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mobile lbs, js library to the rescue

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:47:59 +0000

I while back I wrote a blog post on Mobiforge on different ways of getting location information from the user/device (which by the way made it all the way to the mobiforge newsletter :)). Not surprisingly, our friend device fragmentation has joined the party.

For many reasons, this kind of stuff is not so easy to solve server side using wurfl or device atlas because we are talking javascript apis and installable and/or optional software/functions in many cases.

whoisstan wrote a nice, device independent javascript that handles this very nicely. Have a look here. Nice work. I might have some contributions up my sleve as well…

Some slides from mobile20 last week

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:37:34 +0000

Here are a few of the presentations from the great event mobile20 in Barcelona last week.

if the voice commands works half as well as in this demo, I am...

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:50:00 +0000

if the voice commands works half as well as in this demo, I am still impressed! On the other hand I would not be surprised if Apple has done it again….

Why is mobile search so hard?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:59:00 +0000

And WHY is nobody trying to make it right? Microsoft launched Bing the other day. The mobile version of this is m.bing.com

There are so many things that are completely wrong with this service, I don’t know where to start. Fortunately Dennis @ wap review has covered it all.

A few things that is worth mentioning again:

transcoded search results?? please… why not mobile search results? And the transcoder is slow as well. And not compliant with standards.
No mobile optimized search results what so ever!

Moreover, its kind of dull in general. Personally I like the Norwegian site kvasir much better. (yes, mobiletech mad it). More interesting, all mobile, relevant searches in a mobile context.

Playing with geoip

Thu, 21 May 2009 08:09:00 +0000

Have been playing with MaxMinds free geoip lookup tool. Its pretty OK. The quality, as far as I have tested, is pretty good!

More than good enough to use in location aware mobile services. Ofcourse you have the issue with looking up location of the operators gateway when the user is connected throgh the telco network… Have a look at your own location here.

Jakob Nielsen about mobile web

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:50:53 +0000

Jakob Nielsen knows a lot about interaction design and usability, no doubt. But a few of the statements about mobile web are still pretty disturbing:

A Separate Mobile Site Is Best

Sure! thats a no brainer

For the best user performance, you should design different websites for each mobile device class

What? Do you know how many “device classes” there are? and how many browsers these device classes have? and the different interaction models the classes have? I don’t wanna be the developer maintaining these 10000 different sites unless i was able to buy a software to help me with all the dimensions of device adaptation.

The very best option is to go beyond browsing and offer a specialized downloadable mobile application for your most devoted users

Am I reading correctly? You want to force the user to download an application in order to access the content on the web? why not use the pre installed application called a browser? Have you ever tried to install an application on a feature phone or a smart phone?

Moderately rich sites should build two mobile designs

please……

You, Mr Nielsen, know a lot about user experience and usability. But its not right to advice content owners to do these things! Its bad advice!

Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web 1998 (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)

Todays word: "Social Messaging"

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:49:14 +0000

I learned a new word today: “Social Messaging”. Apparently, that’s what the new Nokia magic announced today is. Strangely, today the Norwegian company Colibria announced a veeery similar strategy; a Social Network Gateway.

The good things I read from this is that both operators and device manufacturers are beginning to understand that it is no use re-inventing the wheel by creating “paralel mobile universe”. Its not the operators or the manufacturers that owns the user, it is the other way around. Hence, enabling the services the user already is using is a strategy I like.

This might be the “One web” some like to talk about…

Fanta crash lands on mobile marketing attempt

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:49:00 +0000

Currently fanta is running a campaign on boards here in Norway. The campaign is sad in a crappy way. More than one person should get fired over this. Here is the use case:

1) Read the board. There is something that looks like a QR-code or data matrix stuff. 2) Read the stuff with small print that actually explains what to do 3) Txt a key word to a short code 4) wait for 1 minute and 47 seconds (yes, thats right!) 5) Follow the link in the wap push. 6) Download a java app (by Scanlife) of 315kb 7) Wait 8) Install 9) Try to find the application on the phone after install. (Tip: don’t look for anything that has “fanta” in it.) Its called ScanLife. Why should i scan my life? 10) The app uses the camera to take a picture of the data matrix code like image. 11) try 5 times to take that f**king picture. 12) Give up. I did not get it to work.

The whole process took me about 7 minutes. This is just sad, annoying, disappointing…

Suggestion: do stuff that works, and do it simple. This just proves lack of understanding of mobile.

