Muse.On-The.Net

Web 2.0 is everywhere. Everyone’s heard about it even if they don’t know what it means. Coined by Tim O’Reilly, it signifies the second coming of web services and the realization of the promises of the Dot Com Bubble. He writes:

The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the fall of 2001 marked a turning point for the web. Many people concluded that the web was overhyped, when in fact bubbles and consequent shakeouts appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions. Shakeouts typically mark the point at which an ascendant technology is ready to take its place at center stage. The pretenders are given the bum’s rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other.

Are we ready for a Mobile 2.0?

Voice is the established killer app for mobile phones and their raison d’être. Data services have been the next great story in mobile for the last 10-15 years, but use and revenues in the last few years have grown significantly, first with email and text messaging, then with mobile games, and now photo uploads, video downloads, and mobile TV. But is this Mobile 2.0 or the bubble that precedes it?

The social networking craze has hit mobile and many carriers and successful web 2.0 businesses are involved in a series of mobile initiatives and deal-making. Yahoo’s mobile site incorporates access to Flickr; Vodafone is tied into MySpace and YouTube; the list goes on. Much as has been the case with mobile games, convergent industries seem to be welding existing business models together to create mobile cousins of existing services rather than develop unique models custom-build for the characteristics of the handheld media. Sounds much like a bubble to me.

However, there are innovative start-ups looking to revisualize business models and develop satisfying experiences for mobile customers.

“Blogging on the internet is different from blogging on the mobile,” said mobile services company Newbay’s chief executive Paddy Holahan in a Click interview. “The mobile user is more likely to take a picture or a video and upload it, because he’s got a cameraphone in his hands. The internet blogger is more likely to type because he’s got a keyboard in his hand.”

Those companies that get the model right will incubate mobile 2.0. Other models just may flame out as quickly as Crazy Frog.