Mobinet and Online Applications – the next BIG thing!

Mobile internet – is this really really going to take off soon?

The tipping point

I do remember when in 1999 while I was working for Lycos we had an internal e-commerce conference and our MD approached me in one of the breaks and asked me – “So how long do you figure would it take us to put our shopping comparison to mobile devices? As this is going to be the next BIG thing.”

Well the guy was obviously quite a visionary man, as phones at the time looked like this…

Nokia 7110 – the matrix – remember?

Now its 2007 and the mobile thing is still the next BIG thing to come.
And as it sounds so logically we all agree – yeah bring the internet to our phone and PDA – but are the devices really ready for the mass market – I for myself still find it horrid to browse a website on my N73 – and that’s a reasonably new model plus I’m rather used to surf and browse.

Nokia N73

Even more interesting – Local Search content – awesome – an instant map of the location I’m at and a route-planer guiding me to the next ATM and Pub. Or even better a phone reading barcodes of products and returning the best price in seconds. But there are still quite some hurdles to take till these dreams are easily accessible for the masses.

Another new trend is online applications like Zoho, Google Docs and the newly announced Adobe Buzzword. This seems to be another BIG thing coming up. A consultant in the venture capital area pinged me a couple of weeks ago and asked me what I think about online apps to replace licensed local client-side software like office or tax return software.

I said: ”I would not trust any company with my business internals, my tax details or private conversations. And although the feeling of security might be an illusion anyway – I can’t see this being a real alternative for the masses soon. Sure for applications like tax return software that you will only use once a year this could make a lot of sense but I really doubt the time has come or even is on the horizon.

But then its all about the tipping point…