Oliver Starr writes that Mobile 2.0 isn’t Web 2.0. Oliver mentions the influence of Ajit Jaokar’s attempts to define “Mobile 2.0″, which I discussed in a previous post.

The essence of Web 2.0 is really the evolution from a publishing-centric Web to a services-centric Web. When the Web started out, we went there only to view documents. Today, we can use it for Word-processing, banking, blogging, social-networking, project management and many other Web-bound services. Part of the trend is that our personal data flows into the Web more and more. We are no longer just passive consumers of information.

Ajit’s concept is essentially a mobilized Web 2.0. If we focus for a moment on the characteristics of Web 2.0 services, then let’s turn to the most recent edition of Entrepreneur, which in the article “It Takes 2.0 to Tango” says:

Web 2.0 is a people-oriented technology movement. Ease of use, social features, collaboration, fast-loading applications, interactivity, quick development times and real-time updates are all major trends.

If these are the defining attributes of the Web 2.0 experience, we should admit that “Mobile Web 2.0″ is problematic. The first hurdle - “ease of use” - is still a major challenge, never mind the others (all difficult).

The essence of mobile today is not the web, it is telephony and messaging, which take place via complex protocols managed by a core network owned by the operator. The next step in the evolution of mobile telephony is supposed to be the migration to a universal protocol (SIP) that doesn’t need to be tightly bound to a core network at all. Just as a browser today finds a server (via its URL) and tells it what it wants to do (pull a web page, start a video stream, download a file etc), SIP brings an equivalent “connection model” to telephony. In today’s networks, users mostly “dial to talk”. With tomorrow’s SIP networks, they can “click to connect”, which might be talking, texting, avatar-chat or any other session that the devices can support.

Programming for SIP is as easy as programming for HTTP, the golden protocol of the Web. Moreover, the two protocols can be easily blended. Building a “visual voicemail” service, like the one available on the iPhone, is easy with SIP. In fact, any type of messaging service is easy to build and since messaging is at the heart of social networking, all kinds of interesting services can be imagined.

With SIP, we can begin to see that a transition is possible from today’s telephony (Mobile 1.0) to teleservices (Mobile 2.0). The existence of Web 2.0 just makes the services landscape that much more interesting, especially because of the potential to blend services - the so-called “mash-up” approach.

The underlying problem however is that whilst the web paradigm in browser-centric, there is no equivalent for SIP. There isn’t a “SIP browser”. Granted, there isn’t a “HTTP browser” either, but we tend to forget that HTML was an integral part of the Web invention, so HTML and HTTP are tightly bound as a single paradigm. Because mobile telephony is about people (accessible via a phone number), the buddy paradigm, as seen in instant messaging, is a closer fit and this is the current direction that mobile vendors are taking. However, there isn’t a universal “buddy browser” either.

Is there a single paradigm that can merge Web 2.0 with the SIP/Buddy world? There probably is and I have looked at the idea of “SIP + HTTP” browsers in terms of what might such an entity be like from a programming model perspective. This is where AJAX gets interesting because it allows the push-pull model of the Web to merge with the more asymmetric call model of telephony and SIP generally.

However, this is all techno blah. We need compelling services to emerge that show us how a converged paradigm could work. This is perhaps one area where the mobile industry could lead the way, but the problem here is that most operators who are in the “SIP driving seat” (i.e. deploying IMS - the next generation of GSM that happens to be built around SIP) don’t really understand the Web enough to embrace it, nor do they whole-heartedly support its commercial paradigm, which is “open to all”. Therefore, it seems more likely that as Internet-telephony services gain traction with broadband operators, the convergence of Web 2.0 with SIP/Buddy will be driven by net-head entrepreneurs, which is probably a good thing. Out of this, I expect the real Mobile 2.0 to arise.