Carnival of the Mobilists - Best of the Year!

Welcome to the final Carnival of the Mobilists of 2005, where we feature the very best online writing about mobile. To celebrate this special issue, we asked all our writers to send in their favourite piece from 2005 – and they haven’t disappointed. I challenge anyone to come up with a finer collection.

We also have some special guests dropping in, who I hope might turn into more regular contributors in 2006.

So let’s get started on our record catch.

Mobile Jones points us to a fascinating post about how language influences and limits how we think and the implications of this on mobile design. This is a wide ranging post, taking in everything from an Amazonian tribe who can’t count past two, to companies approaching mobile from a web perspective and getting it totally wrong. Microsoft sprung straight to my mind. Go read it.

Mobile Diva, Darla Mack, has been looking at the controversial area of mobile phone virii, pointing out that there’s no way you can get a virus without deliberately installing it. She also points to a great tutorial that demystifies the mobile virus and is definitely worth a read.

Actually, getting a mobile virus reminds me of the spoof email virus that went around a few years ago. It was called a Virus for Stupid People (or something like that) and told recipients that they had caught it and must now delete all their files on their hard drive.

Rudy De Waele sends us his first piece of personal experience writing – no, not what he did in his school holidays, but writing as an adult. He does a great job of outlining the issues of buying music and the limits imposed on him by a music industry that’s way out of touch with its customers and their needs.

Troy Norcross is well known as the man who hates spam. Back in October, he introduced the world to his concept of TRVR. In order to avoid being spam, messages must be – well read it, it’s important.

For those of you who missed the first Carnival, one of my favourite posts was Dorian Porter’s exploration of how we might use digital tools in the future. Dorrian suggests that we'll have many devices and simply use the one that suits our purpose and need at the time, rather than have one device to rule them all. Go check out what the implications of this might be.

Emily at Textually chooses a post of hope for the future. The mobile phone already played a part in overthrowing an unpopular Government in the Philippines – can it go the whole hog and topple the totalitarian regime in North Korea? Find out how it might happen.

Mobile marketer, Helen Keegan, has a gripe at a recent Coke promotion – which quite obviously no one had bothered to pre-test. It’s amazing how a brand with so much mobile experience in the UK can get things this fundamentally wrong. I suspect someone tried to save budget by cutting corners, which is a bad idea when technology is involved. Read about the litany of errors.

Judy Breck is on a mission to get schools to use technology and mobile phones, especially, as part of the eduction process. It’s a tough mission, as most educators want to ban mobiles or at least restrict their use. Whereas if they saw them as learning tools, it would make their job of teaching the little darlings so much easier. Judy explores this further in this short, recent post.

I promised you some big names in this edition and the first one is one of the most experienced and best writers about technology around. On Malik writes his own eponymous blog and is also a senior writer for Business 2.0, simply the best business publication around, in my opinion. So I was very interested to see what Om would send in as his favourite post of the year.

Om doesn't disappoint with a great feature on a new wifi system offering us all to become mini-broadband providers. The implications might be free wifi wherever we go – or it might not. Read Om’s, along wqith a few other contributors', thoughts here.

The Pondering Primate nominates his post that asks and answers one of the big questions of our time – How Microsoft can beat Google?. Interesting for all of us in tech, but Microsoft especially, whose world view is starting to look very jaded. The answer lies in a theme we both write a lot about – connecting the real, physical world with a digital equivalent.

Ajit Jaokar sends us his very latest post as his best of the year. He explores NFC (Near Field Communication) as the possible answer to opening up mPayments – surely the next billion dollar prize in mobile, for those that crack the market.

Daniel from the Mobile Enterprise Blog is also a great believer in the latest is best, but he’s based this on the response from his readers. It’s a great piece on the impact that the current RIM legal situation has on the mobile enterprise industry.

Stuart at Blethers chose his post as one that questions the whole precept of mobile TV – or certainly whether anyone will actually pay for the thing. Check out his post.

Wap Review has been considering Mobile Transcoding in-depth. If you’re going WTF? or nodding smugly, I suggest you head on over and read it, as whichever reaction you have, you’ll find it equally interesting as it lies at the heart of the mobile internet. And as we all know, the mobile is the real meaning of Web 2.0 – or should it be Mobile 2.0?

One of the leading voices for the mobile movement in the last 10 years or so is Howard Rheingold. Author of the outstanding Smart Mobs book and lead blogger for the website of the same name, he is surely more responsible than any other individual writer for waking up so many people as to how mobile is radically reshaping our very society on a daily basis.

