Windows Phone Thoughts: W3C Launches the Mobile Web Initiative

"Today, at the WWW2005 Conference, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced the launch of the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) - an endeavor to make Web access from a mobile device as simple, easy, and convenient as Web access from a desktop device... Many of today's mobile devices already feature Web browsers and the demand for mobile devices continues to grow. Despite these trends, browsing the Web from a mobile device -- for example, to find product information, consult timetables, check email, transfer money -- has not become as convenient as expected. Users often find that their favorite Web sites are not accessible or not as easy to use on their mobile phone as on their desktop computer. Content providers have difficulties building Web sites that work well on all types and configurations of mobile phones offering Web access. W3C has launched the Mobile Web Initiative to make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality."

W3C's recently-announced 'Mobile Web Initiative' (MWI) recognises the lack of interoperability and usability problems in web access through mobile devices. By working together, members of the MWI hope to address these issues by concentrating on making websites 'mobileOK'. HP, vendors of the popular iPAQ brand, are one of the key founding sponsors of this initiative. Hopefully, this means we'll start to see more mobile-friendly websites using common internet domains and none of this segregated .mobi garbage.