Areas of mobile being talked about

It seems to be a good time to sum up areas of the mobile arena that are creating some buzz at the moment:

• Mobile web - huge amounts of talk in this area, including events such as Mobile 2.0 organised by my friend and Mobile Monday London co-conspirator Dan. A lot of talk seems to be around mobile AJAX, mobile web best practices and various ways of mobile search.
• Mobile payments - such as purchasing items through means such as SMS or an e-wallet system. I wonder when the credit card companies will get in on this act? It appears regulations are being relaxed across europe and finally the networks may actually start to agree on some mechanism that works across the board, lets not have another SIMPay.
  
• Messaging sticks around as always due to high SMS usage. But Skype's recent joint venture with 3 is worth keeping an eye on to see where mobile IM heads and if/when it will have an affect on text messaging.
• Mobile advertising has been spoken about at MoMoLondon as well as quite a few other events recently. It appears everyone is searching for the best revenue stream when it comes to new services such as Mobile TV and beyond.
• Mobile video is back with Mobile TV being the hot subject of the day. It appears most broadcast companies have this as one of thier strategies. Now the debate seems to be around digital rights and copyright of material. This links in with the popularity of video streaming sites like youtube about who actually owns the rights to the content. I see lawyers rubbing their hands as a trend from all of this.
• Mobile networks still dont seem to have their acts in order, all arent exactly in rude health when it comes to profits or market position. Acquisitions and being acquired seem to capture headlines at the moment. I wonder how many UK operators there will be in 5 years time?
• Mobile gaming is more interesting these days, mainly because the handsets have improved so much in the last couple of years. Remember the Nokia nGage ... thank god the manufacturers have remembered that most people use these devices to make phone calls and text each other.
  

Well its worth keeping an eye on many of the industry bloggers (especially Carnival of the Mobilists) to see how some of these materialise. Anyway, over the coming months I will investigate some of these a little further so remember to pop back.