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WEB 2.0 ON MOBILE

By,
Ungratwar Sujeeth-09BM8097
Vipin Dutt-09BM8091
DS Praveen Kumar-09BM8092
Tushar Chaudhary-09BM8056
 Mobile Web 2.0

Abstract

The number of users of internet is increases at a very fast pace. This is providing the web 2.0
service providers to attract customers to use their applications. The customers are so much
addicted to internet that now they are using internet on their mobile. The population using mobile
is more than that using internet. In this paper we analyze few of the players who provide web 2.0
service on mobile. Then we go on to see the opportunities available to these service providers.
We also analyzed the problems and the market which these players can capture. Limitations of
the web 2.0 service are also analyzed in this paper.

Introduction:
Earlier the web 1.0 was a one way communication of media among the users and there was no
dialogue or way of taking part in the production of the content by the user as it is been provided
by the service provider. This has now changed to that of a two way collaborative content and
media production and consumption. Here both the user and service provider exchange the
content over its larger area of networking and updating in real time. Here the audience (users)
takes a major role in the creation of media content.

The evolution of computer to that of the latest technologies in terms of internet and social
networking has narrowed down a huge amount of gap among the world population in terms of
socio cultural perspectives. These technologies of internet revolution from its inception in 1969,
to till date there is a vast changes been made though the main concept was massive “network of
networks”. This concept of networking has now evolved into those of wireless communications
(mobile phones) which made the life easier from day to day life and making the networks more
complex. More than 1.1 billion people around the world now use the internet. For the past 40
years the communication industry has collaborated, often unwittingly, in developing the internet
we have today- a low cost, unbiquitous, multimedia network capable of travelling any type of
traffic (voice, video, or data) anywhere, anytime. This trend is evident in terms of the new focus
from both the industry and its customers on services and applications, on things like overcoming
the challenges of searching and making sense of this vast amount of Internet information –
including machine-capable search, or the semantic Web, as it's been called. We also see a big
change in people's expectations of what the Internet can achieve. It's becoming obvious that the
Internet isn't just a new and better method of business communications (a cheaper, fancier
telephone for the 21st Century, as it were). This has brought a much wider and more important
role to play in improving the quality of life for the world's population. This evolution has lead to
the latest trend of web 2.0 of social networking which has reached to mobile based web
applications called widgets.

This web 2.0 can be defined as: "Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all collected
devices; Web2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that
platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people
use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple-sources, including individual users, while
providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network
effects through an architecture of participation, and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0
to deliver rich user experiences." (Robert Martignoni, Katarina Stanoevska-Slabeva, 2007).

The service providers of web 2.0 have got down into mobile communications by the different
applications provided to the customers in the communication industry called mobile web 2.0.
This is nothing but a Web browser-based access to the World Wide Web using a mobile
device connected to a wireless network so called the intelligence web or ‘Harnessing Collective
Intelligence.' Mobile Web 2.0 extends the principle of 'Harnessing Collective Intelligence' to
restricted devices i.e. Mobiles. Google has taken notice and created its own mobile phone
operating system called Android that takes advantage of the various Google applications popular
on the PC such as Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google video etc. these Window Gadgets’,
widgets are programs that look like a little window or box on the screen which pull the content
from the browser to integrate it with the desktop or mobile phones. It is based on browser
technologies (HTML, Java, Flash etc.), these small pieces of code can be installed and run on
any separate HTML-based Web page. Enabling mobile phone users to access their favorite
Internet content and services without the need for a mobile browser, and also to create and share
content with other users. Mobile Web 2.0 services are in general mobile services based on user
generated content of different kind. These services can be mobile extension of existing web 2.0
application or pure mobile web 2.0 services dedicated to mobile networks. It has been observed
that 35% of the mobile subscribers use mobile for media purpose
.
Players:
Some of the players in this segment include cellcast, notify.me, ShoZu, facebook, orkut mobile and Siri.

