Thursday, February 07, 2008
When Two Become One: Converged Applications Around Location and Presence Pave The Way For Web 3.0
In the run-up to Mobile World Congress, the industry is naturally anxious to identify the next “big thing.” But who said 2008 is destined to be marked by one mega-trend? Efforts such as the Google-led Open Handset Alliance lay the groundwork for a new open mobile Web where all-inclusive services and strategies are far superior to exclusive approaches.
Against this backdrop, it’s clear the concept of a killer app is passé. This year will not be the year of location-based services. Nor will it be a banner year for mobile search, or mark a quantum leap in mobile advertising. Not even the much-hyped trend to mobile social networking will end up leading the pack. It will be the year of “all of the above” and competitive advantage will be based on the ability to provide a holistic and useful mix of these services that is “presence-capable” and “context-aware.”
Indeed, the race is on to provide a complete suite of applications built on the convergence of services as varied as location-based services, social networking, mobile search, and web 3.0 technologies. The end-game is about offering connected multimedia experiences including information, entertainment, social networks, and navigation. The same approach applies to the enterprise and prosumer segments. Just swap out content sources (say, content providers’ databases for intranet repositories) and shift the focus from linking social networks of friends to enabling communities of expertise.
The list of companies jockeying for position in this space is impressive and growing. It includes nimble newcomers ranging from MobilePeople, SuperLocal, and GeoSentric to established players including Yahoo, Google, and Nokia. In fact, Nokia is probably the most vocal about the impact of “location-aware” services on the future of personal mobility. At a recent mobile search conference organized by Visiongain, Jussi-Pekka Partanen, Nokia’s head of mobile search, outlined his company’s strategy to deliver a slew of services – based around location capabilities such as GPS – that effectively unite the physical, virtual and social worlds we live in.
Put another way, presence and location sit at the centre of how we will experience and organize our lives. In Nokia’s vision, which predictably has the mobile device at its core, users use full-featured phones to map their physical world and the individual social graph of the people and peers who matter most. This creates a framework that will allow them to interact seamlessly with each other and with the content and information all around them.
Granted, the device is a big part of this, but it’s the suite of converged services around presence and location that will make this dream a reality. The pieces will fall into place when the industry begins this year to understand and unleash the power of presence and location to create a sustainable edge (for themselves and their customers), and seamlessly combine and deliver products and services that empower users and combine our physical and virtual worlds.