Ever since Nokia invited me to Helsinki for Open Lab 2008, the mobile web has figured big in my mind. Since then, my mobile coverage has popped up all over the world wide interwebs, and varied from the theoretical to tangible.
But for those of you who don’t spend as much time obsessing about mobile tech, I’ve put together a list of 5 posts to help you get your bearings on both where the mobile web is, and where it’s probably headed. They’re from a variety of places that I blog, and feature text and both original and syndicated video. Enjoy…
- Mobile Communities: Web 3.0 - Social media might have changed the way people interacted online, but the mobile web is going to change how people interact offline, as well.
- Social Mobile Gaming - In the video interview, Akoha founder Austin Hill discusses how Akoha works, and in doing so, illustrates just how the mobile web is going to change the way people interact both online and off.
- Mobile: The Future of Ecommerce - Guess what. The mobile web is going to be for a lot more than just play. It won’t only make money, it’ll move it around, and in this interview, Nokia’s Jeremy Belostock explains how NFC will be used to do that (if you don’t know what NFC is, watch this first).
- Mobile Gaming to Grow Despite Recession - In a nutshell, because mobile services are still approaching critical mass, these sectors will probably continue to show notable growth rates despite the current state of the economy.
- Nokia is Crowd Sourcing Traffic Reports - That NFC technology I just mentioned, well it can be used for a whole lot more than ecommerce, and one of those things is generating traffic reports by aggregating the physical movements of every device and determining where everyone is and how fast they are moving. Big Brother much?
This is Quinn Jacobson, a research leader at Nokia’s research centre in Palo Alto. Quinn heads up the Traffic Works program, and like Nokia’s NFC program, Traffic Works is like a hybrid of technologies, but seems to be based mostly on GPS.
Personally, both Traffic Works and NFC scare the living s**t out of me. Quinn mentions protecting the user’s privacy a few times, but I think that such an assumption is naive. For instance, the government has these boxes that can decode 128 bit encryption, and I know this guy who knows this guy who can get these boxes from this guy in Israel for about $4,000. It’s completely f**ked how short-sighted we can be, and how willing we are to trade privacy and security for convenience. Orwell couldn’t have thought up something more diabolical and vulnerable to abuse. I mean, think about it: LBS makes the iPhone a telescreen you take with you everywhere you go…
But what do I know? I’m just a paranoid gypsy bandit whose mother probably held him too much as a child… So without further ado, I give you Nokia’s Quinn Jacobson…
iPhone Telescreen Version
This is Jeremy Belostock, the sales & marketing director for Nokia’s Near Fields’s Communication (NFC) department. NFC is like a hybrid of Bluetooth, RFID, and WiFi. It’s going to completely change ecommerce, and pretty much help shape (along with LBS) the future of mobile communities.
iPhone Version
A little while ago, Business Week named Nokia’s executive vice-president, markets, Anssi Vanjoki was named one of 25 Most Influential Peopel on the Web. Business Week noted that:
Vanjoki is responsible for convincing consumers as well as business partners that Nokia’s devices are useful for much more than talking and occasionally snapping a photo. The “multimedia computers,” as Vanjoki likes to call Nokia smartphones, are becoming gateways to the Internet and services such as social networking, music downloads or navigation. Nokia will need all the determination that the hard-driving Vanjoki, who hunts bear in his spare time, can muster. It’s directly taking on Apple, Google, and Research in Motion.
Nokia challenge to the iPhone and answer to Google’s Android have been pretty high profile. When it comes to taking on the Blackberry, however, the Finnish company hasn’t been as racuous.
Well, now that they offer email service (in beta), a bit of their strategy is starting to come into focus. Today I sat in on a Nokia Email Service Q&A session on their new email service, and it seem that Nokia is again using the strength and popularity of their consumer devices to leverage some clout in the email market. As Davis Fields, their Email Community Product Manager, explained: Continue reading ‘Nokia vs The Three Bears’
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