Is Mobile Web Dead?
By: Barry Welford
ReadWriteWeb seems to have created quite a furor in publicizing the views of start-up entrepreneur Russell Beattie.
The former Yahoo! Mobile evangelist announced today that he’s calling it quits for his company Mowser because the market for mobile browsing is taking a fast turn for the worse.
“I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I’m talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn’t happened, and now I’m sure it isn’t going to.
In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP mark-up, no JavaScript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time.”
Many others disagree. Greg Sterling proclaims The ‘Mobile Web’ Is Dead, Long Live the Mobile Internet.
The iPhone and its clones, mobile usability improvements from search engines/portals and pure-play mobile companies, together with flat-rate pricing will drive mobile Internet adoption. Time is the “X-variable.” But it will happen. I guarantee it.
Indeed it’s more fundamental than that. As AmediaCirc.US points out, It’s Not The Mobile Web, It’s The Web. Just see the comment from Dean Collins to understand the possibilities. What we really are discussing is the Ubiquitous Web that the World Wide Web Consortium has promoted so strongly. If you really had any doubts, then check out Google’s philosophy.
Google’s goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek information, whether they’re at a desk in Boston, driving through Bonn, or strolling in Bangkok.
Their fifth ‘truth’ reads as follows:
You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
The world is increasingly mobile and unwilling to be constrained to a fixed location. Whether it’s through their PDAs, their wireless phones or even their automobiles, people want information to come to them. Google’s innovations in this area include Google Number Search, which reduces the number of keypad strokes required to find data from a web-enabled cellular phone and an on-the-fly translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format that can be read by phone browsers. This system opens up billions of pages for viewing from devices that would otherwise not be able to display them, including Palm PDAs and Japanese i-mode, J-Sky, and EZWeb devices. Wherever search is likely to help users obtain the information they seek, Google is pioneering new technologies and offering new solutions.
With supporters like that how can the mobile Web fail?