On the modern mobile Internet through eyewitness
Many residents of Habrakhabra look down on the mobile Internet as if it were a children's WWW, and there is nothing interesting in it. I saw typical stereotypes in relation to it in the article "Creating websites for mobile devices - a quick start guide . " It's amazing how people can write an article about something without visiting mobile sites and not understanding it from the inside. Outdated trends, where the typical mob. the site is black and white pages, 15 kb of graphics and the frivolity of ideas have long passed in 2007.
Let us try to explain what a mobile site is now.
Phones are not eternal, and tend to break and update, so you can hardly find older phones without HTML and CSS support and with a screen smaller than 128 Ă— 160, the usual screen size is 240 Ă— 320 and more. Many sites, if opened through a computer, will look great - the lack of horizontal scrolling, large banners and pop-up ads, instant page rendering, so even now I cannot refuse the convenience of telephone sites.
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Now consider the features of these sites in more detail.
I will briefly quote the article to which I referred to the link, and also try to explain what has changed and what the author of the topic was wrong about.
" Only standard fonts " - you can easily use any fonts, since most phones have several fonts for a long time. But do not forget about Opera mini, which made a revolution in the telephone Internet and occupies about half of the browser market, but at the same time does not support custom fonts in general, so be aware that no one will notice your originality when choosing a font. Using a non-standard font makes sense only when a user comes to your site from a computer. The problem is that the site does not appear if using a non-standard font is a myth.
“ 2-3 main colors [...] of colors should be close to the main 7 colors, because old phones simply do not support the whole variety of colors ” is another misconception. You can use any colors to your liking, any shades, gradients with the help of background images in CSS, the main thing is to feel the beauty and harmony of colors. Myths about using only 7 colors are reminiscent of “safe colors” on the web. If the phone cannot display the color, it will select the closest one. But most of the phones support 16 million colors, so you can not be afraid that your color will not be displayed! Old phones are lying in the trash, it would be time to understand it.
“ At least pictures. It is advisable not to use them at all ”- if one can agree with the first (there should not be very many pictures, as they will be pumped for a long time and not appear immediately), then the second is nonsense. Modern phones freely support pictures, decorations, background pictures, and at the same time achieve good results. Do not be afraid of pictures.
“ … Pages weighing more than 15-20Kb simply won't load the phone and the site will lose a significant part of the audience ” - according to waplog.net statistics - the largest catalog of mobile sites - 48.9% of users use Opera mini, 16.39% - computers, telephones with 240 × 320 screen - 12.9%, 128 × 160 - 4.48%, 176 × 220 - 2.82%, which in total gives 85.5% of visitors, the rest have non-standard screen sizes, therefore a significant part of the audience is also a myth. Users often use modern browsers on good phones and want the site to look modern too. With the help of Opera mini technology, the need to make pages smaller than 20 kb has long disappeared - Opera can open pages of 1-2 mb in size. Even the oldest phones easily open pages of more than 200 kb. True, the wap pages are really advised to do not large, since the pages are often very inconvenient to scroll, but you should understand that you should not be afraid of the need to make the page bigger - the phones will cope.
In one article right - you can forget about JavaScript. Although Opera mini supports this technology, it looks like reloading a page with already updated actions, so sometimes adding a message to the textarea, where the response to an event turns into hell, each field tries to reload the page.
Other browsers support the technology better, others worse, but still this is no match for what can be done with JS on computers.
The fact that websites for phones need to be written in xHTML Mobile is another myth, since the phone easily opens both HTML and xHTML.
By the way, you can forget about WML - it died, its decline began since 2008, and it is traditionally used only on the largest sites. Many modern phone browsers will not even be able to open this page!
I will give an example of several popular, promising and simply beautiful mobile sites that can be found on the Internet. Screenshots are made using Opera mini emulator, available at www.opera.com/mobile/demo .
rugame.mobi is the largest site dedicated to mobile games and applications.
wikiwap.ru - startup, "Questions and Answers."
mobilecms.ru - in my opinion, one of the most promising mobile CMS in the future.
visavi.net is a large site dedicated to the construction of mobile sites, the official site of the popular system RotorCMS.
tegos.ru is one of the few who stayed on their own, and still uses WML as the main version of the site.
In terms of client technology, in the mob. The Internet uses HTML, xHTML, WML (which I advise not to use, since its time has passed).
CSS is well supported, most effects are available (background images, positioning of elements), although some may not behave as expected, so testing will take a lot of time under the browser: Nokia, Symbian, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Opera mini (which some effects does not display, be prepared).
