The path for internet start-ups used to be quite clear: establish a presence on the web first, then come up with a version of your service for mobile devices.
Now, when the mobile start-up Instagram can command $1 billion in a sale to Facebook, some start-ups are asking: Who needs the web?
Smartphones are everywhere now, allowing apps like Foursquare and Path to be self-contained social worlds, existing almost entirely on mobile devices. It is a major change from just a few years ago, underscoring how the momentum in the tech world is shifting to mobile from computers.
In that context, the Instagram deal looks like something of a turning point, as even the web giant Facebook tries to get a better grasp on a market that requires a rethinking of old rules.
?For decades, the centre of computing has been the desktop, and software was modelled after the experience of using a typewriter,? said Georg Petschnigg, a former Microsoft employee who is one of the creators of Paper, a new sketchbook app for the iPad. ?But technology is now more intimate and pervasive than that. We have it with us all the time, and we have to reimagine innovative new interfaces and experiences around that.?
Venture capitalists are eager to get in on the mobile trend. According to the research firm CB Insights, mobile apps and companies attracted 10% of the total investment dollars from American venture capital firms in last year?s fourth quarter, and 12% of deals were mobile-related, up from 7 or 8% in previous quarters.
Ben Lerer, manager of the venture capital firm Lerer Ventures, said he preferred to back companies that were building services for mobile first and the web second, because ?businesses that are thinking that way are planning for the future?.
Lerer was one of the early investors in OMGPop, a New York company that was close to shutting down until it had an overnight hit in Draw Something, a twist on Pictionary for the iPhone. Last month, OMGPop was snapped up for $200 million by the game company Zynga, which has been trying to reduce its dependence on Facebook-based games like FarmVille.
Another hit game, Angry Birds from the Finnish company Rovio, started out on the iPhone before migrating to computers and videogame consoles ? an unusual trajectory in the game world.
Cellphones are also prompting a shift in how people want to share things online, creating a market for apps that make instant sharing easy, said S Shyam Sundar, a director of the Media Effects Research Lab at Pennsylvania State University.
In other words, many people want to post a photograph of themselves right from a sun-drenched beach in Bali, rather than waiting until they are back home to upload all 50 pictures onto Facebook.
?People are living in the moment and they want to share in the moment,? Sundar said. ?Mobile gives you that immediacy and convenience.?
Instagram, a social network focusing on just that kind of instant photo sharing, does have a website ? but it is essentially there just to encourage people to download the company?s apps. It is one of several social networks that have established themselves entirely on mobile. Another is Foursquare, which lets users share their location with a select few friends and has attracted nearly 15 million members.