Ivan,

I'll take a stab at this. Mobile content providers have one major advantage, if they choose to use it. They have the luxury of looking at the history of how the web evolved and what types of applications thrived at each stage of the wired network's development. In the early years of the internet, there was little thought put into why it would be valuable to put an application on the web. Rather it was believed by many to be inherently superior because it was on the web. The applications that succeed seem to have two things in common.
1. They effectively improve on the experience that has traditionally been provided to get a similar service. As an example, Amazon.com effectively distilled the essence of readers down to selection and availability. They were able to have a wider selection available when the customer wanted it as opposed to a book store that had a limited selection (dictated by the stores size) and limited retail hours of operation. Amazon was open 24 hours a day 365 days a year with the widest selection possible.
2. The application was able to be used with a minimal amount of frustration given the network capabilities and the relative level of user sophistication. Great applications flourish where they can be used easily. A good negative example of this would be Google Earth. That application is only feasible in an environment where the network that serves up the internet is robust enough to handle the intensely graphical nature of the application and the average consumer of the product has sufficient experience with desk top publishing (My Maps applications), zoom, pan, tilt, and other "advanced computing" features that were not in the common lexicon of users in the early years of the internet.
Matching up the sophistication of current users with the capabilities that will elegantly display on a network is a critical component to success. Social marketing websites push the limit for both networks and user sophistication. Assuming what will work in the wired world of FaceBook, MySpace, et al will work in a mobile environment ignores one critical point. The networks that support mobile applications like FaceBook Mobile are not as robust as the networks supporting the wired version. Tailoring the experience to the capabilities of the network will help to ensure greater acceptance. Two very good examples of websites that have radically different mobile and wired websites are the wall street journal and LinkedIN. Both of these properties manage to allow the consumer the essence of the product experience regardless of the network backing it up. In the process they expand the value of the product and set an expectation for use that does not overburden the network. Keys to a good mobile experience right now revolve around compression techniques, reduced graphical content, clean layout, effective use of frames/templates, reduced click/data input methods, etc. As the networks evolve into full 3G and LTE configurations the mobile sites can change and be enhanced with more intense interfaces, more interactive data, and more innovative content. I hope this is of help.

posted April 7, 2008