Planet Mobile Web

The Planet Mobile Web aggregates posts from various blogs that concern the Mobile Web. While it is hosted by the Mobile Web Initiative, the content of the individual entries represent only the opinion of their respective authors and does not reflect the position of the Mobile Web Initiative.

On this page:

May 16, 2008

Martin's Mobile Technology Page

Virtual Geocaching Beats Chaos Organization

I am glad to have the Internet in my pocket to help in situations when the organization of others make success without pain highly unlikely. Take the follwoing scenario that happend to me recently: A theater visit is organized (note the passive in the sentence) in a city none of us have visited before. Turns out instructions concerning how to find the theater are practically worthless. People in the town are helpful but have different opinions on where the theater is ranging from 'just aroundd the corner' to 'at the other end of town'. So here the Internet and navigation on my Nokia N95 comes to the rescue. Googeling for the town's and theater's name reveals the address and phone number of the theater immediately. Ah, the theater has three stages throughout the city. That explains the different opinions of the locals. A quick look into a local newspaper reveals the theater for the play. O.k., since Google has found the address, a quick look with Nokia Maps shows us the exacct place and guides us to the theater. How nice, how painless :-) Needless to say that the bus driver of the other group was one hour late since he had no one finding the details with his phone.

by mobilesociety at May 16, 2008 12:26 PM

m-trends.org

Short-list MEX Mobile User Experience Awards

designawardsnew.JPG

After lengthy review by the panel of independent judges (including myself - see below), Marek just announced the short-lists for 2008 MEX Mobile User Experience Awards. The winners will be officially announced at a special evening reception in London on 27th May, the opening night of the 4th annual MEX conference.

Commercial category

- Taptu

- Zeemote

- Mobyko

- Vuzix

Freelance category

- Flat Music Player

- Cloudaware

- BSR Blind Phone

Professional category

- My Link Wireless Accessory

- Couple IT

- MoDist

Student category

- Context aware

- Pixie TV

- MyView

MEX Mobile User Experience Innovator of the Year

- Taptu

- BSR Blind Phone

- MyView

The judges:

Ken Blakeslee, Chairman, WebMobility Ventures

Steven Dotsch, Managing Director, WirelessMatch

Mike Grenville, Director, 160characters.org

Stuart O’Brien, Editor, Mobile Entertainment

Marek Pawlowski , Editorial Director, PMN

and myself.

Technorati , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Rudy De Waele at May 16, 2008 07:31 AM

May 15, 2008

dev.mobi blog

Ten Mistakes in Mobile Web Marketing

Ten Mistakes in Mobile Web Marketing

The dotMobi marketing arm - mobiThinking has just launched a free eBook called Ten Mistakes in Mobile Web Marketing. Even though the title of the eBook is clearly aimed at marketeers it is worth a read for everyone. The ideas behind good mobile web sites are simple but the execution isn't always so easy. Many of us are still thinking of mobile web sites as small versions of their PC-counterparts. That's simply the wrong approach. This and other pitfalls in mobile web marketing have been reviewed to produce this new, free eBook - Ten Mistakes in Mobile Web Marketing.

read more

by claireog at May 15, 2008 02:51 PM

Wap Review

PopUps Spoil $20/Month Unlimited PrePaid Data

GoPhone Service MessageLast week I wrote about ATT's new prepaid data offer, $19.99/month for unlimited 3G. Naturally, I had to try this out so here are my experiences.

It generally works very well. There is one issue, though and it's so stupid I have a hard time believing it. After every data use a Network Service Message pops up on the phone telling you how much you spent and what your balance is. None of the other US prepaid carriers do this, they just play an audio message at the start of each call telling you how many minutes you have left. And on most other carriers even those messages can be turned off with a call to customer support. Not ATT, the messages are relentless and customer support claims no one at ATT can turn disable them! Annoying, but I'm sure some executive thinks this is a great customer friendly feature. Well it's not, especially with the unlimited data package, where the message tells you that the last transaction cost 0.00 USD. What conceivable use is that? It's just really, really stupid. The system knows the session cost nothing but it sends a message anyway. Talk about annoying customers AND wasting network resources. I mean, how hard would it be to add an If Cost <> 0 to the mesaging logic?

It's mainly the stupidity of this that bothers me. The service messages aren't really that disruptive most of the time. When browsing the connection generally stays open until about 5 minutes after a page loads. If you are inactive that long you have to clear a message by pressing the right softkey before you can do anything else. At least that's on an N95. It's worse on some phones, like when running Opera Mini on an old Nokia 6200 where the popups appear immediately after every page load. I guess I'm lucky though, according to comments on Howard Forums, on some phones the messages come in as SMS or stack up and require multiple clicks to clear. But on the N95 it's a pretty minor annoyance and one I can live with to get unlimited data for 20 bucks.

I've mainly been using the GoPhone SIM with a Nokia N95-3, the US model that supports ATT's 850/1900 3G. I also tried it with a Motorola Z8 and the Nokia 6200. All three phones worked perfectly with minimal setup. The N95 has this great feature that I first noticed when I used WIND Italy. It automatically sets up an Access Point when you put a new SIM in; so its truly plug and play. I'm not sure how this works but it seems to depend on both the phone and the SIM supporting some kind of API as it only happens with certain SIMS and phones. The N95 doesn't create an access point when I put a T-Mobile SIM in it and the Z8 and 6200 don't set one up with an ATT SIM. But even if you have to setup data manually, ATT makes it easy. With the Z8 I only had to enter the Access Point Name of wap.cingular, no proxy, port, User ID or password required. The 6200 has to go through a WAP gateway to get to the 'net so I also had to specify the Gateway IP address, 066.209.011.061. But with just those settings everything works even Java apps like Opera Mini.

