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The Mobile Internet Revolution is here
People have been talking about the mobile internet revolution for many years. And even though almost anyone owns a mobile phone, mobile internet has not been that spectacular. That is until now. The mobile internet revolution has begun, and very little stands in its way.
The 5 essential factors
The mobile internet revolution has so far been held back by 5 essential things
- Believes
- Capabilities
- Speed
- Costs
- Critical Mass
Let's look at each element and see why they are now a reality (or will be in a very short time).
Believes
Believing in the mobile internet revolution has never really been a problem. The question has never been IF the mobile internet revolution would come, but rather WHEN it would come. For the past 10 years or more, everybody knew that "someday" we are going to use the internet from a mobile device.
The change is that we used to believe it WOULD come, now many early adopters believe that it HAS come.
This is a very important change, because it was the same thing that created the SMS revolution, the Flash revolution, or the AJAX revolution. Historically speaking, once people start to believe in things, it is going to move ahead very quickly.
Of course the main reason for this change comes from the changes in the remaining 4 factors. We believe because now we have the basis for doing spectacular things.
Capabilities
In the past the capabilities of mobile devices, when it comes to the internet, has been a joke. Not to mention a complete waste of your time. The processing power was inadequate, there was almost no memory to work with, the screens where too small and had a useless resolution. It was not usable for anything meaningful.
Many people, including myself, have experimented with WAP internet, or some of the early internet browsers. Other people have created JAVA mobile applications, but with unsatisfactory results.
Now, however, we have mobile phones that are relatively fast, with a lot of memory, with full browser capabilities including JavaScript and CSS3 support. We can pretty much create the same rich experience that we get on the desktop. This is all within a time frame of a single year.
In one year we have gone from utterly hopeless capabilities to absolutely stunning. We now have the capabilities to use the internet on a mobile platform in a meaningful way.
Speed
Another problem has been that of speed. Doing anything over the internet, from a mobile phone, has always meant waiting a very long time. You could completely forget all about using images and video. Even the iPhone didn't have the "speed" until two weeks ago (unless you where connected to Wi-Fi).
That is now very different, because now we got 3G, or even better Turbo 3G. To put that in simple terms, this means that you can browse almost as fast as from a desktop computer. We now have the speed.
Note: I am aware that several European and Asian mobile phones have had 3G capabilities for some years.
Cost
The 4th obstacle is the cost of using mobile internet, and that is perhaps the only problem that hasn't been solved yet. Most mobile operators does not provide flat-rate data plans, and the result is that some type of internet use can be very expensive.
But general usage, e.g. using well designed web applications would cost almost nothing. You can very easily create good internet experiences without sucking money out of people's pockets.
I my case, I actually sometimes struggle to use up my bandwidth, unless I start to watch video while on the go.
Critical Mass
The final factor and the most important one is people. Up until now, there have not been enough people capable of using your mobile internet applications, but now there is. Nielsen Mobile (among others) recently published a report called "Critical Mass - The Worldwide State of Mobile Internet" in which they found that we have now reach critical mass.
This is a very important event. Because this means that we now have a realistic mobile internet market. It is no longer something that will come in the future. It is here, now! We have reached critical mass, the people are ready and they are just waiting for you to do your magic.
A few predictions
The mobile internet revolution is no longer hampered by either the speed of the network, the price of using it, or the capabilities of our devices. We have reached critical mass and as a result many early adopters now believes in it too.
We have a situation where nothing is stopping it, and as result we are now experiencing the mobile internet revolution.
I actually believe so strongly in this that I willing to make a few predictions. I think that:
- 50% of every mobile manufacturer's products lines will include full web capable phones within the next 3-5 years, and it will account for 80% of the sales.
- Blackberry will make a phone with a full web browser within the next 2-3 years (and if not, Opera will make its Opera Mobile 9.5 browser available to blackberry users by that time). This means that enterprise users will join the "mobile internet revolution" too.
