Don’t know if you have noticed but the web is becoming obsessed with video. First off we had YouTube and the like with the publication of amateur video and the associated commenting.

Now the web has moved on from all that to conversational video. So has video killed the forum, the IRC, the blog. The interesting point for users in Australia is the low bandwidth of the broadband services can make the use of these services is all but impossible in some places. Still there are some interesting services now available:

Seesmic

We have Seesmic, this is still in alpha. I haven’t reviewed or really criticised Seesmic about its Adobe Flex based interface. It has a lot of problems, but they are slowly getting to them all one at a time it seems. What is Seesmic? Well it’s really like a forum of video conversations. Others have likened it to twitter with video; but it is more like a forum, you post a video like a forum post and people reply to that post, creating a separated stringed conversation on the topic at hand.

There is no text based chat component. Presently it is very hard to find friends, and to follow a conversation or topic. But overall Seesmic like twitter can be addictive. Seesmic would I feel work well in the mobile web space.

Ustream

Then there is Ustream.tv. In the main, you can stream video from your webcam and have multiple audio inputs and a stream of IRC style responses. Ustream lacks the video conversations facility and is clearly targeting the single video broadcast to the wide audience model. This is good, but in my thinking this is a little old school method, and is just really an extension of services from a web cam that have been available for years.

Qik.com

And we have the mobile kid on the block, Qik.com. Qik allows you to stream videos from your phone for your friends to comment or reply with their own videos. You can also engage friends in Twitter or Facebook with the live video conversation (videosation). The really cool feature is that you can mash it with twitter and chat like in Ustream with the broadcaster as they stream their mobile videosation to the world. Again it’s a one to many service. The part that makes it really interesting is that the core is built around the mobile web.

Yahoo Live

Finally to top this off is Yahoo Live that started with a few rocky moments. Personally I had few problems getting Yahoo Live to work, and still have major issues with the flex application hanging my browser when I finish using it (that is close the tab).

Yahoo live allows you to create a video stream channel in which others can join you with their own streaming video conversations or lifecasts. This is supplemented with the use of a IRC facility.

The problems with Yahoo Live is that its hard to find and follow the conversation when over five people are all streaming at once. This brings back a major drawback of the interface. Clearly this was a limitation to reduce the throughput on bandwidth, but overall this could make the tool unworkable when a large group of people are using it.

There is no facility to zoom in a make another video the focus while maintaining the same channel. Oh and aside there is no social networking features and it’s not mobile enabled. Nice first cut Yahoo, but for your resources a little lame. I would check it out quick, as I can see it being first on the Microsoft shopping block.

So what is the Solution

Were is all this going? Good question, it’s centering around the conversation or constant life streaming. Which is good as that is what people are all about, interaction with others. It would be ideal to see a service that was all these things, especially focusing on the mobile web and not the fixed desktop:

• Static video conversation threads.
• Mobile web based streams.
• Multiple live conversational video streams (many to many).
• Supplemented with IRC.
• Live one to many and many to many (beyond 5) streaming

What do you think, have these services nailed it or are they all just off the mark a little?

Rating:

4

The book has been out a while. I did first read Mobile Web Design by Cameron Moll a while back via an pdf e-book version on a plane flight. The book is short to the point and very much suited to the electronic media format, with all the links activated when they are referenced, which you would expect.

First off this is not a book that you teach yourself how to code for the mobile web directly step by step. However it is a beginners guide to the mobile web as it stands today (circa 2007). This book is rather a reference guide on where to find the relevant information on mobile web development and the issues that you will face.

Cameron presents in a somewhat chatty and personalised style a web standards based view on mobile design and the problems that we face. He covers topics from an overview of CSS/XHTML implementation in the mobile arena, testing and validation to the alternative platforms such as Flash Lite, use of Ajax and Java ME.

Cameron’s refined style of conversation is engaging to the point that on many an occasion I was hoping he was going to explain a topic in detail and not shunt us off to a web reference. That said the book is short at just over 100 pages and does cover a board topic range, and it’s a starting point for a board topic so this can be forgiven.

The only thing that does detract from the print version verses the e-book is that the pdf is in full colour, where as the print version is in black and white. Clearly the book was written and designed with screen reading in mind (which is good). However some of the reference tables in the print version where a little hard to read for me personally, no problem in the pdf version as you can zoom in on the tables.

Overall good read, if you are looking at design for the mobile web this is a good place to start.