ATT's coverage in the San Francisco Bay Area seems pretty good too. I gotten usable signals everywhere I've gone including some indoor locations where I can't get a T-Mobile, Sprint or Nextel signal. I also get 3G everywhere except for a one mile stretch in an open-space area where it drops to GPRS. I don't see much evidence of ATT's alleged HSDPA rollout though. The N95 has a distinctive 3.5G icon that appears for an HSDPA signal but I've only seen it twice and it went back to the 3G UTMS icon almost immediately. Speed on UTMS is pretty consistently between 200 and 300 kpbs measured by DSLReports Mobile speed tester at dslreports.com/mspeed. Not as fast as EVDO but still quite snappy for web surfing.

If you can live with those popups, this is a pretty good deal. You can even cut the cost a little by buying refill PINS online. It's pretty easy to find 10% discounts. GoPhone has a rewards program too, after you spend $100 you get a $5 credit. With each successive $100 spent the reward gets bigger, topping out at $20 per $100.

But please ATT, can we have an end to those status messages especially the ones that say you've spent nothing?

by Dennis at May 15, 2008 01:45 PM

Martin's Mobile Technology Page

OperaMini Tip of the Week: Default Access Point

I use OperaMini day in and day out as my prefered browser and love the experience. Well, except for one thing, the frequent network selection dialog boxes. Some say it is an S60 feature but in my opinion this is just a big bug in the software. Anyway, Constantine from Intomobile now provided a great solution to the problem: In the S60 application manager, it is possible to define the behavior for each Java program. To get rid of the stupid dialog boxes, open the application manager, select OperaMini, select Open, and then set 'Network Access' to 'Ask first time'. Afterwards, no more stupid dialog boxes. Thanks, Constantine!

The only drawback seems to be that one has to select a default access point when the setting is changed. This makes it difficult to use OperaMini over the Wifi network at home when the default access point has been set to the cellular network. Well, I guess you can't have it all.

by mobilesociety at May 15, 2008 11:31 AM

Open Gardens

What can you learn from the CIA about Enterprise 2.0?

enterprise%2020%20conference.JPG

I am going to be doing a series of posts about Enterprise 2.0 especially as the Enterprise 2.0 conference is next month in Boston. I would have loved to attend this event – however between the web technology conference in Hong Kong where I am giving the keynote and Supernova 2008(where I am also speaking) – attending Enterprise 2.0 in Boston will not be possible.


However, since I have been interested in Enterprise 2.0, and it looks like a great conference and many friends like Dion Hinchcliffe and others are speaking there .. I will do a series of blogs on this topic leading up to this conference. These may include interviews of speakers and other insights

There is a very interesting session by Don Burke and Sean Dennehy from the CIA about Intellipedia.

What can the CIA teach you about Enterprise 2.0?

Apparently, quite a lot as it transpires. (For the record – I have always been supportive of security and defence personnel since I believe that they are doing a great job under very difficult circumstances)

Here is an example from the same two speakers when they spoke at Harvard

>>>
Burke explains that the Intellipedia encompasses three core principles to help organizations overcome hurdles to adopting the new technology and its culture. The first is to work topically rather than organizationally. Information does not have to bear the seal of the organization. Instead, the community is better served with the Intellipedia aggregating information on a topic. This permits all appropriate members of the community to work topically, which also helps eliminate territoriality with regard to authorship. Debate can focus on the topic instead of on its source organization.

The second core principle involves the audience. Dennehy allows that Intellipedia users are encouraged to work to the broadest audience possible, which again runs counter to the prevailing culture of specialization amid need-to-know. He notes that many students who have participated in a sabbatical program want to interact with military and diplomatic colleagues who often have Secret, rather than Top Secret, network access. With Intellipedia residing on those two networks along with the sensitive-but-unclassified network, this interaction is enabled through the secret Internet protocol router network (SIPRNET).

Burke adds that one hurdle to this principle is that the audience is changing. Formerly, the audience would be defined by the network level to which the broadest audience has single-click access. The solution is to encourage users to work as broadly as they can where they can access easily without needing to switch between systems.

The third key principle is to replace existing processes. Burke relates that many prospective users believe that they are too busy to learn a new tool or to deposit information in more than one place. What they perceive as additional tasks dissuades them from adopting the Intellipedia. The third principle aims to convince these users to replace their current processes with the new ones that represent a more efficient and effective way of doing business instead of adding more duties.

This session will be very interesting. And it is nice to see organizations like the CIA engage with people and conferences.

by ajit at May 15, 2008 12:14 AM

May 14, 2008

dev.mobi blog

Great new updates in DeviceAtlas 1.2

What a week at dotMobi and we are still not done with the updates. In fact we just completed the update of DeviceAtlas to version 1.2 and there are quite a few changes.

read more

by atrasatti at May 14, 2008 11:11 PM

Open Gardens

Mobile Web 2.0 Worth Over $22 Billion by 2013?

