Among the devices making the heaviest use of the mobile web are the iPhone and its non-smartphone counterpart, the iPod Touch. The data traffic created by these two handhelds has increased 19 times from September 2008 to this past month and now accounts for 43% of all smartphone requests worldwide. In the U.S., that percentage is even slightly higher, with iPhone traffic accounting for nearly half (48%) of all smartphone requests.

Apple devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) also claim the top two spots on both the U.S. and the worldwide charts of top handsets. However, feature phones like the RAZR v3 and Samsung's R450 are still making the top ten list as well and account for 60% of ad requests in the U.S. - a figure that's likely due to the unlimited data plans available with each of these devices.

Key Takeaway #2: Watch Out! Android is Rising Fast

Now climbing up the charts, Google's Android, the newcomer to the mobile operating system game, is beginning to have an impact on mobile web traffic as well. From August to September of 2009, the percentage of smartphone traffic generated by devices running the Android OS grew a whopping 13% over the course of the month. That's a dramatic increase in such a short period of time and gives credence to recent reports that Android is poised to become the number two smartphone in the worldwide market. While still far behind the iPhone OS in terms of traffic with only 17% of U.S. traffic and only 10% of traffic worldwide, Google's mobile OS is already beating out competitors like RIM, the maker of Blackberry devices, and Windows Mobile. It has also claimed two spots on the top 10 chart of handset models in the U.S with the HTC Dream coming in at number 3 and the HTC Magic coming in at number 10. Worldwide, the Dream is also number 3, but the Magic only makes it to spot number 15.

Key Takeaway #3: Outside of U.S., Mobile Web Strong in India, Indonesia, U.K., Philippines

When looking at the number of ad requests by country, the U.S. is still dominating with 47.3% of all requests coming from the States. The next nearest country, India, only comes in at 6.5%. Rounding out the top five are Indonesia, the U.K., and the Philippines. These numbers point to heavy mobile web use in each of these countries as compared with the rest of the world.

When grouped by larger regions, North America is number one with 49.5% of requests, most of that from the U.S., and the second largest region is Asia, accounting for 25.3% of requests. Western Europe, Africa, and Latin America follow with 9.4%, 5.3% and 5.0% respectively.

Looking at just percentage increases in traffic growth, a different picture appears. Latin America is showing a large percent increase year-over-year at 0.6%, second only to North America's 1.1%. Other regions in the top five, while still accounting for large numbers of requests, actually saw slight decreases in growth (less than 0.5%) over the past year.

Smartphones are Taking Over, Mobile Web Grows

While none of the data included in this report is all that surprising, it's interesting to see actual numbers put to the reported trends. We can now see the disproportionate amount of web surfing done by iPhone users, no doubt thanks to the phone's Safari web browser, a vast improvement over the browsers included in many other mobile devices on the market.

It's also worth noting how fast Android is moving up the charts right now. It could very well be the next contender to the smartphone crown, especially given the company's plans to continue spreading its OS across numerous devices worldwide. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently declared, "Android adoption is about to explode." Also, AdMob noted on an earlier blog entry that there are already 12 Android phones available through 32 carriers in 26 countries. By the time they release their next Mobile Metrics report, those numbers are sure to have increased.

What all this means to the consumer is that smartphones are now edging out feature phones as the devices of choice. More phones than ever come with the advanced capabilities like touchscreens, full-featured web browsers, and Wi-Fi. With features like these, more people will begin to surf the mobile web and download mobile applications. This, in turn, will drive related changes in mobile platforms, communication, e-Commerce, and more, all of which are bound to see similar upward trends over the coming months.

The research study was commissioned by Gomez, Inc., a company that helps organizations optimize the performance of their web and mobile applications. Obviously, that means you have to take these findings with a grain of salt as the company clearly has a vested interest in making the mobile web sound worse off than actually is.

That being said, in reading through the findings, you'll probably find yourself agreeing with much of what's being said. For example, the study found that the majority of mobile phone users said they expected sites to load as quickly, nearly as quickly, or even faster on their mobile phones as compared to their PC. While intellectually, most of us know that's not going to be the case - broadband connections at home or work are generally much faster than accessing the web via a mobile handset - there's still a feeling of wanting the phone to perform the way we've become accustomed to...that is to say, FAST. Waiting for a non-mobilized site to load up in the phone's browser reminds us too much of the painful days of dial-up connections. It feels like we've regressed to an earlier time...like there's something wrong with the site.

