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When to Develop a Wireless Website

by Isaac Ferreira    

Even skeptics would give the wireless web a good chance of success. Overheated sales rhetoric should not deflect real engineering achievements, for spreading data through the airwaves is not a simple task. Morse code used to be the basis of radio communication for good reason: sometimes only the simplest of transmissions can wade through the sea of competing signals. Over the decades the reliability and speed of data transmissions have slowly but steadily improved. Current wireless networks send data at a rate of about 10 kilobits per second, about the speed of a regular modem, and providers promise huge improvement in the next few years.

In the meantime, wireless users can attest to the convenience of checking movie times from restaurants or reading e-mail while waiting for a flight. Whether or not these scorching sales predictions come to pass, the wireless Web is slowly integrating itself into everyday life.

This leaves the question, when does your business invest in the wireless web?

So you have established a website with good content, traffic levels are healthy and your company wonders where to focus its creative energy. If you have not considered delivering your content to PDAs, cell phones and other wireless devices, this could potentially be a good time. Wireless internet subscribers are projected to grow to 85 million people by 2005 in the United States alone, according to many studies.

It is true that developers of WAP technology have some formidable obstacles in their path. One of the initial challenges for the big players like Ericcson, Nokia, and Motorola is the need to adjust for the multiple interfaces that users employ to access the wireless web. There are a number of companies offering services to organize and redistribute your content, for wireless devices are just another way to display your offerings, it just requires a development team to become acquainted with XML or WML. Formatting your content for smaller screens is fairly straightforward, in many ways much easier than traditional HTML. So what factors should you consider in the decision to develop a wireless website?

First and foremost, ask the obvious question: do I have services that I can reasonably market on a wireless website?

The wireless web is no longer just for "early adopters" and gadget lovers, or a small niche where only the largest players of the Internet can afford to get established. There are many small companies taking advantage of the services available. Consider in depth whether your service really fits within the wireless landscape. Will the technology evolve?

Future technology will offer the opportunity to add dynamic content, e-commerce applications, and secure transactions through WAP-enabled devices. An early entry, developed with growth in mind, can begin to develop a pool of prospective customers. Can it help my company catch up?

When browser-equipped WAP phones become widely used because it opens up the possibility, for example, of being able to ask for a stock quote by speaking into a telephone and then viewing the resulting quote on the phone's tiny Internet screen. If your business was a late entry or has suffered thru marketing mistakes, the wireless web can level the playing field with the opportunity to get in early on the next Internet land grab. What about development costs and maintenance?

Until now, the extensive re-programming necessary to make a web site accessible by non-PC devices could only be undertaken at great expense by the largest companies and e-commerce providers --at an expense of millions of dollars. Now developers can deliver simple, affordable solution to the challenge of translating content developed for the big screen world of the PC to the tiny screens of wireless device.

Rather than consumers, the wireless web must be driven by businesses, and consumers will only engage once the technology has been refined and improved by the business sector. It is certainly a risk developing a wireless website in this embryonic stage, but as the user pool grows the numbers game should provide compelling enough evidence for the investment.


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Article by Isaac Ferreira, visit www.onlinetransmissions.com for related articles.