Open Gardens

About Open Gardens

Open Gardens is published by futuretext

Rated 8/10 on Blogged.com

About The Open Gardens Blog

I (Ajit) founded the blog on May 26, 2005 based on my vision and philosophy of OpenGardens i.e. the philosophical opposite of 'walled gardens' especially as applicable to the mobile data industry.

Today, the OpenGardens blog is one of the few blogs that span both the Web and the Mobile domains.

The blog covers wireless/mobile applications, open networks and mobile web 2.0. My vision behind the OpenGardens blog has been :

The blog is about the Mobile data industry and Digital convergence('Mobile web 2.0')
Analysis is more important than story/controversy. I don't believe that bloggers are true journalists. The blog is not about the latest 'story' but it's more about independent analysis/viewpoint
The OpenGardens blog is broadly about opening up the networks, growing digital usage and digital businesses i.e. we don't advocate closed networks, broadcast media etc
It is about disruptive digital technologies

Founder & Chief Blogger Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar is the founder of the London based publishing and research company futuretext (www.futuretext.com) focussed on emerging Web and Mobile technologies -including Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0.

His thinking is widely followed in the industry and his blog, the OpenGardensBlog (www.opengardensblog.futuretext.com), which was recently rated a top 20 wireless blog worldwide

In 2009-2010, Ajit was nominated as part of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet by the world economic forum. He hopes to use this opportunity to further extend the pragmatic viewpoint of the evolution of Telecoms networks in an open ecosystem.

(Note: The Network of Global Agenda Councils plays a significant role in shaping the global agenda by monitoring global issues and elaborating recommendations to address them. Each Council, comprised of 15-20 Members, serves as an advisory board to the Forum and other interested parties, such as governments and international organizations. The Global Agenda Councils also act as the intellectual drivers of the World Economic Forum's Global Redesign Initiative, an unprecedented international, multistakeholder and multimedia dialogue that aims to develop a 21st-century vision of global cooperation. Members of the G20, the UN and other International Organizations have pledged their support for this initiative. )

Ajit is best known for his books Mobile Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing. Two new books ('Open Mobile' and 'Implementing Mobile Web 2.0') are being released in 2009.

His consulting activities include working with companies to define value propositions across the device, network, Web and Social networking stack spanning both technology and strategy. He has worked with a range of commercial and government organizations globally including The European Union, Telecoms Operators, Device manufacturers, social networking companies and security companies in various strategic and visionary roles

His recent talks and forthcoming talks include: CEBIT 2009;MobileWorld Congress(2007, 2008, 2009); Keynote at O Reilly Web20 expo (April 2007);Keynote at Java One; European Parliament – Brussels – (Electronic Internet Foundation); Stanford University's Digital visions program;MIT Sloan;Fraunhofer FOKUS ; University of St. Gallen (Switzerland); Mobile Web Strategies (partner event of CTIA in San Francisco)

Media appearances include BBC – Newsnight – 3phone launch; CNN money; BBC digital planet

Ajit chairs Oxford University's Next generation mobile applications panel and conducts a course on Web 2.0, Social networking, Mobile Web 2.0 and LTE services at Oxford University.

Ajit lives in London, UK, but has three nationalities (British, Indian and New Zealander) and is proud of all three. He is currently doing a PhD on Privacy and Reputation systems at UCL in London. Ajit is a fan of animation especially Tom and Jerry, Tintin and Asterix and likes the music of ZZ Top and other rock bands

You can contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

You can follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AjitJaokar

See a video of my talk at CEBIT in Hannover
(intro in german - presenttion in english)

► MORE

June 5, 2007

Memorable quotes from the event at the European parliament last night ..

A great evening spent at the European parliament ..

Much more coming soon .. including the text of my talk .. but here are some of the memorable people and quotes from that evening(including some from my talk):

Malcolm Harbour MEP – came up with one of the best one word definition of Web 2.0 I have seen so far .. and in fitting with his role as a politician (MEP) that definition is ‘Democratize’

Piia-Noora Kauppi MEP and the chair of the event for the evening: There are few physical frontiers on earth .. so we are now exploring virtual frontiers(as an explanation to the psychology driving much of Web 2.0 and user generated content)

Bartho Pronk – European commission: No one ever talks of the dark side of the Web. We all talk of the good things(sharing etc) but we cannot ignore the dark side else we can’t make the system inclusive and global

Tom Loosemore – Project director and architect of BBC 2.0: ‘The challenge is: How to cede control – but yet win ..’

And finally from my speech

In a world of contribution(Web 2.0) – openness and cooperation is a competitive advantage. Both the European Union and the GSM standard have demonstrated that we have the capacity to cooperate. And that skill will be a key competitive advantage for us in future

And also from my speech ..

The future belongs to pockets of technical excellence .. As my friend from Tel Aviv said to me once: ‘We Israelis don’t do web 2.0’. That’s an astute observation. Israel has technical competence in security, communications and networking. India – has a more broad based business software experience. Brazil is developing expertise in bio fuels.

So, I ask you as MEPs .. if we fast forward the next few years .. what technical area do we want to dominate? What technical legacy will we leave our children?

And I propose to you – that it is ‘Mobile’

We already have an ecosystem in GSM and we have world leading mobile companies in Nokia and Ericsson based here.

Let us not look to the east – nor the west

We lead America i.e. the West (for once!) with mobile technology ..

Let us not look to the East(Korea and Japan) for innovation. Yes, a lot has been achieved there – but based on closed standards. That innovation is not globally technologically scaleable.

What we are doing here in Europe is fostering innovation based on Open standards and the ethos of the Web. That innovation is globally scaleable and is (globally) inclusive.

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Filed under: mobile web 2.0 — ajit @ 11:51 pm

Comments (1)

1 Comment »

Hello,
I’ve been involved in Java Mobile techonlogy / Web Mobile from year 2000.
Europeans lead America with mobile technology but they don’t care, don’t panic, because Europe is not able to offer a standard solution that targets the mass market.
Globally technologically scaleable?
Today is really difficult to launch an European mobile application based in java, “our standard”,
Technologically has been a failure.
Manufacturers have implemented docens of different java versions in its phones, without control, without rules.
Currently it is not possible to launch a java mass market standard application without all the phones in front of you,… and stay ready to create docens of different versions.
Technical information from operators has been (from the beginning) very limited, just about a confidential secret.
Why we have a poor web mobile?
Maybe because operators want the control of it?
Now it seems free, ok, you can launch a web mobile by using XHTML but,
1) It won’t be compatible with WAP phones
2) Each phone supports a maximum page size (again incompatibilities).
3) You need to recognize the phone model to know the response maximum page size.
4) This information is not offered by operators neither by manufacturers.
so?
5) You need all the phones to test and get the information.
6) Is it an Impossible Mission??
Open standards?
Open standards based on private resources.
Open standards based on SMS business models available to “some” partners.
I’m mad about social, community, user generated, mobile web 2.0.
But, I’m afraid we don’t have technology to make it possible.
For that reason all the people is talkinng about mobile web 2.0 as a future.
In a near future, US ( as always ) will demostrate how to do it, majax, mac and macromedia will launch standards that will conquer the whole world, all the promised mobile web2.0 world.

Comment by Gabriel Palomino — June 7, 2007 @ 11:04 am