So I was on the plane, grabbed The Star and NST newspapers to gather what’s happening in Malaysia currently. Especially if the customs at the airport were extra strict or something. I was harboring 3 box sets of The Simpsons and other DVD titles if you wanted to know. No, they’re all for personal collection since I’m such a DVD addict. *grin*
Flipped a few pages and on the front page of the business section (if I recall correctly), in big bold letters was the Maxis launch of their 3G service. It didn’t come as a surprise to me seeing the leading mobile service provider being the first to release it publicly. Lightly streaming through the content, my attention grew heavier towards the part on charges. And again, not another surprise to me that Maxis is really pushing its financial capacity by offering quite a low rate for the starting of the service.
So what are the benefits of 3G and web?
Now, as most of you should know by now, the biggest advantage of 3G is its capability for video conferencing. The other goodness of it comes from its better capability in handling heavy downloads. We had GPRS for a start and moved to EDGE not late after. Now, with 3G in our hands, I guess it’ll be like surfing the web with a 56k modem or faster.
What does that tell us? Well, there’s been loads of talk about rich mobile content. And that’s exactly what this is about! It’s content like video downloads or streaming that will be king. Watching news from a website or think about it, how podcasters are going to be able to push their members more. Not forgetting if you owned a phoned with a QWERTY keyboard, you could easily blog wherever. Moblog (Mobile Blog) will drive the market of blogging so extensively that online journalists might beat normal media reporters.
These are only partial ideas the advantages 3G can bring us, I’m very sure there are many great ideas out there being thought by locals. Problem is selling the idea and if any organization would want to fund such an idea. All that I’ve jabbered so far is the content, so let’s say you’ve got a website with rich content. How effectively are you going to present the information to the masses?
Viewing a website on a mobile device is totally different compared to the normal 15″ monitor you normally use. The screen is small, yes, but the crucial part is that you have minimum working space. If I squashed my website into the tiny screen, people wouldn’t bother browsing too far down because all the content is going to be squashed together.
Therefore, we’ll soon need to start looking at websites from an even wider POV then the normal width we’re looking at it now. Even now most people have problems with basic website displays and usability, adding this to their learning list might just be a little too much. But really now, if you want to pick this up quick, here’s a simple solution.
Make it simpler than even simple. That is the best formula that would get your visitors to enjoy your website even on a mobile device. How to make simpler than what’s already simple? Well, easy. You know the reason visitors visit your website online. So priority goes to that. If your content is like Jeff Ooi or Minishorts or VOI, focus is on the content. So eliminate the unncessary links by maybe putting them below or simplify them on the top. :)
Make an e-commerce website simpler than simple for a mobile device. A customer might know what they want but just need to look for it, so what do you do? Search comes first and below that, well, the most attractive reduced price item and etc. You should be getting a picture of creating a simpler than simple website now for the mobile device.
The other important element when catering for mobile devices, a recognizable insignia or logo so people wouldn’t mistake your website. Even a simple title like dannyfoo.com header at the top would be enough. After all, most of the attention is the content. :)
Probably I should get a 3G phone too so I can experiment more developing for it. Gah! This is going to be tough since I’m also planning to purchase an iBook in future. sigh.. stupid mone.
we will need a special version of web design for small screen, just like the Google Mobile Search. Or, read the site’s RSS feed. :)
not necessarily need it be ‘special version’ I think. afaik, we could import a different CSS to be rendered for mobile devices. if that isn’t enough, what else is required for this ‘special version’? :)