Comments on: 7 Reasons WAP is Flawed http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/ Mobile Marketing, Text Messaging, Mobile Social Networking and more. Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:31:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Brandon Rennie http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/#comment-64 Brandon Rennie Fri, 30 May 2008 20:28:38 +0000 http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/?p=12#comment-64 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. 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.

]]> By: Brandon Rennie http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/#comment-63 Brandon Rennie Fri, 30 May 2008 20:21:29 +0000 http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/?p=12#comment-63 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 :) 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 :)

]]> By: Ainsworth Boyle http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/#comment-60 Ainsworth Boyle Tue, 27 May 2008 14:42:27 +0000 http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/?p=12#comment-60 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. 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.

]]> By: BrandonR http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/#comment-58 BrandonR Fri, 23 May 2008 21:17:32 +0000 http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/?p=12#comment-58 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 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

]]> By: Michael Stanford http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/#comment-38 Michael Stanford Mon, 19 May 2008 21:34:02 +0000 http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/?p=12#comment-38 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). 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).

]]> By: Kim Dushinski http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/trends-and-research/7-reasons-wap-is-flawed/#comment-3 Kim Dushinski Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:22:12 +0000 http://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/?p=12#comment-3 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. 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.

]]>