The W3C Mobile Web Initiative
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Outline
- The roots of the Mobile Web Initiative
- The challenges
- Organization and Structure of the MWI
- Future Work: The Mobile Web to bridge the Digital Divide
Origins of MWI: Shared interests
Barcelona Workshop in 2004: Convergence between:
- W3C Goal:
- Extend the Web and its accessibility
- fight against walled gardens
- Mobile Players: Create a joint initiative to:
- Increase the ARPU
- Open and enable a new market
Challenges
Source: RusselBeattie.com
Challenges (2)
- How to write Web content to fit with the diversity?
- What are the characteristics of the phone loading my content?
- Interoperability problems?
- numerous phone browsers
- numerous phone operating systems
- Discoverability of mobile friendly web site?
The Mobile Web Initiative
- Launched in May 2005
- 3 Technical Working Groups
- Best Practices Working Group
- Mobile Web Best Practices (read the
flipcards)
- MobileOK trustmark
- Device Description Working Group
- Improve access to device description information
- Standard API to Device Description Repositories
- Test Suites Working Group (future: MobileOK for Software?)
- Driven by the MWI Steering Council
Who's Involved?
19 Sponsors:
- WG Participants: AOL, France Telecom, Google, Microsoft, mTLD, Nokia,
NTT DoCoMo, Opera, Samsung, SK Telecom, T-Online, Telefonica, Vodafone,
...
Joining the work now
- Following the MWI and participating in the public mailing-list
- Becoming W3C Member and joining MWI Working Groups
- Becoming MWI Sponsors and driving MWI through the Steering Council
Next Step: the Web for All
- 2007: W3C MWI to explore how the Web on mobile phones could be a
potential solution to bridge the Digital Divide and leverage Web access
in Developing Countries
ICT to sustain development
 |
- Government Services
- Education
- Health
- Banking
- Communities services
- Business
- ...
|
| (Photo Source: Der
Spiegel) |
How to provide access to ICT?
- With cheap laptops and mesh networking: One Laptop Per Child?
- With specific/special phones: Microsoft FonePlus?
- With the Mobile Web:
- Taking advantage of the existing 2.4+billion of mobile phones
- Taking advantage of the GSM cover (80% of the world population)
- Taking advantage of the adoption and use of Mobile applications
- Overcoming the current limitations
Today: SMS Applications
 |
- Successful Mobile Applications
- Banking
- NGOs-run SMS based system: e-gov, business (market poll),
health, ...
|
- But few problems:
- Interoperability problems
- Discoverability of services
- limited interaction
- costly/inappropriate infrastructure
- no standardized development kit
|
| (Photo Source: Vodafone) |
Tomorrow?
- The Mobile Web: the platform to leverage services development,
deployment and adoption:
- No interoperability problems
- Discoverability through portals and search engine
- Enhanced interaction through forms/voice/multimodal interaction
- Cheap/free hosting
- Standardized technologies and development platform
W3C Roadmap
- Building the right community
- Enabling the Mobile Web
- Defining the minimal characteristics of a Web browser to be largely
deployed
- Identifying the usability factors and how to take them into account
- Working on the guidelines on how to deliver Mobile Web Applications
to under-privileged populations and rural communities
- Building local capacities
- Setting up a Mobile Web Applications curriculum
Conclusion
- The Mobile Web is taking off
- The Mobile Web has the potential to help bridging the Digital
Divide
Come and get involved in W3C work !
