When Crisp Wireless first started with powering mobile sites using its proprietary content management technology, I got a fair amount of surprised reactions from technologists and programmers who knew me. We weren’t only known back then to power the content for downloadables (J2ME mainly), we also found WAP significantly flawed. Back then one would have expected mobile site software to scrape HTML from the web, and reformat it to WML, cHTML and XHTML automatically or via customizable templates.  Considering our experience with mobile and our unusual positions on mobile technology, it should be no surprise we took a different technical road.  Luckily … because as far as I'm concerned the transcoding approach doesn't hold much value in today’s even further fragmented mobile browser landscape. The famous Russell Beattie knows what he's talking about when he considers it difficult to derive revenue by stripping down web sites for the mobile users. To create more compelling and well distributed sites, what is needed, is a Content Management System that is designed to ingest, manage and create XML content feeds of all shapes and formats. (Creating feeds is important for efficient on-deck distribution and integration with aggregated content sites) What's also needed is a product that with the help of solid mobile device intelligence can render mobile sites in all shapes and formats.  It does not suffice to create mobile compatible sites; you need the ability to create a different optimized site for every type of device. These sites should have a different data flow, graphic design and information architecture depending on how and when it is used.  In other words, the mobile web is not just making PC web content into mobile compatible content. The mobile web is a more complicated and soon more sophisticated version of the world wide web that beats to a different rhythm. With a further evolution of mobile devices it might very well prove to be far more popular.  This trend is evident looking at many recently launched mobile sites. I’ve listed them below. The idea behind many good mobile sites is not a commercial transaction, but the method of content discovery - asking the question "what's the best way to find movie reviews?" or with Fandango - "are there tickets available at this theater for Iron Man?" These sites are focusing on how to make mobile media and information management better, which requires that content is organized and accessible in new ways. Some sites go pretty far in experimenting with this mobile behavior. For Twitter there is no shortage of mobile sites trying to perfect the way to manage status updates. When you are on a small screen you have different modes of behavior and you look at different times of day and have different goals: such as you need something right away or you want to check something before you go to bed or you are just trying to waste time. The point is, the mode and motivation of the interaction is different from when you are sitting at your desk. Great new research shows these new modes of behavior where consumers interact with mobile websites are not cannibalistic to desktop web traffic; they actually improve overall web performance by 13%. You'll notice that many of the sites below are specifically designed to help iPhone users. The mLogic technology is perfectly suited for innovative iPhone sites . Our technology is also great for distributing content to 3rd party applications in modular formats on carrier decks, in applications like Yahoo OnePlace and for powering  new content  interfaces like Flashcast or other device side applications .   Our platform offers content management that is centrally managed to serve content to all other downloadable applications, browser plug-ins or mobile widgets. As promised, some interesting mobile sites:

If we only look at the last year, mobile web has died many deaths, if we look back to 2000 it has probably died more than Kenny from South Park. Here lies WAP (WAP is dead), and here's mobile web killed with the iPhone, oh, and here is when mobile applications died a couple of months ago, and here's someone writing that those deaths should make way for RIA on mobile . And here it is again,the CEO of Mowser says it's over via ReadWriteWeb. It's really easy to say anything mobile is dead. Philosophically, anything that is ad-supported does not exist until you can hear the sound of more than one media buyer clicking. Jermaine from Flight of the Conchords might say "Be more constructive with your feedback." The iPhone's Safari browser is here, but the mobile web still exists in a better form then it did previously. For some reason bloggers see the need to mark each evolution in mobile web as a death. Looked at from a blogger's perspective, mobile web is a cat that dies as each markup language ceases to be the bleeding edge - wml, chtml, xhtml, etc. So do we listen to the CEO of Mowser say that the Mobile Web is a black hole that we need to escape from? Before we do that, for one moment let us honor John Wheeler today by correctly characterizing the properties of a black hole. Is it also true that there's no value in mobile as a channel for distributing music? That's what I'd think if I believed the following a recent study covered on MocoNews. After reading this I imagined a fake steve jobs post where Will Ferrell's Mugatu from Zoolander is saying 'I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!' as he downloads 'Relax' onto his iPhone and browses for piano-key neckties to cool himself down. I think what's important here is to balance the volume of opportunities when discussing mobile content and mobile marketing then just to marvel at the crashing sound when MVNOs or other mobile focused-businesses fall into the seeming black abyss. If your content cannot escape or exist outside the mobile phone, then it is not the fault of the marketing channels like the mobile web or mobile homescreen. Mobile has channels (text, email, web, homescreen) and those channels are opportunities and should not be attributed to the cause of death of a business. Here's the company line: in 2008 it's still about no mobile phone left behind. Us cool cats with iPhones can lead the charge into deeper content discovery on mobile phones but we are not the only people who carry phones, and increasingly we are not the only ones who access the browser. And all this talk of no activity on the mobile web--just as the greatest mobile web revolution is beginning.

People always want to know what content users want while they are mobile. I always caution publishers to keep the nature of the medium and the mobile consumers' needs in mind when designing their mobile site. Mobile is a "right now" experience and the call for on-demand content is strong . Furthermore, publishers need to leverage the mobile medium to drive traffic and business, in addition to extending their brand.  For more of my thoughts on what content is driving mobile web adoption, check the column that just ran on MediaPost's Online Media Daily.