Well I’m happy to report that about three months later, Three have finally fixed the problem so now we should be getting unrestricted access on both the 3netaccess and 3services networks.

The one point of interest was the level of support service that Three offered. They phoned with an update to the support issue at least twice a week, keeping me updated with the progress each time.

Now the fact that they had nothing new to add, did make this process a bit tedious. However that aside, ten out of ten for keeping me informed and feeling like I was important.

Telstra, Optus, you could learn a lot about customer service from Three.

Technorati Tags: three, merlinxu870, wifi, Planet3, wireless+access, wireless, customer+service, customer+support

There was the hype over the iphone. We have all hear or read about the iphone. I had the chance to play for a while with one at OZIA, thank you Stephen Collins. Okay it has a nice interface, it is very intuitive. It works well as the wifi based web browser platform or if you have a few video or music files that you want to play. As a phone, well it’s an out dated mobile using GSM EDGE technology, all very well and good in the US (the target market) not much good in the Australia.

So we are left with a “pretty” crippled wifi browser with limited media playback due to capacity restriction, pretending to be a phone. With a camera at only 2 megapixel, my phone 2 years ago had that, why should I go backwards, and no video! this is just lame. Now don’t come back with the augment that wifi in everywhere. Yes restricted locked down wifi is everywhere, free wifi is not. I am lucky in that the CBD of Perth, western Australia has free wifi. However I generally am not it the city that much. So that leaves you in the situation of providing your own wifi. So with a iphone I need a wifi modem to use it, or just have a “pretty” out dated GSM phone.

Enter the ipod itouch. There was an Apple geek feeding frenzy as people at Web Directions South 2007 scrambled to get their hands on an itouch from Friday 28th September. Personally I resisted. The degree of Apple fan love in as everywhere, no-one was immune, it was plain sad. So what’s the deal with the itouch; same interface as the iphone. No phone functionality, you get wifi, generally crippled PDA functions. As expected there is flash-memory driven data and media storage. Basically it’s a cut down iphone without the old GSM technology. The itouch having wifi browsing functionality is good, and somewhat limited as you have to have wifi everywhere (see above).

But my beef is the capacity for your media library. Now I don’t like to build playlists and upload them for a selection of my library. I want all, yes all of my music library at my fingertips, yes I am greedy, I want to be able to select from anything and build my playlists on the go. Even the 16 Gig itouch just isn’t enough, 60 to 80 Gig and I would be happy. So what does the itouch really give me, limited media playback, nice GUI, a crippled series of applications (can’t have it competing with the iphone can we) and limited wifi browsing . So why should I upgrade (downgrade in a way) my existing ipod. Sorry Apple I’m not impressed, I’ll wait till version 2 thanks.

What do you think of the itouch now its been out a while and all the hype has died down, is it really worth the price?

Technorati Tags: ipod, itocuh, iphone, apple, wds07, ozia07, mobile+web

We all know that the boardband services in Australia are like that of a backwater country, speeds of 256kbs, 512kbs are in some countries laughable, here that’s the average. Things like restricted bandwidth, shaped monthly allowances, crippled topend cable speeds, and limited upload speeds are all the norm in the “Lucky Country“.

Still I needed mobile wireless access for my laptop outside of the free wifi in the Perth CBD and the office. In reality there are only three main players in the this area to choose from. One has average coverage over the populated areas, but steep pricing, that’s Telstra Big Pond. Then there is Optus with cheaper, not by much, pricing and limited coverage. The final player is Hutchison Telecom or better know as Three, they offer good coverage in the capital cities, and a reasonable price plans per month. So for a month I have had mobile wifi access via a HSDPA Modem, in general it gets used when I’m out of the office on business, usually not a lot of overuse but having access to every element of the web can at times to critical. I have however noticed that I can’t access some sites.

It seems that Three have decided that certain parts of the web should be restricted to its customers. Customers who are paying for the service to access, what you assume is, all of the Internet, not a segment of it.

I know in our new age of freedom we need protecting, but at least give me a clear option on this. Not a segmented web into “possible mobile phone use” or “general web use”. This is like trying to tell me which browser I should use or which car I should drive on a certain road.

Lucky there is a workaround. Seems if you want full access you have to use the Planet 3 services.

For the Mac (OS X) You can add another configuration, via Internet Connect. Select the HSDPA Modem, Select Edit Configuration on the Configuration drop down and add a new configuration as follows.