Juniper research claims that by 2013 Mobile Web 2.0 will be worth $22 billion dollars. Having co-authored the book Mobile Web 2.0 alongwith Tony Fish .. I should be happy .. But I am not.

There appear to be two obvious flaws in this line of thinking ..

Firstly, the report seems to be throwing in the kitchen sink when it says that 'Leveraging ‘Location, IM, Social Web & Search’ 2008-2013'. Consequently, it does not have much meaning if we start to combine all these aspects along with the creation and the social aspects of Mobile phones(which I think are the key factors). The report also seems to add the advertising and the Mobile Web market to it as well - which are two distinct aspects in themselves.

Secondly, the report does not seem to cover open devices vs. closed devices. In my view, that factor will play a key part in the deployment of Mobile Web 2.0 whichever way you look at it

In many ways, considering the hype labels attached to Web 2.0 and also Mobile Web 2.0 – a black hat thinking is necessary

Almost every forecast for the mobile data industry has been proven wrong - and I suspect this is too optimistic as well as all encompassing

And finally, many of the interpretations of Mobile Web 2.0, Mobile 2.0 etc are already in the public domain(if you cover this blog, Dan Appelquist's talks, blog and Rudy De Waele's blog - you should get most viewpoints.

And its all in the public domain!

by ajit at May 14, 2008 10:10 PM

Blue Flavor

Working With Blue Flavor, Part One: Engaging The Team

Welcome to the first part in what (I think) will be a five part series about how to work with a design agency — and specifically about how to work with Blue Flavor.

We’re often asked about things like process (something I’ve written and spoken quite a bit about), how we deal with problem clients, how we deal with the sales process and RFPs, etc. For some reason it seems like we shouldn’t talk about this stuff openly and to be honest, I’m not sure why that is. So I’m just going to do it.

About This Series.

This series will cover how to engage us to work on your project, how our process functions, what happens when we run into big problems, how to give feedback and enable us to do the best job possible, and how to cooperate with us to ensure a successful outcome.

These will probably be pretty weighty articles. I’m going to try to dump into them as many lessons learned, observations, reservations, truths and revelations as I can. I want to give potential clients (and anyone else who’s interested) an honest and complete look into how we work and how to best work with us.

Ok, enough preamble (for now) — let’s get to it. First up, let’s talk about how we handle sales and how you can engage us to work on your project.

Our Philosophy On Business Development.

Before I get into the details, I’d like to talk a bit about how we handle sales, at least as of the time of this writing. Before Brian and Cyndi left the company, Brian handled most of the business development and he generally enjoyed doing it. He is much more of a salesman than anyone else here at Blue Flavor and in many ways he was a natural.

This is not the case with either Nick or me, the remaining principals. Nick doesn’t mind doing business development, but I generally abhor it. When Brian left we struggled a bit to keep our new business funnel flowing. With Tiffani’s help we were able to get a basic handle on it, but we found out pretty quickly that none of us liked doing traditional “sales” work.

So we don’t do sales, and I think that’s ok — it seems to be working out fine. What we do try to do is gather as much information from a potential client as we can and then do our best to explain how we can help. Assuming we’re all on the same page, we then tie that scope to a cost and timeframe and present it. Simple? Not exactly, but we try to make it as easy as we can.

The main reason for keeping it simple is we like to work, rather than spend our days selling our services. We’re a small company of craftspeople and we’re happiest when helping our clients by doing actual work. None of us will be happy doing sales all the time.

One of the reasons why I’m writing this post is to give potential clients a starting point in what can be a confusing process. My goal is to set the expectation up front that we’re more interested in helping our clients solve design problems than we are going through 40-page RPFs or dealing with legal issues. We’re designers, communicators, problem-solvers, developers, etc. We’re not salespeople.

So, our philosophy?

  • Listen to your problems and needs.
  • Tell you how we can help.
  • Tell you how much it’ll cost and how long it’ll take.
  • Begin building a relationship.
  • No selling.
  • No smoke and mirrors.
  • No empty promises.

Of course real life is more complicated, but this is a good a place to start. Speaking of starting, you might be wondering what we do and how we can help you.

What Does Blue Flavor Do?

Our primary focus is design. Design for web sites, web applications and the mobile web. We do interface design, information architecture, information design, visual design for online media, and things like that. Our secondary focuses are strategy (marketing, social media, content, etc.) and development (xhtml/css, CMS development and deployment, etc.).

At the moment we’re much more focused on design than we are development, although this may change in the future. We’re thinking about fleshing out our development resources to better service our clients, but for now we just don’t have enough people to take on a whole lot of development work.

Our Value Proposition.

We believe firmly that design expertise can make all the difference in the success of a product, brand, web site, etc. Our value lies in bringing great talent, years of experience and lots and lots of elbow grease to bear on our clients’ problems. We’ve seen time and time again, and can prove, that the work we do helps our clients succeed. The vast majority are very happy with the work we’ve done, and can show how we’ve helped them in their own initiatives.

We’re passionate about design and want to work with people who value that passion.

A Typical Project.

We work on a wide variety of projects, but our most common work falls into two basic categories: the end-to-end project and the IA/Design/Templates project. These are typically our most successful projects, and we do an equal measure of each.

