SHKSPR.mobi

Transcoding - personal thoughts

2008-05-09T10:03:00.009+01:00

There's been a lot of talk over the last year about web-mobile transcoding proxies and all the pitfalls (and pratfalls) that go with them. Last year at mobileCampLondon I gave a talk to people interested in the subject. At various industry events people come up to me to talk about the issue.

Recently, this topic has been reignited with an interview with Jayanthi Rangarajan in Mobile Marketing Magazine - so I thought I would share my thoughts and opinions.

I was partly involved with the launch of transcoding in the UK - this blog is not an official Vodafone comment. This is just me giving my opinion.

One thing that consistently crops up is the myth that users are given no control over their transcoding experience. This is, simply put, not true.

The first time that a (Vodafone UK) user attempts to visit a regular web page, they are presented with the following screen.
They can choose whether or not to adapt pages. When they are on an adapted page, they can choose to see the unmodified page.

They can - at any time - change their preferences.

I think that's fairly standard across most operators.

So, onto the meat of the issue...

It's my opinion that transcoding is needed - in some cases. There are far too many sites out there which don't work adequately with mobile browsers and don't provide a mobile version. Webmasters need to create standards compliant code. Until every mobile browser passes the Acid2 test and every webmaster's pages validate we need transcoding proxies.

It's my opinion that browsing a full-fat website on a tiny screen while using a GPRS connection is painful. As much as I'd like everyone to go out and buy an N95 and move to an area with HSDPA coverage, that's not going to happen. We need a way to make web browsing pleasant for those who don't want to upgrade their phone or move house.

It's my opinion that when a user requests a page, they should get that page. If I visit the Wall Street Journal - that's the page I want. I didn't request the mobile version. But this still leaves the issue of webmasters informing their readers what versions are available and letting them make that choice.

It's my opinion that the original user agent should be sent. But this still leaves us with the tricky problem of what to do when a site turns round and says "You must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or better to view this site".

It's my opinion that proxies shouldn't transcode mobile content. But what should they do if they see a .com site serving a page with a mime type of HTML and with a doctype of HTML4? How is it to know that the content is already mobile friendly in that case?

It's my opinion that most customers like transcoding. It costs money to run a transcoding service. It costs a company money every time someone rings or writes in to complain. If the cost of dealing with complaints exceeds the profit from what they're complaining about, that service won't be around much longer. I can't reveal how many customers transcode - but as the service is still being provided, it's fairly obvious that people are using it and not complaining in great volume. Other operators are launching transcoding because the majority of customers find it useful and it enhances their revenue.

It's my opinion that the way transcoding was rolled out in Vodafone UK (and other markets) was fairly insensitive to the needs of the industry. But with the lack of best practice guidelines and any widely attended industry bodies it's hard to have the foresight to make all the right choices. It's great that the W3C has come up with a best practice guide.

It's my opinion that some (not all) mobile content producers are worried that their market share will decline because people can now visit their favourite web sites rather than being restricted to specially crafted mobile sites. That's a problem faced by networks as well - why subscribe to an operator's news service when you can visit the BBC News?

It's my opinion that operators and transcoders need to work more closely with the community. There's been too much stomping around by the operators when they should have been consulting and informing. It's great that sites like betavine.net provide a forum where we can discuss our issues. I only wish it had been proactive rather than reactive.

Finally, it's my opinion that we're all civilised adults. There's no need for spiteful name calling, threatening remarks or otherwise abusive behaviour. Not only is it nasty and upsetting for some of those on the receiving end - it's also unprofessional and hurts your cause. People aren't robots - they act emotionally. When they're on the receiving end of sustained vitriolic attacks, they're not very likely to turn round and say "You know, I'm deeply offended by what you implied about my parentage, but I'm going to make the changes you're demanding anyway".

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need transcoding because all sites would use CSS and XHTML to their best advantage. We wouldn't need WURFL or DeviceAtlas because devices would broadcast their specifications and gracefully deal with content they couldn't handle. We wouldn't need to fuss around with whitelists and blacklists because mobile friendly sites would unequivocally show that they were mobile friendly. We'd all be consulted every time an operator wanted to make a change to their network that impacted us.

