The Web on the Move - W3C's Mobile Web Initiative

W3C Mobile Web Initiative

Dr. Philipp Hoschka
W3C Deputy Director
Ubiquitous Web Domain Leader

Keynote MW20 Opening Ceremony - Seoul, Korea
March 27, 2007

Overview

What is W3C?
What is the potential for mobile Web access?
What is W3C's Mobile Web Initiative?
Mobile Web Best Practices and MobileOK
Perspectives

What is W3C ?

Founded by Tim Berners-Lee, Web Inventor
Mission: Lead the Web to its Full Potential
Web Standards: XHTML, CSS, VoiceXML, XML, SOAP, RDF, ...
Industry consortium
~ 440 members (Hutchinson 3, Alcatel, AT&T, BT Labs, Ericsson, France Telecom, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Siemens, TIM, T-Mobile, Vodafone,..)
- Korea (10): Samsung, SK Telecom, Infraware, ETRI, ECIF, KISTI, KAIT, NIA, NIDA, NeoMtel
- Korean membership growing quickly due to MWI, reason for visit

International Web Standards Organization

3 Hosts
- Asia: Keio University
- Europe: ERCIM
- USA: MIT
~65 vendor-neutral Technical Staff - 12 in Asia
16 Offices - 4 in Asia (Korea, China, India, Hong Kong)

W3C Technologies

W3C technology stack

Ubiquitous Web Domain: Vision

Today
- Ubiquitous Access to Web information not sitting at desktop/laptop PC (Mobile Web BP, ...)
- Ubiquitous Use: Web Technology for embedded applications
Tomorrow
- Use of Web Technology for Ubiquitous Computing
- Web applications for "Internet of Things"

W3C Technology for Embedded Applications


	Examples Interactive voice response systems Mobile phone user interfaces Mobile phone applications Car dashboard ... Relevant W3C Technologies VoiceXML SVG RWC/Ajax Multimodal Interaction ...

W3C Technology for Ubiquitous Computing


	Multi-device, wireless applications Application development using Web technologies ECMAscript, Markup, Ajax, ... Large pool of developers available Web applications for "Internet of Things" Relevant W3C Technologies REX Delivery Context: Interfaces (DCI)

Example: Sending Web Content to Bluetooth Devices

Idea: Send music/pictures from mobile phone storage via Bluetooth
UbiWeb: Use mobile phone to send music/pictures from Web

Overview

What is W3C?
What is the potential for mobile Web access?
What is W3C's Mobile Web Initiative?
Mobile Web Best Practices and MobileOK
Perspectives

Wake Up! Audience Participation Time

Potential: Growing Business

Mobile Browsing prediction

A significant proportion of subscribers have terminals enabled for browsing. The active user population is rapidly growing, and despite the downward pressure on prices, mobile browsing is a strong revenue generator.

Source: W3C-MWI/Nokia

Mobile Browsing Growth Outpaces Other Services

Browsing revenu growth

Active users of mobile browsing services will increase by about 30% annually between 2006 and 2010, significantly more than the use of advertising, ringtones, SMS and other entertainment and media - even higher than subscriber growth

CA GR = compound average growth rate

Source:W3C-MWI/Nokia

Mobile Web: Growing Use

T-Mobile Web'n'Walk:
- 330 page views per month per user
- 199% increase in data ARPU (Average Revenue Per User - excl. SMS)
- Source: Opera, April 2006
BBC
- BBC: Number of requests to mobile content doubled in 2005
- Approaching 250 million/year
- 28% of mobile users *only* accessed BBC content from mobile phone, not PC
- Source: BBC, November 2005
Web/info access generates $2.7 billion of data revenue (32%) (Source: CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Survey)
"Mobile browsing becoming mainstream", Ipsos study/news.com
...

