http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/09/i-saw-the-future-of-social-networking-the-other-day/

Sadly, no it’s not. At least not in the sense of how the web is all 2.0 now, except for those few who get the latest gadgets and don’t mind paying $100/month for current data plans (ie. employers foot the bill, not them).

Again, this week at Infopresse’s Mobile Marketing conference, this is probably the strongest fact that kept coming up despite the “here’s the cool stuff you *could* do” demos. Data plans are too expensive, so unless you’re targeting rich people with luxury/specialty products, you’re not reaching anyone.

It’s really too bad, the technology is there and I’m sure a good chunk of people are ready to get the mobile web rolling, but nobody wants to pay those insane fees.

Operators are killing it in the egg.

Ajit Jaokar, author of Mobile Web 2.0, teaches on a number of short courses here at the University of Oxford. See – http://cpd.conted.ox.ac.uk/electronics/courses/default.asp#Emerging%20Technologies

Also, any of you interested in mobile applications and mobile web 2.0 are welcome to join the University of Oxford Mobile Applications discussion forum – it has over 1700 members, is free to join and is at – http://cpd.conted.ox.ac.uk/electronics/oxford_university_next_generation_mobile_applications_panel.asp

Peter Holland
University of Oxford