An “end-to-end” project involves a redesign or initial design of a web site or application. I’ll go into more detail about this in further installments of this series, but in general the end-to-end project starts with a discovery and information architecture/interaction design phase, and ends with a fully-realized web site or application.

Our other most common project is similar, but has a different end point. We often work with folks who have internal development resources. In these cases we usually hand off web standards-based templates for the client’s internal developers to work with.

Engaging Blue Flavor. How to begin.

Ok, I’ve given you an idea of what we can do and what our typical projects look like. Let’s assume you’re interested. What do you do now?

Well, the best idea would be to fill out our contact form and give us a clear overview of your project. We’re usually looking for something easy to read, but chock-full of good information about you and your project. If we have that up front, it’s easier for us to gauge whether or not your project would be a good fit. That’s important. A good fit can make a world of difference!

Of course, you could just call us. Or send an e-mail. That works too, but in my experience having a great snapshot of the project in a digital format before we talk via phone or in person helps a ton.

We’re working on ways to better extract that initial information and get to know potential clients, and I’ll be the first to admit that this is a difficult process. We’re generally happy to cater to a potential client’s needs, as long as we can clearly see early on that the project is one we’d be successful at.

A good, clear introduction to you, your team, your project, and your company — without lots of fluff or added nonsense — is a great place to start.

Engaging Blue Flavor. How NOT to begin.

Here’s a list of a few things that will probably prevent us from pursuing your project:

  • A hefty or complicated RFP. We generally don’t look at most RFPs unless we either know you already or have some particular interest in your project. The typical RFP process is simply too time and effort-consuming and often not worth the effort. I think you’ll find that many smaller design shops will say the same. (We don’t have anything against the idea of an RFP, but they’re generally not done in such a way as to make them simple to deal with.)
  • Complicated legal. We like to keep our contracts lean and generally devoid of legal wrangling.
  • An unclear scope. While we’re fine helping people discover the true scope of their projects, sometimes we come across people who have very little idea of what they’re looking for. This is usually a red flag.
  • No budget. We feel that if you’re serious about hiring us, you’ll have some idea of what you’d be willing to spend.

We’re willing to take at least some stab at sorting these things out and try to get in touch with everyone who shows interest in us. But the take away point here is that the more prepared a potential client is coming in, the more likely we’ll be able to help him or her out.

The Estimation Process

The next step we take after an initial needs assessment is to let our potential client ask us questions and get to know us better. Then, as soon as they’re comfortable and ready, we send them an estimate.

The initial estimate entails a simple cost/services break down, split into phases. We take the scope as we understand it and tie it to our our services, deliverables, and project phases, which we then price out based on an hourly rate. If the project is straightforward and the potential client has come prepared, our estimates come out pretty accurate.

Most of the time we come in under our estimated cost and/or over-deliver, especially if we’re working on one of our typical projects. But it depends. The scope and estimation process can be tricky, especially when client expectations are thrown into the mix.

We do our very best to explain clearly and in as much detail as possible the scope of what we’ll be doing and delivering. We actually go out of our way to set expectations before we begin work; however, we’ll occasionally have situations where we find out down the road that the expectations we set don’t match up with our client’s. I’ll talk about this in an upcoming installment of this series. For now it’s important to note that potential clients have some responsibility to read and fully grasp the scope we outline in our estimates.

I can’t stress enough that the main issues we have with clients arise when they don’t fully understand the scope we’ve agreed upon. This can, and should, be cleared up before we enter into a formal relationship. We do our best to ensure our clients have taken time to read and understand our estimates, since trying to re-set initial expectations after the project begins can be very tricky.

The bottom line when it comes to our estimates is that we try and gauge the work that needs to be done and the processes, deliverables and timeframes needed to achieve a successful outcome. We multiply this with our hourly rate to generate totals for each phase and and a cost estimate for the entire project.

It’s really as simple as that. We generally don’t negotiate on price (or quality, we try to do our best work all the time), but we can be pretty flexible on scope, depending on the situation.

From Estimate to Project.

So, what’s next? Well, if the potential client is ok with our scope, timelines, and estimate they usually want to check our references and do some due diligence. Once that is done it’s just a matter of working out any legal and/or payment details before pulling the trigger.

As I mentioned, we try to avoid legal wrangling and it’s true that too much can be a deal breaker. We like to work, not deal with our lawyers. Our contracts are set up to be easy to get through and we’re flexible on most things.

Ownership, for example, comes up quite a bit. It’s our belief, in most cases, that a client owns whatever he/she pays for. We don’t have complicated licensing clauses or anything like that. I don’t know why we would. It’s like hiring someone to build a house for you — they might learn a new technique they’ll bring to another project, but you own the house and can do with it what you like once it’s done.

When it comes to legal the only things we consistently have problems with are extreme changes to our payment terms. We can be somewhat flexible there, but we expect to be paid for the work we do. On time. No exceptions.

Occasionally we’ll come across someone who wants to go to great lengths, legally, to protect themselves from us and frankly, we usually pass on the work if the legal is over my head and/or too complicated. The outcome is usually not worth the effort, since those kinds of jobs tend to go sideways anyway.

Once the legal issues are ironed out, we ask for a pre-payment (which varies depending on whether the project is priced out on an hourly or per-project basis) and get our estimate turned into a signed job order. We then dedicate resources and schedule a kick-off meeting.

