Evolutionary dynamics of media convergence: Early mobile web and its standardisation at W3C

This empirically grounded article focuses on the standardisation of the mobile accessible Web by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It demonstrates what were the different points of departure for the institutions of different kinds (telecommunications operators, online service providers, software developers, content providers, etc.) that got engaged in this standardisation process. It discusses how the dialogical relationships among these stakeholders shaped the nascent medium. It demonstrates how these dynamics conditioned on different ‘levels’ the processes of both the convergence and the divergence between the desktop and mobile webs and shows how these conflicting processes of convergence and divergence were pursued by different industry groupings – ‘infrastructure enablers’ and content providers.

► Investigates standardisation of the mobile Web by the World Wide Web Consortium.
► Analyses relations among mobile industry stakeholders that have shaped the mobile web.
► Analyses different preferences of two industry groups for the cross-platform Web.