What's Your Opinion On Mobilizing Your Site? cross device theme

[vhortex 1]

I handle that situation separately. Since both site are equal except the layout.. i just create the same webpage using xml markup suited for the cellphone with database backend. If any services needs a bigger screen such as long capcha codes, i just remove them from the mobile version. One of the sites that I have design judges what page the user will be directed, it is not 100% full proof though but once a visitor have a agent id of a mobile device, he will be redirected to wap.website.com.He can browse stuffs and search on pure text layout and if he want an image, the visitor needs to send an SMS message to the server adding his mobile number to the server so next time he vill visit, images will appear (minimal)It is not profitable (in terms of maintaining the site) to have lots of mobile users but a registration fee may cover the expenses a little bit.

[Techn9kotine 0]

A registration fee? You want people to pay to see a featureless, dull looking version of the site? I don't see much coming from that. I recommend if it's that important to have a mobile site, redirect mobile users to m.yourdomain.com, as stated above, then take time to learn and code it your self. Even if it takes awhile, the only expense is time. There is an unimaginable amount of information on the web. Put it to good use. There are also many free mobile phone emulators for this testing purpose.The knowledge you would gain from this would help you in future site building as well. If you want it done right... Do it yourself. I'm sure there are man knowledgable people on this forum that could help with questions you have as well.

[imjjss 0]

As my research goes on, more information suggest me- think twice, think carefully, plan ahead.

 

The tide is shifting, mobiles has a seat at the table. Will our business gain substantial benefit from the efforts we put on mobilizing?

 

While I am hearing the tide, I appreciate the practical suggestions you people provided in this thread-- depends on the nature of the site, count how many mobile users are visiting.

 

Interestingly, while most of us are thinking mobile web as a way to make our site accessable for mobile users, others have moved on to generate income from mobile advertizing. Here's a picture shows on going mobile advertising market:

According to the research, "Mobile advertising, including mobile message, display and search advertising,

is set for continued strong growth as mobile campaigns generate significantly higher click-

through rates than traditional media campaigns."

 

This picture looks yummy, doesn't it?

[mahesh2k 0]

<br />I would never employ you.<br />

<br /><br /><br />
As if i'm going to work for cry babies ?

People who have low budget should not expect designer to cover mobile plus dekstop browser compatiblity. If they still want to persist with crying then they should design their own site. It's way better than crying about designers to do job carefully or so-called properly at low cost.

[vhortex 1]

A registration fee? You want people to pay to see a featureless, dull looking version of the site? I don't see much coming from that. I recommend if it's that important to have a mobile site, redirect mobile users to m.yourdomain.com, as stated above, then take time to learn and code it your self. Even if it takes awhile, the only expense is time. There is an unimaginable amount of information on the web. Put it to good use. There are also many free mobile phone emulators for this testing purpose.The knowledge you would gain from this would help you in future site building as well. If you want it done right... Do it yourself. I'm sure there are man knowledgable people on this forum that could help with questions you have as well.

Maybe you miss the registration purpose, the registration will give them more feature. I never mentioned that you won't need to create it by hand nor do i suggest that approach. Perhaps you missed the concept about mobile websites, this cover from old WAP text only cellphones up to IPAD mobile devices. There is no standard on what the markup will be and you have no first hand idea on the screen resolution. If you are going to emulators, you are not eliminating the problem but only fine tuning your mobile site to 1 particular device.

A mobile template won't also help much due to the mere fact that it will and will always force scrollbars on your mobile device or the other way around where you have a very thin and tiny website on a larger resolution screen.

Most people wanting info from mobile devices such as PDA and cellphones only want a text base info unless they want to pull a map for easy navigation. The other medium they are expecting from mobile service aside from text base websites and info are PDF files. Practically speaking, for the sites that I have developed with mobile support, the users are indeed paying to have small features activated on their mobile device and if they need the full version and full graphics (though i am not a fan of a heavy graphic websites) they will just grab a laptop and visit the site on that device.

[vhortex 1]

Also with a true mobile website, your visitors are expecting that if they send a message to a certain number an instant response of expected data will return. For example, you want a computer spec and you don't know what the parts are and you can't grab a computer.. you will be expecting to send an SMS command / messages to 1234 like this "SPEC COMPMODEL" and expect that the server will transmit data on your mobile device with the computer spec.One of the sites I have created even allows you to change your geological zone by sending an SMS command with your current geolocation in ISO 2 digit format for countries/states and the daily feed for weather, currency rate and time adjustment will instantly update after a server confirmation replied to your mobile device. (for mobile devices that can send SMS messages)**************If you are not considering this options and only rely on themes for your mobile site then that is not a real mobile website.