The only way we get to live in a perfect world is if we build it ourselves.

Remember, these are my personal thoughts. I welcome all polite discussion.

The Future of Voice

2008-05-02T16:59:00.000+01:00

I went along to the Social Media Cafe's talk on The Future of Voice. It was a wide ranging discussion on how we use our own voices in different situations and how we use our product's voice.

A couple of questions for you to ponder. There are no right or wrong answers and no prizes, just something to seep into your brain.

Voice

If you saw your voice written down, could you place it?
Could you tell yours from someone else’s?

How does your product speak to its customers

Digital Literacy

If your boss did a web search for you - what would he find? Would she like what she saw?

If you died in a newsworthy accident - could the news use pictures from your Facebook account?

If Vodafone live searched the Internet for you - what would it try and sell you?

Speed

Are you faster at speaking or typing?

Are you faster at reading or listening?

Search

Have you kept photos from several years ago?

Have you kept emails from several years ago?

Have you kept voicemails from several years ago?

If you don't already have it, I recommend trying out Spinvox to convert your voicemails to text messages.

Changes to the blog

2008-04-23T09:49:00.003+01:00

I'm updating the blog's template to be .mobi compliant. I'm using the Blogger mobile template found on the dev.mobi site.

After seeing it on SMSTextNews I'm implanting Disqus comments. Let's see if we can get them validating against the W3c.

iPhone vs iPlayer : 3G capacity planning

2008-04-16T10:29:00.000+01:00

The Internet is abuzz with the on-going spat between the BBC and the UK ISP industry.

In short, the iPlayer is now responsible for 5% of all data traffic in the UK. That figure is growing.

The problem is that the ISPs have been selling "unlimited" internet connectivity when their capacity is severly limited.

The ISPs are trying to make up for their lack of investment in their systems by getting the BBC to pay to upgrade the ISP's networks. That's not going to happen, nor should it.

So, what does this have to do with the iPhone and mobile networks?

Well, simply put, mobile networks are next in the battle for bandwidth.

Currently the BBC iPlayer works on the iPhone via WiFi - EDGE just isn't fast enough. But once a 3G or HSDPA iPhone appears, the iPlayer will work over the network's infrastructure.

iPlayer streams weigh in at about 250MB per hour. Watch one half hour programme a day and you're close to 4GB per month. That's either a heafty bill for you or for your network provider.

Now, so far, this is just an issue for O2 and the other iPhone carriers, right?

Wrong! Wrong on two counts.

Firstly there are a huge number of unlocked iPhones. They're running on every network from here to Beijing. Unlocked 3G iPhone users are going to want to use their phones to access services like iPlayer - they are going to be very data hungry.

Secondly, more and more mobile devices will be able to access bandwidth intense streaming video. The Nokia N95 already has a Flash player built in which can access full YouTube videos. Firefox Mobile has Flash built in. Future devices will have high quality Flash or h264 players as standard. The BBC could release an RTSP service - that would give them access to virtually every 3G customer.

Mobile network providers need to make sure they're ready to handle the demand that their users are going to place on the system.

If they don't, we're going to end up with a busy tone on the mobile Internet - and that will just drive customers away.

N-gage user experience. 100% failure.

2008-04-04T10:34:00.003+01:00

I really want to like Nokia. They produce some amazing hardware, but time and time again, they're let down by poor software with a dreadful user experience.

Take the recent n-gage launch. N-gage was a flop when it originally launched several years ago. It's absolutely critical for Nokia to get this relaunch right or else they face a T5 like PR failure.

But Nokia being Nokia, they've fallen at the first hurdle...

I'm going to take you through the process that a brand new user has to go through to get the software.

First failure,

The user has to click the n-gage icon that has lain dormant on their phone since its purchase. Nokia has no "push" marketing to users - they expect the user to visit them. That's assuming that the user hasn't already deleted the n-gage app from their phone.

So, the user clicks on the app and goes to update the software.

Second failure

No automatic redirection to download the app, not even a clickable link. Please try and remember his URL and type it into your phone's browser.

