mobile 2.0 No comments yet

One 2.0 Down, One 2.0 to Go

By Daniel Appelquist on June 5th, 2009

Osney Media’s Mobile Web 2.0 Summit has wrapped up. In all, it was a good opportunity to discuss the trends and technologies in the mobile industry, mobile social networking, etc… For me, it was a good opportunity to talk about the convergence that I see happening between the mobile and Web industries and communities. It was also a great opportunity to talk about the opportunities I see opening up in the mobile widget space, and the vital importance that we converge on a single standard for mobile (and desktop) widgets across the industry. Judging from the response to my talk, there is still a lot of misunderstanding of this space in the industry and a lot more education and evangelism required.

So be it! If you want to find out more about these topics and others vitally important to the future of the mobile and Web industries, come join me in Barcelona on June 18th and 19th for Mobile 2.0 Europe. Day one will be a developer day featuring presentations, tutorials (and unstructured sessions) on key software technologies and innovations in the mobile and mobile Web space and day two will be more strategic, focusing on disruptive innovation in the mobile space and featuring startups and innovators from across the spectrum. It’s going to be an exciting two days.

W3C, Web 2.0 1 comment

Should Data Take-Down be a Right?

By Daniel Appelquist on May 21st, 2009

Interesting post over at Mashable today about the failure of many social network sites to take down personal images even after the user has explicitly “deleted” them. The issue of data take-down is one we’ve started discussing in the W3C Social Web Incubator Group. The example of deleting images you’ve placed online is a simple one, but what about all the other digital traces we leave on the Web? In a world where more and more of our identity is expressed online, should data take-down be a universal human right? We’re collecting user stories that illustrate concepts like this in order to provoke some thought, both about what the future of a more social Web should look like and what technical underpinnings need to be in place to make this happen.

Mobility, Politics 1 comment

Mobile Tech 4 Social Change London!

By Daniel Appelquist on May 6th, 2009

On U.S. election day last year, November 4th, I co-organized with Katrin Verclas of MobileActive a Barcamp style event we called “Mobile Tech 4 Social Change” focusing on the increasing role mobile technology is having in social activism, grass-roots organization, social development, and in the developing world. It’s possible we started a movement because MobileActive has gone on to run two more camps since then, in New York and Washington DC. Now Mobile Tech 4 Social Change is coming to London. I’ll be hosting this event on May 23rd in at Vodafone’s offices in London. For all the details and to register, go to MobileActive.org’s page on the event. If you’re interesting in helping to build a bridge between the mobile industry and the social activism / social development space then I encourage you to attend!

Blogs, Mobile Web, mobile 2.0 No comments yet

Betavine Launches Widget Blog

By Daniel Appelquist on April 17th, 2009

Betavine (Vodafone R&D’s developer community portal), with some help from the inimitable folks at Carsonified, have laucnhed a new blog dedicated to Mobile Widgets and Web Apps.  The idea is to get as much information out as possible about what Betavine and Vodafone are doing in the widget space and what’s going on with the latest widget standardization efforts. We’ll also be featuring information on upcoming events, like the W3C widget camp at WWW2009 in Madrid next week and the upcoming Vodafone Mobile Widget Camp in Amsterdam on May 2nd. We’ll also be posting on Twitter on @MobileWidgets on Twitter. Stay tuned!

Mobile Web No comments yet

Twiggy Mobile Widget and How-To Site

By Daniel Appelquist on March 27th, 2009

Carsonified built a great micro-site around their Twiggy Twitter search widget. The site also includes lots good information about mobile widget development including a step-by-step guide on the development process. Check it out (and learn how to win £20,000 in the Betavine widget contest).

Twiggy Promo
Misc No comments yet

I’m Qiking from SXSW!

By Daniel Appelquist on March 15th, 2009

I’m here at SXSW in Austin this week-end working on getting the word out on mobile widgets and mobile Web and talking about mobile web in the developing world on a panel on Tuesday. Meanwhile I’m using Qik to cover the conference and have some conversations with people here about mobile and other topics. Follow me on Qik or on Twitter to get updates and if you’re here in Austin, come by the Driskill hotel tonight at 5 for Betavine Beers West.

