On the Future of Mobile Phones as the Heart of Community-Built Databases - Community-Built Databases: Research and Development - page 271

Fig. 11.3 Example of integration of mobile services
l Financial (mobile wallet, mobile payments, and mobile stocks)
l Other (GPS and maps, electronic apparel controlling, live video, etc.)
One of the main goals of the software industry is the integration of these services
with social networks. For instance, companies are researching to provide local
databases in mobile phones to offer services integration. An example of this is
database of contacts in the new generation of mobile phones where we can find the
integration of the contacts independently of the services (calls, SMS, MMS, emails,
etc.). This practice was exported to other services and, therefore, when we take a
photo using our mobile phone, it is available to the whole system, which in turn
makes it available to other services on the mobile phone (for instance, it is possible
to send a picture taken with the mobile phone through email or via Bluetooth).
The last generation of mobile phones (iPhone and Android) has also included a
great mechanism to add functionality to mobile phones, making it easier for
consumers to adapt their phones to their needs. These new services are the mobile
phones application markets (Apples App Store and Android Market), which offer
users a fast, easy, and effective way to access paid or free applications for their
devices. Currently, Apples App Store offers over 150K applications for iPhone, and
Android has more than 20K and is growing. The applications markets have radi-
cally changed the way that mobile services are offered and consumed, as previously
most services were offered by mobile operators and now are developed by
thousands of independent developers and distributed directly to the mobile phones.
Mobile phones are everywhere, nearly everyone has one, and they are used for
almost any task imaginable. They represent one of the most widespread electronic
devices, and also they are electronic devices with an intimate relationship with
the owner. And there is no other device more adapted to the new reality of the
Social Web.