The mix of improved devices and better data networks (2.75G, 3G and WiFi) is turning mobiles into multimedia computers that we can carry with us everywhere. 2007 will be the year when all the ideas which have worked on the Web will be applied to the mobile. So, the three big ideas of the Internet portals, search and ads will make their way to the mobile. Then, there will be others: user-generated content on mobile, mobile social networks, mobile video, mobile web 2.0, and so on.
As C. Enrique Oritz puts it:
I see 2007 as having the right ingredients for the birth of the next generation of mobility. Below are some of these ingredients:
* Advanced feature-and-media-rich handsets and APIs, including the next generation of Java on handsets: MIDP3 and MSA
* Fast and robust wireless networks everywhere
* Personal or near field networks
* Services, services: Services on the web, location-based services, open methods for service publish and consumption, collaboration
* Open tools, platforms, protocols and APIs, services, Internet, Web and Mobile Web, including W3C standards for Widgets and W3C WICD Mobile
* Messaging, and next generation messaging
* The mobility community continues to grow: from developers to investors
* People are getting it! User participation, user-generated content, collaboration, mass messaging/texting, high penetration of mobile handsets, the mobile lifestyle is happening!
From m-trends:
More user-generated content will become available to the phone; opening the way for mobile users to start using new web/mobile 2.0 services on their phones, such as podcasting, RSS feeds, more user-generated content to upload and use.
Big Media Youth Networks going mobile – MySpace, YouTube, MTV and many more players will resolutely go mobile; allowing users to upload pictures, videos and create/consumer content straight from their mobile phones. And to share with friends (including mobile forwarding functionality).
Mobile search – the big players will start positioning seriously in the mobile market (watch out for deals with carriers/operators and device manufacturers)
Mobile ads – the market is growing at a rapid pace (just watch AdMobs ad views ticker box daily)
Multiple network download hotspots become available in urban zones – enabling on the spot mobile download and internet access possibilities via wi-fi/wimax/bluetooth/nfc/etc. (all build in or available immediately)
I dont think mobile search will be as big as it is being thought about currently. Mobiles are better suited to a different information access model and that is subscriptions. RSS and mobiles are made-for-each-other. The key is to now think not of advertising, but of invertising (invited advertising) in the mobile context. So, my thinking is that instead of search and advertising being the primary drivers on the mobile, it will be subscriptions and invertising. One will see these ideas first not in the US, but in emerging markets where mobiles are more central to peoples lives.
Tomorrow: The Rise of Widgets
TECH TALK 2007 Tech Trends+T
