Luca Passani

Cracking the Code: Developing for Mobile Devices The Most Exciting Mobile Community on the Planet Luca Passani, AdMob, WURFL Development Non-Proprietary and Non-Confidential ;)

One Look at the Past of the Web
First Generation Mobile Content wasn’t so cool by today standards (it was very cool in 1994)
Authors of first generation web content did not know how to monetize . In fact, they were not even thinking about it.
Thank Heaven companies that wanted to monetize the new opportunity came in and content got waaaaay cooler…
Thank heaven, by that time, HTML, HTTP and other basic Internet standards were already established and the “monetisers” could not screw it up….
These are all rough approximations….but you get the spirit

One Look at Today’s Mobile Web
Companies are trying to monetize before mobile browsing is an established consumer reality
From a usability view-point, support for Internet-related features is obviously an “afterthough” in most mobile devices on the market
Device Fragmentation : can’t find a device like the other!
Also the result of technology innovation and evolution.
Drive to differentiate
It’s a jungle: some arrogate the right to break established standands and practices, blatantly ignoring the needs of customers and other content providers:
VodafoneUK and Novarra are breaking the mobile web!

Stop VodafoneUK and Novarra!
VodafoneUK has transitioned all of its subscriber to the Novarra reformatting proxy.
Content-providers can’t figure out device capabilities
User-Agent string and UAProf url are removed from request
Voda has introduced a whitelist of non-reformatted sites.
Everyone is angry but Vodafone ignores every complaint
… Just imagine what would happen if each ISP asked each website to register themselves on their whitelist!
Vodafone is messing with the foundation of the Mobile Internet!

Standards
In the history of the Internet, never was so much said by so many meaning so little to so few
Winston Churchill (adapted) , in a slightly different context

Standards in Mobile: OMA and W3C
OMA did a decent attempt to address device fragmentation by introducing UAProf
Varying levels of support from OEMs
Not always rich enough in terms of actual capabilities
Actual exploiting of UAprof left as an exercise.
W3C Answer to Device Fragmentation is One-Web
That’s denying that the problem is there in the first place!
Neither OMA nor W3C (and in fact NO major organization ) has had the guts to tell VodafoneUK to stop messing with the HTTP protocol.
Who will safeguard the mobile environment?
Those who should are not doing that:
Too busy with petty strategic moves
Too scared to mess with the big guy

Mobile Developers and the WURFL Community
WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource File)
Device Description Repository
Public Open Open-Source
WALL (Wireless Abstraction Library)
Serving Different Mark-ups to different devices in one easy step with on $5 a month hosting.
Vibrant community of at least 3000 developers
probably many more
Continuous Scrutiny of the Gory Details of Mobile Development:
New Devices, New Technologies, Operator configuration changes.
Drive behind WURFL is not monetization
Of course, all members own or work for companies, but the spirit is to share…

WURFL Public Repository
pppp
<device fall_back="root" id="generic" user_agent=""> <group id="product_info"> <capability name=" brand_name " value=""/> <capability name=" model_name " value=""/> <capability name=" unique " value="true"/> <capability name=" is_wireless_device " value="true"/> <capability name=" device_claims_web_support " value="false"/> <capability name=" has_pointing_device " value="false"/> <capability name=" has_qwerty_keyboard " value="false"/> <capability name=" can_skip_aligned_link_row " value="false"/> : Today In a few weeks…

WURFL Specialized Communities
In addition to browsing (WMLProgramming), new sub-communities have been created:
WURFL and J2ME
WURFL and Adobe FlashLite
WURFL and Video
Members are recognized figures in their respective areas.
All forums are moderated for top signal/noise ratio…
… already active today (URLs at the end of the presentaion)

From Current WALL…. <wall: menu colorize="true" autonumber="true"> <wall: a href ="http://url1" title="Games">Games</wall: a > <wall: a href ="http://url2" title="Horos">Horoscopes</wall: a > <wall: a href ="http://url1" title="Kids">Kids</wall: a > <select> <option onpick="http://url1" title="Games">Games</option> <option onpick="http://url2" title="Horos">Horoscopes</option> <option onpick="http://url1" title="Kids">Kids</option> <option onpick="http://url2" title="Movies">Movies</option> <option onpick="http://url1" title="Music">Music</option> <option onpick="http://url2" title="Radio">Radio</option> <option onpick="http://url2" title="TV">TV</option> </select> WML Openwave <a href="http://url1" title="Games">Games</a> <a href="http://url2" title="Horos">Horoscopes</a> <a href="http://url1" title="Kids">Kids</a> <a href="http://url2" title="Movies">Movies</a> <a href="http://url1" title="Music">Music</a> <a href="http://url2" title="Radio">Radio</a> <a href="http://url2" title="TV">TV</a> WML Nokia <ol> <li><a acceskey="1" href="http://url1" title="Games">Games</a… <li><a acceskey="2" href="http://url2" title="Horos">Horoscop… <li><a acceskey="3" href="http://url1" title="Kids">Kids</a></… <li><a acceskey="4" href="http://url2" title="Movies">Movie… <li><a acceskey="5" href="http://url1" title="Music">Music</a>… <li><a acceskey="6" href="http://url2" title="Radio">Radio</a>… <li><a acceskey="7" href="http://url2" title="TV">TV</a></li> </ol> XHTML MP Standard XHTML-MP (advanced) & Compact-HTML (iMode)

…to WALL Next Generation!
Forward-looking
Basic “Validated” Components
New categorization of mark-up family
XHTML- Advanced
XHTML-Simple
WML
<wng: navigation_bar separator=" | " background_color="#FEEB99"> <wng:css> <wng:css_property name="font-size" value="9px" applies_to="advanced" /> <wng:css_property name="font-weight" value="bold" /> <wng:css_property name="margin-bottom" value="0.5em" /> </wng:css> <wng:link href="search.html" text="Search" css_ref=".tblsyellow"/> <wng:link href="myEbay.html" text="My eBay" css_ref=".tblsyellow"/> <wng:link href="category.html" text="Category" css_ref=".tblsyellow"/> </wng: navigation_bar >
xhtml_support_level WURFL capability
Supports graphics multiserving
Relies on Object Model
CSS Focus
Initially Java
Integrates with JSTL for Powerful Conditional Programming

Popular first Page Rebuilt in WNG Advanced XHTML Simple XHTML WML xhtml_support_level = 3 or 4 xhtml_support_level = 1 or 2 xhtml_support_level = -1 or 0 iPhone (Safari), HTC Mogul (Windows Mobile Explorer), BlackBerry Pearl, SonyEricsson W610i, Nokia E61 (built in WAP Browser) Motorola V3xx (Opera 8), Nokia 7373 (Nokia Browser), Sanyo RL 4930 (Netfront 3.1) Nokia 7210

References
WURFL and WALL
http:// wurfl.sourceforge.net
WMLProgramming (WURFL Mailing List)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/wmlprogramming/
Vodafone Rant (you can sign too!)
http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/vodafonerant/
Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web
Better than W3C BPs!
http:// www.passani.it /gap/
WURFL J2ME mailing list
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/wurflj2me/
WURFL Video
http:// tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/wurflvideo /
WURFL FlashLite
http:// tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/wurflflashlite /
AdMob, simple and effective way to monetize your mobile site:
http:// www.admob.com

Luca Passani, WURFL Development luca@admob.com | passani@eunet.no www.admob.com | http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/

Luca Passani

by Carsonified Team on Nov 21, 2007

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Luca Passani — Presentation Transcript