Potential: Mobile Web in Developing Countries

Man with mobile phone in Asia. AFP, Deshakalyan Chowdhury

The Mobile Web can accelerate Internet access around the world by solving the "last kilometer" problem

Commerce, healthcare, education, eGov, communication ... [ex: Der Spiegel]
61% of the BBC's international Wap users came from Nigeria (BBC, Aug 2006)
W3C Workshop on the Mobile Web in Developing Countries, Dec 2006, Bangalore

Person with mobile phone in rural Africa

Overview

What is W3C?
What is the potential for mobile Web access?
What is W3C's Mobile Web Initiative?
Mobile Web Best Practices and MobileOK
Perspectives

Who's Involved?

19 Sponsors

MWI sponsors

WG Participants: AOL, France Telecom, Google, Microsoft, mTLD, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Opera, Samsung, SK Telecom, T-Online, Telefonica, Vodafone, ...

Sponsor Benefits

MWI Sponsor Logo

Participate in MWI Leadership through MWI Steering Council
Participate in Marketing and Outreach
- Press release on joinining
- Testimonials
- Can use MWI Sponsor logo
- MWI speaking opportunities (MWI seminars, talks)
- MWI publications (brochure)
- MWI Tradeshow appearances (3GSM, ...)

Work Items: Current and Potential

Mobile Web Best Practices (see later Talk)
- "MobileOK" Trustmark
Device Description
- Improve access to device description information
- Standard API to Device Description Repositories
Test Suites (future: MobileOK for Software?)
Future: Mobile Ajax?

OMA Liaison

Have general Liaison between OMA and W3C
Example: Collaborating on converging
- XHTML Basic/MP
- CSS Mobile Profile/WCSS
Goal: Single mobile spec from W3C
OMA invited to all MWI Steering Council calls
...

Overview

What is W3C?
What is the potential for mobile Web access?
What is W3C's Mobile Web Initiative?
Mobile Web Best Practices and MobileOK
Perspectives

Why Best Practices are Needed

Typical horror reaction of a user faced with some Web sites on a mobile device

Mobile Web Best Practices

Audience
- Web authors and developers
- Web Tool developers (authoring tools, CMS, blog software, ...)
Distilled existing "tips and tricks" (W3C Accessibility, iMode, Opera, Openwave, Nokia, ...)
W3C standard expected in Q2 2007
- Already very stable - reached final stage before becoming official Recommendation
- Waiting for XHTML Basic/MP convergence

Example Guidelines

Use standards such as XHTML Basic
Use markup for semantic content
Use CSS for styling (no layout tables)
Ensure friendly error messages
Optimize navigation
Avoid large graphics

W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Checker

Screenshot of the checker in action

W3C has provided BP checker Software (beta)
http://www.w3.org/Mobile/check
Demo

Checker Well Received!

mobileOK Validator statistics

Steady increase of usage over time
Excellent outreach tool for developing/discovering the mobile Web

Best Practices Take-Up: Google

BP reference in Google Webmaster resources

Best Practices Take-Up: Orange

Reference to BP/MWI at Orange

Take-Up of Best Practices: Examples

Referenced in Developer Material
Integrated into Development tools

"mobileOK" Conformance Mark

mobileOK Logo

mobileOK Basic
- defines a series of tests for Web content
- based on subset of Best Practices
- machine-testable
- in "last call" - open for comments
mobileOK
- includes non-machine testable tests
- still under development
Third-party or self-certification

"mobileOK": Upcoming

"mobileOK" as machine-readable content labels
Turn BP checker into mobileOK checker
Create checker reference implementation (collaboration with Google, mTLD, ...)

Overview

What is W3C?
What is the potential for mobile Web access?
What is W3C's Mobile Web Initiative?
Mobile Web Best Practices and MobileOK
Perspectives

It's 1996 All Over Again ...


Web 1996	Mobile Web 2006
Too slow	Too slow
Online Services	Walled Gardens
Lack of interoperability	Lack of interoperability
Child protection	Child protection
Not accessible	Not accessible

... But Some Things Easier

Web 1996	Mobile Web 2006
Web is a novelty	Web is a mass medium
Few connected users	Many potentially-connected users
Lack of content	Lots of potential content and developers
No industry	Large potential industry

Final version of slides available at

http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/03-MW20/Overview.html