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Opera CEO says DotMobi is a 'total waste of time'
In a casual chat here at SCI FI Tech's mobile-Web-browsing labs, Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner (pictured above) came out swinging against the DotMobi domain, calling it a "total waste of time" and "completely unnecessary." You may be wondering: who is this guy, what's the DotMobi domain, and why should I care about any of this when I've got tacos on the brain? Well, smart guy, if you've got a hankerin' for some Mexican while out and about, the first thing you're probably going to do is look for Tex-Mex places on your mobile phone or PDA. That means you'll fire up a mobile browser like Opera Mini to do your searching. Now, the folks at DotMobi (a.k.a. ".mobi") think that every website should have a streamlined version for mobile browsers (since they're typically limited by low bandwidth and small screens), so instead of surfing to ohmaniwouldlovemesometacos.com, you'd go to ohmaniwouldlovemesometacos.mobi.
Von Tetzchner thinks that's stupid. He told me that the site and the browser should work together to present Web content optimized for whatever device you're using. "There should be one Internet," he says. "What if you're using another device? Should we have .gameconsole? .car? .fridge? .plane? We don't need .mobi at all." Besides, he says, "There are capabilities for sites to query the browser to figure out exactly what you're using. That's a much more elegant solution than having the user choose which site to go to."
Makes sense to me, though I'd give von Tetzchner more points if his company's browser had more than 1% market share (have you used Opera lately? Has anyone?). But Opera does come preinstalled in plenty of mobile devices, so he has some cred on this specific subject. We prefer his take, since it passes our simplicity test: Technology should make things simpler, and .mobi just gives you one more thing to worry about. It's like a guy trying to sell you a small glass because sometimes you want to drink less water. Dude, when that happens, I just won't put as much in.
By kaykaykay9 at 7:18 AM ON 11/10/06
>>Makes sense to me, though I'd give von Tetzchner more points if his company's browser had more than 1% market share (have you used Opera lately? Has anyone?).<
That's very unfair. Opera Mini is the leading browser for mobile devices, so you'd think Tetzchner is the perfect person to ask about a mobile domain.
Yes, I have used Opera lately. I use it all the time. Go to my.opera.com and discover 500000 users who like Opera (and those are just the ones who've signed up for the Opera Community).
By DigitalRaven at 10:31 AM ON 11/10/06
I use Opera. And 1% of the world is a significant population. Also keep in mind that stats sites use the same bad code to detect Opera (bad user agent detection). Educated people say Opera's desktop usage is more like 2-3%, it's mobile usage is over 50% of all mobile browsers, and Opera is the most standards compliant browser available. Those who would read this article, should be paying attention to Jon S. von Tetzchner. .mobi is useless.
By klingoncowboy4 at 12:47 PM ON 11/10/06
"have you used Opera lately?"
Why yes I have and thank you for asking. Not only have I used it as my primary browser for years, I also test EVERY weekly build. Now that may not make me a typical user but it does show that people do use it.
The community for the Opera browser has over 1000 new users per day and a total of over 500,000.
While it may occupy a small percentage of total use it is not insignificant. As the article says it comes preinstalled on many mobile devices, it can also run on many more. Opera goes preinstalled on the Nintendo WII and is available for the DS.
By jwalm at 5:07 PM ON 11/10/06
Sites that resolve on a phone should function.
By morghanphoenix at 6:19 PM ON 11/13/06
I use Opera as my only GUI browser and everyone whose computer I've managed to get it on has switched. Plus, Opera has a great bonus as far as I'm concerned, it works on linux mac and windows as well as solaris and BSD. Personally, I won't use a product unless it works on at least windows linux and mac. I think not only the web, but computers in general, should start making things work better for everyone. If I visit a web site that says "best viewed with Internet Explorer" I leave that website. The web was designed to work for anyone using any browser. I even use Lynx, and if you've ever tried to surf the web in a text only browser you know what I mean. I know I'm going to be missing all the pretty pictures, but the site should still be usable even without them. Same goes for a mobile phone, you might need to do some excessive scrolling to view all the content, but if the site is made well you won't need .mobi for it to work. I think they'd make better use of thier time teaching people how to design websites that work with any browser instead of trying to get people to make sites that work specifically for mobile ones. I recently bought a computer and passed up the company I wanted to buy from just because thier website was a flash monstrosity that didn't have the option for a simple page.
By klingoncowboy4 at 2:22 AM ON 11/14/06
When I first got Opera I was inmpressed wiht the longe list they had of platforms. Now the list is gone you can still download for those platforms.
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klingoncowboy4:
When I first got Opera I was inmpressed wiht the longe list they had of platforms. Now the list is gone you can st...More »