Software Everywhere — David Beers on Mobile Computing

Thanks for downloading this maintenance release of the Carnival of the Mobilists. This update fixes a bug in Carnival version 63.0 that may have caused you to experience Carnival withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, shaking, blurred vision, difficulty sleeping or nausea. Thanks for your patience while we corrected this problem. No need to restart your PC, just read on for the best mobile writing of the past two weeks (or so).

Our first category is...

Mobile Web 2.0

Ajit Jaokar looks over the options for Mobile Web 2.0 and concludes that the opportunity lies with applications that leverage the principles of the Long Tail. Anders Borg is bullish on the mobile Internet, but not so bullish about the browser being the best tool to take advantage of it. Mike Mace (talking more broadly about Web 2.0) stuns its critics into silence by telling them they are right: most of the new web apps are pointless, duplicative and going nowhere. But don't be distracted by the inevitable carnage. It's exactly the sort of creative destruction we should expect at the birth of an amazing new platform. Finally, Enrique Ortiz serves up a great thought piece on the future of web and mobile. I really mean it. Go read it. It's short and has pictures of icebergs with arrows in all the right places. Maybe it's not that great and it's just that I think the same way, but it's worth a read. ;-) Next category...

Location, location, location

Dennis at Wap Review has written a valuable and comprehensive review of mobile traffic map applications. Martin Sauter turns in the first installment of an even more detailed review of Nokia Maps, which is not just for the N95 anymore. And while we're talking about GPS navigation, Ricky cadden asks how long it can be before there are large online catalogs of downloadable voices in which our turn-by-turn directions can be delivered to us.

The Mobile Inversion

I've always wanted to say that: "Mobile Inversion." Please make it a meme and put it on Wikipedia with my name attached to it.

So what is it? Ask Andreas Constantinou, who says mobile TV is a great idea. Only the content should go in the opposite direction. I agree, Andreas: it's brilliant. Abhishta Paranjpe performs a similar flip flop, telling us everything we need to know about how to get Apache web servers running on our S60 phones. This is a geek undertaking, but it hints at some really interesting social networking possibilities. I haven't had time to post recently, so here's an oldy but moldy post where I explain what I mean by that.

The Internet of Things

Pondering Primate Scott Shaffer thinks Dupont may have just created the defacto standard code for "physical world hyperlinks", the HTML for "the Internet of things." All you need to browse it is your camera phone. Meanwhile, Tomi Ahonen does some pondering of his own about this fact: the number of camera phone users is about to exceed the number of Internet users. Are these two onto something or what?

Set my mobile free!

Stefan Constantinescu wants to pay Nokia for S60 software upgrades and does the math for the Nokia bean counters. Krisse at All About Symbian has an even more radical proposal, calling for a (possibly bloody) revolution to liberate the handset:

Phone-locking should be completely illegal. Phone network operators should not be allowed to sell phones. "Free" phones should not be called free, but labelled exactly like any other product bought on installments with the real total price and interest rate clearly marked on all advertising.

Daniel Taylor brings us back down to earth with tough thinking about why circumventing the carriers isn't a realistic option for enterprise mobility. Alas, there goes the enterprise MVNO revolution.

Mobile marketing problems solved here

Mark Frieser delivers a thoughtful discussion of how to successfully extend a popular franchise to the mobile. Meanwhile, Xen Mendelsohn needs your help in fixing a vexing naming problem that's creating consumer confusion.

Can't get enough iPhone

Patrick Atolf has done some serious homework and offers up the 21 most important iPhone patents. Alas, no patent found for the Steve Jobs "Reality Distortion Field."

Barcelona!

If like me you missed 3GSM entirely this year, take heart: the Carnival is here to help. Rudy de Waele kicks off a fantastic round up with this excellent, lengthy piece. My favorite part was the discussion of mobile image recognition technologies that were on display. Carlo Longino begins his post-3GSM chin-stroking here. "Product Release Tuesday 16.00"... you're killing me, Carlo! Ian Wood suffers from 3GSM 3G data hype. He asks "why don't the networks focus on the fact that 80% of the income is from the simple function of Voice?" and suggests what the result of such focus might look like. Justin Oberman turns in another great piece that sizes up the best and worst from Barcelona. Kieran Bellubbi came away from 3GSM thinking about how the demographics of aging populations and increasing mobile adoption may be coming together to produce a new market for mobile health monitoring devices. Finally, Barry Welford asks whether Tim Berners-Lee's "one web" address at 3GSM might be tilting at windmills.

If I missed your submission (and I worry that I may have missed a few in the onslaught that followed my request for posts) I apologize. It certainly wasn't intentional. Everything I read was great this week.

What is my pick for best post of the week? Aw, it's just not fair to make me do this. I guess the post that got me thinking the most and longest was "The Future of the Web and Mobile" by Enrique Ortiz. But I was captivated by everyone talking about Mobile Web 2.0 this week. More than I expected to be, even.

Rudy de Waele has agreed to host the next Carnival over at m-trends. Let's get back on our Monday release schedule and hold the next Carnival on March 12. Mobilistas, get writing!

Cheers!