Mobile phones are what the Internet was because the industry lives in dog years.

The difference is that while the Internet was defined by server software, mobile phone change is driven by devices.

The specific phone you have defines everything about your mobile experience. What you can do, where you can do it, and what you can buy are all defined by the particular phone in your hand at any one time.

So, unlike the situation on the Internet, not everyone is on the same page. Not everyone is in the same year.

I got a lesson in this last week, when a close friend (right) came by with some Christmas presents and showed me his new phone.

It's a Nokia 6620, a camera phone (it also takes videos) that he's convinced changes everything.

It does. It's changed him. It's changed where he sees the industry going, what he thinks of how much I know, and transformed his business model.

There's no criticism in the above. If you want to be in this business you have to be up-to-date with it. That means having the latest phone in your hand, the fastest network available. That is the state of the art.

But it's important to understand this if you're trying to analyze the market. Unlike the Internet in the 1990s, not everyone is doing the same thing in the mobile universe. Not everyone is on the same page. Not everyone is living in the same dog year. I still use an old Nokia 3295, with no camera, a keypad-based Internet connection, and a shrinking battery life. I'm about four years behind my friend in Mobile Years. Suddenly we're not living in the same universe.

This fact fragments the market, and makes analyzing it like trying to catch water in your hands. There's no center, no unity. You won't find it with the carriers, you won't find it with the users, and you won't find it with the vendors.

We're all on our own, and it's the guy who brings us all together -- regardless of what generation we're living in -- who will make the big money.