A Bit About Resourcing.

One of the hardest parts of my job is resourcing. The reason why? It’s impossible to tell how long it’ll take to get from an initial new business inquiry to kick-off. I have to then figure out how to fit new projects into our schedule without screwing up existing projects. This process is often complicated by delays on the client’s side, vacations and other scheduling conflicts.

A few general rules of thumb we stick to:

  • Existing clients are the priority. Always.
  • I never firmly assign resources or schedule a project until I’ve got a pre-payment and signed job order. The sooner I get that, the sooner we’re all good to go.
  • If you tell me you want to start next week and then put the project on hold for a few weeks while you sort out legal or something on your end, I can’t guarantee you’ll start right away. I have this kind of conversation often.
  • We don’t legally agree to deadlines or timeframes of any sort. Ever. In fact, we’re pretty wary about agreeing to anything time-based at all. In my experience we’re not usually the cause of a delay.
  • The more complicated your project is, the longer it’s going to take. This should be obvious, but sometimes it’s not.
  • Development projects are generally hard for us to resource since we’ve got less redundancy there.
  • I do my very best to stick to the original resources I’ve slated for a project, but sometimes I need to move them around. However, I never do this mid-phase.

The Kick-off

We usually like to do a kick-off meeting to get a project going. Most of the time we conduct these virtually, though we prefer face-to-face meetings when possible. In the kick-off meeting we go over the scope in detail, set down the initial schedule, and nail down resources. At this point we consider the project a full-on go!

Next Time: Our Process

Whew, that was a lot to cover! I hope this is helpful to someone out there. People always ask us about this stuff, so I thought it might be good to talk about it for the benefit of our potential (and existing) clients and for anyone else who might be interested.

I think it’s probably clear that much of our process is fluid, and we are able to make many exceptions to what I’ve outlined here. Every client is different and needs a tailored approach (I’ll talk about that quite a bit more next time). There is no “one-size-fits-all” method for turning a lead into a client.

The Bottom Line.

The Bottom Line? The best projects result from a great relationship. If a potential client comes to us prepared and understands the value of what we do, and if our expectations are well matched, the relationship will start off on good footing and will almost always result in a project that everyone involved is happy with.

by Keith Robinson at May 14, 2008 06:46 PM

Little Springs Design - designing the mobile user experience

Facebook pages and other business social networking

One of the steps in creating a conference is deciding what to do with regards to participant networking. The last few conferences I’ve attended have each had their own networking system, and only 10% of the participants even looked at it. I only did because I have a direct monetary interest in good networking.

I believe this is part of social networking fatigue. People get inundated with network invites, made worse by some less-than-ethical designs that suggest you must sign in to your email to complete signup.

So for Design For Mobile we decided to instead use existing networking mechanisms. Once participants sign up for the conference, they will be invited to an attendee-exclusive LinkedIn group. Anybody can become a fan on the Design For Mobile Facebook page, and network directly there. As we firm up the session abstracts, each will get their own page on our own site, with comments enabled.

Additionally, you can now become a fan of Little Springs Design on our company Little Springs Design Facebook page! While there, add any fun pictures, feel free to say how great we are, or whatever you want.

Want to follow us individually? Lots of our online presence links can be found at our About page.


© Little Springs Design • See us at Design For Mobile, North America’s first mobile design conference. September 22-24, 2008 — Register by August 1 for early bird discount

by Barbara at May 14, 2008 05:22 PM

Wap Review

Opera Mini Coming to Verizon?

Opera LogoVerizon LogoOpera Mini 4.1 was released today. While I was poking around on OperaMini.com looking for a feature list and some cool imagagry for a post about the release I noticed something interesting. The OperaMini.com homepage has this statement:

"The service is not available to Verizon Wireless subscribers (other than BlackBerry users) yet. Please subscribe for an email notification when we have a version available for Verizon customers. Thanks for your patience!"

Not available "yet". Does that imply that it will be soon?. That would make Verizon's estimated 70 milion subscribers pretty happy. Curently Verizon's customers, unless they have a Blackberry, Windows Mobile phone or the LG Voyager are stuck with the circa 2002 Openwave 6.1 browser. It was a fine browser in its day but now it's severely dated with a page size limit of about 20 KB, no JavaScript and limited CSS support.

There aren't any alternate browsers available for Verizon phones either. Verizon doesn't install a Java ME runtime, using Qualcom's BREW platform application instead. There are a few after market BREW browsers, Novarra has one called nWeb and Opera has developed an Opera Mini BREW version. The problem is that BREW is a locked down, carrier centric, anti-user platform. BREW content carries DRM locking it to a specific handset. The only way for a user to install a BREW game or application is from the carrier's portal. So even though there is a BREW version of Opera Mini there is no way a user can get it on their phone unless Verizon makes it available through their "Get It Now" portal.

It would make sense for Verizon to offer Opera Mini to their customers. The iPhone has made mobile full web browsing fashionable and the trend is toward full web browsers on all phones. ATT and T-Mobile already have feature phones with Opera Mobile and NetFront. Verizon needs an affordable full web browser that can run on the BREW platform in order to remain competitive. There aren't many choices. Verizon's Voyager iPhone clone comes with a pretty good Teleca full web browser but Teleca has gotten out of the mobile browser business. I used nWeb on Amp'd quite a bit and it was vastly inferior to Opera Mini, slow, no CSS support and many pages failed to load.

