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Telecommunications Policy

Telecommunications Policy 35 (2011) 397–398

doi:10.1

URL: www.elsevierbusinessandmanagement.com/locate/telpol

Book Review

Open Mobile. Understanding the Impact of Open Mobile: Implications for Telecoms/Devices, Web, Social Networks,Media and Personal Privacy. Ajit Jaokar, Anna Gatti., Futuretext, London (2009). 282 pages including appendix andnotes about the authors and editor, £19.99, Paperback, ISBN: 978-0-9556069-2-2

This book seeks to explore the interplay between two worlds, namely, the Internet and mobility. The authors state thatthe Internet is ‘open’ and mobility ‘closed’, and as the two interact with one another the former is opening up the latter(page 1). Hence, the ‘Open Mobile’ of the title.

To examine this interplay, the book is divided into three parts. The first part of the book—Open Mobile: The Principlesof Open Mobile—covers a diverse array of issues over the course of 88 pages. It is argued that the mobile value chain isbecoming increasingly complex, with more actors present and a broader range of services and content than was previouslythe case. Openness is also discussed, in terms of standards, innovation and social networks. Billing and payment systemsare mentioned, as are innovative services such as location-based services and the tendency of telecommunicationcompanies to ignore customer needs or fail to spot emerging handset/device trends.

The first part of the book also discusses value, though as this occurs in several places it is sometimes hard to discern thekey message(s) that are being made. Piecing together the arguments that are made, one argument that emerges is that thelocation of value creation is moving away from infrastructure towards content while another is that new value creatingopportunities are merging as openness and mobility come together.

In the second part of the book, Open Mobile Perspectives, which is also the longest, the focus is on understandingopenness. Five different perspectives are covered. The first perspective, content, discusses ‘content as king’ and mobilecontent strategies, and argues that the content industry will be affected by a series of seismic shifts.

The second perspective is the web, while the third is telecoms/mobile. After outlining a few basic concepts, the webperspective goes on to discuss Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0. Some, but not all, of the arguments made in this perspectivedraw on comments made in part one of this volume. The third perspective initially focuses on technology, describingdifferent types of technology and networks before suggesting how the network may evolve. This touches not only ontechnology, but also on services.

The fourth perspective covered in the book is that of social networks. The first part of the perspective focuses on data, interms of how users of different social networking sites can communicate with one another and what happens to thecontent created by users when they leave a particular site. Perhaps of greater interest today, however, is the second part ofthe discussion that centres on the impact that social networking websites are having on traditional advertising.

Privacy is the final perspective discussed. The discussion begins by stating why privacy is important before touching ona broad range of related issues such as trust, privacy standards and how sometimes an invasion of privacy can bring aboutsocial benefits. The section finishes with a discussion of how privacy may develop in the future.

The next 50 pages of the book form the third part of the book, the disruptive impact of Open Mobile. Broadly speaking,the consequences of openness are discussed in terms of their impact on the mobile ecosystem. Different types ofconvergence are highlighted, as is the importance of search as a service. Indeed, the discussion of search in its differentforms occupies the bulk of this concluding chapter. There is also a brief discussion of cloud computing in the chapter, andthe ‘Internet of things’ that is emerging as the Internet embraces devices.

A short 9 pages conclusion that repeats the main messages of the book follows the third part of the book. This repetitionof the main messages is useful, as it begins to draw together some of the disparate themes that have been mentioned in theprevious three parts of the book, though the listing of these points does not fully document the links that exist betweenthem. The seven principles of Web 2.0 are listed in an appendix, with the book concluding with a few pages describing theauthors and the editor.

This book aims to cover a lot of ground in not that many pages. One consequence of this is that many of the issuesmentioned in the book are only briefly elaborated, while another is the links that exist between topics are often not madeto a point that enables the reader to understand their significance. The formatting style adopted in the book, coupled with

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Book Review / Telecommunications Policy 35 (2011) 397–398398

the extensive use of bullet points and lists, results in small sections running over several pages and thus lulling the readerinto thinking that they have read more on a particular topic than they actually have.

An admittedly unscientific word count suggests that the text amounts to around 60,000 words, which hardly seemsadequate to satisfactorily address all of the areas noted in the title. In other words, the book is quite short. The cover of thebook is quite flimsy, even for a paperback, and many of the diagrams included in the book would benefit from being largeror in colour as one or both of these would help the reader.

Although no reference list is included in the book, there are 256 footnotes throughout the text. However, not all of theserefer to supporting arguments and many refer to a specific webpage rather than a book or journal article. Wikipedia isreferred to 69 times in the footnotes. While a handful of the footnotes refer to The Guardian and BBC, none of them directthe reader to articles in sources such as the Financial Times or The Economist that have over the years published numerousrelevant stories.

Including the extensive academic research in the areas touched on by the book would have provided support to thearguments that the authors attempt to make. The absence of such literature only reinforces the feeling that the intendedaudience of the book is not an academic one. But if the intended audience is not an academic one, who will buy this book?It could appeal to managers wishing to understand what the collision of the Internet and mobility means for theirorganisation, but its brevity and lack of detail is likely to mean that they will be disappointed.

In summary, although the subject addressed in this book is interesting and certainly worth investigation and comment,this book does so disappointingly.

Jason WhalleyDepartment of Management Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

E-mail address: jason.whalley@strath.ac.uk