So I’m delighted to include Howard’s post as the best from Smart Mobs this year.

But, wait. That’s not all. One of the saddest mobile events of 2005 was Nokia’s decision to close down The Feature. It had become the best destination on the web for informed discussion and debate on the mobile world and it’s sadly missed by many.

We certainly didn’t want to leave The Feature out of this celebration of the best writing. So I asked the ex-editor of The Feature, keeper of the archives and now my writing partner here at MobHappy, I’m delighted to say, to choose the best from 2005. And guess what? He selected the same article that had been chosen from Smart Mobs, by Howard.

So Howard gets the double whammy of being the best of Smart Mobs and the best of The Feature too – quite an accolade.

Read Howard’s "Mobile and Open: A Manifesto" in abbreviated form on Smart Mobs or the whole thing in The Feature Archives.

Incidentally, if your company wants to be seen as a thought leader and agenda setter in mobile technology, there’s lots to be recommended to take some of the best principles of The Feature and apply them in a new context. If this sounds interesting, let’s have a chat and let’s see if we can work something out and involve these great writers who are featured here today.

Anders from Abiro is a newbie to the Carnival, but a very established and high volume blogger, who is a valuable edition to any blogroll. Like all of us, he struggled to pick his best post out of the 500 he’s written in the last year, so he cheated! He picked his annual mobile round up as his post of the year and a great read it is too. A nice mix of the important and quirky, so go and check it out.

Mike Masnick is our final guest star in this festive edition. He’s a great writer and commentator on technology, not just in what he writes, but how much he manages to produce and which is consistently, unfailingly excellent. Many times I’ve had an idea for a post and Mike’s written it first and better than I could have done, damn him!

So it’s a great pleasure to include a post from TechDirt here. Mike writes about Location Based Services, a subject dear to my heart, with a pull-no-punches piece about the ridiculous way operators look at this area. On the one hand, operators try to sell services no one wants (video calling springs to mind) and on the other, reject services that could be true differentiators. Furthermore....actually, just go and read Mike’s piece.

Another newbie to the Carnival, but big cheese on the UK mobile scene is Mike Grenville's 160 Characters. It's an excellent source of news and info, as well as a good meat space networking scene if you're in London. Mike's generously chosen someone else's writing for his best of the year and the topic is the controversial Adult sector. Julia Dimambro from Cherrysauce saw her first adult magazine when she was 13 and has been fascinated ever since. Her post explores why the controls on adult content in the UK, while they seem onerous to the industry, are actually one of the major growth drivers. Go have an ogle.

Finally, the host traditionally chooses a post of his own and I’ve gone with one I wrote back in May – The Death Knell of Privacy. While I’m a big fan of LBS and mobile tech, they do have their downsides and we need to be aware of these. Let’s pick the best for our new world and stop the worst from happening.

This is also a sentiment picked up in C Enrique Ortiz's entry "Responsible Location-Based Software - Don't Do Evil", which is both a call to action and a practical guide to the developer community to use LBS responsibly. If you're involved in this area, read it and take heed - you know if makes sense.

And since MobHappy is a joint blog, I’m going to break the rules and pick a post from Carlo too. Why DRM Will Kill Mobile Music was widely quoted around the web and rightly so. You won’t read a better summary of why the record industry should abandon DRM and focus on something it can win – like producing great music and working out how to make money doing it. As Sony have kindly demonstrated this year, DRM doesn’t work.

Thank you all the writers and readers for taking the time to contribute to this bumper edition. I’m going to wimp out of selecting my very favourite contribution this week – there’s just too many excellent pieces. But if you’re short of time and only can read 5, make sure you check out Howard, Mike, Debi, Om and Carlo. [I’ve been adding and replacing these names for 30 minutes now and have to just go with this list. But there’s another 10 or so I could have put in the top 5! Honestly, take time over the holidays to follow all the links – you won’t be disappointed.]

We’re taking a break at the Carnival and the next one will be at The Golden Swamp on 20th January 2006.

Happy Holidays!

Russell

Comments

[Darla]

Being involved in CoM has been a blast and I look forward to next year.
Including The Feature in the round up was more than appropriate and the best tribute one could possibly do. I still to this day miss reading it. My homepage was set to that and it was the first thing that I read on a daily basis.
To all the CoM family, Have a very Happy Holiday!!

[Xen Dolev]

Happy holiday season mobilists!

[Nicolas Fogelholm]

Nice and interesting thoughts. I made my own Nokia related predictions for the year 2006 at my blog. Feel free to read and comment.