Unfortunately, Opera Mini probably won't be free for Verizon customers. There are few if any free BREW applications. Qualcom and Verizon both charge developers steep certification fees before even allowing an app on the portal and than take a big chunk of an app's price as a sales commission. Of course, Verizon could give Opera Mini away but that would be a break from their current model of not having any free downloadable content. Opera Mini is certainly worth paying for, let's hope Verizon makes it available soon for a small one time fee and not on one of those horrid pay monthly subscription deals.

Oh, and about the release of Opera Mini for Java ME. It's definitely worth downloading

April's Version 4.1 Beta included some neat features:

  • The servers were upgraded to make pages load up to 50% faster
  • Search for text within pages
  • URL completion based on your bookmarks and browsing history,
  • Download and upload files including photos and mail attachments
  • Save pages for offline viewing.
  • Signed versions to eliminate security nag screens

Today's 4.1 Final release didn't add any major new features compared to the 4.1 but it does include over 150 bug fixes many of which enable features that were broken on specific phones. A few examples:

  • Blackberries with WiFi support can now surf the web with Opera Mini using the WiFi connection.
  • Landscape Mode plus Downloading and Saving Pages now work on Sprint Samsung A900 and A920 phones.
  • Find in page works on the Bookmarks screen on all phones.

Download Opera Mini 4.1 Final at mini.opera.com using your phone's browser or from Operamini.com using a PC browser for transer to your phone by cable or Bluetooth.

by Dennis at May 14, 2008 02:38 PM

Martin's Mobile Technology Page

Wireless on Sicily - When Choice is the Rescue

In an earlier post , I reported on how I am using my 3 UK SIM card in 3's Italian network for Internet access without roaming charges. This works well in the bigger cities such as Catania, Siracusa, etc. In smaller cities on the countryside, however, coverage is a mess. Often, there are at least three GSM networks and usually also some UMTS network while outdoors. But once inside somewhere, most networks just fade away. Or even worse, your mobile shows average coverage but as soon as you try to do something, the coverage indication goes away... In my apartment for example, there is complete radio silence except for 3's UMTS network at the window. At another place where I stay sometimes, only TIM has reasonable coverage. It almost looks like in those smaller towns they just dropped a couple of base stations and never did any proper radio planning and interference analysis. So since SIM cards are cheap and Internet access to be had for a couple of Euros, I now have a SIM card for 3, one from TIM and another one from WIND. At least one works in any place. Not ideal, but pragmatic...

by mobilesociety at May 14, 2008 11:55 AM

m-trends.org

Mobile 2.0 Europe Conference

mobile20EU_logo.jpg

The Mobile 2.0 Conference is spreading its wings to Europe and will land on July 4 in Barcelona, Spain. This one-day event focusing on the Mobile Web and Disruptive Mobile Innovation, is brought to you by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee: Daniel Appelquist, Gregory Gorman, Mike Rowehl, Peter Vesterbacka and myself in partnership with ESADE.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference is an opportunity for companies to connect to industry leadership and startup innovation and broaden your C-level relationships.

The event will be held at the Espacio ESADE FORUM, Barcelona and will run from 9:00am to 6:00pm with a reception at the Espacio ESADE FORUM afterward.

So, what can you expect? Two industry keynotes, four panels and three series of innovative startups presenting live-demos.

Panel speakers as of today include:

Check the full speaker list here.

The Mobile 2.0 Europe presenting start-ups will be selected in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A). Any start-up company with a mobile application can participate. To apply and present your company and your application, you need to fill in the online application form. Deadline for submission is June 6, 2008 at midnight CET.

Seed Capital Stage and Pre Series A Start-ups will be selected by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 organizing committee. Post Series A Start-ups will be selected in collaboration with the VC Panel. During the event, all panel participants and organizers will vote their best Start-up in each category; the winner in each category receives an invitation to present at the Mobile 2.0 Event in San Francisco on November 3, 2008.

Early Bird registration for this event is only € 99,- till May 31, after that date, tickets will cost €199,-Stay tuned! More goodies to be announced soon.

Technorati , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Rudy De Waele at May 14, 2008 10:30 AM

Open Gardens

A sad day for Jaipur - India

From the BBC

Jaipur.JPG


From the BBC
>>>>

Pattern to India bombs say papers

Newspaper headlines on the blasts in Jaipur on May 14 2008
The blasts made front page headlines

Tuesday's series of blasts in the western Indian city of Jaipur have dominated the front pages of India's newspapers. The papers say the explosions appear to be the result of a planned operation and followed a pattern of recent similar attacks.

"And Now, It's Jaipur" says The Times Of India.

The newspaper says the explosions were the "21st terror attack" outside Indian-administered Kashmir in the past three years.

It says Tuesday evening's blast bore "close resemblance" to similar explosions in a temple in the holy city of Varanasi, the train bombings in the western city of Mumbai and the suburbs of Malegaon in western India over the past two years.

The paper quotes unnamed sources saying the blasts "pointed to a sophisticated operation that only foreign-trained groups are capable of executing".

The newspaper also says that the blasts, which happened in "affluent and predominantly Hindu areas" were aimed at "fuelling" tension between communities.

