How do we achieve the vision of the Context-Aware Web? Ideally, the website should gather as many context variables as possible through JavaScript (a-la Google Gears) or even the User Agent string. To make that happen, standards and universal adoption are required. What can be done today?

Context Seeder Apps - a term we coined at Handi - are a great compromise. The idea is simple - create a basic native application that extracts all context variables (with user’s permission) from the device and puts them in a GET string. The user is then taken to the parent website which is now more aware than ever before. There is also a possibility for real-time context updates by AJAX if the host platform allows for background applications or embedded browsers.

This is really the browser’s job. However, there are all sorts of privacy and permission concerns - a seeder app is custom to a particular website, has the appropriate branding and user’s trust. Google Gears now offers seeder capabilities to compatible websites on Windows Mobile and our upcoming iPhone projects will also have sleek seeders distributed through iTunes.

Of course, knowing about the environment alone is not enough - the application has to use the data meaningfully. It’s not easy - even Intel is struggling with solving this puzzle. Starting getting ready though - the context is coming at you!

Happy Hacking!

UPDATE: A recent application by the name of PhoneGap supports our approach. Also, catch the current Carnival of Mobilists at MobHappy because the next one is hosted right here at MobScure!

AdMob has been the poster child of the growth of the mobile web. Billions of impressions a month, a huge variety of devices and carriers - a success story from every angle. Brilliant play by the founder Omar Hamoui, no question.

The future of AdMob is less glamorous than its present. Success of this ad network has been always based on the premise that the mobile web is different from the real web. For years, this was true and mobile internet users represented a growing vertical audience. However, the recent stats are alarming - AdMob reports that iPhone users in the US represent 1.4% of its audience, while a Nielsen Mobile White Paper gives the iPhone users 4% of the mobile internet surfing, a difference of 300%.

iPhone users are less likely to go to sites that use AdMob advertising, because they are unaware of existence of a separate “mobile web”. Instead, they go to familiar portals like Facebook, the New York Times or Digg - sites that might or might not have iPhone optimized pages. After all, their iPhones are extensions of the regular Web, with regular web advertising served by the likes of DoubleClick. Furthermore, last time we tried AdMob on the iPhone it periodically served links to WAP sites, which are not supported by Safari and show up as plain text. The old mobile web is going away before it really took off, giving way to optimized interfaces for regular web sites.

It’s not just the iPhone - Nokia Nseries and the upcoming Android platform all have excellent web capabilities. This threatens to turn AdMob into a niche ad provider as it can’t compete with DoubleClick on the desktop, while the reverse is possible. In this light, AdMob’s recent initiatives targeted at iPhone developers are the right move. An even better one would be getting acquired by a big Web ad network.

A month of iPhones just passed on the weekend (no commemorative plaque has been installed in my neighbourhood, but I am sure there is a committee working on the details), and we have to ask ourselves - has anything changed?

Although there is a nontrivial amount of chatter among the blogosphere - even the local one - about iPhone and the Apps (a new band name?), I haven’t noticed a significant upturn in the number of Apple handsets on the streets of Vancouver…yet. Apple apparently continues on a tear with sales figures forecast to break initial predictions.

More importantly, I think, the App store has been a huge success. I don’t have an iPhone (yet) but I am a very happy user of the App store, having downloaded a dozen or so already to my iPod Touch. Although I haven’t paid for many (well, just one - Scrabble, from EA), I hear that sales are topping a million dollars a day over at Apple.

The App Store has had two impacts. The first is a shot in the arm for mobile developers who got on board with an application early and are enjoying some cash flow. More importantly, it seems to have provoked a general loosening of the application distribution model in other carriers: T-Mobile is reportedly launching an open application store, in contrast to the old model of a proprietary and closed “deck” of applications that developers had to fight to get onto. In the long run this is probably more important, since it is unlikely that Apple will own the whole mobile space the way that iTunes dominates music (queue fateful music of a prediction that could go very bad…).

It isn’t just the money being spent but the diversity being injected into handsets. The days of mobile “phones” being just a voice device are over, I think it is fair to say. Apple might be at the forefront of this, but all handsets are going to move in this direction. The Samsung Instinct from Bell Mobility is a good example of a phone being marketed on just about every dimension possible - other than voice.

If mobile application development continues at this rate - and spills out into other platforms (Symbian, Android, Linux on Mobile, RIM, Windows Mobile, etc), we could see a very different environment for mobile usage in the coming years and months.

