For advertisers, marketers, tech innovators and media professionals, mobile is all the rage. While there have been periods of excitement surrounding mobile in the past, the present mania seems to be greater than ever!

Why the sudden resurgence of interest in the mobile space?

• Is it the iPhone?
  • The iPhone is not about accessing the mobile web, it is about accessing the web from anywhere
    • The iPhone represents a shift towards accessing the web via palmtop device in an environment that is designed to do just that.
• Is it the impending widespread of 3G networks?
  • This remains to be seen
• Is it what initially spurred the growth of the PC based web?
  • Ease of content creation and accessibility

I would say that all of the above are true; however the third bullet is the most compelling and the most obvious to me.

Here is what Tim Berners-Lee has to say about the WC3 and the mobile web:

“The Mobile Web Initiative’s goal is to make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality”, explains Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web. “W3C and mobile industry leaders are working together to improve Web content production and access for mobile users and the greater Web.”

Here are some factors accelerating the use of mobile devices to access the World Wide Web (notice the distinction I have made here. It is about accessing the same web we access via PC. It is not a separate, mobile web)

• The W3C Mobile Web Initiative
• Networks enabling easy mobile content creation
  • MobiSiteGalore
  • Network Solutions Build My Mobi
  • Admob
    • This is a really cool one. A Wordpress plugin was created to mobilize us bloggers

What do you attribute the new mobile mania to?

Tags: mobile, WAP, mobile content, buildmymobi, .mobi, admob, mobisitegalore, iphone, 3g, Tim Berners-Lee, Mobile Wordpress, w3c mobile initiative