"Death and fear in Jaipur" says The Indian Express

The paper says the blasts came on the 10th anniversary of India's nuclear tests that were held in the Rajasthan state.

'Main target'

"[Hindu] temples seemed to be the main target," the paper says.

The newspaper says there was no alert by security agencies on a possible terrorist attack in Rajasthan and the strikes took the state and federal governments "by surprise".

The paper says that "internal security agencies have picked up no cross-border communication or intercept in Kashmir and the linkage to terrorists operating in the [Kashmir] valley is being ruled out at present".

"Terror Strikes Pink City", is the headline in the Hindustan Times

A man injured in the blasts in Jaipur on May 14 2008
Doctors traced relatives of dead patients from their mobile phones

The paper quotes eyewitnesses saying that the old city of Jaipur was targeted because they were inhabited by Hindus and Muslims.

"Since both communities were targeted, it is clearly an attack on India," they told the newspaper.

It also quotes a senior police officer in Indian-administered Kashmir as saying: "The roots of all these acts of terror are in Pakistan."

"Pink City Turns Red" says The Pioneer.

The paper says that although the police "suspected the hand" of a Bangladesh-based group behind the attack, "it is yet to find any link between the blasts and this outfit".

The Hindu reports that the doctors at one of the hospitals in Jaipur where the dead and the injured were taken after the blast used the mobile phones of the dead to convey the news to their relatives.

"Of the 20 bodies brought to the hospital, the mobiles on the three started ringing... The doctors, who had declared them dead, had to pass on the news to their relatives on the mobiles of the victims."

"Bloodbath In Pink City" is the headline in the Mail Today.

The paper reports that many Jaipur-bound foreign tourists had cancelled their travel plans after the explosions.

Tuesday's blasts, the paper says, "may not be the best advertisement" for a state which attracted 1.4 million foreigners last year.


by ajit at May 14, 2008 09:39 AM

MWI Team Blog

dev.mobi blog

Ready.mobi v2.1

We pushed out our first update to ready.mobi for some time last weekend. Well, you can stop salivating for now, as there are no new features to announce just yet; this release has focused on bug-fixes and such. Most notably version 2.1 includes:

read more

by ruadhan at May 14, 2008 08:36 AM

Open Gardens

Keynote at Asia Pacific web technology conference ..

asia%20pacific%20web%20technology%20conference.JPG


I am speaking as a keynote speaker for the Asia pacific web technology conference organised by the government of Hong Kong. If you are in Hong Kong during that week, we can meet

>>>
What is Asia Pacific Web Technology Conference?

Asia Pacific Web Technology Conference is a conference for latest web technologies, funded by the Government of HKSAR and supported by IT professional bodies in Hong Kong. It aims to connect international industrial leaders and technology experts for fostering the web technology development in the region. Asia Pacific Web Technology Conference features international successful and innovative leaders and companies to present emerging Internet technologies, development strategies and frameworks as well as business models with the focus on the development of Web 2.0 applications.

Asia Pacific Web Technology Conference will attract the participation of international technology leaders and experts, government representatives and professional bodies of Hong Kong, China and the globe.

by ajit at May 14, 2008 06:19 AM

Wap Review

ZKOUT - The Network That Follows You

Zkout Mobile HomepageZkout (rhymes with "shout") is a new player in the crowded mobile social network field. Launched (audio) at Le Web 3 in December, Zkout bills itself as "The network that follows you", emphasizing that it's location based.

Zkout combines Twitter-style location and status updates with location and media sharing. The basic idea is that you periodically update your status and location and optionally upload a photo or video shot on location. Zkout calls these updates "Moments". Your information is shared with all Zkout users by default but you can restrict visibility of your location, Moments and Profile to friends only and you can completely hide location from everyone. Zkout uses  the shared information to show nearby media, people and places and to provide a newsfeed of friend updates. Zkout users can also comment on each others posts and chat.

Zkout has reportedly received seed funding and has 10 employees. There's both a full web and a mobile web interface. On the full web, Zyout uses Flash and Adobe Air to create a slick and very solid interactive experience. The mobile web edition comes in several flavors, a basic one for most phones and a tabbed layout in various sizes for Nokia WebKit, Opera Mini, the iPhone and recent Windows Mobile devices. It's nice to see Zkout recognize that the iPhone isn't the only mobile device that can deliver a rich mobile experience.

Status and location updates are done by manually entering a zip code, city or full address using the web, mobile web or SMS. Video and picture uploading is by mms or email only. I'd like to see Zkout using direct browser uploads using the <input type="file"> tag which is supported by many mobile browsers including WebKit, Mobile IE, Netfront and Opera Mobile and Mini. Zkout users like me with unlimited data plans but pay per use picture messaging would appreciate that.Zkout Explore People Screen

Location based mobile social networking is not really new or unique to Zkout. Socialight (review) and Mobiluck (review) offer similar mobile web based services and there are also several location based social networking Java ME applications including Loopt and Mologogo. Java has the advantage of being able to get location information from GPS on some phones but the platform's fragmentation limits the number of phone models supported. The mobile web works on almost any phone and doesn't require installation, giving Zkout a much greater base of potential users. The downside of being browser based is that users have to manually enter their location. Zkout eases the pain a bit by trying to guess where you are using your IP address and leting you pick from a remembered list of previous locations.

