What's the Use?: A New Look at the Impact of Scholarly Communication | Main | The Coming Revolution in Scholarly Communications
December 04, 2007
Scholarly Communication On The Go
It makes sense to use a cell phone for communication. Almost everybody has one nowadays, and a few rely on their cell phone exclusively as their telecommunications device. Most people center themselves around this little handheld device--recently the phone has become a hub for text messages, voicemails, and even email. However, even with all of the abilities that these little gadgets have, the cell phone is not often seen as a mechanism for scholarly communication.
Enter the world of web applications, or webapps. A generation of smartphones are all over the market now, and have been able to surf the internet for a good while, but only recently have people been really formatting webpages specifically for these phones. The advent of new markup languages such as Wireless Markup Language (WML) and the expansion of XHTML to mobile devices have made making these websites relatively accessible.
Consider the iPhone. While not an example of a phone for which a programmer can really let loose on, it is a central point for several developers who have taken liberties to create new forms of communication by using the internet, specially formatted for cell phones. While many social networking distractions are abound (read: Facebook) there are new ways of communication that may--for being conveyed on what many consider a novelty device--prove to be a bit more scholarly.
There is an awful lot of talk about making the iPhone a medium for physicians to learn and communicate. On the other side of the spectrum there are several applications for the same device that unite specialty groups of workers, including wait staff at restaurants. Google-esque Find It and the actual Google Maps app for iPhone make it easy to find information on-the-go and call contacts from search results from the interface.
While all of the above references are specific to Apple's iPhone, many more exist, albeit less standardized. Many are very helpful--including several ebook readers--but as yet there is a lack of a central authority for these independent webapps. Perhaps all this will come with Google's Android platform... but until then the world of cellular webapps is still largely unexplored.
:: Jamion Williams
Posted by colldev at December 4, 2007 06:40 PM