Blog by Paul Golding

My new book - Connected Services - should now be available to buy on Amazon (UK - US coming soon.) I wrote the book to educate general readers throughout the more traditional mobile and telco industry about the key Internet technologies shaping their world. Hopefully, I will succeed in explaining the key topics in an accessible manner so that those with a inclination towards innovation and renewal could understand enough about the "new world" to formulate ideas and strategies for dealing with it. Only the readers will tell.

This is very much a culmination of recent efforts to work directly within an operator environment (O2 UK) and drive the agenda for "digital ecosystems thinking." Those of you familiar with my work for many years will know how long I have been involved with Internet technologies, including my own start-ups and many industry firsts at the intersection of Web and Mobile. Of course, in this "smart-phone" era it is difficult to talk of "mobile" as a unique set of technologies separate from the Web. The massive shifts in processing power to both the handset ("apps economy") and the server ("cloud") have introduced a new set of possibilities that converge at the mobile. This book is mostly about those new possibilities and intersections. I hope that you enjoy it and find it useful.

Meanwhile, below is a photo of myself and Amy Shuen, who wrote the foreword. Amy is a legendary academic and visionary in the economic and business patterns of Web 2.0. Her book - Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide - is widely read and respected, encouraged (and published) by Tim O'Reilly. I met with Amy at the fabulous Strada cafe opposite Berkley Law School in order to hand her the only advance copy that I have, duly autographed. Thanks Amy for all of your support and encouragement and for continuing to stimulate my thinking in this exciting area.