New Tools Help Create Cellphone-Friendly Web Sites

David Kesmodel from WSJ writes "New low-cost tools are making it easier for companies to register and build Web sites designed for cellphones, the Wall Street Journal reports. Domain-name registrars such as GoDaddy and Network Solutions are starting to roll out all-inclusive packages to target the mobile Web. And mobile-content specialists such as the U.K.'s Bango Ltd. offer their own mobile kits that help companies set up a basic mobile Web presence. Even so, the wireless Internet is still a long way from attracting a critical mass of users."

The "old" tools are fine, thanks.

[Onan]

Steps for creating a phone-friendly website:

1) Use well-written, flexible html to suggest general formatting. Do not attempt pixel-precise layout.

2) Do not rely on ecmascript, flash, css, or any other superfluous nonsense. If you do choose to add such boondoggles to your site, make sure that things function properly without them.

3) Keep in mind that not all clients will display all attributes in the same way. "Strong" may not always mean bold, meanginful alt tags should be used for clients that don't display images, and so on.

You may notice that these are the same steps that are required for creating any civilized website. If you've done things right in the first place, you should not need to know or care whether your clients are 30" displays, text readers, cellphones, search engines, or whatever new context will be popular next year.

Re:A novel alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my mobile internet use is in 'dead time', such as on the train. I can read my email, BBC News, Slashdot (not meaning to suck up, but http://www.slashdot.org/palm [slashdot.org] is a textbook study in how to adapt your content for mobile) etc on my way to work rather than waste time when I get there. It's not a device to do serious work, but it's a nice way to make the journey pass more pleasantly.

Re:A novel alternative

[dwater]

A lot of Nokia phones have a full featured browser too, with the somewhat recent release of their new web browser. It's reportedly based off the same code as Safari, so I would expect it to behave similarly. I've used it on my 3250 and an N95, and it's really pretty and gives a reasonable experience on small screens (the 'back' feature is really cool, and the overview that you get when moving around a page is neat too).

Also, you can get opera, of course.

Frankly, I don't see what advantage Apple has in this area (web browsing), apart from size (there are other phones of similar size), which is as much an advantage for web browsing as it is a disadvantage for portability.