• ShoZu: It was established in 2001. It allows you to update all your favorite social networking
sites like orkut, facebook at once. For using this service one has to purchase the software from
this site. It does its business by selling software, partnering with websites and advertising.
• Notify.me: This website informs us about the notifications that interest us in real time. When you
login, this website asks you name of the website from where you want the notifications. The
notifications can be received as e-mail, sms or a built in application.
 • Siri: Using Siri is a new way to interact with internet on your mobile phone. It works like a real
assistant. It does all the work giving you the information you need at your fingertips. It does its
business by advertising.

Emerging mobile web2.0 opportunities

Advertising: Mobile Web 2.0 tools such as widgets not only open internet to users but
also provide advertisers with more reach.

Availability: This is the greatest strength of mobile phone. The mobile phone is the piece
of personal apparel most commonly kept with individuals at all times.

Interactions between web and mobile: Much of the Mobile Web 2.0 market is being
driven by a combination of mobile and Web, where leading brands actively exploit the
commercial possibilities presented by changing user behavior. Mobile operators such as
3, Orange and Vodafone, are opening up their portals to off-portal applications and
moving quickly to tie-up partnerships with Web brands.

Fixed rate pricing: Along with reduction in cost, transperancy is provided to the end
user.

Consumer experience: Mobile Web 2.0 is about providing new approaches to delivering
Web functionality and an improved user experience on the mobile.

Mobile penetration: Mobile subsribers are increasing at a very fast rate. This serves as a
major driving factor for adoption of mobile web services.

New revenue opportunities: Mobile Web 2.0 creates new revenue opportunities for all
members of the value chain – including Internet Portals, Technology Vendors, Device
Manufacturers, Aggregators, Brands and Content Owners, and the End User.

Off Portal Services: Many companies are launching a mobile Web presence so they can
engage directly with their consumers. Made-for-mobile platforms, better mobile phone
screens and faster network speeds are supporting a richer Web-like experience that is
preferred by businesses to messaging-based marketing.

Market Opportunities for WEB 2.0 Applications

The mobile web 2.0 market is growing at a very fast pace currently it has been centered around
developed countries like European countries and north America and far east region these three
region are the biggest market for the mobile 2.0 application. The Indian subcontinent with its
ever increasing population and economy growth has been one of the markets with huge potential
to grow, same is the story with china, the chinese market with ever increasing Chinese
consuming power has been one of the fastest growing markets for mobile web 2.0. The other
regions like African region and south America middle east and rest of Asia are also growing at a
very fast pace. The various fastest growing markets for the mobile web 2.0 are:

Mobile social networking: The various social networking sires likes facebook, twitter
orkut are touching new height in terms popularity and usage among the various other
applications of mobile web2.0.

Mobile search: Search engine like Google map are growing in popularity day by day
and their market is increasing exponentially.

Mobile IM: The various IM applications like Skype are giving tough competition to the
operators because of their very low price rate and has emerged as biggest competitors of
landline and mobile phone.

Mobile Entertainment: Mobile entertainment is becoming more and more popular
either the youth and is reaching new scale of economy each day. This has become the
major source of revenue for the operators. The mobile entertainment include:
Mobile Audio (Ringtones)
Mobile Games
Mobile Logos, Wallpapers
Mobile Videos
Mobile Betting