Third failure
So, you type in the URL and get this...

What's the point of this screen? I'm here to get content, not read your blog.

Fourth failure

What phone do I have? You tell me! Use automatic device detection so people don't have to remember the obscure model number you've given the phone.

Fifth failure
So, you start downloading and wait

and wait

The download comes in at a whopping 7MB! There's no indication on the site that it's such a weighty download. The UI doesn't tell you how big it is and how long it will take. 7MB takes an age to download - even on HSDPA - and if you're on a pay per MB deal, you won't be happy watching the download going on and on and on.

Five failures. Five barriers to entry before a customer even gets to pay Nokia for their games.

Come on Nokia, you must do better.

BBC iPlayer on your phone in 4 easy steps (and 2 hard ones)

2008-03-11T11:08:00.004Z

I love the BBC iPlayer. Now that it works on Linux (and anything else with Flash 9) it's a really good way to catch up on shows without having to go to The Pirate Bay and wade through mountains of crap.

There are only 2 problems....

1) I can't download the shows
2) I can't stream the shows to my phone (Nokia N95 and Blackberry 8800)

Now, the BBC have released a version of the iPlayer for the iPhone. As usual, the BBC has some great technical information on how it all works.

Basically, the iPlayer version delivers mp4 files to the iPhone. How can you grab those mp4s to watch at your convenience on your device? It's a doddle....

Get Firefox. It's a better web browser than whatever you're using at the moment.
Change your user-agent to "iphone" (hard step 1 - see below).
Install this Bookmarklet - drag that link to your bookmarks toolbar. (Thanks to HubLog)
Go to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and click on the show you want to watch
Click on the Bookmarklet. You can now save the show to your computer.
Watch show on your computer (I use VLC) or copy to your phone/media player to watch it (hard step 2 - see below).

Ok, so here are the hard steps.

To change your User-Agent you can either type "about:config" into the Firefox address bar and change "general.useragent.extra.firefox" to "iphone". Or you can install User Agent Switcher.

To watch it on your phone depends on your phone. My N95 would only play the files through CorePlayer and my 8800 would only play the sound. You may have to do some video jiggery-pokery to get playback on your device.

Video files are around 100 - 120MB for 30 minutes. Resolution is 480*272 - not HD (or even SD!) but good enough for viewing on the phone and as good as anything you might download from a torrent site. Frame rate is PAL 25fps, sound is stereo.

Have fun!

Mobile Badvertising

2008-01-28T09:08:00.000Z

I've seen two very different adverts recently which, in my opinion are bad. Very bad. I'd even go so far as to say that they are terrible.

The first is a poster advert seen at my local train station.

A tagline, a shot of the service and a URL.

Let's break it down.
1) The URL. I initially typed in w4mobile rather than w4mobiles - and got a non-mobile friendly page. It would have been better if they'd bought a few similar sounding domains or set upa mobile friendly .mobi address.

2) The URL. I have to type it in myself! What, is this 2005? Where's the QR Code? Where's the mobile shortcode? If you're going to have an easy to mistype URL - make it easy to get onto the phone.

3) It's just so dull! Why not have a bigger and more colourful shot of the service? A more descriptive idea of what the service is for?

4) Black text on a red background!

The service itself is nothing special. It's a list of links to various mobile friendly sites. I was expecting something a bit more dynamic. Some social bookmarking for mobile users. It's very 1998.

Next up, a mobile advert seen on Vodafone live! (I work for Vodafone, these are my optinions, not their's).

First off, the good...

Click-to-Call. Great stuff. Too many mobile websites insist you remember their number, exit the browser and manually dial. With this, click and you're dialling.

The bad....

Again, a fairly dull advert. 1 Image, and a few lines of text. This isn't a newspaper - you're not paying per word or per image - why not brighten it up?

What the click-to-call giveth the "this is a chargeable call" taketh away! Why use a premium rate number that isn't included in anyone's bundle when you could use a geographic number that would be free for all your customers to call?

Finally, take a look at that advert again. What do Avis do? What exactly can I rent for £10 a day?

