iheni :: making the web worldwide

Simplifying popular content sharing websites has got Chris Heilmann on a roll. First it was Easy YouTube player and now he is working on a simple photo viewer for Flickr. This is a simple API that allows you to search for photo’s, 20 at a time, within Flickr bypassing the busyness of the main Flickr user interface.

Chris has made the source code available for download so you can host the interface yourself. All you need is a server with PHP and cURL and that’s it.

Information and instructions can be found on his blog.

Update: If you’re interested to know about how the easy Flickr API was built Chris has written a step-by-step guide.

Tags: Flickr, photos

Chris Heilmann, inspired by Antonia Hyde, has been working on an easy to use YouTube Player. Originally conceived as something to cut out the confusion of using YouTube for people with cognitive problems the player is proving a hit all round. It’s trimmed down, easy to use interface is exactly what is needed if you want to get to your video content quickly and with as little hassle and interruption as possible. What I love about it is that it cuts out all the noise that you have when looking at a regular YouTube page and trims down content to the two things you actually want: the player and search.

Key features include:

• Large friendly buttons to click on;
• Clear volume control (although I expected the “Quieter” button to come before the “Louder” button; There is also a large visual display that you can’t miss so you can see what volume you have the player at;
• Good use of colour contrast to make buttons easier to read and understand
  Video resize options of small, medium and large;
• Clear instructions;
• Search integrated into the page.

As well as being visually accessible the player is also screen reader accessible. Given that much of the clutter of the regular YouTube player is removed the user experience is also better as there’s no need to tab around multiple links and wade through additional content. Of course this is a bonus for voice input and keyboard only users as well.

There are a couple of little fixes that need to be made (the help documentation isn’t there for example) and it does rely on JavaScript (difficult to see how it couldn’t to be fair) but over all it’s a great application and a perfect example of how we should be making.

Check out the Easy YouTube player player and see what you think.

Update

The player help documentation is now available and I have to say a real bonus in itself. One very non technical thing that people constantly forget is to write really good, clear, help documentation to accompany their web apps or sites. Too often I’ve seen apps or sites that let themselves down because they don’t support people using them or flag accessibility features.

Tags: accessibility, video, YouTube

Having cried wolf a few times over the last few years (WAP anyone?) mobile browsing is now packing a serious punch and nowhere more so than in developing countries.

Prohibitive costs for hardware and software, lack of infrastructure, phone lines and support for internet access has meant that surfing the web from desktops in poorer regions has not developed at the pace of the web elsewhere. While there may be initiatives such as One Laptop per Child and other low cost laptops to help address this even these can’t fix the problem felt by many in Africa, Asia and South America. The bottom line is getting a mobile is so much easier than getting a land line. Throw into the mix the fact that many countries, for example China, have a large floating population and therefore no access to a land lines and you start to see why mobiles can go where no technology has really been able to go before.

There are 3.3 billion mobile phone users worldwide. To give you a bit of context this is almost double the number of people who own a TV which is 1.5 billion. The number of PC owners is 0.9 billion. Mobile ownership really does come out on top.

A recent study of the London Business School demonstrated the impact of mobile phones and associated services on productivity and social development, showing that 10 more mobile phones per 100 people increase the GDP of a developing country by 0.6 percent. You can really believe that when you hear anecdotal stories of farmers in Africa negotiating sales of their cattle via mobiles as well as the local guy in the village who rents out his mobile to anyone who needs it.

Last week the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) launched the Mobile Web for Social Development interest group.

The MW4D Interest Group explores how to use the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Mobile phones as a solution to bridge the Digital Divide and provide minimal services (health, education, governance, business,…) to rural communities and under-privileged populations of Developing Countries.

It’s open for anyone to join. You can participate in the face-to-face meetings and regular conference calls or simply sign up to the mailing list. MW4D is also building up a wiki which will no doubt be really useful.

I think this is a great idea and not before time. It’s easy to look at developing countries and think there is a lack of entrepreneurship but this simply isn’t the case. A lack of access to internet has held many people back. It’s so important for us to support the mobile web in developing countries and try and understand it’s impact not just in poorer regions but also further afield.

Tags: mobile, w3c

Opera has long been an advocate of standards based browsing and One Web. In a report published today, State of the Mobile Web: First Quarter 2008, CEO of Opera, Jon S. von Tetzchner, looks at what the current trends are in terms of what we’re browsing and what countries we are browsing from.

