RE: URLs and access issues

Hi,
 
I have never had any trouble distinguishing an i-mode phone using the UserAgent - they all contain the string 'Docomo' in them so they are actualy the easiest to distinguish, the ones that do give me trouble sometimes are the HDML / XHTML versions of ezweb from AU / tu-ka.
 
I have a keitai Database of all the useragents released in japan and it goes back a few years and Docomo have always had the 'Docomo' string in the useragent, even back to their PHS days so realy they are Easy peasy :D
 
The situation might be different with i-mode outside of Japan but I have managed several marketing campaigns here and gone that extra step to just provide a single URL for access and made scripts to detect the UserAgent and redirect to 1 of 4 sites : PC, chtml, hdml, xhtml, jhtml.  The scripts worked fine and still do :D
 
So now the situation is as I outlined before, the two URLs are purely used to show different versions of content depending on which medium you use to view.  The Japanese do have a very distinct flavour of what they expect from their mobile internet sites and it is very different from what they expect on their PC.
 
I was not advocating that this is the best way forward, just telling whats happening now so we can form a better oppinion as to how to steer the development.
 
Apologies for arguing but you twinged my geek-pride :D
 
Kind regards,
Marcus.
 
http://cellsuite.blogspot.com
 
 
 
 


Tim Moss <Tim@bango.com> wrote:
This missed the list for some reason - investigating.


---------------------------------
From: Ray Anderson [mailto:ray@bango.net] 
Sent: 10 August 2005 21:49
To: marcus saw; Nicolas Combelles; public-bpwg@w3.org
Cc: Tim Moss
Subject: RE: URLs and access issues



Actually, the reason that Japanese advertisers have to publish 2 URL's on posters is due to a flaw/feature in the original spec / design of iMode

Since i-mode accept-type (sent by the browser) was simply text/html, it was extremely tricky to distinguish from “big browsers” that also use text/html.  To provide one site that supported iMode phones and browsers required some pretty complex rules for these, based on User-Agent.  (WAP as used by KDDI did not have that problem, but most phones were i-Mode).  Our expert  tells me the O2 iMode phones send through an O2 imode identifier as part of the user agent.  But this can’t be relied on across the board.  And for the worst case, we just have to maintain a device list and work from that.  Pretty messy.  Unfortunately the MIME type is identical for chtml and html.  

On the other hand, the little "phone picture" you see near URL's is indeed a clue to try it on your mobile.  Thats what I'm suggesting we encourage content providers to do with their sites, once they have set them up to provide content for phones.

ray

At 03:05 10/08/2005, marcus saw wrote:
Just to give you an idea of how this problem is currently solved in Japan. 
 
It is quite normal to see posters on the trains and metro system here in Tokyo which display two URLS: one for the 'normal' website' and one, usually with a small mobile phone logo next to it showing the URL for the mobile site.  The most common form of mobile URL is to use a 'mobile' sub-directory for example: http://something.jp/m/ , sub-domains, eg: http://m.something.jp/ are less common.
 
There is already the definite distinction in Japan between 'website' and 'mobile phone site' and the public know what to expect from each type of URL advertised. 

		
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