Talk of the mobile internet is all the rage these days. From a post by a prominent VC to iPhone ‘killers’ to Jack Dorsey’s new dongle. The web is buzzing about the mobile web. And I have to say it makes sense. Being able to take the virtual world with you is a sexy idea.
Here’s what needs to come of age for mobile to become a reality. Data plans need to be cheaper, much cheaper and screens need to get bigger. Right now, most people use SMS / MMS. While the iPhone has had an impact on mobile web usage, it makes up 16.6 percent* of the smartphone market. It’s a good first step, but a hardly a dominating position of the total cell phone market or even the smartphone market.
A use case for detachment, Friendfeed
Friendfeed was one of the most prominent sites that established real time. Big names like Robert Scoble and Louis Gray sang it’s praises, after Friendfeed made it’s exit (good for them) now one of those A-listers is shaming it.
This is the problem with early adopters, they are the hipsters of the web. Just like the music geeks who love a band until it gets big, these bloggers love it and leave it. Scoble recently claimed that FriendFeed would go the way of Dodgeball or Jaiku. While this most likely will happen, if prominent A-listers abandon the service it may well be a self fulfilling prophecy.
This is the danger of the mobile web. Unless mobile products serve a real need and are not pandering to the fantasies of over-hyped bloggers with super sized megaphones, they’ll never be a true adoption of mobile. We’ve had the mobile Internet for years. Data plans have been available on standard handsets for at least the last 9 years. But the mobile Internet has yet to take off.
People want a rich, interactive, experience. Currently, only one mobile device even begins to meet this need. One of the biggest reasons, in my opinion, the iPhone is a success is the large, color screen. It’s not the app store, it’s the ability to have an immersive experience that drives consumers to the iPhone. This is what pundits need to understand about mobile. The mere ability to get information, or be connected, isn’t enough to cause the explosion of mobile. It has to be so much more. It has to serve a legitimate need and be more enticing than the currently established markets.
I am looking forward to a mobile explosion one day, but for the foreseeable future, I see more services like Twitter having a lasting effect on mobile usage. Twitter’s SMS interface is brilliantly simple. If I was a developer, and I am, I would be developing more products that can be accessed and utilized via SMS and MMS.