Mobile Advertising is big business. You wouldn't know it to look at these two adverts.

I'm a former Scrable Champion

2008-01-17T08:42:00.001Z

Way back before Facebook, when the Internet was made of string and chewing gum, when Scrabble was a game for old people and nerds, I was.... Well.... A nerd!

I loved Scrabble and attained the heady heights of school champion!

But it wasn't enough. I had tasted power and wanted more. I devoured Scrabble strategy books, word lists, reverse dictionaries and spent the nights dreaming about triple word scores.

I even went to the regional finals where our team came second to some suspiciously over-developed "school boys" from Westminster.

My love of scrabble stays strong, but I haven't dusted off my tiles in years.

All of which leads me to Hasbro/Mattel and their war against Scrabulous. I've never used the Facebook app - but I think I might take it up, just to spite them.

Old companies have a very hard time adjusting to the Internet way of doing things. There are two reasons for this...

1) Hasbro/Mattel exist in a nice and cosy status quo and don't want to take any risks. They're making a solid amount doing what they've always done, so why innovate?

2) The innertia of old companies weighed down with processes, multiple stakeholders, vested interests and office politics is staggering. It amazes me that Google and Apple can seemingly think of an idea on Monday and have it released on a Tuesday. Meanwhile, it's Thursday and I'm stuck in a meeting discussing whether the meeting to arrange the logo placement on the report exploring the possibility of designing a new application should be held in May or June.

Does Hasbro/Mattel have the legal right to sue Scrabulous? Undoubtedly. Some company is infringing on their work and not paying them. That's lawsuit time.

Do they have a *moral* right to sue? Scrabble was invented 50 years ago - I certainly think it should now be in the public domain.
Hasbro/Mattel haven't taken up the new economy and released an online version of any of the games. They've dropped the ball and, as always happens in this capitalist society, someone has picked it up and started playing with it.

Hasbro/Mattel can't simply buy Scrabulous and slap their branding on it - that would open the floodgates for thousands of rip-offs each trying to get bought out.
They can't sue them out of existance without generating a lot of ill-will.

So what can they do?

1) Fire whoever runs their Internet Division (and their heavy-handed legal team, for that matter)
2) Create an official version of Scrabble for Facebook. Make it so good that people would rather use it than some knock off.
3) Create social games that work across the Internet. Invest heavily in this new world. Put all their existing games online and develop great new games specifically to be played online.
4) Encourage Scrabulous to ceed to the Official Scrabble Facebook app. They shouldn't pay them off, they should obliterate tham with a better product, better marketing and a better experience and, maybe, the hint of a lawsuit.

Of course, what they'll *actually* do is sue, create a storm of negative publicity and reap the rewards of the Streisand Effect

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Streisand_effect

Right. I'm off to install the Scrabulous app - who wants a game?

QR Codes seen in the wild!

2007-12-23T11:51:00.001Z

Seen on a billboard in London, near Oxford Circus tube.A part electronic animated advert offering a discount at a local store. If you text to 79990 you'll receive a Datamatrix code.

In this case, it's the store which is using the code; they'll scan it in before giving you a discount.

This is a pretty good way of distributing codes. The retailer gets your phone number and, when you show the code they'll get a good idea of what phones are popular so they can work out which accessories to stock. They can probably upsell you a newer mobile if you've got a brick.

I took a quick scan of the code on the advert using Quickmark - sadly, it was only dummy text.

I wonder how long it will be before supermarkets start sending these rather than physical vouchers.

Bluetooth Spam from Coca-Cola

2007-12-20T14:29:00.000Z

Bluetooth spam. It's been debated for a long time, but it looks like it's becoming a reality in the UK now that the ICO say marketers do not need opt-in consent - although the DMA differs in opinion.

I was quietly sat in a London restaurant when my phone bleeped into action. Would I like to receive a Bluetooth message from "Coca-Cola".

I was curious and I accepted the message - I fully expected it to be a prank and that I would receive Tub Girl or worse...

What I actually got was an image, an MP3 of the Coke theme and a 3GP movie of a Coke advert. (I figure if they're spamming them to all and sundry, I can distribute them as well...)

