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/