I think the points on your list of important web app developments are very general, so it’s hard to really agree or disagree, but by combining web 2.0 and mobility, you’ve managed to intrigue me…

Now, I really want to comment on the quote from Mr. Rowehl’s blog.

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia, recently announced that Nokia is going to become an internet company (whatever that is). I think Nokia’s web 2.0′ish partnerships (e.g. flickr.com, six apart’s Vox video blogging service, YouTube) for the Nseries are indicative of Nokia’s attempt to position itself so that the new communities can use Nokia handsets to capture and consume new media. Another - and more subtle - reason might be to expose (people in) the company to the “web 2.0 mindset” (for want of a better word).
These partnerships may not constitute driving web app innovation, but I definitely think they are part of a technology push that enable handset users to participate in these communities/media.

As for operators that cripple handsets and/or restricts users to certain services, I think you should take your business elsewhere…

I was at 3GSM this year as well, and found that it continues to be the most self-important trade show (literally: the 3GSM World Congress posted a press release which stated that “82% of the respondents said the Congress is the most important event in the entire global telecommunications industry and 75% said the Congress is the most important event for mobile entertainment.”). There was a lot of talk about Web 2.0, but for handset guys, it’s really more Walled Garden 2.0 - we’ll pick and choose what you can access from the big bad Internet, and if there’s a revenue sharing opportunity, so much the better. Even this limited push is taken tentatively, because carriers (”operators” in Europe) are working on their own even more limited relationships and consider unfettered YouTube/flickr/etc. access a threat to their own streaming video/photo sharing/we’re-really-not-sure-but-we-reserve-the-right-to-charge-you-for-it services.

-avi

The first company to successfully leverage your “Web 3.0″ concept with services that offer features customers want the most while making them easy to use could enjoy quite a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded and competitive market.

I’d love to see the desktop software implemented as a Web 2.0 app. I think the mobile client would need a modified architecture, though. Because wireless connections aren’t 100% reliable, the mobile user needs an on-device copy of the app and data set (at least for their most important data). Web 2.0 apps aren’t set up to do that yet.

I wrote some more on the subject here.

If you really want to take this one step further, you could connect your handheld to any Windows computer with a USB cable and carry your own U3-like “Palm Desktop” web browser with you wherever you go. This would also allow for other U3-like portable desktop apps as well as functionality similar to the LifeDrive Manager for transferring files.

With this type of functionality, you would literally carry around your mobile computing environment with you in your mobile, and you could access it from any Windows computer simply by connecting your handheld and launching your “Palm portable desktop” (think of a customized portable Firefox). Non-Windows users would still have access to their “Palm Desktop” in a web browser.