SXSW: Demystifying the Mobile Web … my notes
NOTE: This is *NOT* a word-for-word transcript. These are my raw notes with some questions I had mixed in.
- Cameron Moll
- Dave Shea
- Kelly Goto
- Brian Fling
Dave: Consider the business case: Who will access your content via mobile? How will they use you content via mobile? (i.e. using Google for searching information without having to search through a whole bunch of navigation)
Goto: Looking at Japan and S. Korea to see how people are using the mobile web. $17/mo on content and services for the web. What will we be doing here?
Moll: Open network / gated approach. Walled gardens? Can you innovate on a carrier’s walled garden? Are open networks helping or hurting? Is the carrier model going to work going forward?
Goto: Explaining 2G, 2.5G, 3G … When will this be lucrative? Emerging countries will be key to the mobile web. Outlook for the US market? Potential in the U.S. is huge. “Mobile is the new cigarette.” 12-18 year olds have $4900 in disposable income. China has $89. China spends 8% on mobile. U.S. spends 4%. U.S. markekt is HUGE.
Moll: Mobile web vs. one web. One web: using CSS to serve to handheld devices. “Device independence” thinking beyond the desktop. But in practice, is this doable/feasible?
* Context, content and component: feature specific. How is the browsing and searching experience different on a mobile device? How do phones manipulate the data sent to them? i.e. the Treo adds a link to any phone number so that you can call quickly….
Fling: Browsers and carriers optimizing content for mobile devices on the fly.
Shea: Proxy servers in between your site and the phone. Carrier servers removing content. Content creators really have no control over this process. Every carrier probably does it differently. Makes it damn hard to develop doesn’t it?
question? HOW DO YOU OPTIMIZE CONTENT FOR A WEB SITE SO THAT YOUR SITE IS MINIMALLY STRIPPED AND STREAMLINED BY A PROXY SERVER? CAN WE USE CSS TO DO THIS?
Goto: How does mobile affect lifestyle? Figuring out how people use this in their every day lives. Using ethnography “Deep Hanging Out” to learn how people use technology. Ex: if mobile calls are expensive in a particular place, they may use SMS in place of calls. How culture and lifestyle make a difference? SEGMENTATION OF THE BRAND will be key.
- Thin Client – dealing with web browser… single function sort of app.
- Thick client – phone and web apps are integrated.
- smart client – somewhere in the middle… WTH?
How to draw them in and give them services they can use.
Shea: WAP: partially markup language, partially a protocol. WAP 1.0 had WML had to use WML for WAP-enabled devices. WAP 2.0 and WML? WAP2.0 XHTMLmp (xhtml mobile profile) also WAP CSS -wap*property syntax. using them together… much like creating desktop pages. “You don’t really have to learn anything else” … this is a requirement for all carriers.
SO I GUESS THAT THE REAL ISSUE IS HOW TO DESIGN USER EXPERIENCE FOR THIS SPACE… http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pocket/
Fling: Most devices are WAP 2.0 enabled. 200 WAP 2.0 devices… lots of different screen sizes and such to consider.
Moll: What are your users demanding to be able to do on your mobile devices? and 2, what’s the lowest cutoff point that you can still develop without hurting or cutting out your users.
Shea: serve up unstyled XHTML… do you really need to develop for a whole mobile screen? Using solid markup.
NEED TOO FIGURE OUT IF YOUR CONTENT IS EVEN WORTH REPURPOSING
Fling: 40-50 mobile browsers. Most developed by OpenWave. Standards are pretty established and well-used in mobile development.
Impact of flash lite on mobile? Samsung using it for UI. SVGTiny vs. FlashLite for the mobile web.
Goto: SVG-Tiny and FlashLite. The tools exist for Flash. SVG-T doesn’t have the tools. Goto is experimenting with both models.
Using XHTMLmp? or Basic XHTML? XHTMLmp was created by OpenWave, so it is most entrenched in the industry. Not sure which one has been adopted widely.
audience comment: SVG-T player is built into the FlashLite player. So i guess the infrastructure is there?
Shea: It’s hard to even get your branding images sent to the phone via XHTML. Possible to create a rich interface with carrier-specific environments. J2me / Java?
Goto: Consider the information architecture of a mobile site. wheell-and-spoke navigation interfaces. (i.e. page with alink to the homepage and that’s it.)
Flick: Mobile tends to require contextual relevancy. Ex: where would people use your mobile features?