- By 2013 about 80% of all "private" internet traffic will be generated by mobile or non-desktop devices (which also includes game consoles etc).
- Social networking will almost entirely happen via mobile devices in the future
- SMS and MMS are going to be replaced by IM and email (what is the point of using SMS, when you can just use Messenger).
- In 3-5 years the majority of people will no longer buy mobile phones "to get a phone", they buy it to be online. So forget about the traditional "phone" development. That is not where the exciting stuff happens.
Comments
Aku - Jul. 23, 2008
I can't waaaait.
Thomas Baekdal - Jul. 23, 2008
Elaine, I glad that I could help :)
Aku, why wait... there is already a number of excisting things happening right now :)
Thomas Baekdal - Jul. 23, 2008
Interesting article Jonathan.
But, I do not share their concerns. It is a bit like saying I shouldn't build products for the Windows platform, because it isn't open source. Yet, I make a living working with Microsoft technologies and the iPhone development tools.
I would of course prefer if those technologies were as open as possible (e.g. I don't like that everything has to go through iTunes), but do not think it is a problem either.
What I don't like is that dedicated application development for a variety of mobile phones is completely impossible. iPhones, Windows Mobile and Sybian phones all use a different set of technologies... that is a pain in the a...
But again, this does not affect web application development.
Nathan Pitman - Jul. 24, 2008
06. Screen Resolution.
The iPhone has kick started a war on this front. With touch based UI's screen size has increased, the knock on effect being that browsing the non mobile web is that much more manageable while on the move.
Peter Veres - Jul. 24, 2008
Mobile social networking
About a year ago I've found mologogo.com during my search for an application that would connect me to others "around me". Neither the software, nor the number of users (by the time I tested there were noone from Europe) is satisfatory to make it a good service, but the Idea is way ahead of it's age.
If you check the large user community of plazes.com you'll see that there's a need for such services. By the way I have just checked the site and it says Nokia has bought plazes so we might expect something fruitful from this side. Hopefully not only for Symbian users
I'm waiting for the day when I'll have a similar mobile application, that ie. would link my google accounts, merge the existing features of the google maps(in the aspects of content sharing and multiple layers of information) with the idea mologogo has brought forward, spiced up with social networking(that could easily be built on the exsiting google accounts database, like an extra option).
Maybe it's all too specific, but you get the picture :)
Jonathan - Jul. 25, 2008
@ Thomas: "It is a bit like saying I shouldn't build products for the Windows platform, because it isn't open source."
Hmm. I really think you (and probably many others) need to read this book then. There's a lot going on out there that you may not be completely aware of.
Thomas Baekdal - Jul. 25, 2008
Jonathan, I am sure there is a lot of things that I am not completely aware of :)
Thanks for the book link (somebody, please make an audiobook of it...)
BTW: I found a YouTube version.
Ovi Demetrian Jr - Aug. 15, 2008
Reading the headline, I thought you were going to go in the wrong direction with the article. Until you got to cost, which is in fact still a big issue. It's part of what's holding me back from getting an iPhone, it's somewhat useless without the costly data plan. That and I'm waiting for Google's Android-based phones look like they're on their way: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/08/first-google-an.html
Thomas Baekdal - Aug. 15, 2008
Ovi, I am not sure that the price of data plans is going to be a deciding factor. I use my web browser a lot (on my mobile), and yet, the actual amount data is far lower than what I expected.
If you refrain from watching videos on YouTube or download huge email attachments, then the actual amount of data is fairly low. I only downloaded 66 MB last month (and I got 100 MB free).
That said, I think the phone companies would do well making flat-rate data plans.
...and I do thing that Google Android show a lot of promise. The big question is if the phone manufacturers are going to use it.
Published: Jul. 23, 2008 in Management
Thomas Baekdal is a Writer, Interaction Designer, Change Advocate and Project Manager.
Elaine Biss - Jul. 23, 2008
Thank you so much for this article! I have been trying to convince my clients they need to make the switch in technology and you just validated my argument.