It's an effective advertising campaign. While I don't care for the mp3, I'm sure lots of kids will enjoy it. I even thought that the video was rather funny.

I'm in two minds about this....

1) I did consent to receive the advert. If I'd clicked "no" I wouldn't have been bothered by it again. It's pretty much the same as a Big Issue vendor asking if I want to buy a copy.

2) On the other hand, if every shop was blasting out messages, I'd be a bit pissed off. Rather than a couple of Big Issue vendors, I'd be assaulted by a team of chuggers.

However, in this case, I can solve all my problems by turning my bluetooth off or setting it to non-discoverable.

For now, it's not a problem. It's low volume and trivial to avoid. But what happens when someone starts hacking your non-discoverable phone and starts sending offensive images in the name of "Pepsi Cola"?

What would King Harald make of it?

Turn Your N95 into an iPhone

2007-12-17T11:32:00.000Z

Samir has just released this little auto-rotate app for the N95. As you rotate your phone, the screen reorients itself. It's a brilliant idea and an excellent application... But it really calls into question Nokia's ability to react to the market.

The N95 has always had an accelerometer (the device which tells it which way up it is) but it has only ever been used to stablise photos. What a waste!

The N95 was realeased in March 2007 wherease the iPhone was released a few months later in June. However, the iPhone's rotating screen was known well in advance of release. With several firmware updates for the N95, it's shocking that it takes a 3rd party developer to release such a compelling UI upgrade.

The N95 8GB is also missing this functionality - despite being released as an "iPhone killer". The new Channels service from Nokia Beta Labs has auto-rotate built in - but still no word on whether a future firmware upgrade will include a native roatate function.

I'm not a big fan of the iPhone - but I hope it lights a fire underneath the other manufacturers and gets them to raise their game.

QR Codes

2007-12-06T17:35:00.000Z

QR Codes are funky 2D barcodes. Snap one with your camera phone and you'll get information on your phone.

However good your mad T9 skillz are, it's a struggle to type in long URLs, SMS exact keywords to a shortcode or to accurately transcribe a business card onto your phone. That's where QR Codes come in. No more typing - just point and click.

Even Google is getting in on the act. They're putting them on print adverts they're running.

See this on a poster on a train, snap it with your camera and you instantly have the URL on your phone.

See this on a business card, whip out your phone, the contact is saved.

QR Codes are, as with many things, big in Japan. They're catching on in Europe with loads of blogs dedicated to them.

Want to generate your own? Of course you do! Visit my QR Code generator - it even works on your phone, naturally!

Geeky Postscript....
I've noticed that many of the QR generators out there (I'm looking at you, Nokia) don't encapsulate data properly. Certain characters such as : / + etc need to be turned into special characters as per RFC1738) - many QR Code generators don't do this. This means that an international phone number like "+447....." comes out as "447....." and won't work on the marjority of phones. My generator avoids this by using rawurlencode

MusicStation, some thoughts

2007-12-04T18:20:00.001Z

Some thoughts on MusicStation - in responce to Ewan at SMS Text News

(I do work for Vodafone, but these are my own opions....)

MusicStation by Omnifone is a service offered by Vodafone. For £2 per week, you can download as much music as your phone can store and listen to it any time, anywhere. It is, in essence, iTunes for your mobile. All of the songs are delivered over the air, so you don't need to sync your phone with your computer.

I use MusicStation on a Nokia N95 8GB.

Where MusicStation is good, it's very good. Where it's bad, it's merely a bit irritating.

The Good:
The fact that you can easily search for new tracks, artists and albums on your phone is great. It's like the Amazon Kindle in that you can browse, buy and use all on the same platform.

Downloading over 3G or HSDPA is just about fast enough to listen to track 1 while track 2 is downloading.

The community features are great - seeing the latest music news and downloading the artist's music at the same time is a great idea.

You can share your playlists with your friends and the wider community.

Music qualty is fine, sounds as good as the iPod - your phone and headphones not withstanding :-)

It's cheap. £2 will buy you 2 and a half tracks on iTunes, here it gets you a week of music.

