I’ve had this sitting on a burner for a rainy day and Victor’s post on Mobile Marketing Watch was enough to bring it to the surface:
The prognosis on WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) hasn’t changed since the turn of the century. WAP technology had a premature introduction to the mobile phone as it came before the infrastructure and consumer interest supported it. The early complaints of WAP were closely related to those of the early internet, which left hope for WAP developers but, unlike the internet, WAP had to compete with a more complete sibling: the internet. In my mind, 7 key things pile in the barrel of WAP’s struggle:
7. Not Supported by All Major Carriers
WAP’s initial lax in the content delivery space was relieved by the WAP push. A WAP push allows content providers to deliver content to a mobile device using a WAP browser connection. In addition, the WAP push is a favorable alternative to MMS, a technology that is/was suffering from a lack of universal standards across the major carriers. But the major carriers have their own business to protect, so off-deck content delivery through WAP is not supported by all of the major carriers. This alone eliminates at least 30% of the mobile market. Imagine having a billboard that 1/3 of the motorists couldn’t read.
6. MMS is Next
Because MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is not a ubiquitous mobile offering, mobile ASPs have relied heavily on WAP to deliver their content. Since the carriers have agreed to MMS interoperability, that is going to change. MMS allows sending and receiving of graphics, video, and audio clips - most of the information sent through a WAP push. There is very little that needs to be changed for WAP interoperability, instead it is limited by the carriers’ business decisions to block off-deck WAP delivery. MMS interoperability is a step up from the limits of WAP, by allowing users to be billed directly through SMS without the additional pain of a WAP download. There is potential for one bill, one technology, interoperable delivery.
5. Billed by Data Usage
Consumers are already wary of the premium paid for direct mobile content such as ringtones. Most of the paid ringtone services are charging a minimum of $0.99 p/ ringtone, which is the price of a full mp3 from iTunes. Consumers are still downloading ringtones despite the premium charge, however, many consumers are shocked to see WAP data charges on top of their premium sms charge. This will leave many consumers frustrated until unlimited data plans become more of the norm. People dislike being billed twice for the same content.
4. SMS is Here
Outside of multimedia content delivery, WAP was a great resource for sending and receiving consumer information. With the introduction of advanced SMS capabilities and session-based SMS messaging, WAP forms are losing their lust. SMS is an interoperable technology supported across all major carriers and handsets. Now that advanced SMS APIs can collect and data mine information over standard rate SMS, spending time on a WAP data form seems useless. Why struggle to develop a WAP page when a turn-key SMS platform accomplishes the same task across a wider spectrum of users.
3. Poor Usability
The lack of standards across mobile browsers makes it extremely difficult for WAP sites to be developed beyond very plain forms and text. This means that an entirely new process must be developed to produce WAP sites, which can put a significant strain on a company’s development team. If a development team is focused on producing a very advanced WAP site, there are numerous limitations because of the different navigation standards between handsets. Mobile handsets visiting WAP sites do provide carrier and browser information, but there is little advantage to having this information beyond knowing how to display the brands’ WAP page. Why struggle to cater development to the varying mobile handsets for an average user experience?
2. The Real Internet is Here
With the introduction of the iPhone and it’s rising , the new mobile internet standard is a fully capable internet browser and so is mobile; why should internet developers have to readjust everything on a handset by handset basis? If the consumer can get the majority of a WAP site’s offering through SMS and the soon-to-be interoperable MMS, the only reason they’d want to reach “the internet” would require them to actually reach the internet.
1. Poor Consumer Retention
There was a point where the lure of mobile was limited to the end-users ability to access your brand whenever they desired, but that has changed. With the development of mobile marketing platforms, the mobile phone adds the capability to reach an end-user when a brand needs to, a more powerful tool. Using an SMS campaign, an opt-in allows a brand to retain contact information about users that want to receive on-going alerts from their favorite brands. Very little carriers offer this same level of interaction from a WAP site visit. If call to action has worked well enough that the user visits the WAP site, the opportunity to convert the user is limited to the session the end-user has with the WAP site. That user may have every intent to visit the WAP page weekly for results; but, face it, people are too busy to remember, and they’re pretty much gone.
In the end, WAP won’t be shut down as there are a select number of uses, but with consumer demands raising the standard, it will never go beyond mediocre.
- Ainsworth
Excellent points. I don’t tend to agree that consumers want the entire Internet on their phone, but other than that I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. Consumers will demand (and rightly so) the best experience possible. Clearly WAP isn’t that, so consumers will find what is.
