Welcome to the Winter Carnival! It certainly seems that way, writing from snow-bound Britain. Thanks to all the contributors, and straight on to their posts. Everyone must:
BOW DOWN TO THE GOOGLE
Andrew Grill has an excellent post on Google’s Latitude and its competitors. He points out that, unlike Palringo, Latitude is missing presence. But for how long?
Jamie Wells wonders if the welcome is wearing a little thin on one of our new overlord’s offshoots, in “What’s This… Android on Shaky Ground?“. Just what is Google’s attitude to fragmentation and security on its mobile platform?
Whose Platform is it anyway?
Underlining Google’s importance in the mobile arena, Ajit Jaokar has written about , “The shift of the cellphone market from devices to platforms and
services“. He points out that Nokia, for one, is getting its act together, and this passage from Business Week is worth quoting again:
Who’s defining this new approach? For the most part, the key players are companies with little or no experience in cell phones… Leading the way are Apple and Google.
Vision Mobile take us further, beyond mere physical devices, with an overview of cloud computing:
Everything that we think of as a computer today is really just just a device that connect to the big computer we are all collectively building… A way to deliver services rather than applications completely independent of platform completely independent of physical hardware.
Get to know your SaaS from your HaaS, and find out how carriers may just avoid becoming dumb pipes.
Plus, Vision are calling for contributions to OpenSource World.
Standards, standards
VoIP Survivor reminds us that “Without standards, we wouldn’t be able to make calls at all“, before delving into their routes to acceptance.
Getting more specific, C. Enrique Ortiz explores standards and functional interfaces relating to Touch/NFC. Very technical stuff, and it reminds you that the bright and easy mobile future that we’re moving towards is built on complex foundations.
Anyone like free?
James Cooper believes that free mobile games sites are a great example of how mobile 2.0 is re-defining the consumer proposition and value chain in a range of different mobile media sub-sectors (Whew!). Or, free games = lots of new sorts of people playing. He looks at a few of the sites offering free games. The iPhone’s App Store is not covered, but you can also see this model working for some games there too. An interesting post.
Anyone like well-thought out?
Christian Robertson contributes a considered article at
Mobile World Congress approaches…
MWC is just around the corner, so this will be especially useful for attendees.
wipJAM weigh in with their Developer Survival Guide to MWC09. They’ve got some recommend booths and developer events to visit, plus you can follow their twitter feed for last-minute updates.
Rudy De Waele would like to mention some of their key events at Mobile World Congress. Register here for Mobile Sunday Barcelona. Nearly 400 people have signed up already, so be quick if you’d like to get in. Also, the Mobile Peer Awards will be on February 16th at the Petit Palau of Palau de la Musica. Register here.
POST OF THE WEEK
Sit back with Tomi Ahonen and try to comprehend the sheer scale and reach of mobile. As he points out in “Bigger than TV, bigger than the internet: Understand mobile of 4 billion users“:
More new mobile phones were sold last year, than the total installed base of computers of any kind in the world.
Added bonus: You’ll also learn a new Japanese word – Oyayubizoku. It’s likely that you’re one of them!
Finally
The last word goes to Judy Breck, who suggests companies can make profit while also contributing positively to a reduction in ignorance and suffering.
Thanks for reading. Next week, the Carnival will be hosted by Mobscure.