Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group News

As we hear about the amazing power of new browsers to render the full web, it is worth asking what is the relevance of the Mobile Web Best Practices - and in particular the Default Delivery Context (DDC) that sets the bar so very low.

In terms of market share, HitLink's May 2007 statistics showed a mobile browser in its main list for the first time. But just one web browser for low-end phones held more than twice the market share of all browsers for high-end devices put together. Over the succeeding 6 months it has roughly doubled its overall market share, while retaining the same proportion in regard to mobile browsers. While mini well exceeds the browsing capabilities listed for the DDC, it runs even on phones that do not meet the baseline specified as the DDC. So it seems that this rough compromise point is worthwhile as a basis, given that there are other browsers which are less capable as well as other devices that are more powerful.

There are two reasons why this work matters. The first is as a starting point. The group needs to develop a basis to work on - although it is important that it does not become too attached to its original work. There is a difficult balance between not being willing to move on, and throwing out a substantial baby with a bit of bathwater. In standards this is important. It takes a long time for toolsets to change, and being able to make incremental changes is much easier than a radcal rewrite of a standard. Building from a low base allows the working group to do something real, and useful, which is relatively manageable before getting in to the much more complex world of dealing with making content that takes advantage of the latest features in the latest browsers.

It also sends an important message - the W3C is not just about the very bleeding edge of new and expensive technology, any more than it is just about academic research, or for that matter simply putting any one area above all others. Because the devices that are around the level of the Default Delivary Context are, worldwide, still a huge proportion of phones selling today. And a huge proportion of phones being passed on or sold second-hand, around the world.

The big market place for mobile browsing is not just the developed world. While in advanced countries in Asia it is commonplace (and in Japan it is almost impossible to get a phone that is as as lowly in capability as the DDC), and is becoming so in Europe, in America it is still in its infancy - even as it drives huge growth in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. And while there are large markets for new telephones there (India alone is adding more than 5 million subscribers per month) there are also very large markets for second-hand phones, ensuring that even the basic devices people have now will be around for years to come.

In the meantime, of course, the MWI has never planned just to produce some basic guidelines and stop. Work on the more complex but obviously important task of how to take advantage of the best-of-breed devices (and increasingly of browsers which are bringing more power to smaller devices) is continuing, while ensuring that it addresses not just the top few per cent of devices but those that most people have available.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group just released mobileOK Basic as a Candidate Recommendation; this means the Working Group, after having gathered extensive comments during the last call periods, considers the document now as ready for feedback from implementors in the field.

Implementors means in this case both content authors who are invited to make their content mobileOK Basic and report any issue they encounter while doing so, as well as tools developers who are invited to make their tools help users to create mobileOK Basic content.

To do so, W3C has made available an on-line mobileOK checker (in alpha test), based on the Java library developed by the Working Group, which can also be re-used by tool makers.

W3C has made press release about this important publication.