Your guide to the mobile Web
Mark Glaser at PBS's MedisShift: Your guide to the mobile Web.
Mark looks at how the promise of the mobile web has often outstripped reality, with the problem of closed networks, inconsistent standards and differing URLs for special mobile sites. Most U.S. consumers have had bad experiences with the mobile web, and are not willing to pay high data rates for access. However, the introduction of the iPhone has changed the way people view the Internet on phones, giving them a bigger screen and simple two-finger touch to zoom in on web pages. Plus, the push for open networks by Google, Verizon, AT&T and others might bring a future with more innovation and cell phones that work on multiple carriers.
Says former Palm exec and tech consultant Michael Mace: "The mobile phone industry is notorious for trying to create 'walled gardens,' tightly controlled collections of content and services for which they charge substantial fees. They tend to put obstacles in the way of open, unlimited access to the Internet, and are much slower to enable new services than web companies are... That attitude...is incredibly uncomfortable to most Silicon Valley companies. They are used to selling directly to end users, and don't want to work through anyone else. They want the operators to be neutral providers of all products and services, enabling customers to make their own product decisions. That's the way the wired Internet works, and Silicon Valley wants the same thing in wireless."
March 23, 2008 in Mobile | Permalink
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