Going Mobile? Some How-tos
 

Going Mobile? Some How-tos

Unless you live under a rock in another planet with no intelligent life, you must be aware by now that Mobile Content is the "next big thing". There's a lot to say about this conception, personally I find it very difficult to understand. While computer and TV screens are going bigger and bigger and then even bigger, mobile content is going a million steps back. Then again, many people, especially younger people mesmerized by "coolness" likes this way of content delivery, and there's money to be made off. So... time for some Mobile issues.

First of all, if your site is well done, you won't need many changes. When I say well done, I mean proper XHTML with both HTML and CSS validating. If you went with a cheap designer that provided some half made product... well, now you have to pay again for a whole new content delivery tour. If your designer used tables... well, whole new tour. If your designer can't make proper CSS (even if validating), well... whole new tour. Take it as a learning, pay twice for the 'cheapo' (hopefully cheap) and continue reading.

Design for Mobile is a whole new different thing. it's easy and simple but it has to be made TO THE "A". Content organization and logical flow is key, and so is CSS. As you may imagine, there are not much options with mobile design since its screen doesn't allow it. However, you can be as complex as you want. And.... fail. Mobile design is about simplicity, in essence it's like 94/95's design, only that without the tables.

Once you have a logical structure (you can draw it on paper or make a graph flow for visual help), you can apply the CSS. Personally, I'd use 3 or 4 style sheets and offer them as options. Since my html has to be PERFECT and I'll use DIVs, I can change everything in a snap via CSS, hence your mobile customers will be able to choose whatever they like.

An idea for organization would be something like this:

http://fdsign.com/mobile/screen.jpg

the size of this screen is the one you should aim for since it's the most common: 240x320. However, you can serve different style sheets and detect screen sizes or be smart and use liquid layouts. The choice is yours.

As you may see, this very basic design uses logical semantyc XHTML. It's simple and to the point, yet it uses some content display that allows you to maximize content delivery using as little space as possible

Another thing to note: Don't rely on fonts! NEVER! Most mobile devices won't include any of the fonts you usually will rely on, like Times, Verdana and such. The user has to install them.

For devices using Windows Mobile, it's a great idea to offer the fonts you want to display in your site so the user can download them.

Obviously, you can use something as Facelift, Flir, AnyFont, whatever, but it's always a nice idea to deliver the regular fonts for your site as well.

So now we need to display content.

In adult business, you'll want to display photos and videos rather than text. How to do it AND DO IT WELL is a very tricky question. Personally, I'd use any kind of tool based on JQuery or Prototype to build AJAX apps, but you can do it with php or simply with HTML. The better you do that, the better you'll do with your mobile site. As a tip, think about this: most people doesn't have an Iphone, yet everybody loves it. So... why not serve your site emulating Iphone? It's relatively easy for someone that knows what is he/she doing, and your members will love the slick modern design

Finally, something so basic that it's borderline ridiculous yet many people doesn't do: add a bookmark link.

Of course there's a lot more to mobile content delivery, but for now, I hope this helps to any one willing to enter this competitive market

Er... thanks... ?

well written, harvey, good job on it and thanks for the food for thoughts :thumbsup

I remember 'going mobile' with WML nearly 10 years ago.

Woop de fucking doo.

The fonts are good, also mention that things like JS, flash, etc are not to be relied upon.. so ytmnd may not work that well.

if you want.....


anyway, another thing I forgot:

when you make the move to mobile you'll need to transcode all your videos. Doing it the long hard way you may spend months, however, you can use ffmpeg to transcode all your videos to a whole new size, format, name or anything you may want.

Something as simple as the line below:

will convert video.mpg to a 22050 bit rate mp4 in 90 seconds clips, all done in your server. So, painless and efortlessly you'll have all your videos converted in matter of hours, just save them to your mobile folder/site and you're set

Good point. That's when it comes mobile detection, most modern phones work well, but some older/weider phones have problem, so in those situations it's better to serve a no javascript version (unless you put everything inside a Java applet, that seems to work fine)

Don't forget to set your codec for the video. Implying mpeg4 is not always that great, since there are several different codecs.

Good info! I've been promoting mobile for a few years now and I've found that while it used to be that you had to really "dumb down" your site for it to fit mobile devices, mobile devices are making leaps & bounds to becoming smarter. Thanks to Apple for leading the pack... your iPhone/iPod is more like a "netbook" than a phone. So your best bet is to meet them somewhere in the middle with some clean, simple code and a little thought in your layout.

Check this thread I posted a while back fucking-around-and-business-discussion/870088-whatcha-gallery-morphs-iphone.html

Harvey is THE mobile god!!!!! He rocks!

Good info!

youre a bad man Harvey

right as usual. But you're the code master, I'm just a designer :)

truly noted and good stuff to add to this post :thumbsup

well, thank you :)

thanx as well :)

what did I done? :(

bookmarked, thanks

no prob, hope more people can add info to this since I've noticed many webmasters think the mobile thing is something weird and difficult. Fight the myth! :winkwink:

If anyone wants to help me develop imobileporn.com into a blog which shows short sponsor videos, and has the right banners on them to make some money from it, lemme know.

Im looking for someone who can do it all.