When encountering these slow loading sites, half of consumers reported that they were only willing to wait 6-10 seconds or less for the site to load. Longer than that, and they'll give up, move on, and probably won't ever return. Sixty-one percent said it's unlikely that they would ever visit that site again from their mobile device while another forty percent said they would seek out a competitor's site that provided a similar service.

While slow speeds were the number one complaint, with 73% reporting having issues in the past year, other complaints pointed to a lack of well-designed and stable mobile-ready sites. 51% percent complained of sites that crashed, froze, or received an error and another 48% reported the formatting of the site made it difficult to read. Clearly, there is overlap in these numbers as the survey respondents reported multiple complaints. Overall, though, 60% of mobile users reported having one or more issues accessing a site from their mobile phones.

No Mobile Web Presence is Bad for Business

For businesses who maintain a web presence, the survey's findings highlight the potential consequences of ignoring the mobile web. There are more people surfing mobile sites than ever before - 56.9 million as of July, according to Nielsen. Companies who haven't given consideration to their mobile websites aren't just losing customers for that initial attempted transaction that goes bad - they're possibly losing those customers for good seeing as how many of those frustrated users claim they won't ever return to the site in question.   

Although the survey sample size was relatively small (just 1001 total respondents) and the company behind this wants to sell web optimization services, the findings seem to be believable. Anyone who's spent a good amount of time on the mobile web can assure you that it truly is in its infancy. So many sites are slow, aren't optimized for viewing from mobile handsets, and it is frustrating when you encounter them. Hopefully, businesses will begin to realize that if they want to compete with the next generation of web surfers, a "web presence" alone isn't enough. Today, you need a "mobile web presence" too.

A new report by Openwave provides more evidence of this trend. Their findings show that four of the top ten domains accessed via mobile devices are social networking sites. Facebook and MySpace, of course, featured prominently on that list.

The company's Fall 2009 report highlights mobile Internet use trends in North America and uses data from an unnamed tier-one mobile operator who offers services to both consumers and business. The data sampled represents a five-day period in September of this year.

Among the top ten domains by page impressions are four social networking sites: Facebook, MySpace, Myxer, and Plenty-of-Fish, the last two being a ringtone creation and sharing site and a dating network, respectively. The inclusion of those two under the banner "social networking" is a little iffy, at best. Dating sites could be considered a category of social networking, we suppose, but Myxer seems more like an entertainment destination than a social network.

The other top domains making the list included about.com, accuweather.com, craigslist.org, imdb.com, wap.aol.com, and calltunes.operator.com. While we have no reason to doubt the accuracy of this study, we find it odd that google.com didn't make an appearance. It seems like we google something on our mobile phones on a daily basis - don't you?

Still, despite these questions, it's clear from the findings that social networks are a popular destination for mobile users, even if you only count MySpace and Facebook. Those two sites alone racked up the impressions as both the number one and number three sites visited.

MySpace Beats Facebook? Really?

Oddly, the chart shows that MySpace beat out Facebook, another questionable finding given that once popular site's rapid decline in traffic as of late. Recent numbers from the U.S.-centric analytics firm Compete, for example, showed MySpace traffic dropping from 55.6 million unique visitors in August to 50.2 million in September. Given such a sharp decline, you would expect to see a similar drop in mobile visits as well. 

Meanwhile, Facebook announced that they saw 65 million visits from mobile phones in the month of August, a huge rise from what was only 20 million back in December of 2007. Could they really be beaten out by that much on the mobile web according to this particular carrier? According to Openwave's report, they are.

While this recent report left us wondering, we have no doubt that social network use via mobile phones is trending upward these days. As the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported last month, there has been a one-year increase of 179% in subscribers accessing social networking sites from their mobile devices while those same sites only saw a 10% increase on the PC versions of the sites. And they're just one of many other outlets reporting similar trends. Social networking via the mobile phone is obviously a hot trend these days and one that hasn't peaked yet.