[imjjss 0]

One of the sites I have created even allows you to change your geological zone by sending an SMS command with your current geolocation in ISO 2 digit format for countries/states and the daily feed for weather, currency rate and time adjustment will instantly update after a server confirmation replied to your mobile device. (for mobile devices that can send SMS messages)

Is this instant response service can be accessed by public(free or paid), or each site has to develop their own stuffs?
My guess is-- for the general informations, the mobile site can install some kind of script to connect with some service to get the information for the user. for sepecial informations, the mobile site build their own channel? I'm totally blind on this, would you explain more?

[vhortex 1]

Is this instant response service can be accessed by public(free or paid), or each site has to develop their own stuffs?My guess is-- for the general informations, the mobile site can install some kind of script to connect with some service to get the information for the user. for sepecial informations, the mobile site build their own channel? I'm totally blind on this, would you explain more?

For mobile phone access or other similar devices that have a very limited memory and screen size
You can either let the user download a client that will change the settings and the info can be feed free.
The other way around this is a phone receiver attached to a limited access proxy server that will pass info to the real server and that is where the adjustments and processing will happen. The proxy server is optional.

You either need to set up this per SERVER. There are third party services that are either free and paid but be sure that your clients are on the same country as the service you are getting.

Fee can be charged when they send SMS, extra fee can be handled base on how much bandwidth or resource you are using to feed to them the info they are seeking. Delivery to phone maybe charge for minimum amount to cover the expense on sending the info. An example, we charge from 0 and up to 0.50 USD per info with a common charge of 0 - 0.15 USD.


*************
For iPad or other similar devices
You can let them install a browser if the device can support it and this will activate html markups on their side. Android OS, Symbian and Apple devices can be detected and you can already get the screen resolution desired though some android devices may not send the actual screen resolution.

Fee is optional but I recommend that they be free

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Laptops and notebooks and other similar devices

As you know, laptops are real computers while notebooks are a smaller version. Both can handle and accept HTML.

Fee must be free.

[imjjss 0]

let the user download a client that will change the settings and the info can be feed free. ..The other way around this is a phone receiver attached to a limited access proxy server ...
There are third party services...

vhortex, could you give some example sites that providing the above service?

Can we consider Twitter as one of those services?

[vhortex 1]

vhortex, could you give some example sites that providing the above service?
Can we consider Twitter as one of those services?

It is hard to give an example due to geolocations constraint, if your location is not supported, the client download won't show up.

To give a head up idea, most clients are written on Symbian Java (this is the OS that was being used by NOKIA and other cellphone companies) and now an increase of clients are being written for android (the operating system created by Google Inc).

Amazon at one time have given me a client download link which I use to change the books that was being parsed as available to me. I don't know if you will have such an option since this feature is Geo Locked. I pay 0.03 USD per download of available books.

*************

You can use twitter but it won't be secure since twitter is globally free to view and read, unless twitter will have an option to make the feeds private.
The idea of using twitter a a medium to change the config / settings your subscribers expect is to make sure a 1 twitter account = 1 logged in visitor account exist on your website. You will need to setup a cron or scheduled job that will parse the twits on your twitter channel and adjust the correct local account on your site.

[imjjss 0]

For the twitter part- If I enable OpenID log in, then, that will be the same as one twitter per loggin in user. That'll solve the account problem. But, yes, the information are publicly accessable on twitter. That's a problem.

[Atomic0 0]

Personally, I think it is important for a site to have a dedicated mobile device theme, primarily due to the differences in screen size and user interaction.In the screen size reason, the screen resolution of most mobile devices are a fraction of what is available to computers and laptops. With smaller screens on mobile devices, the amount of content that can be displayed on the screen at a time is limited, so it is important for mobile sites to be designed to deliver the content in compact form and have unnecessary elements and information removed from view. Plus, most of the times when users use mobile devices for viewing websites, they would be looking for specific information rather than enjoying the graphical look of the site.On user interaction, most mobile devices have touch screens and no longer utilise a cursor-based approach to navigation. Therefore, it is most important that mobile sites do not include features that are activated from cursor hovering (which is not available on touch screen platforms).Economic-wise, one should decide whether it is worth investing in mobile web design based on the number of users who visit their site on a mobile device and whether the content presented on the site is appropriate at a mobile device level. For example, it may not be worth investing in mobile web design if your site if not frequented by mobile device users or the content is only appropriate for users of desktop or portable computers.