Mobile Web, mobile 2.0 5 comments

2009 Predictions

By Daniel Appelquist on January 1st, 2009

It’s that time again!  With 2008 in the bag, what will be the key themes for 2009 (as far things “mobile 2.0″ go anyway). Alan Kay famously quipped that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. In that spirit: if I have anything to say about it, 2009 will bring with it increasing convergence between the mobile and Web communities. Right now, these communities are miles apart. I can attest to that because I’m often stuck in the middle of this clash of civilizations. I believe the mobile and Web ecosystems are going to converge, but a prerequisite for this to happen is that these communities need to converge. As long as mobile people only talk to other mobile people and Web people only talk to other Web people, there will be no convergence. At Mobile 2.0 in November, we successfully brought together these communities, at least in part, to talk about the future of both mediums. Watch out for more of this in 2009.

Prediction two: mobile widgets and Web applications will rule the day.  W3C-standard Web widget platforms and downloadable widgets will proliferate and begin to eclipse the current proprietary platforms for downloadable mobile applications. This will be accompanied by increasingly capable Web and widgets platforms (with hooks into device capabilities and functions like the camera, location, etc…). Yes, there will be fragmentation in this space that will have to be reigned in. Nobody said reinventing the Web was easy.

All the best for 2009!

Technology, mobile 2.0 18 comments

Can We Kill Email?

By Daniel Appelquist on November 28th, 2008

One of the most interesting discussions I had in San Francisco two weeks ago (where I was co-presenting Mobile 2.0 and the Mobie Tech 4 Social Change camp) was with Brian Fling on the unlikely subject of email. We both agreed that we hate email (a common sentiment these days) and that something needed to be done. I don’t know a single person who actually doesn’t roll their eyes these days when the subject of email comes up. Kids these days already refer to email is “something I use when I want to communicate with old people.” Ouch!

Email as a medium is not keeping up with how we interact, how we do our jobs, how we live in the modern world. It’s overtaken by spam (encouraged by its nature as an open and free medium and the relatively little it costs to send out emails in bulk). It has no intrinsic trust mechanism (and developments like sender policy framework are basically a band-aid and do not address personal trust circles, only whether an email is from where it purports to come from). Email has no intrinsic semantics that allow email clients to do anything useful with them. Even advanced email clients can do little to help with this mess. Email is actually follows a typical trajectory for innovation. In the book Why Things Bite Back, Edward Tenner takes us through a history of technological innovation and why some innovations have “unintended consequences.” The unintended consequences of Email have become all-to-clear: lost time, “inbox anxiety,” spam and “BCC cultute” are only some of them. My view is that email is fundamentally mismatched with an “always connected” world – and these days we are always connected – and it’s been hopelessly outpaced by the far more powerful social paradigms of social networks. Email is a monster which has grown to enormous proportions and which we are all spending our time feeding, to the detriment of our real lives. Email can also be ambiguous. I receive so much email that I have to filter my CCs into a separate folder which I don’t look at as often – but then people will CC me on a message that requires my urgent attention and get annoyed when I don’t respond right away. Email woes are accentuated by the fact that no significant innovation has happened in the world of email clients in 10 years.

Imagine a life without Email.

Need to get in touch with a friend?  Use Twitter “direct message.” It’s much more difficult for you to be spammed, because you control who connects to you. Bonus: you have to be terse. Need a longer conversation? Use Skype or another IM solution. Need to send someone a file? Again – IM. More immediate and you KNOW the recipient has received it. How about you need to arrange a meeting or a drinks out?  Social networks provide all the mechanisms you need for this. Need to share a file with a large number of people?  Use a Web-based sharing service like Google Docs or Zoho and then alert them using one of the means above.

Ok – technically most of the services mentioned above require access to an email account (for registration and identity verification). Zipiko is an example of one that doesn’t – you can sign up with only a mobile number.

I imagine an email-free world as a kind of utopian existence where people no longer spend hours and hours of their time each day “clearing their inbox” or methodically filing mail away into meaningless folders. Close your eyes and visualize it with me.

Crazy? Someone at IBM is already living the dream.

mobile 2.0 No comments yet

Mobile 2.0 and Mobile Tech for Social Change

By Daniel Appelquist on October 8th, 2008

First of all, for the third year in a row, I’m running (along with Mike Rowehl, Gregory Gorman, Rudy de Waele and Peter Vesterbacka) Mobile 2.0, a “one-day event focusing on new Mobile Applications and Services, the Mobile Web and Disruptive Mobile Innovation.”

