The Adventures of Cindy Li

SXSW 2006: Demystifying the mobile web

March 12 , 2006

Speakers

Moderator: Brian Fling Dir of Strategy, Blue Flavor
Dave Shea, Mezzoblue
Cameron Moll,  Cameronmoll.com
Kelly Goto,  Principal and CEO,  Goto Media

“Goto: Broadband is not as fast as we hoped it would be.”

The countries we call emerging companies. Everything that is happening in Africa.
They are hoping for a network that you can rely on.

Fling:In Japan call it 4g. States 3g.
Goto: Text SMS takes up 70%. Little chunks are worth 14 billion of revenue. Where is the potential? 12-22 (tweens) how much can they spend a year? $600

12-18 average disposable income?$4900 US
20 times more in China is the big market but the US has more money to spend.

Moll:  Device independence is normal. Is it practical?

Think beyond the desktop. Think about screen readers/TV/mobile devices/vending machines. Content/context specific.
Is the browsing experience the same on the go? No…
Is accessing Google the same everywhere?
Search for restaurants the same? Your phone is different.
Does one web address that? One mobile web?

Fling:Opera are reformatting content is it a good thing?

Shea: on your average you don’t see everything on your mobile.
It is stripping images/removing external flash files. Things that don’t make sense for your device. Obviously it reduces the overall page/download. It helps practicality. Ignore excess. The content creator, another headache. Accept that what you send out is not served up as the same as I intended it. Test as many browsers are possible, on as many carriers.

More advanced devices we are starting to gather more info…

What can you share about mobile web and how that impacts our lifestyles.

Goto:Thinking about the way people live and breathe. Too much academics. Iconography (hanging out). Shocking to find out 75-cents to make a call on any mobile phone. One carrier for New Zealand. Monopoly. It costs the same even on land line. So they are using SMS instead. The intern was calling everyone on the phone. After she said one day she said she’d be on the phone all the time.
Web 2.0: focus on your audience/find out their desires
Segmentation for who you are targeting. Think about SMS/WAP as the top layer and how it gets your audience in and how you get in the web.
Sms/Wap Push>>Web content (thin client)>>Web-based , smart client rich client>>Downloadable application (thick client)
http://www.shozu.com web enabled
mobiliciou.us

Get a sense of how your bowser is taking your content…

Check out wikipedia about how you access it on your mobile.
You are stuck at the airport.
Dodgeball
Plazes.com
We want to carry it everywhere

What is the difference of 2.0? What is WAP?

Partially markup language. WAP CSS too.
It was essentially the markup wireless language. Standard backward compatible. WML site should be fine. Expanded. XHTML and MP (mobile profile) subset of XML. CSS 2 is condensed down to that.
The skills you have for desktops translates very easily WAP 2.0 is a requirement of all carriers. WML fall back method.
If you are serious about doing mobile WAP compliant.
WAP 2.0 last year was standard.

Shea: Easy to get foot in the door but there is a lot to learn.
There about 200 devices that are active in the US.
When developing there are so many variables to worry about.

What can you do to help demystify the differences on the screen sizes?

Moll:User agents.. 128x128 vs 320x320 you have a different experience on the devices the lines on the screen space. How do you fit it on the screen? What is the last size?

What does your user HAVE to do?

How practical is your mobile site? When you say you are targeting the devices you are assuming you have a layout that requires that kind of targeting. You serve up just the content without the styles.

Moll:Markup weight is a concern.
Very valid point to develop just solid markup. Develop standards.

Are we in the middle of the browser war like in the 1990’s?

Shea: It will be a lot worse
Fling: there are currently 40 browsers on mobile devices
Woh man.
Openwave counts for 20-30 of those browsers
Standard advocates has been part of it from the beginning. A controlled ecosystem. They have WAP and WAP 2.0 works very well.

Cameron has a markup test and its consistent.

Goto: There is a war and confusion between which should it be inline with Flash?

The tools are there for flash lite. There is another issue…
Tivo is developing SVG. What is happening with flash lite?
We are experiencing with both.

Flash lite has the licensing questions as the carriers will hold all the weight.

It is leading toward SVG. The designers love flash because of the capability/flash cast and flex.
Right now it is a war…

XHTML MP or use SML basic: for the mobile web?
XHTML basic is for portable devices
yes, it does have the greatest amount of compatability.
If you are trying to code for mobile use XHTML basic, test it on devices. Easiest to setup with XHTML MP.

SVG

Working group doesn’t have a lot of direction right now.
What’s the future of SVG? Tiny.
Macromedia/Adobe merger. There is a lot of infighting.
Goto:There are small players because it is an open system.
Flash lite is $1 to carry it. Lots of carriers don’t want to pay for it.
Smart phones cost $200-300. In America, they are subsidizing by making you commit to a 2 year contract. The other devices are $50.
They are trying to get people to get the devices.
It is a big question.
SVG is built into Flash lite player.

Moll: Creating attractive pages

Opera Mini will work on a variety of devices will hopefully be a standard.

Shea:Right now you are happy to get your logo to come up on your device. Someone might see it as unstyled markup. Background forget about it. Something that creates aesthetically pleasing.. not happening right now.

Fling: you can create a rich interface with flash lite .. it is upcoming.
I would recommend ESPN mobile. They built a memory intensive slick interface targeted toward users. It is a big challenge.

When you should do a custom site?

IA, spoken wheel.. you only want to have 5 links. There isn’t a lot of room. Create a single mobile experience think of a different way for the flow of the design. You can do cool things w/designing the web on the device.

Disney announced an NVO.
brand can buy carrier.
ESPN is not a carrier they borrow a network to provide a specific exprience.  Virgin was the first one. 7-11 mobile that is coming.
NVO relationship is common in Europe. All eyes are on Disney (owns
ESPN).
Took airtime off vodaphone Emotional attachment to your device and product than using your computer. The personalization is coming into fruition.

Shea: Firefox has a market-share of 21%? Even if we had the ability to install alternate browsers it won’t be a magic bullet.
The carriers have a little control.

Audience guy: Wi-fi its here now. You could roam.. we’ll get faster speeds.