In response to Kim’s comment, I am inclined to guess that Kim’s phone is not an iPhone. It may be true that consumers don’t want the entire Internet on their phone, but it turns out that once they have it, they use it. I have heard an anecdotal number on this: in the AT&T network 2% of the phones are iPhones, 80% of the data traffic is on iPhones. Google has announced a similar number: 50 times more searches from iPhones than any other mobile handset (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/14/google_iphone_usage_shocks_search_giant.html).
I must disagree.
1. Would the “real” internet be at the standard it is today if there was no high consumer demand? would your coffee taste so good today if there was not a high consumer demand for good tasting coffee? .. my point being is that even now with the new XHTML Basic 1.1 wap is advancing at a very fast rate and the only thing holding back large companies from making full use of wap are all these negative points being made.
2. The transition from HTML to XHTML Basic is a small process and as for any server side scripting, well, that doesnt matter as a browser does not run those processors the server does.
So if a developement team is not able to grip the basic XHTML Basic markup then someone needs a new developement team.
3. One last note. the data usage of a iphone is much larger than any other phone why? because the average WAP page is 2-5kb and the average WEB page is anything from 50kb to 500kb …. you do the maths.
Regards,
Brandon
Brandon,
Great points all around; I apologize for taking a bit to respond.
I agree, the bad press around WAP is limiting companies from adopting it. I think that will be a double whammy and here is why:
As the WAP bad press continues to proliferate, all of the major handset manufacturers are reacting by producing handsets with a”real” internet experience. The iPhone 3G is right around the corner, and so are so many other iPhone contenders. So while WAP might is advancing the bad press, Apple marketing is forcing handset makers to move to the real internet.
#2 is a great point.
#3 I’m not sure where you are going, but the two possible roads I see are: price or speed. As for price, I think we’re not far off from the majority of people having unlimited data plans. Most anyone that is a power surfer is going to have an unlimited data plan.
I still go back to looking at the next 1-2 years. With every handset maker scrambling to react to the iPhone, and the iPhone setting such a 3rd screen standard, people who are planning to user the internet are going to be buying these phones. If most of these phones are sold with unlimited data as a requirement, that horizon will come much quicker.
If you’re talking about speed, AT&T is expecting to complete their 3G network by the end of June, so downloading a much larger file wouldn’t be a drag.
So, in summary, WAP is an extremely wounded animal. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it is “dead,” but someone must stop the bleeding.
Yes rightly put, most major manufacturers are pushing to bring out all new toys to play with. But the real question is right there… are they doing it for customer satisfaction or their own reasons? (namely competing with other companies, the fact that “real” internet offers more advertising space, trying to push for the next “big thing” before the last “big thing” has died down a little yet)
All that I personally see is that all major mobile manufacturers are doing is killing off what they would think is old news and try to fully push their markets for what they believe is the future of mobile internet.
The truth is… any application that you can design for WAP, you can design the same thing for WAP. The only difference is that WAP is forced to use less advertising. Where as a WEB site can hold say 10 ads for various products, the customers generally dont pay much mind to them, but with WAP you can have 2 simple ads but the customers will read them.
It goes back to a simple old saying…. keep it simple stupid…. WAP is simple, straight to the point and effective when used right. Mobile pages are small, they have to be, so there is less clutter and more direct simple products.
Your point on how effective SMS is, thats so true. SMS is simple, straight to the point and effective, just like WAP. The 2 platforms can go so well together, yet people still use SMS so often but not WAP. Tho that said, SMS can bring only a few products to the customers attention, because an SMS only has so many characters. BUT if you use SMS to promote a product AND further point the customer to a WAP site with your other products your customer can very easily just select the link from your SMS and effortlessly brows your wap site and see what you have to offer.
And further to that point, if the customer so wishes he/she can still come onto the EXACT same site and page from their desktop,laptop,palmtop,internet enabled wristwatch…. The WAP platform is a universal platform accessible by any internet enabled devise. Yes you may be able to log onto the “real” internet from your new phone… but you will still get the cluttered ads, the excessive links and so forth and it will still take long to browse all those pages. Where it will take someone 10 minutes to view 5 WEB pages from their phone, it will take me 10 minutes to view 20 WAP pages and be able to read evrything thats on them.
WAP has endless posibilities, just no one has yet to explore them.
I think ive got a little carried away here lol sorry for taking up all the space
Oh yes.
To clarify what I meant on my point #3.
Yes you pointed out half of what I meant there, WAP is faster to load and uses much less data. But also that survey done on the IPhones usage on the internet is flawed as they did not take this fact into much consideration. That survey is basically not much more than a marketing gimmick for the Apple to sell their product.
The IPhone is dominating the data usage because it consumes 10X + more data than any other mobile browser that is busy browsing WAP while the IPhone is busy browsing WEB.
Unfortunately that market survey is quite bias in my oppinion, hence my conclusion that it is a marketing gimmick by Apple.