3GSM World Congress Review

Rudy De Waele and Richard MacManus have written a great post about the 3GSM conference that was recently held in Barcelona.

The review talks about things like mobile and Internet growth, mobile web 2.0 startups and the convergence of services like SecondLife, YouTube and Myspace with mobile phone technology.

The use of mobile web 2.0 services will spread the use of Internet on mobile phones. The review also notes that a lot of mobile start-ups really need to improve their services and business models, and that growth in this sector will depend upon promising start-ups building relationships with major operators to provide them with the support that they really need.

Major operators like Vodafone seem to have gotten this message before their competitors, and in fact announced some remarkable breakthrough deals. Nokia also entered into key agreements with various web companies. For example, Vodafone entered into agreements with web 2.0 companies like MySpace or YouTube, and Nokia< will also offer YouTube
videos.

I don’t have any doubt that this is just the beginning of strategic alliances between mobile or web 2.0 start-ups and traditional mobile phone operators. In fact, another established firm like Second Life by Linden Labs is also betting on mobile content. Soon you will be able to login to your Second Life account using your Java-enabled mobile devices.

As you can see, this post is really a review of a review posted on the blog Read/Write Web. But I am also trying to convey the environment that the conference celebrated. Over the next few years, mobile phone users will become an important part of the Internet community.

So grab a box of popcorn, find a nice comfortable place to relax and watch as this all unfolds.