The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Optimise your mobile content for free

Jamie Kitson

Why Bother? 

Stop

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/13/volantis_opens_up/

Nigel

Novarra is going down 

Thumb Up

This is great, while Novarra is going around the world trampling on the mobile web, and being a general asshole to the mobile web communiy, Volantis is realizing the power of the developer community and contributing. Let's hope with tools like this more people will develop and enrich the mobile web.

Adrian Jackson

re: Why Bother 

Boffin

Because web transcoders don't do a great job of all pages and don't give you the ability to target different platforms with different content. It's neat and all that, but automagically modified pages (even with the Power of Google) are never going to be a match for content designed with the device in mind. You'll also get a better result on the more screwed up of devices.

Compare the following URLs for the CBS Sportsline site on your mobile phone:

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http://cbs.sportsline.com/

http://cbs.volantis.net/sportsline/

I'll take the latter any day of the week (twice on Sunday)...

Disclaimer: I *do* work for Volantis. I *have* worked on web transcoding software. I also regularly access the CBS Sportsline site (which is rendered using the product that's being open sourced here) on my mobile phone. :)