen. The interface was stripped down to a few buttons and a jog dial that engaged with a satisfying click.

But would the pleasure of the object itself entice enough people to part with $99, when similar content was and is available free of charge on platforms people already owned?

The assumption - naive at first blush, and at second - was clearly that this would not be an issue, that sufficient ad revenue would flow in to support the costs of operating a multi-city wireless network and of providing content for it. Although Scout apparently made a small profit on every unit shifted online, and only took a small hit on those moved through partners like Virgin Megastores and DKNY, one wonders what might have happened had idealab! instead spent that $40 million developing minute-hip content for the Palm.

Because content, at least, was something they got note-perfect. It looked, even for a moment, as if one sensual, easy-to-use device would supplant stacks of free weeklies and their scattershot recommendations, and I couldn't have been happier. Because I count myself among the relatively plugged-in, and even so can't help but feeling like there's always something more interesting going on just out of reach.

Modo assuaged that sense with clued-in, sassy, deadpan listings of the things I'm interested in: dive bars, obscure HK films, cheap-chablis-and-cheddar-cubes gallery openings. I felt instantly known when I clicked on a review of an Oakland dive bar, and got a rant about trying to impress the androgynous cutie with a stiff Cuba Libre as the New York Dolls blare in the background "and your ex is doing blow in the toilet stall, without you." The review for my favorite hole-in-the-wall Indo-Pakistani joint referred to "hirsute assassins." It was cackle-raising stuff.

It sold itself, too. I showed mine to a friend and hadn't gotten an explanation halfway out my mouth before he was asking me where to get one. I showed it to the VP/Creative at work and practically before I turned the thing on she wanted to buy her sister one for Christmas.

And yet we all circled, eventually, back to the sheer dunderheaded economics of the proposition. How in the world did modo intend to support a daily upload (in each of four cities, yet) from a stable of hippish content providers, once their target audience was saturated?

I think we all knew, going in, that it was going to be a short, wild ride. The shocker is just how short it was: one morning Jean tried to turn modo on, to no avail, and we simply figured that the batteries had run down, not that we'd been burned once again by the Curse of the Early Adopter. Of course, when I got to work and peeped FuckedCompany, it didn't take long to put two and two together.

I'm not sure the idiosyncratic modo model is generalizable enough to stand as a warning to those prepared to rush into the wireless space. Not many companies are lucky (?) enough to burn through $40 million in 90 days, and fold the morning before their launch party. And I don't ever want to advocate any sort of conservatism or timidity. My fear is, though, that the spectacular way in which modo crashed and burned will inhibit other attempts to launch odd, niche devices and services, when the real demon is retarded economics. My hope is that people will absorb the message without having to guillotine its gorgeous, biomorphic messenger.