10 Years of Mobile Internet - From WAP to APP(s)

28.11.09

Whether you believe it or not: It's already 10 years, since the first WAP-pages arrived on a mobile device near you. In fact the WAP 1.0 RFC stems from 1998. Millions of users, some 10 millions of mobile web-pages and some 10thousands of mobile apps later, it's time to look back and reflect what has happened ever since.

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It all began with the idea, that lead to the RFC, looking to answer one question: What if we could somehow transfer or rather "translate" the well established and super-dynamic internet-architecture onto a wireless network of mobile-users, e. g. GSM?

The obvious way to do away with the problems of a low-bandwidth and latency affected mobile network in the „1st come, 1st serve" environment of the Internet was to use a general proxy-server and gateway to deal with requests to a server on the Internet or rather the web. And as obvious was it for mobile carriers to become the default "Gate-Keeper" for their mobile customers. Thus came the „walled gardens" of their respective WAP-Portals. And their special data-traffic plans to go along with, of course.

Only with WAP 2.0 a couple of years later, that included Web-standards like http and SSL, could this whole concept be circumvented, could mobile users just log onto the (mobile) Web. (Maybe that was when and why I started to love versions 2.0!)

But even with those developments under way, and data-flatrates on the horizon, the mobile web was still a somewhat clumsy media, a kinda tricky technology to play and even more so to work with: Geeks' country! Not really meant for the rest of us mobile and Internet users.

Remember what it felt like the first time, you tried to download a Java application to your handset? Not to talk about configuring that handset for your internet-access yourself? You get the idea ...

You could have asked your kids for help. But who wants to lose their parental face all together? So you didn't. And were lost in transition! Like most other people, as well. Yes, there were some enthusiastic "mobilists" who made an appearance at the then leading internet trade-shows of 1999 - like at Internet World. But they could hardly fill up one lane in one of the exhibition-halls. And all those agile and hyped-up "New Economy" folks, did not really know, what to think of those geeky mobilists and "their next big thing" ...

... Until the Blackberry first appeared on a conference table near you. And became THE status symbol for those same New Economy folks. Yeah, the Blackberry - not the Porsche, anymore, was proof that you had made it.
Of course the Blackberry did not give us a true mobile web experience, but at least mobile e-mail. And hadn't e-mail once been the reason, why we all got on the Internet, in the first place?

But then: Only a year later did the new economy „bubble" blast! And shortly after the Blackberry got so widespread that it could not hold on to it's original promise of the 21st century's status symbol. And we all went shopping: for something really new, something "cool", for something like the yet to be found "Killer-App" for the mobile web!

And in came "His Steveness" Jobs. And brought us his iPhone. And it was a different (mobile) world all together ever since.

The iPhone became not only this little gadget that everybody had waited for and so urgently needed to have. Now! That was one thing, Steve accomplished with his legendary design-madness. But the other, more important thing was, that the iPhone freed the mobile web from it's geeky constraints:

It's interface was so simple and intuitive - even my mother could get it. Bringing your e-mail account to your iPhone - was a snap. The web - right there "at your fingertips"! (Now, eat your heart out, Bill!) And with a simple multi-touch "zoom"-gesture you could even read that article on your favorite news-site. To make a long story short: Steve revolutionized the way we all saw and used the mobile web. He redefined our (mobile) web-experience!
And then Steve turned this historic revolution into a permanent one - when he opened up the iPhone-Platform for 3rd party Apps!

What has happened ever since is history - and will contribute to the mobile web's mythology: „Do you remember the early days when data traffic more the 10folded year by year?"

Apps proliferated and mobile data traffic exploded. At least where the iPhone has been available. Since it's traffic share pales even it's market share.
Both the development of apps and the increase in data-traffic have been a perfect example of the „network-effect" (Remember Bob Metcalfe: „The value of a network increases exponentially with the number of networked users"?). And these network-effects contributed even further to the creation of digital „eco-systems" which, once in place, increased the network-effect, again!

And make no mistake: a working eco-system is more than your usual e-commerce strategy at work. In a digital eco-system providers and users, dealers and their customers meet in ever changing role-models and functions. And users do more than just adding "content" (commentaries and valuations) to your offers. They will even bring their own solutions (and apps!) to the market-place. And by receiving compensation for their recommendations they even become an inherent part of your whole business-model!

Apple's strategy shows perfectly well, how their eco-system works perfectly well: 2 Billion downloads of more than 100,000 apps within 18 months have substantially increased the value (and sales!) of their iPhone business (which meanwhile contributes more than 25% to Apple's gross income!). And it also drives a whole multi-million $ industry of skins and cases, headsets and car-adapters - you name it! How all this further contributes more momentum for the iPhone eco-system - I leave Morgan Stanley's Mary Meaker to tell (as she did at the recent "Web 2.0" conference in San Francisco: "Fastest Hardware User Growth in Consumer Tech History!"

But then again: it's not only about the iPhone and it's eco system. There are also other and more eco systems at work in the mobile realm. Just think about Google maps and Google Earth for a moment. Their maps are becoming something like THE general user interface for almost any app with a location and/or a social factor to it. And then think again: Which mobile app does not at least have one of the two working for it?

Almost everything what we do on the mobile web can be related to our present location - and it's vicinity: restaurants and services we are looking for, friends and acquaintances we want to be in touch with - even weather and news are always somewhat local. And since we are on the web - this all needs to be interactive, social and shareable with our peers.

I am not trying to say interfaces will not develop ever more - of course they will, as we can already see today. But given that "Location Based Services are not only Mary Meeker's "Secret Sauce" of success, but the true killer-app of the mobile web weve all been looking for, I would bet that the underlying information-layer will be provided by and mashed-up from Google maps!

Whether all this will really mean an "augmented" reality as alternative browser maker Layar likes to suggest or just another information-layer, remains to be seen. Probably within the next 10 years. And we are all going to be part of it.

P.S. This article is based on a presentation at Mobile Monday in Düsseldorf. The slides can be downloaded here.

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