One of my favorite current gripes is how the mobile world lives in a walled garden, and fails at the basic test: Can I build on my mobile device what I can build on the web? I’m not talking about pure functionality, of course, I understand that there are device- and context-specific constraints. I’m talking about presumptive ecologies here – the web is open, mobile is closed. That means you have to go through carriers to get anything done, or have a business model of any kind. That means development is limited, and, well, mobile apps are constrained.
This could be changing. SEW notes that Yahoo has signed a deal with Mobile Commerce to provide keyword ads for a WAP-based travel search play. Not exactly revolutionary, but it shows the bleeding over of web-based models (paid search) into the mobile space. I am not very mobile savvy, but I yearn for the day I can have a device which has, at its core, the equivalent of “Naked DSL” built in, so folks can deliver cool applications and business models to my mobile device without having to cut Verizon, Sprint, or someone else in on the deal. Will it ever happen?