How best to name the key theme for the next research cycle? We discussed this at length three years back. Rohan’s original idea was ‘Mobile Multiple Play’. We would have agreed, if not for the reason it already meant something else. Then came ‘Mobile++’. We were still not satisfied. Finally we settled for ‘Mobile 2.0’, which didn’t exist then in that sense.
Put simply, Mobile 2.0 was the second wave of mobile applications. Mobile 1.0 = voice communication on the move. Mobile 2.0 = everything else, starting from texts.
My google search did give few hits. I can take a safe bet it was less than 100. Nothing we could take seriously. Things have changed. As of today the hits for “Mobile 2.0” have increased to –verify if you don’t believe – 461,000.
There are multiple definitions too.
Daniel Nations from About.com:
Mobile 2.0: Bringing Web 2.0 to Mobile Devices vs. Combining Web 2.0 with Mobile Devices
It sounds like the beginning of a semantic argument, but there is actually quite a bit of difference between bringing Web 2.0 to the mobile and combining mobile devices and Web 2.0 to create Mobile 2.0. If all we wanted to do is bring Web 2.0 to our mobile devices, we are well underway to doing just that. We simply need a mobile web browser that is capable of handling various technologies used to bring together Web 2.0 websites.
But do we really want to sell ourselves short? Mobile devices are not personal computers. And we don’t want to treat them like personal computers. Instead of just brining Web 2.0 to mobile devices, we want to make Web 2.0 mobile – we want a combination of the two that exploits the advantages of our mobile device.
Is this different from what Wikipedia has to say?:
Mobile 2.0, refers to a perceived next generation of mobile internet services that leverage the social web, or what some call Web 2.0. The social web includes social networking sites and wikis that emphasise collaboration and sharing amongst users. Mobile Web 2.0, with an emphasis on Web, refers to bringing Web 2.0 services to the mobile internet, i.e., accessing aspects of Web 2.0 sites from mobile internet browsers.
By contrast [to Web 2.0], Mobile 2.0 refers to services that integrate the social web with the core aspects of mobility – personal, localized, always-on and ever-present. These services are appearing on wireless devices such as Smartphones and multimedia feature phones that are capable of delivering rich, interactive services as well as being able to provide access and to the full range of mobile consumer touch points including talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening and viewing.
So what exactly Mobile 2.0? Can we agree on a common definition?
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