On the server side, PHP + MySQL is most often used due to the low cost and availability of this solution. There is a bunch of so-called. “Wap-hosting”, which offer low affordable prices, the main thing before this is to read opinions about hosting, so as not to get on the student who decided to play hosting (unfortunately, there are a lot of such). Nothing prevents the use of a full-fledged web-hosting, VDS, Dedicated, but most often it is only really big projects that need it.
On the mobile Internet, there are many scripts written in php, the quality of which in 80% of cases wants the best, since it is written by inexperienced coders in wanting to become famous and get simple money. In the market of mobile engines there are such CMS as JohnCMS ( http://johncms.com ), DCMS ( http://dcms.su ), RotorCMS ( http://visavi.net ), MobileCMS ( http: // mobilecms. ru ), Wap-engine ( http://wap-engine.ru ) and dozens of others.
There are also other scripts that are either publicly available or sold for a small price, for example, phpbb-wap (the mobile version of the forum is used on almost every second site).
A separate niche is freelancing, which, although it cannot reach out at prices to the web, but nevertheless, earnings from 10,000 rubles a month are quite real, although complicated. Since in the mob. On the Internet, a huge number of schoolchildren, there is a huge amount of throwing, so paying an unknown person in advance is a stupid idea, and some are ready to code you a whole month for 300 rubles (although the quality is appropriate).
People who develop websites call themselves wap masters, although this is a somewhat outdated concept, but nonetheless traditional. Their main habitats are forums, often built on phpbb-wap. The main wap master sites include: visavi.net , xwab.ru , wapadmin.ru , forum.wen.ru and others.
Designers from the category wen.ru (WML), kmx.ru and others are popular . There, people learn the basics of websites, write their first html pages, make the first attempts to make money on it (5 rubles a day is not bad for them, considering that they spend 100 rubles a day on the Internet).
People who are not associated with the creation of sites, usually looking for porn, music, games. They naively download sms-alarms, and the turnover of money by deception amounts to millions. For many sites, this is the main profit, which can easily generate about $ 300 per day. The majority of visitors use Opera mini browser, you need to keep in mind that it has two types of page views - regular and mobile. The results between these modes can vary greatly.
In conclusion, I want to say that it’s time for many to take a fresh look at the mobile Internet, as this is a rather promising and developing part of the market that is waiting for new, interesting ideas from the web and is confident that if you make an effort, you can achieve a lot, and wap -version of the site will find its users and customers.
PS Inaccuracies in terminology are common to all, so I replaced the conflicting “WAP” with a more modern “mobile Internet”.
Let us try to explain what a mobile site is now.
Phones are not eternal, and tend to break and update, so you can hardly find older phones without HTML and CSS support and with a screen smaller than 128 Ă— 160, the usual screen size is 240 Ă— 320 and more. Many sites, if opened through a computer, will look great - the lack of horizontal scrolling, large banners and pop-up ads, instant page rendering, so even now I cannot refuse the convenience of telephone sites.
')
Now consider the features of these sites in more detail.
1. Typical misconceptions about the mobile site
I will briefly quote the article to which I referred to the link, and also try to explain what has changed and what the author of the topic was wrong about.
" Only standard fonts " - you can easily use any fonts, since most phones have several fonts for a long time. But do not forget about Opera mini, which made a revolution in the telephone Internet and occupies about half of the browser market, but at the same time does not support custom fonts in general, so be aware that no one will notice your originality when choosing a font. Using a non-standard font makes sense only when a user comes to your site from a computer. The problem is that the site does not appear if using a non-standard font is a myth.
“ 2-3 main colors [...] of colors should be close to the main 7 colors, because old phones simply do not support the whole variety of colors ” is another misconception. You can use any colors to your liking, any shades, gradients with the help of background images in CSS, the main thing is to feel the beauty and harmony of colors. Myths about using only 7 colors are reminiscent of “safe colors” on the web. If the phone cannot display the color, it will select the closest one. But most of the phones support 16 million colors, so you can not be afraid that your color will not be displayed! Old phones are lying in the trash, it would be time to understand it.
“ At least pictures. It is advisable not to use them at all ”- if one can agree with the first (there should not be very many pictures, as they will be pumped for a long time and not appear immediately), then the second is nonsense. Modern phones freely support pictures, decorations, background pictures, and at the same time achieve good results. Do not be afraid of pictures.
