lauri@imke

Mobiles are just not for talking anymore. Actually they havent been for that for some good years now, but today these small gadgets look especially hot and attractive. Richard Wray (2007) points out, that there are approx. 3 billion mobile phones in the world today and another billion next-generation phones will be sold already next year. This is the reason why Apple came out with the revolutinary iPhone and Google is trying to catch the plane talking about the Google phone.

It’s also the question of globalization - people are not depending on the desktop PC’s anymore, since the global lifestyle prefers laptops and now even more smaller and lighter mobile gadgets. Mobile services are one of the biggest trends in the future web-world (MacManus, 2007).

Jaokar (2006, 1-15) explains the human need for Mobile 2.0 services. He’s doing it very creativly using the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory sais that there are some things whitout we couldn’t live (we need food and sleep) and after we have achieved them, we start to look for something more (we want to feel secure and to be loved) etc. Now, the same theory has been set to the mobile services - after achieving the basic needs (calling the ambulance in case of accident), people want more out of the mobiles (i.e order ringtones, send MMS’s etc) and the highest element in the pyramid is creating content and using complex services with mobile devices. Actually we could live without them, but there still is quite clear need for these kind of services.

Citizen journalism and mobile technologies

Mobile technologies have given a strong input for the citizen journalism development. Newsvine, one of the most popular citizen journalism sites, was recently acquired by MSNBC. It shows, that the leading news-agencies see the potential in citizen journalism and have started to give more attention on this issue. But not only the agencies, also the mobile companies want to take their share. Interesting is the fact, that Nokia has developed in co-operation with Reuters a The Mobile Journalsim toolkit, that consists of a multimedia phone equipped with a Bluetooth keyboard and other fancy gadgets. It shows that journalism is getting more-and-more mobile and gives an oppurtunity basicly for everyone to take part in the journalism process. Daily newspapers have sections, where their readers can submit photos and videos taken on the streets and from places where the reporters already have missed the “big fire” or the accident. It has all the characteristics of Web 2.0, which is the keyword for user-created-content.

Intersection of mobile and Web 2.0

Kharif (2006) points out that since mobiles are ruleing the market, popular social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have opened mobile services. The PC isn’t necessary anymore to keep the eye on your friends’ activities in Facebook or MySpace. It’s easy to take a snapshot with your handy and instantly upload it to the web - a cool way to share your travellings with your friends and family at home. Interesting is also the fact, that some mobile companies have contracts with social networking sites, so the phones have pre-installed applications to make communicating with the site and uploading new photos even more easier.

Actually the same thing is going on with blogging - the PC is boring and clumsy. Use mobile devices to post about your trip to south-Spain and with a integrated GPS it’s possible make it really interesting to follow. Locative services will rock the mobile market.

Locative services

The advantage of the mobile devices is the fact, that you always have them in your pocket and ready to use. Jensen (2007) is in opinion that, the next big thing after Web 2.0 will be locative services. I totally share this idea, because all the information in the web would have much more value if it has been tagged with it’s location. It would be cool to save the keywords “champions league final live” (if you’re interested in watching tonights game) and while walking around in the city, your mobiles gives you a hint that the pub cross the road is showing this game live. The information gets relevant in these specific locations.

It’s also with the million Flickr images. They would be much more valuable, if they were seen at some specific locations (but not at your desktop). Imagine yourself being a tourist in India and you would receive a bunch of photos of Taj Mahal being close to the building. It would give a good overview of the building - some pictures are zoomed in, taken in different light conditions etc.

In Tokyo, a new mobile service is being tested at the moment. Michael Fitzpatrick (2007) mentions that the RFID tags are used to describe the streets, shops, underground, etc in Tokyo. There’s also a practical reason for that - the city is huge and even some streets don’t have names, so for tourists getting lost in Tokyo would be no problem. The new system indicates if the supermarket has a sushi-restaurant or in the underground the mobile would show you the photo how the stop looks from the street - so you could easily recognise your stop (in case you feel a bit uncomfortable in japanese).

Mobile services go too far?

Yuki Noguchi (2006) introduces an application Dodgeball, which is a mobile social software. The point of this application would be tracing your friends with a mobile device - it will give you an overview where your friends have been. Actually it has quite a lot of features, even the popular dating service. While walking around in the city, you could specify that you would like to meet a 22-year-old brunette who likes classical music. And wow, you’re mobile will let you know, if there are any of these girls close to you. Dating 2.0? Besides it’s possible to receive messages if some of your friends is in a nearby cafe.

Actually these kind of services have quite a serious privacy issues to face, but nevertheless, it seems like people still want to ‘be on the map’. Interesting is the fact, that this service is owned by Google. It won’t take a lot of time, before Google will know everything about us. But yeah, fortunatelly the phones still have the magical shut-down button.

Conclusion

Mobile services and especially locative services will receive more and more attention. It seems like all the big web-companies are finding ways to reach the mobile market. At one point of view it will boost the technological development on mobile devices, which is definetely good. Besides that, mobile manufacturers are opening SDK’s, so software developers could write cool widgets for mobile devices. Recenlty Apple introdeced the SDK for iPhone. That’s a great oppurtunity to develop even more complex mobile services. Entrepreneurs from the mobile field intend to call these services also as Mobile 2.0 (most probably because of the Web 2.0 hype), but one thing is sure - the desktops are being conquered by all-powerful mobile gadgets.

List of references

Jaokar, A., Fish, T (2006) Mobile Web 2.0: The Innovator’s Guide to Developing and Marketing Next Generation Wireless/Mobile Applications. Futuretext

Kharif, O. (2006), Social Networking goes Mobile. [Accessed 28.10.2007]

Wray, R. (2007), The world has gone mobile mad and gadget crazy as prices fall. [Accessed 28.10.2007]

Jensen, M. (2007), The Next Big Thing: Why Web 2.0 isn’t Enoug [Accessed 28.10.2007]

MacManus, R. (2006), Understanding Mobile 2.0. [Accessed 28.10.2007]

MacManus, R. (2007), 10 Future Web Trends. [Accessed 28.10.2007]

Noguchi, Y. (2006), Friends at Hand And In Your Face. [Accessed 28.10.2007]

Fitzpatrick, M. (2007), Tagging Tokyo’s streets with no name. [Accessed 28.10.2007]