The optimal mobile internet is not a stripped down version of the desktop or even the desktop itself

Michael Gartenberg | August 02, 2007, 01:22 PM

Dave Winer talks about the need for mobile optimized Web content.

"To prove the point, compare the user experience, on an iPhone, of the default NY Times site (as demo'd in the commercial), and the river version. No doubt which one is easier for the user, and isn't that what counts? (To me as a user, of course it is.)"

Totally correct. I've talked about this myself in the past as well.

Up until now, Mobile content meant, stripped down or limited. Apple delivered "the real internet" but that's not really what's required either (and the best web sites on the iPhone are those that are optimized for it, like the Newsgator iPhone version). Mobility and the web are not about the desktop experience or bringing a stripped version down. What we're talking about is synthesis, going back to college chemistry where we take product a and mix it with product b and get something brand new, what we currently have is a type of symbiosis that while it works, is far from ideal.