The spectrum auction has just ended in Canada (details) and bidding reached record levels - triple what was expected, according to some analysts. There is lots of chatter about this in the media and on the blogs, but relatively little attention has gone to what will happen to that money. If bidding was unexpectedly high, and spectrum is effectively a “free” resource owned by all Canadians, will that money go back into our pockets?

There are 30 million people in Canada. Shared equally among us, that would be about $140 per person. Will it be distributed that way? Or in some other fashion? The government isn’t saying, but this is a government with no national broadband policy, unlike countries like France or Japan. Perhaps we could invest some of that money back into the internet in this country? According to Simon Avery, writing in today’s (July 23) Globe and Mail, there is rumour of a tax cut with the extra money.

As for the new competitors, early commentary suggests high hopes for Globalive, currently operating a long distance service in Canada and owned by an Egyptian and an Icelander known for discount cell service in other parts of the world (See moconews story for details).

On Friday I bought an iPhone which forced me to switch wireless provider. Wireless number portability allows Canadians to switch provider without getting a new phone number. Today, changing contact information means notifying all your contacts which in turn have to update their information about you. Why should getting a new phone number be such a hassle for everyone? In the future, let’s get this right.

Your contact information will be stored in an open feed, hosted in a single place. Others will subscribe to it, much like you subscribe to RSS feeds today. Changes will be published so all subscribers will always have the latest information. You will also be able to see all contacts who have subscribed to your information feed.

This feed will not include your phone number or e-mail address. Instead it will contain information about how to try to contact you through different mediums. You will be able to control which subscribers will be able contact you through different mediums, giving priority contacts access to priority mediums.

Facebook and other social network developer platforms already work this way. Facebook application developers can contact Facebook users using e-mail and text messaging, but at no time is the user’s contact details revealed to the developer.

Mobile phones will support this web protocol wrapped in the shell of an on deck address book.

Tools to build the future? We’re using OpenID, OAuth and the standards set out by DataPortability.

Release of the 3G iPhone around the world was a landmark event for several reasons. Now, many key problems that have been visible in the mobile ecosystem are gone for the first time. Great UI, unlimited (or close to it) high-speed connectivity, a solid application distribution chain with a link to payment - the iPhone combines them all. At least when it comes to early adopters and application developers, there is no more reasons to complain - we just have to make things happen, living this lifestyle and making great mobile services. Here is the a short re-cap of my first day with iPhone 3G.

It started with a hike to the Grouse mountain. I got bored halfway to the top and started streaming videos of songs that I didn’t have from YouTube, listening to music in my headphones. 3G means that all digital content in existence is available in real-time, anywhere.

On the way down, I played around with a few free apps like Facebook and Twitterific. They were more sluggish and less visually enticing than the corresponding websites, specifically designed for the iPhone. 3G will unite the mobile ecosystem primarily through Mobile Web. Can someone please finally come up with JavaScript APIs for location, camera and so on?

Next on our agenda was an amazing barbeque (happy birthday Enej!) where the iPhone finally died due to a long day of browsing and streaming. I realized that I haven’t made a single call and only sent two text messages in all that time. 3G will dethrone voice and text as the killer mobile apps, complementing them with a variety of better communication tools.

After a quick recharge and a shower I headed to a party in a remote part of West Vancouver. The cab driver (a former USSR sailor, who’s been in the taxi industry for over five years) did not know where the destination was and used the iPhone to navigate. 3G is heavily endorsed by former Soviet Sailors.

At the party itself, mobile video definitely rules the show. This Mr.Oizo song had a cool clip!!! Let’s enjoy it once again. Have you seen that YouTube video where a guy comes and pokes his friend FaceBook-style? No need to “forward it to me later”, let’s just search for “facebook spoof” and laugh at it one more time. 3G complements social interactions when used properly.

This was just one day from my 3G-enhanced life. The technology is far from perfect - GPS can be imprecise, applications - sluggish and the service itself is far from cheap. But - the new era of mobile is here, in my palm…

As I passed by the Fido store at Granville and Georgia this morning I noticed a line up - the store isn’t open but people were lining up inside the mall - forming already. On the glass outside were helpful instructions, including the advice that the “iPone” [sic] was only available on a 3 yr agreement. Just in case you hadn’t heard already…

That doesn’t seemed to have dampened enthusiasm, even among the cognoscenti who pen this blog (or some of them, anyway…).