The Bad:
The usability isn't as good as the iPod. It works well, but it's not quite as fluid.

No gapless playback... Grrr... This was, I'm sure the number one feature request on the iPod and every other MP3 player. It really disrupts the flow of a live album to have a few seconds of silence between each track.

You can only play tracks you've downloaded from MusicStation. While their catalogue is very extensive, it doesn't have The Beatles - nor will it let you download profane songs (I think). So, you can't use it to play any audio books or music you've made yourself. The catalogue - like iTunes- has occasional errors and multiple versions of the same album, but nothing serious.

Being a software app, it has occaisional bugs and doesn't always integrate well with the phone's native features (volume control is done in the app, not the N95's hard keys, for example). After leaving it on all day downloading The Monkees' back catalogue, the app does become slow and occaisionally unresponsive. Admittedly, it's not going to be used for such extended periods most of the time.

There's no way I can find to delete tracks you've downloaded. With an 8GB phone it's not a problem, but if you're stuck with something smaller, it could be annoying.

DRM. I'm against DRM. It's evil. BUT, this is a rental model. For the price of 1 album (£8) you get to listen to every album in the world for a month. Without the DRM, you could download every album and quit paying at the end of the month. I'm happy to return a movie to Netflix or Blockbuster, I guess I can be happy to do it with music.
Overall, I set it downloading a couple of albums and listen to them when commuting. I'm broadly happy with it as a consumer. It's cheaper and more convenient than iTunes or any other music provider I've tried.

I wish that they had a message board where people can contribute feedback - but they seems fairly responsive by email.

The good, I feel outweighs the bad.

These are my own opions, not Vodafone's. I'm typing this on my Blackberry, so please excuse any typos.

Quake on your phone

2007-11-26T17:40:00.000Z

1) Install the PIPs engine from http://koti.mbnet.fi/hinkka/Download.html
2) Install the Quake software, also from http://koti.mbnet.fi/hinkka/Download.html
3) Get the Shareware version of Quake from http://www.libsdl.org/projects/quake/data/quakesw-1.0.6.zip
4) Follow the instructions at http://koti.mbnet.fi/hinkka/installation.html

Hey presto, fragging on your phone.

Turn your N95 into a Light Sabre

2007-11-16T17:18:00.000Z

Use your N95 to slice iPhones in half.
Light Sabre for the N95

It's uses the N95's built in accelerometer. Expect your office to erupt with geekish joy as soon as the first "hmmmmmm" begins.

On international roaming.

2007-11-15T12:24:00.001Z

Having spent the last few days in foreign climes, I've the following observations about the mobile experience.

1) Shortcodes. I'm aware that there are technical limitations, but it's frustrating not being able to use UK specific shortcodes when abroad. I'm aware that the texperts shortcode (660000) may conflict with a local shortcode - but why can't I prefix it with +44?

2) Meeting invites. If a German sends a meeting invite to an Englishman for a meeting in Istanbul - what time should one's Blackberry display the meeting as being? Maybe I've set up my blackberry and Exchange server incorrectly, but it seems obvious to me that all events should be stored as time zone neutral - seconds from the Unix Epoch, for example - and the device should render them as per the timezone for which it is configured.

Or the whole of Europe could move to CET.
3) Why aren't there (or why can't I find) airport and airline websites which are mobile friendly? People going to airports are away from their homes and offices and away from their computers. Not everyon has, nor wants to boot up, a laptop. As you go into every airport their should be a sign (or a bluetooth pushed message) saying "Visit heathrow.mobi to make your stay more pleasant." With an accompanying site telling you where your gate is, for how long your flight is delayed and how to check in.

SHKSPR.mobi goes live

2007-11-08T15:29:00.001Z

SHKSPR.mobi exists to bring the world's greatest playwrite to the SMS generation! No more will teenagers have to read long and complex prose, they can have everything compressed into a language with which they are more familiar!

That is, of course, a load of nonsense. This site exists because I wanted a test bed for all my mobile content. I figured that abusing Shakespeare was the best way to start.