8 Questions to… Andreas Constantinou

Andreas Constantinou (@andreascon) is Research Director at VisionMobile and has been working in the mobile software industry since 2001, when he fondly recalls being a member of the team behind the very first Orange-Microsoft handsets which set the world of telecoms software in motion.

1. What is your preferred gadget at the moment?

I don’t see myself as an early adopter, so I try and avoid gadgets – besides I think I’ve lost my childish enthusiasm for new consumer tech! Only exception is perhaps ‘apps as the new gadget’ – there’s certain apps (like Read it Later and TripDeck) that I can’t imaging living without.

2. Your currently most loved app, mobile site, mobile service?

Best site: there’s a few sites which consistently publish original content – Tomi Ahonen (@tomiahonen), Horace Dediu (@asymco), and of course VisionMobile and mobile zeitgeist.

A mobile site I ‘ve been really impressed with is Ezba.co.il which is one of the few sites that’s really designed top-down for touch smartphones.

3. What are you reading and how (paper, ereader, smartphone, tablet…)?

I use ReadItLater for reading news and analysis (on iPhone/iPad) – or paper when I need to review a longer proposal or a contract.

4. What’s from your perspective the biggest trend in mobile- The Next Big Thing?

The biggest trend for the next 10 years has to be Augmented Economics: how value is being created on top of our physical world that not just enhances it, but creates completely new capabilities and revenue streams – think virtual goods, new forms of communication (ping, tag, touch, tease, beg/gift seen in social networks) and barcodes/QR-codes/Anoto. The next Google might be a physical world connection company (S Schaffer)

5. Which hype annoys you? What is overrated today?

LTE. Operators should first figure out how to monetise from their access business before investing more trillions on it.

6. Who (individual, organisation, company…) will change the mobile world?

No single person can change the mobile world. It’s a collective of thought leaders that are taking the mobile world forward, and who in turn are standing on the shoulders of giants and the collective wisdom that they have built. 21st century science is by no means lacking ideas, these have already been inherited from the 20th century science; What we need are the right cooks to mix the right ingredients and ideas together.

7. Mobile experts one should read, one should follow?

Tomi Ahonen (@TomiAhonen), Horace Dediu (@asymco), Deutsche Bank, VisionMobile (@visionmobile)

8. Who would you recommend to answer these questions next?

Tor Bjorn Minde / Ericsson R&D (@ericssonlabs)