Jim Atwood made a WordPress blog and used a mobile plugin. That’s impressive, but not unique. After all, I do that here on mobiEnthusiast.mobi every day. The unique part is that Jim is an American living in Japan. As a mobile internet junkie, I want to learn all I can about what makes mobile tick in a country that is mostly mobile-only – especially since I don’t understand the language.
According to Jim, it is common in Japan to make two completely separate versions of a website. One is for desktop computers, like his standard blog, Ricochehost.com (computer link), and a completely separate, stand-alone mobile website, such as his mobile blog, JimAtwood.mobi.
In Jim’s words:
The Japanese like to make things simple and have two sites. This avoids the browser detection problems that everyone has all the time. With just one dedicated mobile site, things are much easier. In some cases, Japanese website only one version and that is mobile. In my opinion, mobile usage for the Internet is much more prevalent in Japan.
As a mobi enthusiast, this is music to my ears. It makes perfect sense to avoid trying to guess what new phone is going to come out next and garble my site. Granted, mTLD/dotMobi does a great job with Device Atlas, but if you make a site that complies with ready.mobi in the first place, it is much simpler and saves a lot of time and headaches. Dot com for computers, dot mobi for mobile web.
I met Jim through LinkedIn (mobile link). If you are interested in networking with me on LinkedIn as well, please let me know.
Here’s to the mobile web!
This post is featured in Carnival of the Mobilists Issue #185. Check it out for a great weekly roundup of mobile bloggers.
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Hey! I recognise that plugin!
Nice site though
Thanks very much for the plug here. Much appreciated.
The http://jimatwood.mobi website is a 2.8.2 WordPress site running the WordPress Mobile Pack plugin from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-m…. I actually installed a few other plugins that are popular but I found the WordPress Mobile Pack to be the best for me. In addition, I was referred to a service called “Mobify” that had rave reviews but honestly I thought that required much more work to get running. The WordPress Mobile Pack was very simple and easy to install and configure. Of course, the end result is a very simple mobile site, but at the moment I think it works pretty well.
I should also note that a few plugins used for my .mobi site include “XHTML and Mobile YouTube” which allows you to simply embed YouTube videos in an XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant manner. Also allows links to Mobile YouTube for phones. I also have “Access Keys” which is a plugin that allows you to add Access Keys to Category and Page navigation menus to make your website far more accessible. I haven't tested the access keys or the Youtube plugin yet so I can't confirm whether they work.
Finally, I should say that I like the WordPress and .mobi WordPress Mobile Pack because my goal is to create Japanese Shift-JIS solutions for clients here in Japan. I say Shift-JIS because all my clients use Shift-JIS on their desktop computers and Internet websites. Working with the Japanese language in multiple charsets is a real pain in the neck. EUC-JP and UTF-8 are a nightmare although I know UTF-8 probably should be used. In Japan I am trying to go with what everyone is using and that is Shift-JIS.
I now need to add more content to my .mobi site as soon I get some additional time. I also work as a server/database/networking administrator which has been keeping me extremely busy as of late.
If anyone can recommend some good .mobi and WordPress plugins, code, or ideas, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Thanks! – Jim