Archive for the ‘Geek & Tech’ Category
| Rules for Responsible Reformatting: A Developer Manifesto | ||||||
| By Shaun Zelber, March 26th, 2008 :: Geek & Tech | ||||||
Sign the Manifesto! Rules for Ethical Reformatting: A Developer Manifesto is developers’ answer to the arrogance of Vodafone, Novarra and all of the others who find it legitimate to disrupt the mobile web. A ghost is haunting the mobile web, the ghost of content reformatting. The mobile web has never been a simple platform to develop for, given the fragmentation of the underlying technology: different devices, different browsers and different networks have made mobile web development a challenge for programmers and content authors from the beginning. Yet, in this hard environment, one thing has stayed sacred throughout the years: the HTTP Protocol. Until today, developers of mobile websites could count on the fact that the HTTP headers from a mobile device would reach the intended webserver with their integrity respected. Alas, this basic assumption on which thousands of developers have built their applications is put to the test by a recent trend among Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Tools that were originally devised as utilities to split up web pages and deliver a best-effort user-experience on a mobile device are today being marketed as solutions to bring the full web to mobile by reformatting vendors. Some MNOs are buying into this vision and are implementing reformatting proxies into their networks that will intercept and reformat all HTTP traffic to any HTTP server without safeguarding those sites which strive to deliver a mobile-optimised user-experience, or, at least, not safeguarding them sufficiently. This situation is a threat to the neutrality of the web and one that can jeopardize the mobile web as a platform in the years to come. To this end, mobile developers of various nationalities and background, assembled on the WMLProgramming list at Yahoo Groups create this manifesto to make their position known in the face of those who try to misrepresent the needs and the wishes of the mobile ecosystem for their own petty monetization needs. If you want to sign, drop Luca an email with your name, title and company. From : Luca Passani passani at eunet dot no | ||||||
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| Android and Google’s Gphone | ||||||
| By Shaun Zelber, November 8th, 2007 :: Geek & Tech, OS & Handsets | ||||||
Much noise has been circulating about Google jumping into the mobile business… well now things are getting more precise. Here is their scoop from their blogs and from their video cast that you can find below. Briefly Google purchased a company called Android in mid 2005. Android’s idea was to make a open software platform based on Linux that would compete with Windows Mobile, RIM’s Blackberry and Symbian and that would be easy to use and free to use. The idea is to set a universal norm so that when developers make applications for mobiles they don’t have to port to each and every mobile device.
Of course that is the stated reason.. or lets say the nice reason, the Google reason is to power the search and the ad revenue that the wireless market has the potential of generating. To make all of this palatable for handset manufacturers Google has founded the Open Handset Alliance and brought on board key players in the industry with people like Samsung, Motorola but also key telcos like Telefonica, Sprint and NTT DoCoMo.
So if all goes according to plan, there will be lots of phones based on the Open Handset Alliance, running Google-based services. Handset maker HTC, previously wedded to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, has promised to deliver Android phones. Here is what the Android/Google team has to say about their endeavor. Whatever said and done they look like they’re having fun : | ||||||
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| AdMob Mobile Metrics reveals the hidden face of the mobile internet | ||||||
| By Shaun Zelber, October 23rd, 2007 :: Advertising, Geek & Tech | ||||||
AdMob has released their metrics of who visits in terms of countries and regions as well as what handsets generate traffic on their ad serving network. This data is particularly interesting because the vast majority of AdMob’s traffic is off deck and so the target of the members of MobilOpen.org. This snapshot of mobile data talks for itself : The numbers for the devices have a few surprises too : What isn’t said here is also of key interest : Three of the top five devices in the US are Smartphones (BlackBerry and Blackjack). The iPhone is already generating meaningful mobile web traffic. To get the full report just click here : | ||||||
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| How Vodafone UK Messes Up Wall Street Journal Mobile | ||||||
| By Vianney, October 9th, 2007 :: Apps & Sites, Geek & Tech | ||||||
By Nigel Choi While experts agree that website reformatting results in poor user-experience, This document shows how Vodafone UK messes up a website that has Note: I used the good Some Background Info Using a PC web browser, the Wall Street Journal is largely a WSJ is designed with desktop use in mind. As with many other websites, “mobile” The image on the right gives you a feel of the mobile experience. Immediately after that, come the latest news. Interestingly, the mobile version offers access to the full version of …and then come Novarra and Vodafone On Vodafone’s network, however, this user-experience is not achievable. So I went on and checked this out! The following picture will give you a rather clear idea of what the “” becomes » “” The transcoded page has also retained a lot of information that is probably best left Since the transcoder has no knowledge of what is immediately valuable and what is not, would be a much better choice. There are several other problems with the transcoding. As you can Other User Interface Problems There are other serious issues with the user-experience offered by A user that intends to read an article will click their way After the new page has been retrieved and transcoded, the user will need to scroll But the suffering is not over. A hurdle that was simply not there in the mobile version Being a mobile professional, I know what is going on: the system One little note: I waited too long before clicking on the Novarra page buttons, Trying again, I am able to enter my username later, I am somehow greeted by a non-transcoded page. ….if Vodafone just let the User-Agent header through, the Wall Adding to the problem is that I am not able to logout successfully. Conclusion The Novarra reformatting is a mess: all I could see are roughly chopped up | ||||||
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| Vodafone UK Blocks mobile internet sites | ||||||
| By Shaun Zelber, September 24th, 2007 :: Geek & Tech, News & Events | ||||||
Forums and companies have been a buzz for the past few weeks about the fact that Vodafone UK has blocked the user agent from being transmitted to mobile internet sites. As one former Vodafone employee puts it : “ Vodafone claim they take this action because their newer devices’ browsers can handle a full web site (with a little help from their transcoder).The stated aim is to allow folks to browse the web from their mobile phone without being restricted to the “mobile” versions, or little/nothing where no mobile version exists.” User agents are used by mobile content providers and mobile sites to optimize the content or the sites and services to the particular mobile of the user. David Harper founder of MobileMonday New York and Founder, Winksite had this to say, “Vodafone’s actions thwart the efforts of companies in the mobile Wurfl which is an open database of user-agents and is led by Luca Passini has been venting justified rage on this blog. He had this to say quite justly : ” If we don’t make some noise now and let the industry understand that developers won’t give up without a fight, I fear that the battle will get much harder to fight down the road.” It is quite obvious that mobile devices are not ready yet for the full web experience. It is also true that mobile content providers (including the MNOs) have got fat on selling content at highly inflated prices. The web is coming to the mobile that is inevitable and in my opinion is a good thing. The question is whether the user MNOs control the traffic or the user who controls which sites are visited. At the beginning of the web there was a concerted effort to restrict users from going where they wanted. This effort ultimately failed. I would place a safe bet that though the mobile web is still controlled via the pipe that the MNOs hold restricting access to mobile content and services will ultimately fail. A very interesting model, and I believe a model to be emulated by MNOs elsewhere, has evolved at Bouygues Telecom in France. Bouygues allowed and even encouraged users to get out of their walled garden, the French imode portal. Users did explore and today Bouygues’ share of off deck traffic represents close to 60% of all off deck traffic in France (the other MNOs are Orange and SFR, subsidiary of Vodafone). Yet their portal is still doing very well ! Using the portal is easier to use, the sites are classified and limited. This appeals to a certain public. But the off deck appeals too for stuff that they can’t get on deck. The two co-exist. And what ever the case the MNO wins as they raise data ARPU. Others who have commented on this issue are Mike Butcher from Techcrunch UK. | ||||||
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