Visiting San Francisco this summer
Posted by Igor Faletski - 30/06/09 at 04:06:46 pmMOBIFY is based in Vancouver, Canada - an amazing city with a track record of mobile & web innovation - Flickr, AirG & PhoneGap being some recent examples.
This summer we decided to come down to the Bay Area to listen to what you, our San Francisco users, have to say about the service. Our field office is in SoMa - feel free to drop by to chat about all things mobile & web!
Expect to see us at the Bay Area meetups & conferences - looking forward to getting to know you!
140 Characters: Now Mobile
Posted by Igor Faletski - 18/06/09 at 09:06:51 pmMOBIFY is proud to power this week’s 140 Characters conference put on by Jeff Pulver in New York. Twitter is a major driving force behind mobile traffic and the conference site was no exception. Head there now on mobile to check out event information, latest tweets and more! There’s been a significant surge of traffic to the mobile view over the time of the conference, as visitors checked schedules, bios and directions to the venue.
Also, make sure to check out Matt in the Fast Money CNBC coverage of the event. Skip to 1:15!
Now Mobile: June 15th Issue
Posted by Igor Faletski - 15/06/09 at 09:06:00 pmAs the summer heat is melting concrete here on the west coast, we’re proud to present some of the most recent mobile showcases powered by MOBIFY:
SPIN Magazine (http://m.spin.com) - needs no introduction. One of the most recognized magazines is now equipped with a top-notch mobile view. SPIN also has an iPhone app which seamlessly drives users to the mobile-friendly website! SPIN is now featured on the MOBIFY front page, giving a long-deserved break to our veteran customers A List Apart. The original SPIN site was featured in the iPhone 3G ad - hopefully, Steve Jobs will be pleasantly surprised next time he goes there. Also, thanks to Vancouver’s RainCity Studios who worked on the original website and gave us lots of great feedback on this project.
Pierre from PresetsHeaven.com sends in http://skapa.mobify.me - an amazing mobile presence for his blog (in Swedish). Clean & elegant!
Vancouver’s own John Chow has launched his mobile view at http://mobile.johnchow.com . We can’t wait to see John make more money through mobile advertising as well =)
Last week saw Search Engine Strategies Toronto take place. MOBIFY partnered with the event to provide the SES mobile view at http://m.searchenginestrategies.com/toronto/ . Mobile views are one of select few SEO-friendly mobile solutions - working with SES has been a great experience.
YankoDesign, a top Technorati blog about industrial design is also mobile at http://m.yankodesign.com - designed by Long Tran, its Editor in Chief. “Love it. Love it. Love it.” says Andy, one of the visitors and we definitely agree!
Also, the first monthly MOBIFY Newsletter with latest tricks, tips and mobile stats was recently sent out to all of our users. If you are a web designer or a site owner who wants to stay up to date with the latest in mobile, make sure to sign up for a MOBIFY account!
I Better Bookmark This
Posted by Igor Faletski - 05/06/09 at 03:06:46 amMobile browsing generally sucks, even on the iPhone. Everybody is used to it (just like everybody was used to horses before cars) and suffers through downloading of 1MB+ pages, “scavenger hunt” browsing and so forth. The users don’t expect any better and head to the AppStore when they want something made specifically for mobile.
But.
When a mobile-optimized web experience is suddenly presented upon following a regular link (as is the case with mobile views equipped with one of our mobile device detection plug-ins), the user is impressed with lighting-fast download speed, outstanding mobile design and amazing presentation of the content piece they wanted.
So impressed, in fact, that many instantly reach to bookmark the site, to come back during their next commute or another kind of mobile break. A new, fresh button on their iPhone homescreen or a BlackBerry bookmark tab - the publisher has “made it” by establishing a direct relationship with the mobile user.