Update: Igor and John have their phones but had to leave them in the store to be activated - activation delays are hitting Canadian network provider Rogers, too. Helpfully, the staff have offered to keep trying and call John and Igor when their phones are ready to pick up.

I downloaded and installed T9nav the other day and I have to say this one looks like a winner.

T9nav is a beta program coming out of Nuance Communications and it is designed to help people take advantage of the features on a modern smartphone without having to navigate the often confusing and multi-press menus to access the features in their phones.

Steve Jobs recently crowed that 80% of iPhone users access 10 or more features on their phones, a rate of use that other manufacturers can only dream of.

Nokia wants you to use your phone as more than a phone, too, (else, why build all those features) and has for some time worked to make the rest of the features more accessible.

They have provided a set of user definable “slots” at the top of the Symbian “home page” for their phone, as well as allowing people to define the function of some of the keys (soft keys). Both of these are features requiring considerable familiarity with the phone user interface, however, and as you might imagine, they are rarely used.

But perhaps user interface isn’t the only way to solve this problem. What about search?

We know that hardly anyone makes use of bookmarks or memorizes web sites any more. The ubiquitous google means that people often use it, even when they know the web site address (a record number of “searches” are fully formed domain names, apparently), so why not turn that practice onto phone usage?

This is what T9nav does. It builds on our “t9″ (predictive text) habits in messaging and applies that to the base level of the phone’s user interface. What this means is that you can grab your phone and just start punching in keys, using the “number == letter” scheme we are already familiar with. If it matches a contact, it will show that; if it matches an application, it will show that, if it matches a web site it will show that. The results are a short list of matches to your key presses.

Unlike a “normal” search engine, this one “leans” (as T9 does, I guess) your preferences. So, if you start choosing the second item in the list it will put that one at the top of the list.

I have made a short video, which shows me using the interface and finding an application (gmail), contact (my wife) and a bookmark (twitter), all with two or three key presses.

Just like with a web browser, it is possible to manipulate your phone to make this even shorter (as you can make a bookmark) but realistically, people would rather search than navigate so I think this is potentially a very powerful addition to mobile phones.

If you have noticed the number of applications in the Apple “App Store”

Just hours after my post about the diminishing relevancy of the .mobi TLD I got an email from Vance Hedderel, Director of PR and Communications for dotMobi. He was quick to point out that the TLD is doing pretty well, with several brands, papers and services launching their sites in the space. Vance had some excellent insights and I would like to once again state our respect for their team. They do a lot for the mobile web space - it’s just that we see the long-term future of this TLD differently.

After some soul-searching we decided that .mobi will likely become the new call-to-action, similar to the way SMS is the current way of engaging mobile services. Working with one of our partners, we had to consider facilitating inbound SMS messages worldwide. The two ways of doing it are by using a longcode (usually a UK-based phone number) or by getting local short codes for every different country (optimal user experience, but significant overhead when it comes to pricing and legal work). Neither way is optimal. If the users were educated about mobile internet and had a quick way to type in the URL, seeing a .mobi site could indicate that it features an ongoing campaign specifically targeted at the mobile context.

At the same time, we believe that search will become even more important and diminish the value of domain names altogether. It’s an exciting time to be in the industry!

Meanwhile, MobScure has once again been honored by being featured over at Carnival of the Mobilists, held at mjelly this week. Be sure to check it out!

Last week, ICANN ruled in favour of allowing customized top-level domains. It estimates that these new properties will cost upwards from $100,000 - thought the cost will definitely come down with time. Soon, we might be seeing things like .vancouver, .map, .food and .hiking - and the numerous sub-domains associated with these TLDs.

This decision effectively ends the debate about the usefulness of .mobi. dotMobi describes itself as “the gTLD dedicated to users who access the Internet through their mobile phones.” It’s unrealistic to expect that out of hundreds new TLDs users are supposed to only trust .mobi sites for mobile access. Every site on every top-level domain should be mobile-friendly.

I really respect the technology that the dotMobi foundation has developed - we use DeviceAtlas at Handi, for instance. I believe .mobi sites are still useful for hosting services that are purely focused at the mobile context - location-sensitive websites, for instance. However, the battle for large-scale deployment of general purpose content in that TLD seems to be over before it even began.