Mobile developers get toolkit

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by Brian Turner

So, if the mobile device is the communications center of the future, what’s coming next?

Well, if the marketers have anything to do with it, the mobile device will become the next big platform for permission marketing. Or simply marketing.

Already some marketers are touting that mobile as the billboard of the future.

While the big companies are more concerned about the permission marketing element - respecting the user’s space as much as possible - you can bet there are shedloads of porn, pills, and casino affiliates just itching to get their hands in your face.

However, I’ve already stated that I expect the next big leap in mobile devices to be applications based, rather than due to advances in hardware technology - because the leap isn’t simply to make mobiles bigger and better in general, but integrate them better into converging technologies.

So what sort of applications currently exist?

Nothing too much to get excited over, if you’re looking for the leap to the next generation - there are, um, music download services, and local map services from Google and Yahoo!.

But in these apps are the seeds of the future - everyone in marketing thinks local will become big - they just need user uptake of the apps to make them widespread, and Apple’s iPhone is already doing that.

So what can those wiley mobile developers rely on to build those next generation apps?

Read/Write Web has a list of 55 tools for the Mobile Search Tool Kit.

There may be little to get excited about at present, but the list presents the tools we should expect to be formative in that next generation leap to mobile applications.