The unavailability of location data is something that clearly holding back the development of browser based location based services (LBS) of all kinds. There are obvious security concerns but carriers also seem to believe that LBS will be a future gold mine and and price it accordingly, if they make it available at all. In the US, the only carrier that makes location data available in HTTP headers is Sprint and they only do it for one partner, Microsoft Live Search. As part of the Clearwire deal, Google is supposed to replace Microsoft as Sprint's mobile search provider so Google Local Search may soon get access to Sprint's location data.  Android may open things up a bit. An operating system has access to both tower data and the GPS chip. I expect Android to make location data available to the browser, with appropriate privacy measures of course.

Sharing your location with your social network is both scary and appealing. It can add a lot of value for the user but it also raises the specters of stalking and Big Brother. Zyout's approach is reassuring, location updates are manual and can be hidden giving users control over when and where their locations are visible.

Of all the location based mobile social services I've looked at, Zkout seems to have one of the nicest designs and best usability on both PC and mobile. My only reservation is that it's rather late to the party. People use the networks their friends are on. It's going to be hard for Zkout to pick up the critical mass of users it needs to become attractive.

Mobile Link: m.zkout.com

Ratings: Content: ****_ Usability: XXXX_

Related: WapReview Mobile Directory - Mobile Social

by Dennis at May 14, 2008 02:48 AM

May 13, 2008

Open Gardens

Verizon wireless being sued: The legal minefield of mobile social networks

From RCR wireless ..

A very significant post. from RCR wireless Emphasis mine.
Thanks to Kim Dushinski for pointing this to me

By Colin Gibbs

You may not have noticed last week’s news that Verizon Wireless is being sued by the parents of a 14-year-old girl who claims she was sexually assaulted by a man she met through a mobile social-networking service. But the case is likely a little taste of what’s to come for operators over the next few years.

In case you missed it, RCR Wireless News beltway reporter Jeff Silva broke the story that the girl — who is described as “developmentally delayed” — claims to have met the 31-year-old man through Upoc Networks, a startup that operates a mobile social-networking service available through Verizon’s “Get It Now” storefront (and elsewhere). The man allegedly sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions two years ago, according to the lawsuit, which also claims the carrier is liable because it failed to warn the family that the phone was capable of accessing the Internet and downloading social applications. (Verizon has declined to comment on the case.)

The news isn’t surprising, of course, given the flurry of litigious activity surrounding online communities. MySpace has become embroiled in several similar legal tussles, and has hired a company run by a former New York cop to weed out sexual predators who create online profiles in the hopes of luring under-age members. Facebook has come under scrutiny, too: The Connecticut attorney general last year began investigating the social-networking flavor of the month to determine whether convicted sex offenders had built profiles on what has become the next big thing in community sites. And chest-thumping politicians have joined the fray, introducing legislation to ban convicted predators from the white-hot Internet destinations.

But the latest legal action appears to mark the first time wireless players have been dragged into the courtroom over a social-networking service. And it may be the first in a long line of courtroom battles for carriers as they scramble to tap into the exploding social-networking scene. While Internet service providers have avoided the legal flak, network operators have two obvious weaknesses in these early days of the mobile Internet: As the Upoc case underscores, they’re still largely seen as phone companies, leaving them vulnerable consumers’ claims that they were shocked — shocked! — to learn that cellphones can access the Internet. More importantly, consumers see network operators as endorsers of the offerings that appear on the deck — or, more likely, view on-deck services as the carrier’s own.

Most, if not all, of the recent sex-predator suits brought against the MySpaces and Facebooks of the world have failed to hold any sway with the courts — and for good reason. An assistant professor at Santa Clara University School of Law called the sex-crime lawsuits “obvious losers,” opining that blaming MySpace for actions that take place away from the site presents “a major causation problem.”

Indeed, mobile service providers may have plenty of legal cover in these early days of mobile social communities. But as social-networking services begin to gain mass-market traction in wireless — and as GPS functionality allows members to pinpoint the location of others — we can expect more lawsuits that target carriers as well as those who operate the virtual communities.

by ajit at May 13, 2008 10:46 PM

My favourite ad: The best example of engagement marketing?

Alan Moore talks about Engagement marketing - a term he created and refers to it as

Engagement marketing, sometimes called "participation marketing," is a marketing strategy that invites and encourages consumers to participate in the evolution of a brand. Rather than looking at consumers as passive receivers of messages, engagement marketers believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and co-creation of marketing programs.

While this ad does not invite consumers to actively participate(and has been around for a while) .. It remains one of my most engaging advertisements and one I have watched probably maximum number of times - besides being one of the best songs from a recent artist

What is your example of an ad that has engaged you most and why? Hopefully it may even ask you to participate in some way(perhaps even as a comment on YouTube)

In fact, this blog itself may well be an example of engagement marketing in action i.e. I have engaged with the brand by actively blogging about it

The singer is Jose Gonzalez and you need to go to the very last frame to see who this ad is about. You can also read more about Jose Gonzalez HERE

Every time I visit this stretch of San Francisco, I have the image of the bouncing balls i.e. the ad transcends to a physical place by superimposing in your mind. And I suspect it does the same to many people ..

by ajit at May 13, 2008 09:45 PM