Connected Services - A Guide to the InternetTechnologies Shaping the Future of Mobile Services and Operators
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More About This Title Connected Services - A Guide to the InternetTechnologies Shaping the Future of Mobile Services and Operators

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"Connected Services is a must-read for telco strategists who need to get up to speed on how the world of software and the web 2. 0 works."  Andreas Constantinou, Research Director, VisionMobile

"This book is a must read for those charged with leading innovation in a world of connected services where telco and Internet collide." - Jason Goecke, VP of Innovation, Voxeo Labs

This book explains the common underlying technological themes that underpin the new era of connected services in a post Web 2.0 epoch

In this book, the author explores the underlying technological themes that underpin the new era of connected services. Furthermore, it explains how the technologies work and what makes each of them significant, for example, the potential for finding new meaning in data in the world of BIG DATA platforms, often referred to as “No-SQL” databases. In addition, it tackles the newest areas of technology such as HTML5, Android, iOS, open source, mash-ups, cloud computing, real-time Web, augmented reality, and more. Finally, the book discusses the opportunities and challenges of a connected world where both machines and people communicate in a pervasive fashion, looking beyond the hype and promise of emerging categories of communication such as the “Internet of Things” and “Real-time Web” to show managers how to understand the potential of the enabling technologies and apply them for meaningful applications in their own world.

Key Features:

  • Explores the common and emergent underlying technological themes that underpin the new era of connected services
  • Addresses the newest areas of Internet technology such as web and mobile 2.0, open source, mash-ups, cloud computing, web 3.0, augmented reality, and more
  • Shows the reader how to understand the potential of the enabling technologies and apply them for meaningful applications in their own world
  • Discusses new developments in the technological landscape such as Smartphone proliferation, maturation of Web 2.0, increased convergence between mobile networks and the Internet, and so forth
  • Examines modern software paradigms like Software-as-as-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS)
  • Explores in detail how Web start-ups really work and what telcos can do to adopt lean and agile methods

This book will be an invaluable guide for technical designers and managers, project managers, product managers, CEOs etc. at mobile operators (O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, BT), fixed operators, converged operators and their contributory supplier networks (e.g. infrastructure providers). Internet providers (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Apple, Facebook), analysts, product managers, developers, architects, consultants, technology investors, analysts, marketing directors, business development directors will also find this book of interest.

English

Paul Golding, O2 Innovation, UK
Paul Golding has over fifteen years experience in the wireless and mobile technology industry. Paul runs his own consultancy company Magic E Company and is currently consulting in the area of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC). He has worked as senior consultant within Motorola's newly formed mobile applications team involving numerous encounters with operators globally and with numerous mobile applications vendors. He also has a popular blog which features a series of 100 Mobile Ideas, which has been followed by various industry participants, including prominent companies (e.g. Yahoo, Vodafone, O2, Etisalat).