We've now compiled the main points into a single presentation, available on Slideshare and embedded below. You can view the presentation in full screen by clicking the "full" button at the bottom of the presentation. You can also download the presentation as a Powerpoint file. All of the links in the presentation are clickable, should you wish to explore a certain topic more.

1. Structured Data
2. The Real-Time Web
3. Personalization
4. Mobile Web & Augmented Reality
5. Internet of Things

With these levels of growth, we're also seeing related mobile services getting a boost. App stores, both phone-based and carrier-based, are popping up left and right, mobile video usage is booming, and mobile ad markets are seeing dramatic growth, too. However, there's one area that hasn't yet benefitted from the mobile revolution: mobile e-commerce.

The indicators of increased mobile web usage are everywhere. Just this week, we heard Facebook reporting their mobile growth had tripled from December of last year to this past month, for example. And then there's AT&T, the carrier for Apple's iPhone, which is seeing so much data usage that they couldn't even keep up, having to delay the introduction of new iPhone capabilities like MMS messaging until they were ready to handle the demand.

Mobile Ads Doing Well

Mobile-dependent markets are doing well, too, at least for the most part. A recent Gartner report states that mobile ad spending will grow 74% this year worldwide to $914.5 million. But the real growth won't happen until 2011 when advertisers are expected to fully embrace the shift to mobile. By 2013, the firm expects the mobile ad market to surpass $13 billion with the Asia-Pacific region in the lead, followed by North America and Europe. Not only is the rise of the smartphone to thank for this trend, so is the rise in flat-rate data plans which make it easier for more consumers to afford mobile web connectivity. As more consumers go online, more web publishers begin to cater to their needs with mobile-ready versions of their websites. This, in turn, "is lifting mobile web access among non-smartphone users," notes Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.

Mobile Video on the Rise

Along with basic web surfing, mobile users are also finding entertainment via their handhelds, specifically in the form of mobile video. According to Nielsen's latest three-screen report, the number of people watching mobile video increased 70% from last year. Nielsen, which specifically tracks American media habits, says this increase to 15 million viewers represents the largest annual growth to date.

M-Commerce Struggles

However, not all mobile-dependent markets are doing well. Mobile e-commerce, for example, is struggling. Despite the massive numbers of mobile users, those using their phones to make purchases are still few and far between...at least here in the U.S. According to new data from eMarketer, more than 70 million U.S. mobile phone users will access the internet from their devices this year, but the m-commerce market remains immature. In an April 2009 survey by RIS News, privacy and security concerns are still at the forefront of both shoppers' and retailers' minds. This had led companies to drag their feet when it comes to introducing their mobile commerce plans. Says Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst, "most retailers are either standing on the sidelines or in the midst of planning their mobile commerce strategy."

Another major problem is the lack of standardization in the mobile space. With the number of platforms now available, retailers find building a plethora of mobile applications not worth the effort. As InfoWorld recently noted, the smartphone market has become a "tower of Babel for developers." This means that mobile retailers have to carefully pick-and-choose the platforms they plan to support in order to see reasonable returns on their investments in this space. Despite the slow growth, it appears that m-commerce could be successful if only there were enough mobile apps and shopping opportunities out there.

Already, mobile payments firm Billing Revolution found that on-the-go consumers seem happy to purchase small ticket items like pizza and movie tickets, for example.

And a March 2009 PriceGrabber.com survey found that early m-commerce adopters were even buying up higher priced items like consumer electronics, apparel and jewelry.

In other words, when it comes to m-commerce, "if you build it, they will come." , or so it seems. However, developing m-commerce applications is only one part of the equation. For mobile e-commerce to be successful, we'll need to adopt a number of mobile payment platforms too.

But is the mobile web really to blame here for the usability issues? Or is this just a matter of people trying to surf a web that has evolved beyond what traditional cell phones and their awful built-in browsers can handle?

According to the new study, available as of yesterday from the Nielsen Norman web site, the average success rate for performing various tasks on the mobile web was only 59%. Compare that to 80% for the same tasks when performed on a PC.

"Observing users suffer during our ... sessions reminded us of the very first usability studies we did with traditional websites in 1994," Nielsen told USA Today. "It was that bad."

