Abstract The present study develops our understanding of consumers’ emerging interest in novel mobile services by adopting two approaches. First, structural equation modeling is used as a statistical tool to create a context-sensitive model for consumer acceptance of novel mobile services. Secondly, the study creates an interpretive framework of contemporary consumer culture to help understand how consumers construct their emerging practices in novel mobile services based on their actual experiences. The empirical data was gathered at a Housing Fair, where a Mobile Fair Diary was piloted, and it is that Mobile Fair Diary application that provides the selected tool of the empirical study. Therefore, real user experience played a significant role in how our consumers perceived mobile services and the way the cultural discourse was produced. The model developed indicates that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, anxiety, trust and attitude have an impact on consumers’ intention to use mobile services. Furthermore, the various representations related to mobile services were identified in order to understand emerging practices. Consumers are likely to change the routines involved in the management of information if useful alternatives are available to them. An ongoing insecurity emerging from technology change is often a characteristic of the contemporary life of consumers. On the one hand, consumers are dependent on technology, but on the other hand, do not fully understand it. Therefore, consumers have to be active to keep up with the continuous changes going on around them. Furthermore, consumers need support from the service provider and their social context. Consumers should also believe in their own capability to learn and their power to make choices, which will result in changes to their practices.