The blogosphere is sorta like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Everybody’s got the sites they read (you can see Russell and I’s suggestions), and like Kevin Bacon movies, there’s some overlap, and it’s always sort of interesting to see when two seemingly unrelated sites you follow touch on the same topic at the same time.

That happened to me yesterday, when Paul Whitaker and Charlie Schick separately posted some of their thoughts on things to consider when building mobile apps and services. Paul succinctly highlights three areas he says developers or providers must get right to be successful in the mobile space: consumer education, simplified user experience and cost. I’d agree that without having all three of these down pat, you’re not going to have much luck.

Charlie’s list is a little bit longer, and features what he sees as the attributes of a compelling mobile app: while he says they’re in no real order, I don’t think it’s coincidental that simplicity is the first thing he lists!

While neither of these lists offers a roadmap to create the perfect mobile app (you should be so lucky), both of these posts can serve as valuable checklists and guidelines for anybody deploying an application or service.