Some of the tests involved in the study had participants heading to specific web sites, including Fandango.com for movie reviews and Anthropologie.com for a shopping task. Other tests were more general and open-ended, allowing users to do web searches to find the answers to various questions. As they surfed, participants came across sites that were both mobile-ready and those that were not.

Not surprisingly, the researchers found that success rates dramatically improved when surfing the mobile versions of the web sites - by 20%, to be exact. Also not surprising was the fact that smartphone owners had less trouble performing the same tasks as users of traditional cell phones. For example, iPhone owners had an average success rate of 75% while other smartphones averaged 55%. Traditional cell phones, however, only averaged 38%.

Is the Mobile Web Unusable or is it the Devices People Use to Surf It?

The study calls into question the usability of today's mobile web, pointing out contributing factors to the problem which include things like small screens, awkward input on mini-keyboards, poorly designed sites, and bandwidth issues.

But the overall takeaway from this research feels like a case of putting hard numbers to information we already knew: surfing the web with your hot pink Razr's built-in browser is an experience that leaves a lot to be desired.

It is, in fact, the rise of the smartphone that has made the mobile web such a popular destination on both consumer devices and those designed for business use, like the Blackberry. Prior to what we can only call the "smartphone explosion," not much thought was given to the mobile web by users, web site owners, or by the handset manufacturers whose built-in browsers seemed to make the problem even worse in some cases. Data plans were an expensive luxury, too, so many people didn't even bother to add on the extra package that made mobile web surfing possible.

But when the smartphones took off, a movement in which Apple's iPhone has had a major impact, the mobile web felt the ripple effects of all the new users coming online. Not only were companies designing mobile sites, they were taking the time to design iPhone-specific sites, too. Although the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone in existence by any means, it has been a driving force of change for the smartphone industry as a whole. With its highly usable Safari web browser and touchscreen, other manufacturers had to step up their game in order to compete.

These days, every cell phone carrier offers multiple types of smartphones in their lineup from touchscreen Blackberrys to Android-powered phones to the iPhone and more. On these phones, the usability of the mobile web is not really an issue.

So what is this study really saying, then? If you want to surf the mobile web with ease, get a smartphone? Or perhaps it's pointing out how terrible the browsers are on traditional cell phones, seeing as how those who struggled the most were using what many would call "old school" handsets (aka "feature phones"). It's also interesting that no comparisons were made between the basic built-in browsers and a user-installed upgrade like Opera. With Opera Mini's site compression and zooming abilities, for example, accessing sites - both mobile and non - on any phone becomes much easier.

Ultimately, though, the market for feature phones may be on the decline, making usability issues such as the ones found in this study of less importance going forward. In March of this year for instance, IDC reported a decline in mobile phone shipments due to the poor economic conditions worldwide. What was really interesting, though, was that the smartphone segment of this market, while not unaffected, still remained in positive growth while the rest of the market was poised to expect an 8.3% downturn. As noted by the IDC report, that "speaks volumes about the potential upside for these devices when the market turns." What it means is that the market for feature phones is fading out. In the future, when every phone becomes a smartphone, the usability of the mobile web probably won't seem so bad.

It is important to note that the researchers only surveyed users at Cambridge University and the Open University, so these results are somewhat skewed and only apply to the U.K., where text messaging is even more prevalent than in the United States.

The report, however, also found that users of more advanced phones like the iPhone are far more inclined to read eBooks on their phones than users of feature phones (no surprise there, given the difference in screen estate and quality). In the end, though, the report argues that it is currently "not worth libraries putting development resource into delivering content such as eBooks and e-journals to mobile devices at present."

Too Conservative?

While these recommendations seem reasonable based on the survey data, we agree with Lorcan Dempsey, a library blogger and Vice President of OCLC, who argues that with the advent of better eReaders and the iPhone, these survey results will probably look very different in just a few years from now.

As Sarah Bartlett from the Panlibus blog points out, the recommendations in this report are anchored in the past (getting SMS alerts about due books, for example), while now would be a good time to "re-imagine the library and its services."

