via BoingBoing 

This video is a great commentary on versioning and meaning - a great starting place for blogging on anything 2.0. But I still have a few questions.

What exactly is mobile messaging (MM)? And I thought MMS or pix and flix messaging in addition to text WAS 2.0. After all if we in the US can send pics and videos as messages then the ROW (rest of the world) has been doing that for years, right? Anyway, if multimedia messaging was 2.0 and social networks are the current new messaging construct wouldn’t that be 3.0? Didn’t someone mention Twitter? So adding multimedia to social networking would be MM 4.0 which means that the future of MM would be….what are we at now? 5.0? But who’s counting.

Not unlike the Theory of Special Relativity, the state of MM is moving at a speed that is relative to the observer. The observer in this case might be those creating and delivering services, those using services or those analyzing and commenting on services. Those creating and delivering services are pedaling as fast as they can to keep up with demand and generate revenue for survival. Those using services are generally overwhelmed by choices and frustrated by the lack of interoperability and integration of services. And then those of us who analyze and comment, well….we’re impatient and wanting to push the other two groups into our relative view.

Members of the latter group long for the day when buddy lists are portable across platforms and applications, when interoperability is real and “just works”, rather than being another causalty of competitive advantage. We long for the day when mobile messaging via text, graphics, pictures, videos and voice is a reasonably priced set of services; easy to navigate and use; device, time and place independent; and modalities are interchangable based on the individual’s needs.

Hopes for the future of mobile messaging also include the realization of APIs that open up the platform for experimentation and integration of the kind that exists on the web. Bloggers know well the benefits of APIs and the increased functionality that integration of “add on” applications and services (A&S) provide. The current requirements for a contractual or business relationship with the behemouth operators just to develop messaging A&S as outlined in Sprint’s Messaging Gateway Developer’s Guide retards innovation by restricting experimentation.

The future of mobile messaging is relative to the observer. Sometimes I hear the promises of operators and the wishful hopes of developers or the optimism of analysts and think that it would be easier to bolt on an RSS feed to a chicken (watch the video for this reference) than to get to a future of mobile messaging that truly is user-centered. How does a command and control structured organization overcome it’s nature?

I could talk about IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), but that topic is too complex for a single post. Besides I’ve already broken the cardinal blogging rule by including more than one idea or set of ideas in a single article. Don’t switch the channel, yet. Expanding on this introduction with more detail is for future episodes on the future of mobile messaging.