Having started shipping the Opera Mini, their free downloadable web browser, in 2006 Opera reports it as being the world leader with more than 44 million people having downloaded it and more than 11.9 million people using it in March 2008. It’s easy to see why. I made the transition from my clunky web and walk over to Opera Mini a while ago and haven’t look back. Power scrolling shortcuts, zoom features, custom searches and mouse behaviour built in have made browsing on my mobile a faster, less expensive and less painful experience.

From data gathered from their users, Tetzchner has pulled out some interesting findings such as:

• Almost 40% of traffic worldwide is to social networks.
• Consumers desire a rich web experience regardless of the device they use to access the web which marks a serious break from WAP.
• Russia, Indonesia then China are the top three highest users of Opera Mini. I wonder if, from this, we can assume they are the top three countries for browsing the web using mobiles?

Particularly interesting in the report are the snippets of analysis given over to mobile browsing habits in each of the countries listed.

I’ll be interested to read follow up reports to see how mobile usage is progressing. With many people in developing countries not having any access to desktop PC’s or laptops and users in developed countries becoming more comfortable using hand-helds to access goods and services online the importance of the mobile web can only be set to grow and grow.

Resources

• W3C Mobile Web Initiative - sets out to provide guidance and advice on making websites mobile.
• Mobile Web Best Practices - a set of best practices on the creation of mobile friendly content from the Mobile Web Initiative.
• Designing and developing mobile websites in the real world - a two part practical guide from the Dev.Opera community.

Tags: mobile, opera

News from cyclone hit Burma and earthquake struck China has been nothing short of shocking over the last couple of weeks. With both countries facing estimated fatalities of 200,000 and 50,000 respectively and many more injured it has been hard to fathom the devastation and it’s long term impact not least because it has been difficult to get news from these areas. Twitter however, the 140 word microblogging service, together with mobile phone usage has opened up a whole new channel of information that is arguably more immediate and relevant than blogging when disaster strikes.

Burma’s Junta have worked hard to keep access to the country by foreign nationals limited while the epicentre of China’s earthquake, Wenchuan, tucked away in the hills has meant that no news was forthcoming for days due to collapsed passes and mountainous terrain preventing even helicopters landing there. Power outages have also meant that making calls to find loved ones has been impossible. Texting and Tweeting however has been far more accessible.

In China in particular news posted by Chinese Twitterer’s has been phenomenal not just in terms of information but also reporting opinion and comment on how the government have responded to the disaster; people’s voices are coming through loud and clear. Having lived in China and considering it my second home, following people Twittering from China has given me a huge sense of connectedness that I’ve not felt before outside of China.

Just as I, as an individual, am following closely what is happening in China, the Chinese government is equally aware of scrutiny from other countries on the eve of the Olympics. Coverage on Chinese Central Television (CCTV) has been constant beaming not just images of the quake but also Premier Wen Jiabao visiting Chungdu, the capital of Sichuan province, within days. Something Bush infamously didn’t do after hurricane Katrina struck in New Orleans.

What’s important to remember however is that access to this news from these inaccessible places using Twitter would not be possible without the use of mobile phones. In countries such as China mobile phone usage is significantly higher than access to the web via desktops. Despite Chinese subscribers to Twitter numbering less than 3000, when traffic peaked in the days immediately following the quake on May 12th, Twitter played a disproportionately large role in the dissemination of first hand information. As reported by Rory Cellen-Jones on the BBC blog:

Let’s see, as this story unfolds, whether this is the moment when Twitter comes of age as a platform which can bring faster coverage of a major news event than traditional media, while allowing participants and onlookers to share their experiences.

It’s not just a comparison to traditional media that is relevant however but also Twitter’s unique ability to enable more people to simultaneously broadcast to the world faster than any other channel on the web. This, combined with being able to Tweet on the move using mobiles, is what really gives Twitter it’s edge.

Sources

• If you’re interested in listening in to what’s being said in China right now check out the Twittervision’s China page.
• For quality Tweets follow Fuzheado, Shanghaiist, Niubi and Shizhao (if you read Chinese).
• For in-depth analysis of how Twitter was used in China during the quake check out The Chinese earthquake and Twitter: crowdsourcing without managers.
• For discussion on the future of Twitter see Why Twitter matters.

Tags: china, crowdsourcing, mobile, twitter