Here is my list of the punctuation marks in the development of the mobile web – wobile. The first ten years.
Some of the punctuation marks are flops, others are significant high points. Which ones are which?
1997 WAP starts
1999 DoCoMo launch IMODE in Japan -smileys and anime graphics (green screen)
Green screen WAP apps in Europe….taxi booking etc
KPN adopt DoCoMo’s IMODE in Holland
2000 astonishing growth of sms in Europe
2001 start of Colour screens on phones
The dream is well known: instant, relevant, information about the thing that you want, anything and everything on an easy to use portable device – something like a mobile phone. The mobile internet eventually will have some break through and catch on and become as established and as normal as the web. But something is holding the development back, there are some missing ingredients
maybe it’s a some sort of marketing name – wobile?
maybe it’s a technology – easy to use fingerprint ID?
maybe it’s a killer app – mobile banking and payment?
maybe it’s a product that will make the breakthrough – an apple i phone? – maybe