English

Foreword xv

Preface xvii

1 Connected Services: The Collision of Internet with Telco 1

1.1 Connected What? 1

1.2 Ubiquity: IP Everywhere or Software Everyware? 5

1.3 Six Models for Potential Operator Futures 6

1.3.1 Access Provider 7

1.3.2 Connected Services Platform 7

1.3.3 Distribution Channel 8

1.3.4 Seamless Services Provider 9

1.3.5 Financial Merchant 10

1.3.6 Social Telco 10

1.3.7 Start Thinking Platforms 12

1.3.8 Execution 14

1.4 “Follow Me” Web – Social Networks and Social Software 14

1.5 What are Platforms and Why are They Important? 18

1.5.1 Platform Patterns for Telcos 23

1.5.2 Marketplace and Service Platforms 24

1.5.3 Data and Mash-Up Platforms 26

1.5.4 Platform as a Service 28

1.5.5 Do Platforms Work? 30

1.6 From Platforms to Ecosystems 31

1.7 Where’s the Value? 32

1.8 What Should We Build? It’s Still About the Experience! 33

1.9 Summary 36

2 The Web 2.0 Services Ecosystem, How ItWorks and Why 37

2.1 Introduction 37

2.2 Beneath the Hood of Web 2.0: CRUD, MVC and REST 38

2.3 LAMP and Beyond: Web Frameworks and Middleware 45

2.3.1 Introducing LAMP 45

2.3.2 Web Frameworks 47

2.3.3 Agile – Coding at the Speed of Thought 50

2.3.4 Summary – “Why Frameworks Work” 52

2.4 Open by Default: Open Source, Open APIs and Open Innovation 52

2.4.1 The Different Types of Open 52

2.4.2 Open, Open, Open! 56

2.4.3 Summary (“Why Open Works . . .”) 58

2.5 One App Fits All? HTML5 and the Modern Browser 58

2.5.1 Summary (“Why the Browser Works”) 62

2.6 It’s all About People: Social Computing 62

2.6.1 Exploiting Relationships – The Social Graph 62

2.6.2 Exploiting Interests – Context Awareness 63

2.6.3 Portable Data 64

2.6.4 Mobile is THE Social Device 67

2.6.5 Summary (“Why Social Computing Works”) 67

2.7 User Participation, Co-Creation and Analytics 67

2.7.1 User Participation 67

2.7.2 Co-Creation 68

2.7.3 Analytics 68

2.7.4 Summary (“Why User-Voice Works”) 69

2.8 Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: APIs and Mash-Ups 69

2.8.1 Summary (“Why Mash-Ups Work”) 71

2.9 Mobile 2.0 – It’s Really a Developer Thing! 71

2.9.1 Mobile 2.0 71

2.9.2 Mobile as THE Platform (Again) 72

3 The Web Operating System – The Future (Mobile) Services Platform 75

3.1 Why is the Concept of a Web OS Important? 75

3.1.1 Summary 81

3.2 Internet of Things 81

3.2.1 Summary 84

3.3 Making Sense of Data 85

3.3.1 Data Semantics 85

3.3.2 Data Relationships 87

3.3.3 Meta-Data Tools: Ontologies, OWL, RDF 89

3.3.4 Meta-Data Tools: Tagging and Folksonomies 91

3.3.5 RDFa – Embedding Meta-Data Within Web Pages 93

3.3.6 Meta-Data Tools: Twitter and Annotations “Twannotations” 94

3.3.7 Summary 98

3.4 Future Web: “People OS?” 98

3.4.1 Introduction 98

3.4.2 Social Networks 100

3.4.3 Social APIs and Platform Thinking (Again) 103

3.4.4 Open Social API – A Cross-Platform People OS? 104

3.4.5 Open Social API – The Mechanics 105

3.4.6 Emergence of a Person OS at the UI layer 108

3.4.7 Privacy and Personas 110

3.5 Social Telcos and the Web OS 110

3.5.1 Where are the Telcos? 110

3.5.2 Telco Social Graph and APIs 111

3.5.3 Identity and Security 114

4 Big Data and Real-Time Web 115

4.1 What is Big Data and Where Did it Come From? 115

4.1.1 In Search of the New Big Data 115

4.1.2 The Business of Big Data 116

4.1.3 Welcome to the Age of Big Data 120

4.2 Some Key Examples of Big Data 121

4.2.1 Statistics Collection at Facebook 121

4.2.2 Real-Time e-Commerce at Amazon with Dynamo 123

4.2.3 Amazon’s Dynamo Features 127

4.3 Say Hello to the Data Geeks 128

4.4 “No SQL” and Some of its Flavours 130

4.4.1 No SQL Means No SQL, But not Much Else 130

4.4.2 Key-Value Stores 132

4.4.3 Document Stores 133

4.4.4 Graph Stores 134

5 Real-Time and Right-TimeWeb 137

5.1 Real-Time Web and Twitter 137

5.1.1 Web Becomes Real-Time Thanks to Twitter 137

5.1.2 Web Infrastructure Goes Real-Time 142

5.1.3 The Real-Time Nature of Mobile 149

5.2 Big Data + Real-Time = Right-Time Web 152

5.2.1 New Buzzword: Right-Time Web 152

5.2.2 Key Components of Right-Time Web 153

6 Modern Device Platforms 159

6.1 Mobile Devices or Connected Devices? 160

6.1.1 What is a Mobile Platform? 160

6.1.2 Developer Mindset About Mobile Platforms 162