Shorter URLs for mobile

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:48:00 +0000

Have been using twitter for a while now, and was annoyed by the tinyurls being useless on my mobile. So, I thought; how hard can it be? and made this one: mtny.mobi

mtny.mobi works as all other tiny url creators, but this has a mobile touch to it.

You can specify if the target url supports mobile when you submit it, and if you are accessing a shortened url by your mobile, you get the option of viewing the page using mowser or go directly to the target link.

Hope this will be useful for someone :)

Opera does not think much of mobile web....

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:47:52 +0000

From Wap Reviews blog on Mobile 2.0 Event San Francisco:

“Opera’s Taksuki Tomita went further saying that in his experience many users prefer using full desktop web sites on their phones and get quite angry when sites force them to use mobile version.”

In my opinion the main reason why people say this is that the mobile site is poorly developed!

The mobile business still for "cowboys" ?

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:47:16 +0000

“…unclear price information where prices are incomplete, did not include taxes or customers are unaware that they are signing up to a subscription. Large numbers of websites do not provide some of the required contact information about the trader. Other problems relate to misleading information where key information is hidden in very small print or hard to find on a website or the word "free” is used to mislead consumers into a long-term contracts.“

From a European raid on mobile services

Lots of more interesting information in this pdf

Over 60% of websites checked presented the information in a misleading way (344 out of 558). Information on the contract is available on the site but hidden in small print or hard to find. Goods and services advertised as "free”, but the customer is misled and later finds that there are charges or that they are tied into a contract.

stil a cowboy-business?

Owning the customer vs. knowing the customer

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:46:35 +0000

Open Gardens elaborating on the difference of knowing the customer vs. owning the customer.

Owning the customer vs. knowing the customer

A very nice perspective on the operators often called dumb pipes. The pipes are actually quite intelligent and full of very useful metadata. If the operators are “open”, this is great way for operators to provide value to their customers through 3rd parties.

Mobile device detection on www. urls

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:46:12 +0000

Bango claims that “5% of visitors to PC websites now come from mobile devices”: PC world not keeping up with the mobile web « Bango blog

Another interesting thing with the sites they have tested is that few support .mobi url regime. try http://apple.mobi/ for example…

Security for Access to Device APIs from the Web

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:45:00 +0000

Who haven’t dreamed about accessing the gps or the address list from a mobile internet session? W3C is looking into the issue. Will be interesting to follow the work.

iFone S688

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:44:49 +0000

A funny copy of the iPhone. Would love to get my hands on this. iFone S688 Buy it here…

The future of mobile

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:43:48 +0000

On the Google blog there is a quite interesting post about the mobile future.When reading it two things comes to my mind: 1) The mobile is what “web 2.0” needs and cant get from a PC. 2) My post at mobiforge is not a joke.

I feel that stuff is starting to add up. The idea of web 2.0 is appealing but the key to a successful web 2.0 strategy is to include the mobile dimension. The mobile has whatever the PC is missing and vice versa.

Mobile Web Europe 2008

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:42:53 +0000

The event is closing up. I really look forward to this event! I am actually attending a panel debate as well.

The topic will be “Should the Mobile Web be viewed as a Channel in its Own Right in Order to Build Effectively Optimised Services for the Consumer?”

Mobile Web Best Practices as a W3C Recommendation

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:42:13 +0000

Mobile Web Best Practice was published as a W3C reccommantation today.

Along with it XHTML Basic 1.1 Recommendation but maybe more interesting the Mobile Web Application Best Practices covering web applications and widgets.

Read: Mobile widgets - who wants them?

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:41:11 +0000

Mobile widgets - who wants them? A blog post by Dean Bubley who is asking a very interesting question. Have been thinking the same some times.

When I am asking my self “whats the point of widgets” I get two ansvers:

Its a distribution thing. The widget should have a flullblown online sister. the widgets job is to promote this.
widgets and widgets engines overcome many of the short comings in the native operating systems and apps.

But, as the author states: a good rss reader a easy to use list of bookmarks would solve the problem….

But then again you have the iPhone……

Just read "Mobile Internet For Dummies"

Mon, 04 May 2009 06:40:36 +0000

I have just finished reading Mobile Internet For Dummies.

A brand new book explaining all the magic behind internet on your mobile phone.

It is a good book with thorough explainations at a high level to fit the target group. But interesting to read for people deep in the mobile business as well (you’ll read it quickly). You’ll get excactly what you would expect from a “dummy book”.

The only thing that is annoying me a bit is that the book focuses too much on the american market and it is written for american readers.

The book contains some mistakes as well, but I guess that is a result of making the content fit to the target group.

Among the authors of the book are Daniel Appelquist and James Pearce