Publishers on our platform are seeing steady growth of mobile traffic that far outpaces the growth of its desktop counterpart. When users get a taste of what’s truly mobile, they want more. Instead of that newspaper…
Great New Mobile Views
Posted by Igor Faletski - 01/06/09 at 04:06:52 pmLet’s welcome recent new users of Mobify that have built out some seriously impressive mobile views:
Angus-Reid (http://m.angus-reid.com), Top Research Firm
Wagooh.net (http://m.wagooh.net), Web Design Studio
SixRevisions (http://m.sixrevisions.com), Top Web Design Blog
JustCreativeDesign (http://m.justcreativedesign.com), Top Web Design Blog
Carnival of the Mobilists #175
Posted by Igor Faletski - 25/05/09 at 04:05:59 amThis week MOBIFY is proud to host the amazing Carnival of the Mobilists! Even though USA is having a long weekend, the number of submissions from there and around the world was great. Let’s see what the best mobile blogs have in store for us this week.
Mark Hooft from Ubiquitous Thoughts presents a collection of links to recent uses of mobile technology in education. It’s interesting to see some institutions introduce entrance requirements related to having an advanced mobile device. However, most students will likely end up already owning one for quite some time before entering college.
Tam Hanna is raising some questions related to the ownership of Palm OS. It would be great to find out the arrangement behind Palm’s newest platform, WebOS in this regard.
Howard Rheingold of SmartMobs is showcasing a new paper by Scott W. Campbell and Nojin Kwak that deals with Political Involvement in “Mobilized” Society. We will certainly see more and more influence of Mobile and Web in tomorrow’s political duels, so read this to get an in-depth overview.
Consuming Experience offers an extremely thorough guide on contact syncing with Zyb. Do you think once everybody has a modern mobile the sync concept will go away? Not sure, but for now there is Zyb!
Nick Dillon from Timono writes about innovation in mobile historically coming from several device manufacturers. Did you know that Motorola had the first devices with GPRS and 3G, while Siemens pioneered Java and MP3 playback? We didn’t and would like to recognize Nick’s work with the Post of the Week award. These facts are a must-know for every mobilist.
Peggy Salz from MSearchGroove shares some research regarding effectiveness of voice search apps. There is solid methodology behind the comparisons and it would be interesting to see more excerpts from the white paper.
Volker Hirsch ponders the future of the Vodafone Appstore, outlining its advantages and disadvantages when compared to the much-hyped Apple Appstore. Microsoft killed Netscape using the distribution power of Windows to push Internet Explorer and theoretically, carriers have the same kind of leverage - but do they have the DNA to do it? Make sure to read Volker’s post for some great insights regarding this topic.
Steven Hoober from LittleSpringsDesign sent in an incredible article discussing various mobile hardware form factors and their applicability in different contexts. Bonus points for great pictures within the post =)
Tomi Ahonen wrote up a fun short story about payphones. We won’t spoil it for you, but chances are you’ll smile while reading it!
Aaron Chua sends in a big list of mobile pearls - defined as innovative, novel mobile applications and services. Great for a burst of inspiration.
Last but not least, Rudy De Waele is calling on start-ups to sign up for Mobile 2.0 conference this year. Another great event from Rudy - can’t wait.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s reading. Now take a breath, channel your passion and inspiration and… make something!!! Because only through creating something new we can move mobile to the next level.
See you at the next Carnival!
Fantasy Cricket Mobile
Posted by Igor Faletski - 24/05/09 at 03:05:29 amToday we would like to showcase one of the most popular mobile views using Mobify. Fantasy Cricket is a rapidly growing social network focusing on the game of cricket. It can be found on http://fantasy.cricket.com and is operated by LiveCurrent Media, namely by Harj, Kulveer and Brian (formely of Auctomatic).
Cricket has a huge following in India, Pakistan and South Africa - countries that have been always known for being ahead of the game with mobile. Mobifying the entire application took a couple of days, rendering excellent results. Make sure to visit their mobile view at http://m.fantasy.cricket.com !
