Russell Beattie of Mowser decided to throw in the towel after concluding that the Mobile Web is dead. Justin Siegel of Mocospace (a mobile social network whose Advisory Board I'm on), begs to differ. Obviously we're biased, but tt's a good read. Some choice passages:
- Still, I’m surprised by how jaded his view of the mobile Internet is given the early success of many companies he’s familiar with such as Admob, Getjar, MyWaves, Radar, yours truly (MocoSpace). Each of these sites are generating 10’s of millions, and in MocoSpace’s case over 1 billion page views per month off of a unique audience in the low millions. Those numbers may not stack up well to the Web…yet, but the trend certainly appears to be our friend.
- People will expect, and they will get different content, formats, features, etc. for different devices. Unless you expect the wired Web to stop improving and taking advantage of the horsepower that desktops and flatpanels deliver, I don’t get how someone could ever think there will be a unified Internet experience across such a range of capabilities. In my opinion, the bottom line is that people are and will continue to develop new sites, services, applications, etc. specifically for mobile devices, and they will be different than those browsed on machines with 5-10x larger screens and orders of magnitude more power and bandwith. Just as Walmart had to build a website as a distinct experience from its bricks and mortar experience, it will build a mobile site.
- For Russell and all fellow entrepreneurs, I end with one of my favorite quotes from Theodore Roosevelt:
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It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
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