Should I Support Mobile Browsers?
After learning both the iPhone and the iPod Touch use the Safari web browser, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit into place. When I posted "But I Only Want QuickTime!", I couldn't fathom why Apple was pushing the Safari web browser in what seemed like an unusual maneuver. Now I know.
WordPress Plugins for Mobile Support
I was already aware of the WordPress Mobile Plugin created by Andy Moore, which I just found out was moved to wordpressmobile.mobi.
Alex King created his own plugin, the WP Mobile Edition, now at version 2.1.1. Alex has a much, much longer history with plugins (one or more that I still use).
Barbara Ling just recently wrote "Mobile marketing – One easy step to make your blog iPhone-friendly", and pointed to "iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme Updated to Work With iPod touch", another WordPress plugin that seems to target the iPhone and iPod Touch devices only.
Analytics Research
After reading about mobile plugins and putting two and two together, I started looking through my analytics results to see how many hits have been coming from Safari users. I saw at least 1 percent as iPhone users. The majority show up as Macintosh users, some as Windows users and some as Linux users. There's a huge amount listed as unidentified.
I'm sure I'd have a better idea of mobile users once I install a mobile plugin. That is, if I install a mobile plugin.
My Testing Dilemma
Even if I choose to support mobile browsers in some way, I have no way of testing the results. I live in an area where I'm lucky to be able to use text messaging and it's not reliable. Forget about mobile Internet. I'm sure that larger cities like Manila and Cebu City have more options.
Are you supporting mobile browsers? Are you visiting blogs that support mobile browsers? What kind of results have you experienced?
What are YOUR recommendations?
Since I have no way of testing the results other than using an emulation (like with Opera), I'm at your mercy. Which plugin would be the best one to use?
Are any of you willing to take the time and test how it looks on your mobile device? I would need screen captures and such in order to tweak anything that needs to be tweaked.
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Hmm… I don't have a iPhone myself so I can't help you. But the market for mobile browsers are small and those mobile browsers works by zooming in and out. There's no need to create one dedicated for it. =) My best bet is don't care.
I don't think that mobile traffic is all that important, because there is so little of it and it's not as valuable. If your website is only a blog, instead of a blog-website conjunction, adding the mod may be a little more important, but I wouldn't sweat it.
I can't see mobile browsing making much of a difference yet. Until you can get a hologram 22" screen to pop out of thin air above your iPhone, and then suddenly we will be left in the dust.
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If I could afford an Iphone and it had more then 8 gig I would get one for sure. There is nothing more annoying then carrying your ipod and cell in your pocket.
Chances are the number of people visiting your site using an iPhone is very small. Of these people the chances of them clicking an ad or commenting is very little due to the interface of the iPhone.
I'd go with leaving it for a while until the 3G iPhone comes out at least.
John
Yea, I agree with John, very few people will use iPhone to browse the internet as the screen is small and hard to read as well. Just my opinion, can't really comment anything as I don't have an iPhone myself
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Well, alot of factors should be taken into consideration. As others have mentioned, alot of people do not use phones to access the internet unless it's to look up a cafe or something along those lines. But if only 1 person uses there phone to read your blog, than i think it's worth it. Especially if it doesn't take much effort to implement.
Hi
Just a quick line to say that you can also get a Mippin Wordpress Mobile plug-in for your site, which not only mobilizes your blog but will also launch it in to a community of mobile users who are already checking out other blogs on mobile.
Mippin has created a wide community of content, people, news, blogs, video, images, listings etc, all of which is connected around similar interests between readers. And there's a lot of them too. Even in the Philippines.
So give it a go if the sound of new traffic to your blog sounds exciting too!
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mobilize-by-mippin-wordpress-plugin/
For more info on mippin check out http://www.mippin.com
I don't think the ad revenue should be a concern, it could be prestigious to make it known that your blog is iPhone friendly:)
I'll definitely try installing one of the plugins to my wordpress blog.
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Should we ignore traffic from mobiles? I think that is a bad decision. I think we should go with all new evolution and new technology. I am planning to have an iphone or similar device for my internet purposes so there is a big part of internet junkies who are already going to have this.
I've been using iWPhone (in combination with Wordpress Mobile Edition for other handsets) myself, but never really was satisfied with the mobile-compliance of it's HTML-ouput. Recently I've switched to Mobilepress, a great plugin which not only does the job of iWPhone & Mobile Edition, but also produces much better HTML. I've compiled some advice on how to get even better optimized code from Mobilepress:
http://nonsmokingarea.com/blog/2008/11/22/wordpress-mobile-optimization/
My latest blog post: Wordpress – mobile optimization
what a pity,my phone isn't smart ,very ordinary.
I won't bother making mobile friendly sites. With the way technology is advancing nowadays, it would only be a few years before we can experience true full desktop browsing experience on our mobile phones.
So it is now April of 2009 and the iPhone has become the dominant way mobile users access the net.
Our real estate company just shifted to all iPhones to make it easier for us to help our home buyers.
So if you have an application that can be used away from a laptop or desktop, make it for the iPhone, and you'll cover a large portion of the mobile market.
I've been using the iphone for quite years, and I still prefer a sony ericsson.
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