MomoLondon: The Mobile Web One Year On

Someone wants to flirt with you - Mark Curtis @ Flirtomatic

• abandoned Java (stayed with web & wap
• only thing that’s on web but not mobile is video
• 80% of our customers are not interested in dating, just fun
• very important to show web users which users are mobile (as their responses will be slower)
• revenue from ads + value added services
• high usage on mobile
  • 2,500 page view per user per month since last Aug/Sep
• started over a year ago, making zero revenue at beginning of this year, break even by Q3 next year
• started off completely off-portal
• Andrew Odlyzko - content is not king (it’s communication between people)
• small groups market seems like an opportunity (Zygo looking at this hard)
• why social network?
  • everybody’s doing it
  • intrigue — “somebody wants to flirt with you”
  • theme specific e.g. Chelsea footballers
• but why go on?
  • my friends are there
  • it’s fun (people like to feel wanted; voyeurism)
  • sex / lifetime romance
  • content habit - e.g. discussing rugby world cup
• lost money and time by taking mobile site and taking almost straight to the web
  • continual struggle to keep the two products divorced
  • e.g. “look at me!” people pay to appear at the top — totally different presentation on mobile than for web
• bare essentials of registration — every additional info
  • flirtomatic use: sex; target flirts; date of birth
• abandoned flash on the web & java on phones as they stop you deploying new features quickly
  • absolutely impossible to move fast if you have loads of devices to test
  • therefore mobile app has to be only something that isn’t possible on wap — and rest is a link to wap site
• not yet come across a case study of viral working on mobile
• operator portals very powerful
• admob was only channel available on mobile, but now have 7 channels
  • advertise on wap to get onto a wap service
  • 80% register once they’ve clicked through
  • difficult to advertise on web / other as
• took the opinion that subscription suppresses usage, so ads & value ad services only
• advertising now beginning to work; May / June beginning to work
• advertising model on wap currently slavishly copying web, history shows that model always changes
  • expecting a bumpy ride but don’t know which way
• value added services:
  • e.g. selling pictures of roses
  • bidding for points etc.
  • users will pay to delete their worst rating (delete my freak)
• shifting to PayForIt using MIG… otherwise PSMS most popular payment method
• 65-70% of revenue from value added services — expecting to decrease to 50-55% with extra advertising next year
• payment by mobile is understood and embraced — making more money from mobile users than web
• flirtomatic pre-moderate all visual material (moderation is a big issue for operators)
• finding that SMS is a good tool for CRM
• wap vs web:
  • overlap in users is 15%
  • if you log on to web, you automatically get logged off wap (and vice versa)

Mobile Web Initiative - Crossing the Chasm - Philipp Hoschka @ W3C

• W3C have mobileOK automatic tests and best practices checker (online version still in beta)
• Working on a new open source Java version available to download (released fairly soon) — Mobile Test Harness / Open Mobile Web Test Suite
  • community submits tests
  • can be used for browser manufacturers as well…
• Mobile AJAX Workshop chaired by Dan Applequist
  • discussed API to phone internals…
• Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group
  • Device Independent Authoring Language
• Next exciting area — developing countries:
  • 2006 BBC: 61% of international WAP users came from Nigeria
  • India: many more mobile web users than desktop web users

Content Transformation - Ed Moore @ OpenWave

• OpenWave transformation product is called OpenWeb
• Operators are saying that “45% of traffic / 1.8 million requests a month off-portal”
  • trying to make point that people are trying to go to URLs that don’t work for phone
  • but doesn’t that say that portal is not the be all and end all…?
• weirdies:
  • www.vnexpress.net — loads images using javascript timer 8 seconds after page load!
  • microsoft mobile site, sends wap content type then html content!
• operators seem to be 2:1 in favour of network proxy over portal URL field
• wap.* or *.mobi does help to identify mobile sites
  • need to identify site before you make the request, as may need to fake the user agent…
• operators: simple marketing message & enough capacity — 1 week of traffic went up 9 times in data usage
  • where adaptation has been deployed, there has been at least twice the traffic
• entering a URL will probably work — increases user confidence — encourages operators to spend more on mobile web
• predictions:
  1. mobile web will merge with PC web
  2. operators will stay with open gardens and will continue to offer more flat rate
     • admob — internet revenue models
  3. end of the mobile web only brand
     • mobile only services will very specific niche

Content Transformation - Richard Blades @ Novarra

these guys do the content transformation for Vodafone

• do Java and BREW clients as well as server-side
• some operators are talking about using both client and server
  • if client — what are the default bookmarks…?
• operators are using this change as an opportunity to move to web2.0-stylee
• moving to server-side enables faster deployment of new technologies (e.g. new video codecs)
• average usage after transformation: 0.6 MBytes / day (from 0.18 MBytes before)
  • top 100 sites on alexa show up high on mobile
  • social networking, email
  • similar time profile to flirtomatic: peaks from 11.30pm
  • not unusual to find sessions of up to 30mins
• www.novarra.com/faqs — will be available shortly
• mailto:mobilecontent@novarra.com

Internet Made Mobile - Andrea Trasatti @ dotMobi

• phone.mobi is the definitive device database on the web
• trying to build
  • mobile web test suite
  • web interface to device database
  • standards-based API to embed into application
    • easy to install, but keeps in sync with central server
• create & manage tests on the mobile device
• contributing opinions — from UAProf and actual experience
• http://ready.mobi provides emulators for phones

mippin makes it mobile

http://mippin.com/preview

• used to make mobizines
• can’t cross the chasm with a client so switched to server-based
• off-portal portal providing access to RSS feeds
• also has mipplets to provide widgets on mippin customised home page

Next momoLondon

• November 6: 2nd Anniversary + “Mobile Advertising”