Dotmobi, Verizon, and user-friendly URLs

DotMobi initiative from the very beginning looked to me as not very user-friendly.

Today I have come across a couple of other arguments against it by Verizon.

After a bit more digging, it was amazing to find out an official Dot Mobi Rebuttal by W3C DIWG (dated 2004!!!) stating that the whole idea contradicts Device Independence Principles.

Moreover, while reading an official dot mobi blog:

.mobi-compliant sites, and those sites are coming online daily. Two of our favorites are businessweek.mobi and cnnmoney.mobi.

I could not help but compare the usability of typing "businessweek.mobi" ("2288777744466337777 [wait 2 seconds] 7777933 [wait 2 seconds] 5516 [wait 2 seconds] 666224444" equals 39 key taps) against something like "m.bweek.com" ("6122933 [wait 2 seconds] 33551222666 [wait 2 seconds] 6" equals 19 key taps). Granted, "businessweek" is not exactly mobile phone keypad friendly, but I think there could be better strategies to "mobilize" it. Even using ".net" instead of ".com" will save 2 taps - it would be 5 taps instead of 7 (and no wait between tapping "o" and "m").

Adding "m" as a subdomain designation of "mobility" of the site strikes me as a logical and transparent thing to do (well, it still does violate the Device Independence Principles). Rememberthemik.com guys did it ("m.rmilk.com") and I personally have no trouble remembering it as the name of the mobile side of their application. Compare this to Google's "google.com/reader" for regular and "google.com/reader/m" for mobile. Hmm..., now it does look kind of obvious, but believe it or not, I could not remember the Google Reader Mobile URL today while waiting for an appointment. Why not change it to m.greader.com?



Technorati Tags: mobile, dotmobi, w3c, phone, user, friendly

Walkman phone plus cassette adaptor makes an excellent car handsfree kit

For quite some time I've been using the cassette adaptor to connect my MP3 player to the car stereo. I don't have a line in, and after listening for several years to the same 100 songs on the radio, listening to MP3 player in the car is an excellent value, especially since I've discovered several interesting podcasts.

Now, I am a happy owner of (unfortunately branded and locked) new SonyEricsson W810i walkman phone. A built-in MP3 player is not quite as good as my iAudio U3, but it is decent-sounding and (much more important) the player is very usable. If you want to use a handsfree with your mobile, (and you probably would if you want to retain your brain capacity for as long as possible) then a wire with microphone and headphones will most of the time be clipped to your lapel. Now, it's no brainer, that the best use of those headphones would be to
listen to music or podcast, and that's the value proposition of Walkman phones.


Anyway, yesterday without unclipping the wire, I just plugged in the jack from the cassette adapter. So, the phone stays in the poach, the wire remains clipped to your lapel, you just unplug the headphones and plug in the cassette adapter. Now, you are enjoying music from car speakers while driving. Nothing special.

Suddenly music disappeared and I realized that the phone was ringing. Now comes the best part. It's a no brainer, but because of it's usefulness, I think it's worthy of LifeHack status.

When an incoming call comes in, SonyEricsson Walkman phones automatically mute the music. Then all you have to do is just press the button on remote stub clipped to your lapel, and you are talking handsfree.

While I was talking, the sound was coming loud and clear from car speakers and there was no feedback. As soon as the call was over, music resumed. Nice! Then, when you arrive, all you

have to do is re-plug your headphones back and you continue listening to the same music out of the car.

I would recommend this to everyone who has a Walkman phone and any type of line-in in the car. Especially to all the people out there driving while holding a mobile with one hand and not really aware of what's going on outside their car.


Just don't forget to unplug the wire before stepping out of the car...

Technorati Tags: mobile, phone, walkman, SonyEricsson, lifehack

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