It’s about time we get to the bottom of this apparently gouging practice of exorbitant roaming charges. I hope the rest of the world follows suit.
"The objective is to promote competition and to ensure that consumers are not punished for crossing a border," said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
Great article showing a great example of using CSS to restyle a site for different browsers.
At the end, he has a call to action. This idea gets my vote and everyone who is a CSS-jockey should come up with, not only CSS for mobiles, but a CSS version of their own site as well.*
Link: Russell Beattie Notebook – Handheld Stylesheets.
In fact, this might be a fun project. First I’m going to send off a note to Dave to see if he’s interested in maybe doing a “mobile month” for the zen garden or something, where all the designs submitted take the basic html template and turn them into pages meant to work on mobile phones (with Opera mini being the primary focus). That would rule. If not, I just registered HandheldCSS.com and may do this myself… I’d love to see some good designers really push the limits in mobile design and show us what’s possible.
*Man, I’ve been waiting for mobile CSS templates from TypePad for some time (I had the brief opportunity to influence them, though). I just don’t know CSS enough (or have a decent free editor) to make my own (gotta try the Firefox plug-in).
Less is more. Simplicity vs Complexity. A few things well, rather than everything mediocre.
We keep coming back to the fact that folks use their phones for only a few things (primarily: voice, sms, camera, alarm). Yet, the smartphone keeps getting more: more apps, more screen size, more icons, more buttons.
Jason has some nice comments as to why he ‘reverted’ to a Moto PEBL.
Link [via Russ]: Less Phone: The Moto PEBL – Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals).
I convinced myself I needed a smartphone when I really didn’t. What I really needed was Less Phone. A phone that made calls, picked up a strong signal, supported simple text messaging, and offered a dead simple calendar.
But, Russ really puts his finger on it by summarizing:
And that’s the thing we should be looking for in mobility – exactly
what Jason described: We need to create apps and services that we’ll
want to use once the shine wears off. We need to find those compelling
apps that make you pull it out of your pocket and use it every day [emphasis mine, CS].
We’re not there yet, but that’s good – that means there’s lots of
opportunity left. 🙂
Ah, that never-ending question: will the mobile replace the PC? I think Russell here has a nice way of thinking about this: when would you use the phone even if the PC were there.
Yes. That’s the way to think about it. Not either-or but which is best for what.
Link: Mobile Vs Computer at MobHappy.
I was thinking that an interesting test of how advanced mobile phone evolution has got would be to ask if there was anything you used your mobile for, when your computer was readily available.
Of course, I know that mobiles are generally used when you’re out and about and don’t have a computer with you. But if you were to put them head-to-head, what would happen?
More on the Mobikyo story.
Link: It’s Hard Out Here Being a Blog Pimp | 3/26/2006 | mobile jones.
My blogging has definitely been side tracked this week by the on going conversations around my Mobikyo post. Much of this discussion has taken place either via email or IRC with most agreeing that the implementation and communication aspects of the project were fumbled or warranted some criticism. All of the discussion whether agreement or disagreement has been informative and productive.
Chris is an extremely creative and clever guy at Nokia. Here he tells a great story about his Nabaztag bunny. It’s a story about how to design ambient devices in this ubiquitous computing era, how to make your product more interesting by raising the option value (hackability), and the fun stuff he’s already done with his bunny.
And here’s a funny part:
Link: anti-mega: smart goods – the story so far.
The choice of rabbit is right, the industrial design is right, and some of the actions of the rabbit (such as the breathing LED at the rabbit’s base) is right. It’s a boundary object, a conversation piece, and a statement of intent. When sitting dead at work, Nabaztag still attracted attention. I wish I could have taken pictures of people’s faces when they asked what it was – “It’s a wifi rabbit”… “Errrr, oh, umm”.
Now, go and read it!
Ajit is contributing to Read/Write Web, introducing a new audience to the joys of the mobile world. In this article (link below) he does a quick overview of what a mobile browser needs to contend with.
