Luca Passani

Slide 1: The Most Exciting Mobile Community on the Planet Cracking the Code: Developing for Mobile Devices Luca Passani, AdMob, WURFL Development Non-Proprietary and Non-Confidential ;)

Slide 2: 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

Slide 3: 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!

Slide 4: 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!

Slide 5: 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

Slide 6: 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

Slide 7: 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…

Slide 8: WURFL Public Repository In a few weeks… Today <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"/> : • pppp

Slide 9: 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)

Slide 10: 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> XHTML-MP <p align="left" mode="nowrap"> <p> <a href="http://url1" <option onpick="http://url1" title="Games">Games</option> <select> title="Games">Games</a><br/> (advanced) <option onpick="http://url2" title="Horos">Horoscopes</option> <a href="http://url2" title="Horos">Horoscopes</a><br/> <a href="http://url1" onpick="http://url1" title="Kids">Kids</option> <option title="Kids">Kids</a><br/> <a href="http://url2" onpick="http://url2" title="Movies">Movies</option> <option title="Movies">Movies</a><br/> & <a href="http://url1" onpick="http://url1" title="Music">Music</option> <option title="Music">Music</a><br/> <a href="http://url2" onpick="http://url2" title="Radio">Radio</option> <option title="Radio">Radio</a><br/> <a href="http://url2" onpick="http://url2" title="TV">TV</option> <option title="TV">TV</a><br/> Compact-HTML </p> </select> (iMode) </p> WML Nokia WML Openwave <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"><b>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

Slide 11: …to WALL Next Generation! <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 • Forward-looking WURFL capability • Basic “Validated” • Supports graphics multiserving Components • Relies on Object Model • New categorization of • CSS Focus mark-up family • Initially Java • XHTML- Advanced • Integrates with JSTL for Powerful • XHTML-Simple Conditional Programming • WML

Slide 12: Popular first Page Rebuilt in WNG Advanced XHTML xhtml_support_level = 3 or 4 iPhone (Safari), HTC Mogul (Windows Mobile Explorer), BlackBerry Pearl, SonyEricsson W610i, Nokia E61 (built in WAP Browser) Simple XHTML xhtml_support_level = 1 or 2 Motorola V3xx (Opera 8), Nokia 7373 (Nokia Browser), Sanyo RL 4930 (Netfront 3.1) WML xhtml_support_level = -1 or 0 Nokia 7210

Slide 13: 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

Slide 14: Luca Passani, WURFL Development luca@admob.com | passani@eunet.no www.admob.com | http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/