“ … Pages weighing more than 15-20Kb simply won't load the phone and the site will lose a significant part of the audience ” - according to waplog.net statistics - the largest catalog of mobile sites - 48.9% of users use Opera mini, 16.39% - computers, telephones with 240 × 320 screen - 12.9%, 128 × 160 - 4.48%, 176 × 220 - 2.82%, which in total gives 85.5% of visitors, the rest have non-standard screen sizes, therefore a significant part of the audience is also a myth. Users often use modern browsers on good phones and want the site to look modern too. With the help of Opera mini technology, the need to make pages smaller than 20 kb has long disappeared - Opera can open pages of 1-2 mb in size. Even the oldest phones easily open pages of more than 200 kb. True, the wap pages are really advised to do not large, since the pages are often very inconvenient to scroll, but you should understand that you should not be afraid of the need to make the page bigger - the phones will cope.
In one article right - you can forget about JavaScript. Although Opera mini supports this technology, it looks like reloading a page with already updated actions, so sometimes adding a message to the textarea, where the response to an event turns into hell, each field tries to reload the page.
Other browsers support the technology better, others worse, but still this is no match for what can be done with JS on computers.
The fact that websites for phones need to be written in xHTML Mobile is another myth, since the phone easily opens both HTML and xHTML.
By the way, you can forget about WML - it died, its decline began since 2008, and it is traditionally used only on the largest sites. Many modern phone browsers will not even be able to open this page!
2. What does the modern mobile Internet look like?
I will give an example of several popular, promising and simply beautiful mobile sites that can be found on the Internet. Screenshots are made using Opera mini emulator, available at www.opera.com/mobile/demo .
rugame.mobi is the largest site dedicated to mobile games and applications.
wikiwap.ru - startup, "Questions and Answers."
mobilecms.ru - in my opinion, one of the most promising mobile CMS in the future.
visavi.net is a large site dedicated to the construction of mobile sites, the official site of the popular system RotorCMS.
tegos.ru is one of the few who stayed on their own, and still uses WML as the main version of the site.
3. Technologies used
In terms of client technology, in the mob. The Internet uses HTML, xHTML, WML (which I advise not to use, since its time has passed).
CSS is well supported, most effects are available (background images, positioning of elements), although some may not behave as expected, so testing will take a lot of time under the browser: Nokia, Symbian, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Opera mini (which some effects does not display, be prepared).
On the server side, PHP + MySQL is most often used due to the low cost and availability of this solution. There is a bunch of so-called. “Wap-hosting”, which offer low affordable prices, the main thing before this is to read opinions about hosting, so as not to get on the student who decided to play hosting (unfortunately, there are a lot of such). Nothing prevents the use of a full-fledged web-hosting, VDS, Dedicated, but most often it is only really big projects that need it.
On the mobile Internet, there are many scripts written in php, the quality of which in 80% of cases wants the best, since it is written by inexperienced coders in wanting to become famous and get simple money. In the market of mobile engines there are such CMS as JohnCMS ( http://johncms.com ), DCMS ( http://dcms.su ), RotorCMS ( http://visavi.net ), MobileCMS ( http: // mobilecms. ru ), Wap-engine ( http://wap-engine.ru ) and dozens of others.
There are also other scripts that are either publicly available or sold for a small price, for example, phpbb-wap (the mobile version of the forum is used on almost every second site).
A separate niche is freelancing, which, although it cannot reach out at prices to the web, but nevertheless, earnings from 10,000 rubles a month are quite real, although complicated. Since in the mob. On the Internet, a huge number of schoolchildren, there is a huge amount of throwing, so paying an unknown person in advance is a stupid idea, and some are ready to code you a whole month for 300 rubles (although the quality is appropriate).
4. Visitors and creators
People who develop websites call themselves wap masters, although this is a somewhat outdated concept, but nonetheless traditional. Their main habitats are forums, often built on phpbb-wap. The main wap master sites include: visavi.net , xwab.ru , wapadmin.ru , forum.wen.ru and others.
Designers from the category wen.ru (WML), kmx.ru and others are popular . There, people learn the basics of websites, write their first html pages, make the first attempts to make money on it (5 rubles a day is not bad for them, considering that they spend 100 rubles a day on the Internet).
People who are not associated with the creation of sites, usually looking for porn, music, games. They naively download sms-alarms, and the turnover of money by deception amounts to millions. For many sites, this is the main profit, which can easily generate about $ 300 per day. The majority of visitors use Opera mini browser, you need to keep in mind that it has two types of page views - regular and mobile. The results between these modes can vary greatly.
In conclusion, I want to say that it’s time for many to take a fresh look at the mobile Internet, as this is a rather promising and developing part of the market that is waiting for new, interesting ideas from the web and is confident that if you make an effort, you can achieve a lot, and wap -version of the site will find its users and customers.
PS Inaccuracies in terminology are common to all, so I replaced the conflicting “WAP” with a more modern “mobile Internet”.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/111721/
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