While some libraries are often conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies, we would think that starting to adopt some of these technologies like eBooks and better mobile services now would help these institutions to remain relevant in a future where those large buildings in the middle of campus are already turning more into places for study groups to meet up and grab a cup of coffee than centers of academic research.

CC-licensed image used courtesy of Flickr user umjanedoan.

Results were based on user-generated requests for mobile ads during April 2009 as well as on a Gartner report on smartphone sales in Q4 2008.

So, in the smartphone category, which devices were most conducive to consumer interest in ads? We're sure advertisers are dying to know, but this also gives a good picture of browser usability and speed as well as connection reliability.

The iPhone/iTouch group led the pack with 43 percent of mobile web and 65 percent of HTML requests, all on an 8 percent share of the smartphone market. Devices with the Android OS represented less than one percent of the market but accounted for three percent of mobile web and nine percent of HTML ad requests. Though none of us here majored in higher maths, we see this as a sign that if Android devices can capture more of the smartphone market, they might be able to outstrip Apple devices in mobile web use.

The disappointing underacheiver of the report was undoubtedly the Symbian OS, which had 52 percent of the smartphone market but generated only 36 percent of mobile web and 7 percent of HTML requests. This is a fairly good indicator that the Symbian OS might - just might - not be bringing the Internet to life in its truest, most usable form. Satisfied users of Symbian-running devices are invited to rebut this speculation in the comments.

The top devices for web use were from Apple, Sony (the PSP), and HTC.

Overall, smartphones' use of the mobile web (again, according to AdMob) as compared to all mobile devices is up about 10 percent from last year. However, Apple devices' domination of the market has slipped slightly over the past five months, falling from 48 to 43 percent of mobile web use for smartphones.

Here's an explanation of the performance measures:

• Discoverability - how readily a consumer can find the mobile website using different URLs.
• Readiness - how well the mobile website renders on popular mobile devices.
• Availability - the percentage of successful transactions or the availability of a Web page.
• Response time - how long each page takes to download and the duration of an entire transaction.
• Consistency - how well the mobile website performs on different mobile carriers, in different geographies and time frames.

Mobile Search

Amazon, AOL and Yahoo all score high, with MSN and MySpace trailing behind. However it's disappointing that Google's mobile search wasn't included - apparently it "did not meet the technical requirements", which would be a first for a Google app! Yahoo's mobile search is generally regarded as one of the market leaders, alongside Google, so it will be pleased that usability is ranked strongly too by Gomez.

Mobile Banking

Lastly, looking at an example of 'real world' mobile websites that many mainstream people would likely use, these banking statistics show that Bank of America has proven to be (ahem) the most stable. Judging by the lack of bars for most banks in the 'summary' chart though, mobile banking has a fair way to go to achieve consistent performance for consumers.

You can check out other industries, mobile and regular websites, on the Gomez site. Let us know your own experience with mobile website performance in the comments below, including of ReadWriteWeb's own mobile website at http://m.readwriteweb.com.

Update: Originally this article included a chart and commentary on the Media industry, however we learned after publication that this was for regular websites and not mobile. Our apologies, we've deleted that section.

As of last month, more than 23 million mobile web surfers used Opera Mini to surf more than 8.6 billion pages in March, which equates to 148 million megabytes of data sent to handsets worldwide. Since Opera Mini compresses data before sending, that number actually represents 1.4 petabytes (PB) of uncompressed data. Data traffic is up 319%, year-over-year, and page views have increased by 255%.

Latin America Goes Mobile

This latest report from Opera focuses on Latin America. In that region, Chile went from ninth to first, overall, as Chilean mobile web use increased by 3200% over the past year. Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina followed to round out the top five.

In the region, Opera was able to determine which sites are being accessed the most by web surfers. According to their findings, Google, Live.com, and Facebook all do well in Latin America and Orkut remains the top social network in Brazil and Paraguay. Smaller social networking sites like hi5 are also popular in many countries.

Worldwide, Mobile Web Grows & Grows

Elsewhere in the world, the mobile web continues to grow rapidly. Opera found triple-digit pageview growth in most countries with double-digit user increases in all countries. Nigeria is the only exception as it experienced a more than 4000% pageview growth and 1500% user growth since March 2008.

