Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World, 2nd Edition

3.9 WIDER DIGITAL TRENDS INCLUDING WEB 2.0

We have thus far looked at some of the commercial trends and realities of dong business in the mobile applications world from within that world. However, the impact of the ongoing evolution of the Web is becoming increasingly important. We have even seen some operators, such as Three UK, evolve from a walled-garden operator (i.e. shut off from the Web) to an incredibly open operator who has fully embraced the Web. In my meetings with various operators, it is clear that they are very interested in how to understand and utilise emerging web trends, so this is the topic for the remainder of this chapter.

3.9.1 Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0

Today's Web is a ‘click-to-do’ environment, having progressed from a ‘click-to-read’ one. It's just as easy to create a service to share calendars and photos as it is to create an online version of a marketing brochure. The Web has evolved from a publishing platform to a programming one. As we shall discuss in Chapter 4, the great power of the Web is the single universal client, the browser, which is not bound to any particular service or data source. The browser has grown up from an information-display client to a more generic user-interface client where the modes and level of interactivity are much richer.

With a web-based application, it is relatively easy to incorporate sophisticated components like blogs, email lists and forums without having to program them. These can be used on any site and have caused ...