Limitations
Though internet on mobile provide so many great advantages such as ability to connect
anywhere anytime still there are various limitations of using internet on mobile which may varies
depending on the device. Some of the common problems which may be encountered are:
• Small screen size – This makes it difficult to see the text and graphics as compared to the
desktop screen of personal computer and laptops.
• Lack of windows – The desktop can open as many as windows as you like but traditional
mobile phone cannot open more than one window, these device does not permit multi
tasking and it is also not possible to revert to the previous page however new age smart
phones are equipped with the latest browser like opera minitub for Java that allow
multiple window operation in mobile devise.
• Navigation – Because of the absence of mouse like pointer, the mobile devices do not
have a good navigation, it uses only the up down and side scrolling for navigation and
has very limited flexibility.
• Lack of JavaScript and cookies – The traditional mobile devices excluding new
generation smart phones do not support client side scripting and storage of cookies. These
features are widely used in the websites to increase the user pleasure and also helps in the
validation of data enter by the page visitor. Thus user will not get the same experience as
they will get on the desktop devices..
• Types of pages accessible – The various websites with secured connection and heavy
use of flash or other software and other video sites cannot be viewed from the mobile
devices because of the heavy data and all other reasons, although recently this has been
changing because of the new generation smart phones.
• Speed – The speed of service on most mobile devices is very slow, often slower than
dial-up and broadband Internet connection. This has been changing with the wide spread
use of the 3G technology
 • Broken pages – The large size website cannot be viewed as a single page on to the
mobile as they can be on personal computers, a single page is broken into various pages
and treated as a separate page because of the slow aped of the internet on the mobile
navigation become very slow and time consuming and some time irritating frustrating for
the user.
• Compressed pages – The mobile pages when converted to mobile format squeezed into
an order which is very much different from the order and format when the same page is
viewed on the desktop.
• Size of messages – The number of characters that can be send by the mobile devices is
restricted to few characters and it depend on the type of device how many characters that
can be send by using internet on mobile
• Cost – The current cost of using internet on mobile are much higher than the normal
broad band internet cost

Hurdles for Mobile Web 2.0 Applications

Some of the hurdles for the mobile web 2.0 applications are
• Differences in technology: There are many players in the world who manufacture
mobile. The players use different technologies and come up with better mobile set as the
time progresses. The operating system used by these providers is also different. Thus is
very difficult to provide the same type of service to all the mobile users. There will be no
uniformity in display how the application will work on mobile sets of different company.
• Privacy and Regulation: Various application of web 2.0 require the personal
information of the user. Most of the users want their personal information to be secret.
But sometimes there are intermediaries between the application and the user. There is a
possibility that this information can be used by these intermediaries for their advantage
which may not be liked by the user. There are very strict norms regarding this in some
countries. The service providers must be aware of the situations.
• Channel Dominance: To use web 2.0 services the mobile user has to get connected to
the web. This can only be done by wireless connection or by using the services provided
of the mobile operator. A player who provided web 2.0 service has very less chance of
earning revenue. The earnings web 2.0 service provider has to partner with the mobile
manufacturer or the operator.
• Cost of Mobile Data service: The cost of using internet on the mobile is quite high as
compared to using the broadband connection. Most of the plans in this category are
priced according to the amount of content downloaded by you. The broadband
connection providers use flat pricing.
• Industry Type: It is very difficult for the web 2.0 service providers to attract the large
brands for advertisement. The main problem with large brands is that they are not sure
 whether to publish information on the net. The big brands get better response by
advertising on the television.
• Security: Security is the biggest concern while using internet on mobile. Most of the
mobile phones are affected by virus. Using the internet increases the probability of
mobile getting affected. Thus this has resulted in many users of mobile not using this
service because of fear.
• Lack of skills: Many advertisers want to advertise on the mobile. The only problem is
that the players of web 2.0 can’t give the advertisers any information about their
performance on the particular application. Providing this service will cost heavily to the
web 2.0 service providers.
• Economic Conditions: As the economy got affected, the users of mobile net as well as
those who provide this service reduced. The rates of the mobile internet are quite high.
To do away with the fear of losing customers, prices should be reduced constantly.

References

• http://www.go2web20.net/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Web
• Juniper Research Limited, May 2008, Share, Collaborate, Exploit ~ Defining Mobile Web 2.0,
• Robert Martignoni, Katarina Stanoevska-Slabeva, 2007, “Mobile Web 2.0”, 20th Bled
eConference eMergence: Merging and Emerging Technologies, Processes, and
Institutions