He asks:
After all, the browser works well on the PC as a universal client – why not on the mobile device? A corollary to this question is: are there fundamental differences with browsing on a mobile device vs. browsing on the web?
And then at the end he summarizes:
So, to answer our question – no, we cannot develop all mobile applications using the
browser only. However, as we shall show in subsequent posts, these limitations are being
overcome through Ajax and mobile web 2.0.
I think Ajit kinda leaves out at least one key point – because the browser on the phone will never (should never) equate to the browser on the PC and because the phone is not a PC, mobile apps will use the mobile browser differently than how the PC uses the browser.
So, it’s not fair to try and make comparisons. Let’s focus on how to use the browser on the PC to its highest efficiency, and, likewise, focus on using the mobile browser to its highest efficiency.
I know Ajit thinks this way. And I know he’ll cover it in his subsequent submissions. I just think we need to be up-front with PC-heads in getting them into the mobile-mindset, rather than letting them try and port their PC-centric thinking to a mobile phone. Right?
Link to Ajit’s article: Read/WriteWeb: Mobile web applications – do they need the browser?.
*We’re focusing on just the browser here as a universal client, not other types of apps. As for browsing apps, I don’t think Ajax is the answer. At least not in the near term. Better mobile app design is the way to go.
James Reilly pointed out a great essay by danah boyd on MySpace, comparing it to and making prediction based on the tragic trajectory of Friendster.
There are many aspects to this great analysis:
– social currency
– community critical mass
– community leadership
– social discovery and delight
– cultural capital vs hegemonic capital
– moral panic
– collapsed context due to growth and size
– super publics
A great read. This essay is relevant to anyone building, fostering, or belonging to digital communities in the 21st century. It is the narrative upon which we build our product and services, the manifestation of the undercurrent of people’s lives, and how a hyper-linked society extends its communication structures to higher levels of complexity.
Link: Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?.
A lot of folks have asked me "What went wrong with Friendster? Why is MySpace any different?" I guess i never directly answered that question, even though i’ve addressed the causes in other talks. Still, i guess it would be helpful to piece some of it together and directly attend to this question.
….
I began this as a blog post and it grew and grew and i want to put it
out there even though i know that i’m missing factors. Still, i think
that this should answer many of the questions that people have. MySpace
is not the same as Friendster – it will not fade in the same way.
Friendster was a fad; MySpace has become far more than that. If it
doesn’t evolve, it will fade, but MySpace is far better positioned to
evolve than Friendster was. That said, i think we’re seeing a huge
shift in social life – negotiating super publics. I kinda suspect that
MySpace teens are going to lead the way in figuring this out, just as
teens in the 60s and 70s paved the way to figuring out globalized life
with TV. I just hope law doesn’t try to stop culture.
In case there is anyone who reads this site who doesn’t read this guy.*
Link: Russell Beattie Notebook – Three years of rants about the Mobile Web.
Wow… you know, searching for that stuff I wrote about Lonely Planet years ago turned up so many other posts, that I decided to do a search on XHTML and Mobile Web and see what I pulled up, which turns out to be a lot. I’ve been thinking about this topic since the end of 2002, easily three and half years ago. It’s interesting to see my learning curve as I go along… So for your reading pleasure, here’s a link dump of the topic.
*If there is, I’d sure like to know who you are! 🙂
Emily posts on her amazing textually.org about another mobile version of Wikipedia.
I use Maxpedia.org and am quite happy with it, so I don’t know of the merits of this new one or any of the other ones Emily listed in the post.
Follow the link below to see a list of other mobile versions of Wikipedia.
Link: textually.org: Wikipedia Mobile.
Another way to access Wikipedia from your mobile phone. Wap over to Mobile Guru Wikipedia. [via Mocoblog]
Users of Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Java-enabled mobile phones running web browsers can now access a lightweight version of the Wikipedia on-line encyclopaedia. New Zealand-based company Instinct has created a mobile version of Wikipedia for mobile devices, currently available as a beta website.