The report delves into data from several different countries in order to provide statistics on pageview and user growth, top web sites, and top handsets for that region. Here, you can discover interesting tidbits like this: the top site in China is kong.net, a mobile portal that provides media, entertainment offerings, and community services. And, although Google makes the top 10 sites lists in many counties, in the Ukraine it's nowhere to be found. You can also see how popular Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung handsets are in other parts of the world.

Opera CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, reminds us that "a mobile phone will be the device most people use to access the web." Looking back through these numbers, it's easy to see how true that statement really is today.

The mobile web is not just about accessing the internet from your phone. It's an entirely new platform for communication that's transforming our experience of the web, the world, and ourselves. Our mobile devices have unique sociological and technological attributes while also being a highly personal extension of ourselves, noted Davis. When developing applications for these devices, developers should take advantage of these differences.

To understand how "mobile-first" experiences differ from those on the desktop, you must understand what these unique attributes are. A "mobile-first" experience is:

• Location Aware
• Personal and Personalizable
• 24/7 and Temporally Situated
• Open
• Voice Enabled

It also connects the web and the world in ways that have never happened before.

Mobile First Experiences Include Who, What, When, Where

Davis also introduced the concept of "W4" which is unique to the mobile. W4 means that on the mobile, you can combine the spatial, temporal, social, and topical experiences into one. Or, in more simple terms, a mobile experience includes the Who, What, When, and Where. A mobile phone knows the answers to these questions: it knows who you are, when you are, where you are, and what you're doing. If, as a developer, you know these things, you can improve the user experience and content through ad targeting, personalization, and recommendation.

The mobile phone is also more than just a phone, Davis reminded the audience. It can also be a media consumption device, a media production device, a sensor in a sensor network, and even a social and cognitive prosthetic device that enables our collective embodied intelligence.

The Future of Mobile-First

When you think about the things that make the mobile phone different, you can start to create experiences for these devices that go beyond what could ever have been created for the desktop.

We already saw one example of this at the Expo when Heroes creator Tim Kring spoke about his new creation, the "mobile immersive experience."

Of course, Davis used the new Yahoo! mobile web site at new.m.yahoo.com as an example of the mobile-first experience done right. He also pointed to the Tagmaps Proptype, a map service that provides information about places to go and things to see with changes based on what time of day it is. For example, during the day in San Francisco, you might be recommended to go check out Alcatraz, but at night, you'll be pointed to restaurants and nightclubs instead.

These sorts of new experiences are just the beginning, says Davis. In the future, we'll see mobile-first offerings that combine the real-time web and the world, introduce augmented reality applications, extend the internet of things, and more. But in order for us to get there, developers need to stop thinking of the mobile web as just the portable internet. They need start designing applications for the unique platform that is the mobile web.

In fact, the ability for mobile web developers to get their apps on a number of platforms without having to start from scratch each time has been made even easier as of late thanks to a new project called Phonegap. This open source development tool is actually a web-based platform that lets developers build apps in HTML and JavaScript while also allowing those apps to take advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

When you look at the type of applications built using this technology, you may be surprised. If you didn't already know they were made using PhoneGap, you may have thought that they were native applications. Take the Blok-Buster game (iTunes URL) for example, a Tetris-inspired game that involves clearing similarly-colored blocks from the screen. You can tilt the phone horizontally, vertically, or even flip it upside down and it behaves just as a native application would. Yet it is just a web app using the PhoneGap's functionality.

Technology like this can speed up the process of getting applications deployed across a number of platforms. That's something that is more critical than ever as we move forward with mobile web development. Today, there are just too many languages and platforms to code for and in the future there could be even more. So, perhaps we shouldn't be focused solely on native applications as the future of the mobile web after all. Maybe the future of the mobile web will just be the future of the web.

There are a number of fascinating figures and observations from Grigsby's presentation (embedded below) about the state of the mobile web and the challenges ahead. It's definitely worth a look.

Fred Wilson points out that Americans who accessed the Internet from their desktops and laptops were responsible for about 192 million monthly uniques, which, if we trust comScore's numbers, would mean that the mobile web is now close to 1/3 the size of the 'wired' web. Developers who ignore the mobile clearly do so at their own peril, and thanks to the rising popularity of smartphones, this trend towards accessing the Internet from mobile devices will surely only accelerate.

