Where mobile innovation should be heading

This post is about mobile services, innovation and where I think we’re heading in that space. I’ve been thinking about this stuff lately, and here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

There is no distinction between the wired and wireless internet. Mobile phones are first class net citizens, and any service provider that refuses to get this wont stay in business too long.
The technical specifics of developing a wireless service is no different (or more difficult) compared to traditional internet development, however, the mindset when developing a wireless service must be radically different.
A wireless device is always part of a social environment, whereas a desktop browser most often is not. Any successful service must be very relevant to that social context in order to be successful (note: this applies directly to all forms of mobile marketing).

The recent “web 2.0” era has spawned a lot of new browser based services. Even though useful, most of them are part of a semi-bubble that will not change the way the world works. However, some of these services and service concepts have enabled an ever increasing speed and ease in information sharing and retrieval, covering all kinds of digitized material (blogs, podcasts, video sharing, bookmarks, etc.). Ad-hoc formation of informal, loosely coupled groups and the harvesting the collective wisdom of big masses have permanently changed the way the net work. This will continue to happen, and the next wave that has already begun will allow mobile users to participate.

The challenges in service innovation will all be about relevance and context. Sure, social bookmarking is a great thing on my desktop, but its not a killer mobile service. Google does a great job in finding millions on entries for some particular query, but in a mobile context I’m interested in one often very specific answer. Online maps and real-world-service-location become interesting only when my actual physical location is taken into account, even when moving around at greater speeds. I prefer to write blog entries from my desktop, but reading them while on the move will become more common. This leads to a great dependance on relevance, as the small screen greatly puts a limit on the amount of information that I want to be exposed to.

And as a last point, forget about monetizing your mobile service with advertisements. The eyeball and click-thorugh counting of the desktop internet doesn’t apply to the mobile screen. Relevance and context, remember. Built-in billing mechanisms (that can be scaled to cover most of the world) for mobile services exist, and users are ready to pay granted something of real value is provided.

In summary, mobile innovation should happen where the real world and the benefits of mobility meet.

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You’re currently reading “Where mobile innovation should be heading,” an entry on my random thoughts

Published:: February 21, 2006 / 16:02

Category:: General, Mobile industry, Mobile marketing, Mobile technology

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Jackie Peters 3.6.06 / 2am

I think your first point about the “mobile internet” and the “regular internet” being the same thing is a very valid one. I have always found it astounding that some carriers won’t let you view or download “off portal” content. What if AOL wouldn’t let you buy anything from any other company other than AOL? I don’t think anyone would use them as a service provider any more.

I think that the mobile internet is in many ways in the same place that the “regular” internet was about seven years ago. It was just beginning to have it’s own set of rules concerning design, usability and content. I think the mobile internet will progress more quickly, having the benefit of the “regular internet” having come before it. The main differentiator, as you have pointed out is content relevance. I think right now people are just sending out smaller chunks of whatever they put online. Really, we need to see a whole new evolution of content specifically designed for handsets.

Michael Smuga 3.12.06 / 12am

I totally agree with your point of view regarding relevance and context. I just wanted to make a small remark regarding your statement “The technical specifics of developing a wireless service is no different (or more difficult) compared to traditional internet development.” It all depends on the type of the mobile app you’re developing. IMHO developing mobile browse apps (WAP) is significantly more complex than traditional internet development. In the PC world you have to deal with 3 maybe 4 browsers which are usually pretty similar. In the mobile world each browser looks similar, but behaves completely differently. Some of them don’t render tables correctly, some of them ignore several formatting elements, cookie support varies from device to device, some browsers don’t like long URLs (so passing parameters in the URL becomes a problem) etc. When you add the fact that devices run on different networks, it adds even more to the complexity (some carriers store/modify cookies at their WAP gateways, and if they handle them in a custom way, it means that you have to adapt your app to deal with it). If you develop for a couple of most popular devices in one market things may be easier. If you try to cover all WAP 2.0 devices in multiple markets the problem is much more complex. I always strive to support most devices in most markets. However, no matter how much my team tries we always find new devices that are supposed to support xhtml/chtml, but they’re broken until we special-case them.

alindh 3.14.06 / 1pm

Sure, there is a bit more complexity in the process of developing and running a mobile application / service, but it is not that much more difficult. You need to realize that the your environment is anything but heterogenous, and not throw away all assumptions about the user agents. But there is in no way any magic involved, and developing these kinds of application is getting easier all the time.

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Where mobile innovation should be heading

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