Six Sites

I’ve tried to get mobiledesign.org off the ground as a community news and information site numerous times. It has never worked. Getting people within the mobile industry to contribute time to the community is like pulling teeth: it needs to be done, it’s painful and but no one wants to do it.

I recently realized a big reason is the insanely competitive nature of the mobile industry. There aren’t a ton of us, so we all know each other, but I think the scarcity has created an intense feeling of competitiveness, even with people I consider to be friends.

People tend to horde information and resources and look for a competitive advantage in sharing it. As a would-be publisher of a site that depends on community-contributed content, if you can’t offer that advantage, forget about it.

But there is really no one I can blame but myself. It takes a lot of work to keep a site up and fresh, and as this site proves, I have a very overactive creative process that distracts me from forcing it together.

What’s Next?

I’ve decided to try at get Mobile Design off the ground one more time. Initially I never planned for Mobile Design to be a part of the Six Sites project. But several months ago, I sent out an email to many of the well-known names in mobile, outlining what I think needed to be done to help create a shared vision of the future of mobile, asking for their help. I got two replies.

We’ve talked since and no one seems to have the time to commit to anything. Shortly after I signed to write a mobile book for O’Reilly, I felt compelled to reboot Mobile Design as a means of collecting information and hopefully build the community.

My goal is simple, start getting people together to discuss big issues and start coming up with consensus so people can read about them and so I can write about them. I don’t expect to make a lot of money from it, in fact it will probably cost more a considerable amount of money, but I feel like it is the right investment. Any money I do make from the book, it basically going right back into Mobile Design. I hope that some day my investment will pay off, but for now it just needs help getting started.

I have a variety of projects in mind for Mobile Design. The first two are just about ready to launch and I have more on the way. I will of course announce everything here.