One wish for 2006…

The Verizon Wireless site doesn’t work at all on my Verizon Wireless phone.

“If your site makes you scroll for 20 minutes just to see your content, it sucks. It’ll get called out.”

I hope, then, that you’ll reconsider using so many words, requiring so much scrolling, when thinking during typing. Getting to the point is more respectful of the reader’s time, thanks.

I dunno about the US but in Europe websites-via-phones is not in demand much. I think ‘millions of web users with cellphones’ might be overstating it a bit. The best services have a separate page for the PDA like google (http://www.google.com/pda) which redirects you to it when it detects you are using a mobile client.

Still, why would I want to view websites on a itty-bitty screen? Or movies for that matter? Answer: I don’t.

Yes, mobile Web is getting more important – W3C has realized this about a year ago – check out the Mobile Web Initiative
http://www.w3.org/Mobile/

and the Mobile Best Practices
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-mobile-bp-20051220/

Getting participation in this by MS would be great, btw:)

Michiel. I don’t think we necessarily need to think in terms of “websites”. Have you considered mobile spaces other then websites? (The old school website model fails for a number of reasons – squeezing a desktop UI into a small screen, transcoding of content, poor standards support, the fact web sites do not factor in mobile technologies,now one wants to “browse”, I and go on and on.)

In Europe and elsewhere usage of mobile forums, chat rooms, and user profiles(think – social networking) are going through the roof. I’m talking mainstream users connecting with each other through their main access point to the Internet, there mobile – NOT web-based bloggers “discovering” some new mobile tricks. Using RSS to transport web-based content into those environments provides added content and context for conversation.

I posted this elsewhere today but let me give you the “speech”…

“I made a resolution to myself that 2006 will be the year mobile gets respect. Part and parcel is a bit of unavoidable self promotion in order to make my point. So don’t take this as a sales pitch or rant but more of a “Hey Web 2.0 Bloggers. Please Wake Up” call.

As such I respectfully submit the following:

750 million mobile devices sold this past year compared to 250 million PCs.

2 billion mobile phone users worldwide.
3 billion by 2008 -Nokia.
US penetration rates climbing over 80%.

Creating a new generation of content creators & consumers.

Consumers that don’t leave home without their phone.

An example of Web 2.0ish mobile app:
Warner Launches Mobile Portal For The Veronicas – Mash-Up Of Branded Content With Social Media
http://winksite.com/site/help_bl_view.cfm?blog_id=5690

MAKE: Mag, BoingBoing, SmartMobs and others create mobile versions of their blogs with WINKsite. Creative Commons works with us to mobilize the works of Lessig, Doctorow and others.

RSS & Syndication is now is being used to bring content to the mobile phones of people who have until now had zero or little access to a desktop computer – combined with mobile forums, chat etc.- the technology shortchanged are able to engage in mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-PC communities.

The blogging world is now is overflowing with wonderful Web 2.0 services to send information – text, photos, video, geographical data – from a mobile device to a conventional Weblog or Web Site. But, what has been blatantly missing and quite critical are community-based solutions that provide spaces where individuals can meet, share and interact with content from mobile device to mobile device – “closing the loop.”

My belief is that the availability of simple and flexible tools for the publishing, discovery, personalization and distribution of user-generated content is essential to empowering the masses.”

As the Web showed, things really take off when users build out their own real estate (whatever they are called) rather than relying on vendors to supply accommodations. The success of the Web was due not to mass production and economies of scale, but rather to distributed development of local content and economies driven by individual passion.

The leave behind…

By providing a greater number of people with knowledge, you provide an even greater number with the potential to become involved. As I see, it is more than just publishing content to a mobile environment. It is about the individuals it engages, the people it connects, the dialogue that develops, the community that forms and the collective action that can result.

Let’s connect everyone to all the great content and thoughts bouncing around the “Blogosphere.” Don’t leave anyone out or behind or without a voice.

Hi Robert. Since you’re using WordPress, install (or have Matt install) Alex’s King’s WP-Mobile add-on that creates very friendly sites for mobile devices.

check out my blog on your phone:

http://www.j2eegeek.com/blog/wp-mobile.php

Looks great on my Audiovox SMT 5600

Sure cell phone use is exploding by the minute, but what are the usage patterns? As Christopher said, does anyone use them for much more than text messaging, reading email, and what they were made for… phone calls? Call out all the web sites you want, Scoble. I rather doubt its going to put much of an economic dent into any of the sites you call out. Unless or until surfing the web on a cell phone does the equivalent of opening a Bud for the masses, it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. Sure, there are the uber-geeks like yourself that get a woody over the ability to do so. But, the average citizen ain’t gonna give a rats ass about surfing the web on his cell phone, unless it allows him the ability to make money, save money, save time, spend more time with his family, and generally make his life easier and more enjoyable. I’m sure that time will come, but it ain’t gonna be 2006. So, call them out all you want, but those companies I’m sure will hardly feel the shame at the end of each fiscal quarter.

Dmad – “But, the average citizen ain’t gonna give a rats ass about surfing the web on his cell phone” – true surfing the web is not the usage pattern for mobile sites or applications.

Some things to think about:

1. Operator mobile portals have not kept up with the tsunami of user-generated content available on the web.

2. The Mobile Internet isn’t aggregated anywhere
in the way web users expect.

3. Numbers 1 & 2 drives up demand for audience generated content, search, and personalization.

…perhaps on needs to think of these mobile spaces as not just miniature, squeezed down web sites viewed on a small screen.

Hey Robert,

I think it is a great idea to call out poor sites, but do you think you could do everyone a favor and call out good sites also? Many of us learn by example, and the web in general pretty much comes from that… Yay for View Source. Anyway, I run an ecommerce site, and I would definitely be willing to target and support the mobile platform (I love my SMT 5600) but I’m not sure if an ecommerce site even has a place on a phone. What is the use case that I should optimize for? Yes, Amazon can compete directly with brick-and-mortar places if they let you price and buy stuff on the spot when you notice something cool at Best Buy. But what about the rest of the web?

I definitely see how blog and news content should work on a phone, and mapping, and price shop services or something… And reminders and messaging and social networks… But commerce? Are you really going to browse departments and enter your credit card on harryanddavid.com on your cell phone?

Anyway. Back to my original request: Tell us about sites that work very well on your 2125… and not just blogs.

(Also, have you installed Google Local/Maps on your phone yet? It’s killer. Show it to the MS mapping people.)

Please tell me what is rss?

In response to your post, I wrote the blog entry “.. and a Pony!”:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000496.html

I found this information helpful, thanks very much.

On a side note, the dotMobi mTLD (mobile top level domain) has just been released and is in the sunrise registration period…the promise of dotMobi is to ensure that those sites with dotMobi extension will be tuned to mobile browsing…it is thus expected to make mobile browsing a far more enriching experience.

One can expect a number of .mobi web sites – those that conform with standards for mobile browsing – to be online starting Oct 2006…while opinion is divided whether dotMobi will revolutionise mobile browsing or would be just another flash in the pan, when one considers that there are four mobile phones for every PC on earth, it certainly appears worth trying out a separate TLD

More info on dotMobi can be found at Mobinomy.com @ http://www.mobinomy.com , this site also plans to start a dotMobi directory soon

Ec from IT, Software Database @ http://www.eit.in