• Service Provider: Planet 3
• Telephone Number: 3services

So now if you want to access all the web you can use this configuration. Please note that this will incur extra charges when accessing a Three email account via port 25, using a third party email, no problem. Otherwise I have been informed by Three support that their are no other additional charges. Point to note Three support wasn’t able to tell me about this alternative either.

But frankly maybe Three should just stop restricting the web in general on certain services, I want it all the bright and the dark side of the web, not a walled garden (for that I’ll use facebook).

A few weeks back I ran smack bang right into the mobile web.

Yeah I know the mobile web isn’t new. I have been able to access the web for a while from the crippled bandaid solution of WAP and all its problems, which Philipp Lenssen discusses a lot better than I can here. To the full on 3G version that is now available in Australia in limited areas. Problem is I don’t use it that much, you see I’m not often that far from a computer and I hate using the numeric keypad for complex URLs, okay I’m lazy.

A few years back I played around with the mobile web via my Palm V, but the browse support was very poor to the point where you were not sure why the sites rendering badly. Was it the browser or the site itself.

So what changed. Well we were out to dinner (a rare event), very nice meal was had, but we finished earlier than expected. So I attempted to cruised around the web on the mobile looking for something to fill in the vacant hours. This was a nightmare. Sites without content, sites that didn’t render, and sites that did render like for normal 800 px x 600 px resolution screen.

So the mini talk on the Mobile Web that Nick Cowie gave for the AWIA at a recent Port80 monthly meeting was renforced by my own user experience, limited that it maybe at the time. It was a real eye opener for me. The results where not that encouraging at all for the Australian mobile web. In general from the very small sample I experienced the traditional web is far from ready for the mobile one. Here are some pointers:

• Make it accessible.

  If you have a web site that in any shape or form the information within it will be accessed by people in a social or entertainment capacity. Then you must consider that people will access the site via their mobile phone.

• It’s not boardband.

  Mobiles don’t often in Australia have the full download capacities of wired broadband computers , despite various telcos claims the download speed can be as slow as a dial-up modem at times. Allow for this; render with a simple style sheet

• We are impatient.

  Mobile phone users, like me, just want the information. Keep it simple, no drop down menus, not flash, no ajax and limit the use of forms. Just a menu system to get me to the page I need then render the information I need, remove all the meaningless graphics.

• Make the site shallow.

  We don’t want ten click, four scroll downs to get to the page, then ten tabs to find the right section on the page. It took me twenty minutes to get to the information I wanted on a site due to the poor design for mobiles.

• Don’t use long URLs

  Don’t make it long, think up a short version, great for the mobile web. As unless its book marked we may have to type that long URL in on the standard mobile numeric keypad.

• Font size.

  The screens are smaller, don’t assume I have 20/20 vision and I can read your 1mm font. I can’t, if I can’t read your site I’ll go elsewhere.

So if you have a site that you think that people may want to have a look at on their mobile what do you do. First don’t think about it. Act.

Ensure you know what’s going on in this space, get up to speed. The team at Westciv have produced the usual high quality overview of the CSS Mobile Profile Learning the Mobile Web Standards, it’s a good starting point. Have a look at the output from the W3C Mobile web Initiative. Maybe consider what Beeweeb are doing with their Mobile Web Toolkit, this can assist you moving towards to the mobile web. Either way you should also have a look at the DotMobi Mobile Web Developer’s Guide, very handy if developing or designing for the mobile web.

Download the Opera Mobile Browser onto your phone, have a look at it. It’s a different approach but it is gaining traction in the mobile phone arena. However be aware as Kai Hendry points out the compliance to the various specifications (OMA subsets of XHTML-MP [400k PDF] and Wireless CSS [400k PDF]) is ad-hoc at best. Remind you of anything, like maybe the early web, with over 40-60 browsers on the market you really have to keep it simple.

Finally go talk / listen to one of the experts in this field, Brian Fling who is presenting and doing a workshop at Web Directions South 2007 (which I can assume you are going to, and if not why not!).

Show your clients what their sites look like on a phone, make them realise it needs to be changed and that it will cost. Lets get Australia onto the mobile web.

So are you ready for the mobile web? Like the desktop web started with a few minor waves before the onslaught of the big breakers. So the Mobile Web is drawing back and the big waves are coming, are you ready. Surfs up.

Technorati Tags: mobile, Mobile Web, Wireless, CSS, XHTML-MP, Mobile browser, state of the web, dotmobi