6.1.3 Mobile Device or Connected Device? 164

6.2 Introduction to Mobile Device Platforms 166

6.2.1 Platforms of Interest 166

6.2.2 Brief Explanation of an Operating System and SDK 167

6.3 The iOS Platform 170

6.3.1 Mac OS X and Unix – The Foundation for iOS 171

6.3.2 The Mechanics of iOS 172

6.3.3 iOS – What Makes the Platform Tick 176

6.3.4 How Open is iOS? 177

6.4 The Android Platform 178

6.4.1 Introduction 178

6.4.2 Architecture 179

6.4.3 Linux Kernel 179

6.4.4 Android Runtime 180

6.4.5 Android Application Framework 181

6.4.6 Android System Libraries 181

6.4.7 Android – What Makes the Platform Tick 182

6.4.8 How Open is Android? 183

6.5 The Mobile Web Platform 184

6.5.1 Introduction 184

6.5.2 Native versus Web “Debate” 184

6.5.3 Is Native versus Web the Right Question? 186

6.5.4 Major Trends in Mobile Web 190

6.5.5 HTML5 193

6.5.6 Widgets 200

6.5.7 Is That a Phone in My Browser? 207

6.5.8 Mobile Web First? 207

7 Augmented Web 209

7.1 Real or Virtual Worlds? 210

7.1.1 Introduction 210

7.1.2 Augmented Reality 210

7.1.3 Proof-of-Presence or “check-in” Services 215

7.1.4 Summary – Virtual is Just Another Layer in the Web OS 215

7.2 Sensor-Net: Mobiles as Sixth-Sense Devices 216

7.2.1 Current Sensor Applications in Smartphones 217

7.2.2 Emergent and Future Sensor Applications in Smartphones 220

7.2.3 Sensor Net – Is This Web 3.0? 227

8 Cloud Computing, Saas and PaaS 229

8.1 What is Cloud Computing? 230

8.1.1 More Than Just a Fluffy Phrase 230

8.1.2 Open and Commodity: Key Enablers for Cloud Computing 231

8.1.3 Public or Private Cloud? 233

8.1.4 Key Use Cases 234

8.2 On-Demand: Cloud Computing Infrastructure 236

8.2.1 The Infrastructure Level: Servers, Images and Templates 236

8.2.2 The Service Level: Storage, Queues, Load-Balancers . . . 239

8.3 On-Demand: Software as a Service 242

8.3.1 Opening SaaS with APIs 243

8.3.2 Using SaaS for an Ecosystem Strategy 244

8.3.3 Opportunities for Telcos 245

8.4 On-Demand: Platform as a Service 247

8.4.1 Business PaaS – Force.com 248

8.4.2 Telco 2.0 PaaS – Tropo.com 251

8.4.3 Web 2.0 PaaS – Heroku.com 255

9 Operator Platform: Network as a Service 265

9.1 Opportunity? Network as a Service 266

9.1.1 What is Network as a Service (NaaS)? 266

9.1.2 Characteristics of NaaS APIs 266

9.1.3 Opportunity? 267

9.1.4 The “Customers” are Developers, not the Users! 268

9.1.5 Who are Developers? 268

9.1.6 Ingredients for NaaS Success – What do Developers Want? 270

9.2 Examples of NaaS Connected Services 279

9.2.1 NaaS Case Study – O2 Litmus 279

9.2.2 Update to O2 Litmus Story – BlueVia 281

9.2.3 OneAPI – The Interoperable NaaS Play 282

9.2.4 Hashblue Case Study? – RT# and SMSOwl 283

9.2.5 The #Blue Hacks 284

9.2.6 The Benefits of #Blue Platform 286

10 Harnessing Web 2.0 Start-Up Methods for Telcos 289

10.1 Start-Ups and Innovation 289

10.2 What can Telcos Learn from Web 2.0? 290

10.3 Key Web Start-Up Memes 291

10.4 Tech People 293

10.5 Lean Start-Up Methodologies 294

10.6 Extreme and Constant Optimization 297

10.6.1 Ship Often 297

10.6.2 Always Experiment 298

10.6.3 Experiment Driven Development (EDD) 301

10.6.4 The Metrics Mantra – Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! 303

10.7 Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing 304

10.8 Exploiting Big-Data 307

10.9 Social Discovery 310

10.10 APIs and Developers 311

10.11 Incubation and Acceleration 312

10.12 Hack Days, Events and Barcamps 313

10.12.1 Hack Days 314

10.12.2 Barcamps 315

Index 319

English

"I highly recommend the essential and idea filled book Connected Services: A Guide to the Internet Technologies Shaping the Future of Mobile Services and Operators by Paul Golding, to anyone in any internet, telco, business, policy making, or technology related field who seeks a clearer understanding of the rapidly changing technologies affecting the overall information and communications landscape. This book explains in detail how the underlying technologies, that drive connected services, really work in a format that is understandable and applicable for anyone with a basic knowledge of technology." (Blog Business World, 4 November 2011)
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