The Twitter Use Case
Posted by Igor Faletski - 17/05/09 at 05:05:27 pmOne of the trends which is becoming apparent is that more and more mobile web users prefer to access the same content they are used to on desktop. A HackerNews fan? You’re going to want to read the same articles in the mobile setting. Popularity of Facebook Mobile and Mobify-powered sites like iLoveTypography (http://m.ilovetypography.com) and CSS Tricks (http://m.css-tricks.com) is another testament to this.
This also means that proven link sharing mechanisms like Twitter apply on mobile. A mobile user will attempt to click the links in their twitter stream, usually to be disappointed with slow loading times and bad rendering. What’s more shocking is that most mobile sites and iPhone apps are useless when referred to by Twitter, as the matching URL structure and proper redirection are missing. Similar thing occurs in mobile search, except Google can be a bit smarter about routing mobile users to mobile destination.
Here is an example - CNN has a mobile site, both in generic and iPhone flavours. Here’s a link to their current headline news story:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/05/11/namibia.race/index.html
Navigate to this link on mobile and nothing changes. This is CNN we’re talking about - a company that heavily invests into mobile is absolutely unprepared to the social media angle of it. It’s not because they’re clueless - it’s hard to engineer a full mobile view for an evolved CMS, where mobile users seamlessly get an optimized rendering of any internal URL.
Mobify solves this problem, as the URL of the source site is fully mapped to the mobile view with any of our redirect options.
My favourite example is Vancouver’s TechVibes which broadcasts on Twitter heavily. All the links open up the corresponding mobile views, thanks to Mobify!
No Shortcuts Design mobifies Vancouver Digital Week
Posted by Igor Faletski - 09/05/09 at 06:05:38 pmIt’s always a pleasure to see Mobify used to quickly extend a large amount of websites to mobile without sacrificing content or quality. This week Ko-San from No Shortcuts Design has created beautiful, fully functional mobile views for Vancouver Digital Week, PopVox Awards and the Vancouver International Partner Forum - check them out by heading to vancouverdigitalweek.com, vipf.ca or popvoxawards.com from a mobile device such as the iPhone (should take you to vdw.mobify.me, vipf.mobify.me and popvox.mobify.me). Here are some screenshots:
Aren’t they beautiful? The biggest win is that these aren’t dedicated mobile websites, or iPhone apps - it’s the same site remixed for mobile use. As mobile views are engrained in the fabric of the website itself, deep links or offsite pages that haven’t been mobified will open in their original shape. This allows our users to have an incredibly cost-efficient mobile presence.
Good job Ko-San!
Mobify and Web Hosting
Posted by Igor Faletski - 01/05/09 at 06:05:18 pmDo you host your own websites? Probably not, especially if you rely on your blog, corporate site or a content portal as a way of making money.
Sure, way back in the day it was cool to have a retired IBM PC sitting under your desk, serving a few dozen visitors a day. However, pretty soon it became apparent that a dedicated hosting company can do the same job better, cheaper and faster. It makes sense to let somebody like RackSpace focus on their expertise - keeping your site fast and stable - while you can put more effort into site’s content and purpose.
Like hosting, Mobify is a specialized managed service. Today, it’s common to have a mobile site or a native application done in-house (or by a boutique mobile design firm), developed from scratch for a lot of money. The hype surrounding iPhone apps in particular is such that few check returns on their investments (yet), trying to build a native app for every use case under the sun. Soon this will change as more mobile application platforms enter the playing field, increasing the cost of cross-platform development (although PhoneGap is here to help!).
As more web publishers go mobile, they will be solving the same problems in parallel:
How to detect mobile devices and tell them apart?
How to create a subset of the source website for mobile access?
How to efficiently transcode image/video content for hundreds of devices without a huge performance hit?
How to maintain link structure for perfect SEO?
How to keep track of new device releases, their screen resolutions and capabilities?
…and many more.
At Mobify, we know that trusting a managed service with solving these problems lets the web publisher focus on mobile design. Managed hosting services became a no-brainer years ago and managed mobile publishing will soon follow. Join us in that bright future!