The event will be held on November 3rd and will once again be taking place at the Grand Hyatt off of San Francisco’s Union Square.

This year we have some really fantastic speakers and panelists and we’re also trying something slightly different: running a “builder track” in the afternoon, along-side our regular track, that will focus on hands-on mobile development, user experience and design. That track will feature mini-tutorial sessions on topics such as Gears Mobile, Nokia Web Runtime, Yahoo! blueprint, iPhone web development and mobile user experience and design topics (with a focus on case studies). This is all in line with my view that when it comes to mobile innovation, it is time to stop talking about it and start doing it.

Registration is now open, so reserve your seat today by visiting http://mobile2event.com. Full program will also be posted soon.

On the next day, November 4th, against the back-drop of the U.S. election, I’ll be helping to run a bar-camp type event focusing on how mobile technology is being used as a lever of social change. This is a topic that I’ve been working at the fringes of for some time. I’m very privileged to be working with the folks at MobileActive.org (who will be fresh from running their own event in South Africa). If you’re interesting in helping out with this event or participating, get in touch with me here and add your name to the event wiki.

London, Mobile Web 11 comments

Mobile Web Apps will Beat Native Apps

By Daniel Appelquist on October 6th, 2008

Since upgrading my iPhone to the 2.0 software, I’ve dived into Apple’s app store and I’ve been making a point of trying out apps from across the store but focusing on content creation tools (such as the excellent WordPress app which I’m using to write this post). At the same time, I’ve continued to make use of all the great iphone webapps and mobile Web sites I’ve come to know and love. Increasingly, across many platforms (not just iPhone) application developers and content providers will  face this choice: to build a webapp or to build a native app. There are advantages to both approaches, and some work that’s just getting started that I believe will significantly change the face of mobile development over the next 2 years.

The rush of content and application developers to develop iPhone apps has been impressive and somewhat predictable. The app store is the next big thing. Google, Microsoft and others are now jumping on the bandwagon (probably much to the dismay of the folks at Handango who can rightly claim they’ve been doing an app store since before app stores were cool). Many of the apps in the Apple app store are really good and could not (currently) be written as web apps because they either take advantage of device capabilities (such a location) or because they need direct access to graphics or sound capabilities (3D gaming) not available to the browser engine. However – discounting this need to access the platform functions, there’s nothing about, say, the iPhone Facebook App that couldn’t be written as a webapp. Indeed, if you visit iphone.facebook.com, you get a webapp version that gives you more features, has better usability (in my opinion) and benefits from more frequent updates (but does not, for instance, give you access to the camera so you can automatically take pictures and upload them to your profile, because the browser doesn’t have access to the camera API). Hahlo is another good example of a Webapp that currently beats out all the native application options as a Twitter client (except for its lack of access to the address book, camera, or location). This is the crux: it’s easier to build, update and maintain a webapp than an app (for cases such as the Facebook offering) but native apps give you access to platform features (and other capabilities such as local storage) that webapps can’t.

Enter a new class of webapp: a mobile browser based application. These applications are built using Web technologies (the so-called Ajax platform), can either be deployed as a standard Web application or as a “widget,” and can advantage of platform functions through some ingenous software layers currently being built. Google’s Gears Mobile, Nokia’s Web Runtime platform and upcoming versions of Opera Mobile all are making a start of it, but right now these efforts are all highly fragmented and incompatible. The OMTP, through its BONDI initiative, is attempging to bring some focus to this area, by coming up with a common set of industry requirements for enabling secure access to platform APIs and then driving some work forward in W3C’s Web Applications working group to help to make this an industry standard.

I was interested to read that in all the discussion of the iPhone app store, Apple has also quietly made it easier to write webapps and to surface these webapps to the user as if they were native apps. Essentially, the “web clipping” mechanism allows you to put an icon on your screen to represent a webapp, and with the release of the latest firmware, it is now possible to launch these webapps without the normally associated “browser chrome” (which mirrors the approach Apple has taken with it’s latest beta of Safari on desktop). This approach further blurs the lines between webapp and native app.

In the short term, it means more confusing choices for application developers. But in the long term, at least for an increasingly large class of application (for example, social applications or any app that doesn’t require direct access to platform features like 3D accelerated graphics), it’s clear that the Web will prevail.