Before the app store: Revisiting the Top Mobile Apps winners of 2006

[1]For the past four years, FierceMobileContent has been honoring top mobile applications that we think are standouts among their peers.

We have decided to take a look back at some of those award winners from the past and see how they are faring today. In this first issue, we are reviewing the 2006 award winners [2], which stand out for several reasons.

I wasn't covering the wireless industry back in 2006, but I've heard enough about the battle between "on-deck" and "off-deck" content to know that content publishers had to carefully navigate this world in order to get their content in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

It was a simpler time--BIP: before iPhone. There were no application stores but there was the carrier deck (which nearly every mobile content company was clamoring to get on) and there were the off-deck providers that gained early traction in Europe and elsewhere outside the U.S. The mobile application business was simpler and carriers' and content providers' perceptions about what could and should work were very different.

[3]The format of the 2006 list itself gives a hint as to how much has changed. It was broken down into different categories: marketing, music, video, gaming and more. Today, there are simply too many applications in each of these categories across multiple smartphone platforms to declare a "top" application. The offerings are too diverse and the application market is too fragmented.

Much has changed in the past four years, but some of the applications have stood the test of time. Take a look at the top apps from 2006 and see where they are today.

[3]Click here to get started [3]

--Phil [4]