Mainstreaming ICT

Over at Netsquared they have released the mobile ideas factory : a toolbox for developers & innovators alike!.

This currently contains the following sections

• Platform-Specific Resources (including Android, iPhone, Symbian & Windows Mobile)
• Information about Developer Networks
• Net2 Challenge Collection (including announcements, interviews, news and more)
• Critical Questions to help inform your work
• Resources, Research and Information

There is some very good stuff here but it is still in early stages. There are a couple of things I would like to see: -

1) A wiki

2) specific categories - rather than platforms e.g.

• a) sms/mms related (maybe include ussd)
• b) mobile web browser related
• c) cross platform aps (J2me, Flash Lite, Brew)
• d) device/OS specific aps (iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile etc…)
• e) localised coms - bluetooth / wifi / mesh networks - maybe mobile rfid
• f) voice orientated aps
• g) sim card / java card uses (maybe include smart cards)

currently there is only d) specifically in the factory

Of course many of these work together - for example J2ME apps often require a combination of mobile web and wap push/sms for delivery. The traditional web and desktop applications also intertwine with mobile apps especially in terms of development and complete solutions.

There are other factors to consider as well - Various different technolgies are more relevant/important in different countries. For example, in the US iPhone applications have a significant user base whereas in much of the rest of the world Symbian S60 (Nokia) is the dominant smartphone. In South Africa, Indonesia, Russia, India and a number of other countries there is a huge market for mobile web browser based internet and J2ME applications. BREW is fairly big in Japan. Countries with limited GPRS phone market penetration need more focus on SMS, voice and device specific applications.

It should be noted that the pricing of different services has a major impact on local uptake. Twitter stopped SMS in most countries due to cost and this is not suprising. SMS is a huge source of profit for operators and extremely costly for users in terms of amount of data. However its ease of use of and the fact that it is on ‘nearly every cellphone’ makes it essential to use as part of nearly any mobile based solution. That said, even SMS may eventually be superceeded due to price considerations - in many countries GPRS (byJ2ME app or mobile browser) is now used for messaging/chat by a lot of young people because it is so much cheaper than SMS.

Here a a few good sites (mainly regarding mobile internet) that could be useful links for the factory -

• http://mobithinking.com/
• http://blog.mjelly.com/
• http://ready.mobi/
• http://wapreview.com/blog/

One thing for netsquared to note is that despite this major recent focus on mobile tech, they still do not have a mobile website. Maybe they should consider using Community Mobile Channels especially with the forthcoming RSS Channels.