What happened to Mobile Web 1.0, Dan Applequist

References the BT Cellnet Silver Surfer: "Surf the net. Surf the BT Cellnet."

Peter Erskine, April 2000: "This is the turning point for the mobile Internet"

A marketing message no-one could decode, a service nobody wanted to use. Most major telcos in the western world made the mistake of marketing WAP as the internet. What's different now? Hardware has caught up: devices have "real software" and work out of the box. Data tariffs have dropped massively. Networks are better. We have a "rise of standards" (don't get this one: wasn't WAP as standard as could be?)

The guys working on the WAP standards were horrified that the word WAP appeared in marketing literature; it wasn't intended to be something consumers knew about, but a way of delivering value-added services to the phone.

"Mobile Web is now used for the long tail". Dan gives Flickr, Facebook, Amazon as examples - but are these long tail? They seem quite major services to me.

"Web adapts to users device and service" (cough Vodafone cough).

Downloadable, connected applications too. Jaiku referenced as an example of content more compelling on the phone than on PC.

SMS is becoming IM, mobile blogging. MMS becoming media sharing. Operator portals giving way to content search. Java games giving way to connected applications. PSMS billing giving way to mobile stored value accounts. etc.

Operators changing from gatekeepers to jumping-off points for the mobile web.

"Mobile Web 2.0 needs to learn lessons from Web 1.0: It's 1997 again"

Comments

[alan p]

Deja Vu :)

[Daniel Appelquist]

Thanks for the write-up, Tom... Some thoughts on your comments:

Rise of standard -- I guess what I was talking about here (which I also alluded to later) is the fact that the Web standards have caught up witht he needs of mobile devices. So, for example, you have the convergence of W3C XHTML and OMA XHTML happening right now. WAP, though a standard, was not a standard was not a Web standard. (Kind of splitting hairs I know, but I think it's a factor.)

Long tail -- I see your point but I was also trying to give some examples of well-used mobile sites... I probably should have mentioned some smaller sites as well and also Wikipedia content.

Web sites adapting -- yes, well.. Ahem. Feed back on Betavine about this issue, please: http://vodafonebetavine.net/web/guest/projects/resources/mics

[Tom Hume]

Dan: I'm not sure we really do have the long tail of mobile content yet (in terms of lots of niche sites)... but post-your talk I'm fairly convinced we will have. There isn't yet a "geocities for mobile" here in the UK (lots of contenders tho I'm sure), in the way of, say, Magic I-land in Japan.

What we do have is lots of Web 2.0 businesses coming to mobile (twitter, flickr - all your examples) and seeming to produce really coherent things full of value. Definitely agree these sites are important and demonstrate

Don't think there's anything fresh I could say on the Voda gateway stuff I'm afraid...