As I was riding into work today, I was trying to figure out why mobile hasn’t caught on in the US. It seems at the beginning of every year we hear the same old line: “This will be the year for mobile”, but it never really seems to happen. Why not? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I think part of the reason (for me specifically) is because I’ve created an awesome mobile environment for myself, and thought it worth sharing, in the hopes of moving the mobile ball forward.
Without further adieu, here’s a look at my main mobile homepage(s), with some tips to help you build your own.
This is the main page for my mobile phone. I built it in Dreamweaver. It’s a very basic, flat HTML page with a little CSS. I originally had everything on one page, but realized it was more efficient to have the items I truly use on a regular basis on the homepage, and unload everything else on other pages, to aid in faster load times. For reference, this page is only 3k in size.
The other good thing about this is that I don’t have to go online to retrieve my homepage. I keep a copy on the memory card, so when I open the browser on my mobile phone, it loads this page very quickly, instead of trying to go online to load the default mobile homepage of my carrier. The time saved by doing this trumps the time it took to build it, hands down.
As you can see, there’s a lot of stuff on this main page. On a normal commute, I’ll check Twitter, MSNBC, BBC, and 3-4 pages on the Wall Street Journal.
Also, remember that all links on my mobile pages are to the mobile versions of the site. If they don’t have a mobile version, it isn’t going on this page.
At the bottom of the page, I have a link to the train schedule and to Page 2.
I copied the schedule for my train line into a simple table, and color-coded the lines for easier readability. If I scroll down, I can also see the weekend schedules. This comes in really handy when I stay in the city for dinner, or when attending a Cubs game on a weekend.
On Page 2, I have a collection of mobile links that I check from time to time. Nothing out of the ordinary here; remember that they are all to the mobile versions of the applicable site.
At the bottom of Page 2, I have search boxes for Google and Yahoo. I originally had these on the homepage, but they took too long to render and load, so they got demoted to page 2. Also, I really don’t search that much; almost everything I need is available via a link.
Finally, for those not aware, when searching Google from a mobile phone, if the result is a mobile site, they add a small image of a phone next to the listing, so you know it’s going to be easy to view, and not crash your phone, causing a reboot. This little touch is awesome; it really helps out in the mobile environment.
It didn’t take very long to generate these pages, but the value they add is immeasurable. Being able to find the current movies with two clicks, current weather is one click, PGA Leader board is one click; easily worth the effort, and I suggest everyone with a mobile phone follow my lead. It really increases the value of the phone.
If anyone would like a copy of the HTML, just let me know via email or Twitter. Thanks for reading, and I hope it motivates you to personalize your mobile start page.
If you like this post you might enjoy following me on Twitter: twitter.com/danperry
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Dan,
Great little article, wonderful ideas there! I’ll be sure to add this to my own phone.
-Sean
Really Cool, ive tried this in the past however i was not as plugged into the social networking scene as i am now. A round two might prove a little more resourceful then the last time around. great job.