Things have been improving here and I seem to be returning to my ‘studies’ of where we are all going (that’s my real love and as I shed the burdensome organizational issues, it might return to being my core role here).
This past week I’ve been toying and thinking about Russ Beattie’s Mowser (see description below).
I remember talking to Russ a few years back and he got me thinking about transcoding and such. It’s great to see an idea he had become something concrete.
Mowser is sleek and fast and does a really good job in displaying sites that either are already mobile or need to be transcoded to be shown on a mobile.*
Already Russ says that someone has taken Mowser and created something new with it. The mash-up makes it easy for you to save some bookmarks that are then opened via Mowser. I am looking forward to more of these experiments.
If you want to get involved in Mowser discussions, go visit the Mowser-types at http://mowser.ning.com/ or, if you want to hack or publish via Mowser, visit the Mowser Wiki.
Link: About Mowser
Mowser lets you view the Web on your mobile phone.
Mowser mobilizes the web by taking HTML pages normally viewed on a computer and translating them so they work on your mobile phone. During this translation process, Mowser converts the page in a predictable, linear manner, details of which can be found on the Mowser Publisher Wiki. In order to ensure that the highest quality and most useful web page is displayed on your mobile phone or device, Mowser may alter images, text formatting and/or certain aspects of web page functionality, or forward to a publisher’s mobile version instead.
To send feedback or advertise on Mowser, please email info@mowser.com. Generally most advertising is handled through AdMob or Google AdSense.
See the complete privacy and terms of service for Mowser here.
Search thumbnails provided by Snap and search results provided by Microsoft’s Live.com
*Of course, transcoding is not without its detractors, who have valid points. See the comments here by Scott Rafer and a whole slew of articles by his colleague Dave Harper. Alas, I highly respect Scott and Dave, so this transcoding discussion tugs at me both ways.
I have no issues with transcoding services when:
1. As subscriber you choose to use one.
2. As a content provider you can tell the transcoding service to leave you alone i.e. Do Not Touch Me
My problem with these services begin when they are implemented by carriers as the default on ramp to the mobile Web without broad announcement, notification to subscribers or off-deck content providers, and no standardized method to opt your content out of it. This approach has hurt the ability for developers and content providers to deliver mobile-optimized sites
or device-optimized content/services to their audience.
On the other hand Services like those provided by Google and Mowser should be commended. These services make it clear what is going on, can be notified by the origin server to “Leave it’s content alone”, can be easily opted-out of by the subscriber, and for those subscribers who need to access content that is not mobile-optimized – extremely helpful/necessary. (Nice job Russ.)
Some informative additional comments at this post: http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=427#comments
Perhaps less reason to be tugged in two directions after all…
🙂
David
Thanks for the post Charlie, I’m glad you like Mowser. Though, it doesn’t seem critical enough – feel free to let loose, really. It’s the only way the service will get better.
Thanks!
🙂
-Russ