The new rock and roll. Which is it – Telephony 2.0 or Web 2.0?

 

Quick summary: Telephony 2.0 is about money – Web 2.0 is about users (aka fans).

 

Rock and Roll was about both.

Phonefromhere.com (our startup) bridges the web and telephony, so I spend time in both camps. 

Lets look at their Rock Stars:

Web 2.0 has loads of stars    
• Diggnation team  
  

  Kevin and Alex at FoWA London 08

• Mahalo’s CEO  

Telephony has few, the only one that comes to mind is Mark Spencer   
• Digium Inc  
  

  Mark Spencer, Tim Panton and Duck

 

Who looks more like a rock star ?  (It certainly isn’t me!)

What about money ? Telephony is a vast business 1 Trillion dollar allegedly. Telco’s monetize everything down to the second, Web 2.0’s Achilles heel is the inability to monetize anything except via Google.

So maybe neither is the new Rock and Roll.

I’m thinking it is the crossover between the two that is exciting. Not just the upmarket smartphones. In huge parts of the globe the primary access to the internet is via the mobile phone. That trend is only going to intensify. 

The innovation isn’t just coming from the mobile web either. Take a look at twittervotereport.com or fonolo.com to see neat stuff done with phones.