However, comScore also notes that while 22.3 million people accessed news and information services through a downloadable application, 32.4 million used SMS. While smartphones are indeed getting more popular, comScore also found that 70% of those users who accessed mobile Internet sources did so on standard feature phones.

CC-licensed logo image used courtesy of Flickr user bjortklingd.

In PCMag tests, the Fennec browser was installed on two devices. On each one, the browser had to be launched twice in order for it to run. But upon start up, only the checkerboard pattern displayed, not the expected introductory screen with instructions. By scrolling up and left, you could reach the address bar, but entering in URLs only returned errors. By kick-starting the phone's modem by first launching Opera, it was possible to get the title bar of various web pages to appear - but still no page would display. Other Fennec testers experienced the same issues.

Wrote PCMag.com's columnist Sascha Segan, "If this is a milestone, it's marking a pit stop. Better luck next time, Mozilla folks."

What Happened?

According to Mozilla Mobile team member, Mark Finkle, the problem appears to be memory-related. He notes that Windows Mobile devices have some restrictions around memory use and that's what his team is now trying to work around. However, it sounds like the team still hasn't yet nailed down the exact problem which is causing the bug. On his blog, he writes "when we figure out the true cause...we'll be sure to blog the details." (When?)

Checking in on the bug's status, it's still listed as "Assigned to: Nobody." But we're taking that to mean (we hope) that the entire Fennec team is working on addressing this showstopper of an issue.

Says one commenter on Bugzilla, the problem happens immediately following an allocation failure in gfxImageSurface, but no one else has chimed in to confirm his statement yet.

The Mobile Web: the Next Browser Battleground

Interestingly enough, while Mozilla's attempt at the mobile web was crashing and burning, another mobile browser, Skyfire, was releasing a landmark version of their browser, too. Skyfire version 0.9 for Windows Mobile and Symbian, a browser which already supports Flash 10, Silverlight, and Ajax, introduced a new "social" version of their software on February 12th.

In the latest update, Skyfire offers a Friendfeed-like start portal which delivers news from RSS sources as well as updates from Facebook and Twitter. It's pre-configured with feeds from Digg, ESPN, Google News, Hulu, YouTube and Yahoo! News, but those can be easily customized.

In addition to relative newcomer Skyfire, some of the most popular browsers for the mobile web comes from Opera, whose mobile software is currently installed on millions of devices worldwide. 

Although Skyfire and Opera may not have the brand-name recognition that Mozilla enjoys (well, perhaps Opera does), it's clear that when it comes to mobile web browsers, innovation can happen anywhere, from any company. What dominates on the desktop will not necessarily be what dominates on our mobiles, and for mobile web users, that could be a good thing.

In parts of Africa, there simply is no mobile internet access available...but there is the ability to send SMS. Enter Mobile-XL. With their browser's graphical, easy-to-use interface, people with limited or no internet access finally have an entry point to vast resources of the web. The application, which works on Java-based phones with either GPRS or Bluetooth functionality, provides access to news, weather, flight status, package tracking, dictionary, thesaurus, translations, local 411, games, music, access to email, and more.

The XLBrowser doesn't have to be pre-installed on handsets in order for people to use it. If customers have a GPRS-enabled phone, they can text "XLB" to 3663 (for Kenya) or 7197 (for Uganda) or 3112 (for Tanzania). However, they will need a Bluetooth-activated PC or laptop to store the file that's downloaded from the link. The file then needs to be transferred to the handset using Bluetooth. For obvious reasons, having phones which are already equipped with the browser will give more people access to the mobile web, especially in places where PCs and laptops are hard to come by.

Says Guy Kamgaing-Kouam, CEO of Mobile-XL, "we're taking a gigantic step toward realizing our mission of bridging the digital divide." His company has been working since 2005 to develop a simple and affordable technology that could bring internet services to the underserved markets of the world.

The new partnership agreement between Nokia and Mobile-XL will deliver the XLBrowser in phones initially shipped to Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania as early as March 2009.