This is a very thorough, thought provoking Open Gardens [1] post from Ajit

Defining what is open, how it differs to open source - Ajit defines from a customer perspective as

‘The freedom of choice for the customer and the removal of commercial and technological barriers that hamper free communication between people’

Open source does not always imply open choice for the customer, customers are not at the same entry point, they have a variety of devices from which to choose but they are potentially limited by a network operator’s bandwidth / data packages / wifi coverage as well as cost - or even further, how the device browser can access mobile web, what can be viewed, what applications and services can be used with the mobile web on their device (e.g. iPhone),

Are some of these linked to advertising (e.g. the Vodafone mobile web / internet service - their home page has specific advertisements, which you could even unintentionally click on - and due to the limited amount of time you are likely to spend browsing with a mobile, could hinder you from getting to the information you were originally hoping to see - speaking from my own experience of using Vodafone as well as Opera & Nokia browsers on N73 last year).

Use of mobile devices to get news via RSS feeds, development of basic content is also starting to emerge which may have a big impact on mobile markets. Changes for advanced developers as well, being able to develop mobile web apps using open software kits, APIs etc However there are not yet full open standards and open source mobile web coding available in a way that could present a model where small so-called web2 startups could quickly emerge with mobile web services - devices are still too complex.

Existing web companies such as Twitter have found a business model - taking a very simple concept (texts/SMS) that worked on a mobile device and creating a similar mobile web offering (works with iPhones too, which doesn’t appear to be an easy feat ) , or taking advantage of existing services on the mobile device such as IM, also access to their APIs has allowed mobile web developers to come up with their own mobile twitter clients e.g. [2] tiny twitter An [3] interview with founders of Twitter in May last year, suggested that the business model could be to obtain a large enough user base then sell to existing web or social network giant. In the article it also suggests (this is not from founders themselves) that partnering with a network operator/carrier or advertising.

A key concept that Ajit mentions is that you cannot charge for a mobile service that the web provides for free. So what are the options - different levels of service (where premium use funds free usage in return for quicker (possibly), more advanced services), advertising revenue streams (mobile browsing is still not a comfortable experience so maybe audio advertising is going to appear on the mobile web instead) - the next year or so including the intro of first Android handsets will be interesting to see what kind of models can be adopted, whether ‘compromises’ in terms of adverts will be used to fund mobile web apps or whether innovators will seek investment from elsewhere initially and see where it leads them.