M3W

About a year ago when we started project planning Search and Go we decided to create a mobile web version. This was not going to be implemented until the very end of the main web build.

As we now approach the end of Phase 2 of Search and Go we are starting to put the first mobile web ready plans together and are looking for best ways forward.

I have several ideas in regards to this:

We already have a web directory at Search and Go and I want to offer submitters the option that when they do submit we will scan their site to see if it mobile web ready and if it, submit their site for free to a mobile version of the directory. I think this is a good idea. It’s also a small incentive for site owners to maybe consider another market on the mobile web. We would like visitors to come to the mobile-directory and find services.

Search and Go when finished being built will be quite an extensive information portal that will feature interactive news that allows members to comment and discuss global news headlines as it is fed though the pipe. The portal will feature a state-of-the-art weather system that will utilize Google maps, following this will be a full blogging system and then the introduction of personal pages and email.

The quandary is, do we create a smaller mobile-specific website with links pointing to the main site that has been hacked to be mobile ready or do we create the main site to be completely mobile web ready? I have spent a great deal of time reading back and forth between various articles and while there appears to be a common thread amongst them all - a lot of them are at odds with each other. I think one of the main reasons is that developers are working on different platforms without any standards - just developing to that specific area. It’s and old argument revisited from the WWW. One of the more prominent articles I read in relation to developing sites for small devices and whether it should be a quick fix or a full blown mobile ready site is by Cameron Moll as he explained here:

Your best bet, then, is a mobile-specific site, with design and development built for the small screen. Though many outside the mobile space aren’t aware of it, there are really two mobile webs. They aren’t entirely separate per se, but rather each are accessed differently. Mobile Specific Sites

I am thinking to build an entire mobile version with the home page with brief synopsis with a mobile ready version of the weather. After all its services like weather that come in really useful when you are searching on a handheld device. Layout will be important here and besides a blurb with our branding we want to produce the returned results to quick and on-the-fly this means maybe by postcode or other means.

Layout:

Home

Weather

News Headlines

Currency Converter

Directory

Blog uploads though the mobile version direct to blog.

Contact

Email services

There will be more but it’s taking further scope to find what we will offer via mobile devices, mapping comes to mind and so does other useful services. A first screen shot looks like this:

This will soon change when the finished product goes live.

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References:
Mobile-Specific Sites by Cameron Moll