Posted on October 23, 2007 at 11:45 pm | 
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I responded to a thread on the Mobile Monday list tonight in defense of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) and those who want to make the Web more accessible to more people around the world.
Please refer to a recent post on this subject if you’re looking for hyperlinks to other resources.
I must declare an interest before commentating though. I’m a member of the W3C MWI Steering Council. Segala is not only one of the seven original Founding Sponsors, it’s also co-author of the conformance specification called mobleOK.
I must also declare that I’m particularly interested in mobileOK for two reasons. First, because it will help make the Web more accessible to more people, including those in developing countries where mobile is their primary access point to the Web. Secondly because making conformance claims about mobileOK will come in the form of a Content Label. As most of my readers will know, Content Labels underpin Segala’s business model of enabling trust on the Web based on compliance with standards and codes of conduct.
Now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way, whilst taking the opportunity to talk about Segala’s business proposition…
The Mobile Web vs WAP debate seems to crop up regularly as some people continue to protect their revenue stream from WAP, by claiming that the open Web on mobile devices is spawned by the devil.
The W3C MWI Best Practice Guidelines are of benefit to what some may call, traditional Web developers who know little if anything, about WAP or anything mobile. They simply want to build Web sites as they do today, but with the added benefit of them also working better on mobile devices.
Ok, so building mobile friendly Web sites isn’t easy and it’s not exactly perfect by a long shot. However, creating new standards is about future proofing. It’s not about creating a quick fix. They will continue to improve as will mobile technology, tariffs, bandwidth etc and has human behavior changes.
I met a guy tonight in Adam Street who very quickly (and wrongfully) *assumed* that I wanted to see the end of WAP as soon as I mentioned W3C MWI. I found him very defensive as if he were trying to protect his revenue stream, which comes from WAP and only WAP. I found his attitude to be very dismissive and typical of a WAP-centric extremist with no interest in anything outside of WAP. He is right to protect his revenue stream. I wouldn’t expect him to care about the future of the Web - that’s for us idealists to think about. Some of us get the commercials and some don’t. I’d like to think I’m in the former camp.
I reminded him that I never mentioned WAP, to which he replied, ‘yeah well the W3C is confusing developers’. First may I point out that there is room for both. Secondly, the W3C MWI in my opinion, is targeted at Web developers, not mobile developers. Accept the fact that mobile and Web developers are different. Some get both but most don’t.
The ‘one Web’ for me, is about bringing access to the current Web (hyperlinked documents as invented by Tim Berners-Lee) to mobile devices. It’s not about changing or impacting WAP sites which are developed specifically for mobile phones by mobile developers. There will always be a need to develop specifically for mobile devices. Likewise, there is a use case to develop one site that renders according to the device capability, whether that’s a desktop computer or a mobile device.
The W3C is being referred to as if it was wasting time/energy. May I point out that the W3C is made up of companies, government agencies, associations, universities, freelancers etc. from around the world. It’s not made up of a bunch of white coats at MIT. The W3C MWI includes every stake holder which has an interest in both traditional Web and mobile specifics.
The W3C is in my opinion the best and only consortium that should be responsible for creating and harmonizing *Web* standards - based on the assumption that it works with everyone who is qualified to contribute.
1 Comment
So far,
shane
Apologies in advance Paul for posting on this blog, but it’s the most relevant one I can find.
So do you mind if I ask you a question in relation to the legality/regulation of so called ‘mobile web service subscription’???
The problem I am having is that several months ago some idiot (cough, ehm) was trying to download ring tones to my mobile from one of them ringtone text number services that you see on the back pages of nearly every magazine. It claimed to sell the mp3s either individually at a once off fee of €1 or “subscribe for a weekly fee of just €6 to receive
10 ‘FREE’ downloads”.
That ‘idiot’ chose the former option and whilst the mp3 was 90% complete my call credit conveniently ran out thus terminating the connection. One week later after I had topped up by €20, I received a text message saying ‘flix video’ and a link to ‘eb.w98.org….’ and how coincidental it was that €6 was taking from my ‘ready to go account balance’.
Obviously I had been registered as a subscriber to their deceitful enterprise so I texted ‘stop’ to the number it claimed would “terminate the subscription” in their advert.
Hoping that they were true to their word I topped up again, and guess what… an hour later the same thieving b*****d of text message was sent to my phone and every time since then that I have topped up using that SIM card.
To date I can confidently claim they are responsible for at least €70-80 of my credit going missing into their depraved pockets to which I have received NOTHING in return other than a great deal frustration.
The most logical thing to do in this scenario would be to adopt a new SIM but as it is I need it for the number associated with it!
Surely this scabby form of business is regulated to some degree but obviously not in this case!
Advice would be much appreciated if you have any knowledge on the issue???