Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Welcome to my personal Web site. I’m a CEO, Chair, Executive, Advisor and Mentor who loves to influence and connect likeminded people. When bored, I like to host networking events and parties.

Company stuff

• Segala, Founder / CEO
• Wubud, Founder
• BIMA (British Interactive Media Association), Chair
• Jaipur Restaurants, Partner
• Newspepper.com, Non-executive Director
• 3 Dynamics, Mentor to the CEO

Blogs I scrible on

• Personal * Segala * Wubud * BIMA

A little more detail

• Founder and CEO of Segala, industry authority in content classification and Web standards compliance certification.
• Founder of Wubud, a social network application for mobile people. In September 2008, we raised £160k in Angel funding from Paul Birch, Co-founder, Bebo - sold to AOL for $850M.
• Former executive at Eqos, a pioneer in the development of Web technologies for the B2B retail industry.
• One of the first to join AOL as a small startup in the mid-’90s. Key member of the team developing AOL’s UK presence and assisted with the launch of other AOL European territories.
• 10 years International experience within the telecommunications industry and have consulted companies such as Vodafone, O2, Orange, CMG and ADC Metrica.
• Chair of the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) since 2006.
• Advisor to the British Council, helping to build and improve a digital pioneer program with Hong Kong and a 3 year entrepreneurial related project with India.
• Non-Executive Director at Newspepper.
• Mentor to the CEO of 3 Dynamics, a Hong Kong based games company.
• Partner in Jaipur, a group of award winning, Michelin-rated restaurants in Dublin.

Contribution to Industry standards

• Instrumental in the formation of the W3C’s first ever incubator activity, to review Content Labels as a formal method of classifying and labelling content
• Segala’s W3C Advisory Committee Representative
• Original Founding Sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative and member of the Steering Council

I heard the Google mobile being touted around the time we were providing mobile test consultants to Disney, to help it setup a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) last year. Unfortunately for Disney (and Segala for loosing the contract), it decided to can the project. I say unfortunately because it has the content to deliver a compelling family mobile, but it just didn’t get it technically or commercially in my opinion.

Read more…

I responded to a thread on the Mobile Monday list tonight in defense of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) and those who want to make the Web more accessible to more people around the world.

Please refer to a recent post on this subject if you’re looking for hyperlinks to other resources.

I must declare an interest before commentating though. I’m a member of the W3C MWI Steering Council. Segala is not only one of the seven original Founding Sponsors, it’s also co-author of the conformance specification called mobleOK.

I must also declare that I’m particularly interested in mobileOK for two reasons. First, because it will help make the Web more accessible to more people, including those in developing countries where mobile is their primary access point to the Web. Secondly because making conformance claims about mobileOK will come in the form of a Content Label. As most of my readers will know, Content Labels underpin Segala’s business model of enabling trust on the Web based on compliance with standards and codes of conduct.

Now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way, whilst taking the opportunity to talk about Segala’s business proposition…

The Mobile Web vs WAP debate seems to crop up regularly as some people continue to protect their revenue stream from WAP, by claiming that the open Web on mobile devices is spawned by the devil.

The W3C MWI Best Practice Guidelines are of benefit to what some may call, traditional Web developers who know little if anything, about WAP or anything mobile. They simply want to build Web sites as they do today, but with the added benefit of them also working better on mobile devices.

Ok, so building mobile friendly Web sites isn’t easy and it’s not exactly perfect by a long shot. However, creating new standards is about future proofing. It’s not about creating a quick fix. They will continue to improve as will mobile technology, tariffs, bandwidth etc and has human behavior changes.

I met a guy tonight in Adam Street who very quickly (and wrongfully) *assumed* that I wanted to see the end of WAP as soon as I mentioned W3C MWI. I found him very defensive as if he were trying to protect his revenue stream, which comes from WAP and only WAP. I found his attitude to be very dismissive and typical of a WAP-centric extremist with no interest in anything outside of WAP. He is right to protect his revenue stream. I wouldn’t expect him to care about the future of the Web - that’s for us idealists to think about. Some of us get the commercials and some don’t. I’d like to think I’m in the former camp.

I reminded him that I never mentioned WAP, to which he replied, ‘yeah well the W3C is confusing developers’. First may I point out that there is room for both. Secondly, the W3C MWI in my opinion, is targeted at Web developers, not mobile developers. Accept the fact that mobile and Web developers are different. Some get both but most don’t.

The ‘one Web’ for me, is about bringing access to the current Web (hyperlinked documents as invented by Tim Berners-Lee) to mobile devices. It’s not about changing or impacting WAP sites which are developed specifically for mobile phones by mobile developers. There will always be a need to develop specifically for mobile devices. Likewise, there is a use case to develop one site that renders according to the device capability, whether that’s a desktop computer or a mobile device.

The W3C is being referred to as if it was wasting time/energy. May I point out that the W3C is made up of companies, government agencies, associations, universities, freelancers etc. from around the world. It’s not made up of a bunch of white coats at MIT. The W3C MWI includes every stake holder which has an interest in both traditional Web and mobile specifics.

The W3C is in my opinion the best and only consortium that should be responsible for creating and harmonizing *Web* standards - based on the assumption that it works with everyone who is qualified to contribute.

A debate has started on Vodafone’s BetaVine. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that Vodafone provided me with exclusive rights to seed interest in the wider industry to help launch the Portal, after providing advice prior to its launch. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the time to continue commentating about it. Anyway, it’s doing exactly what I had hoped. It’s stimulating and supporting conversation within the industry. In this instance, it’s a heated debate which is likely to raise more awareness for the Portal if nothing else.

Luca Passani is the culprit (I mean that in the nicest possible way) responsible for starting the debate. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s starting a debate. Unfortunately he doesn’t know how to agree to disagree, or even respect the fact that he can sometimes be wrong.

My intention here is not to discuss the debate itself but instead, get people to use the right terminology. Ok, so my post about the correct spelling of Web site was a bit of a joke, but knowing the difference between WAP and the mobile Web is not, as it impacts end users for the worse.

It was a TechCrunch post that inspired me to write this note. I was about to post a comment but quickly realised that my message is important (and long) enough to warrant it’s own post. I’ve written about this previously where Luca has commented along with Google, Microsoft, .mobi, Opera and others. See here and here.

In my opinion, Luca has absolutely no interest in seeing the Web as we know it on the desktop, come to mobile phones. He is in favour of WAP and is an expert on the subject. WAP is not the mobile Web though, they are two entirely different technologies and he doesn’t have an appreciation for Web trends.

• WAP = sites built only for mobile phones
• Web = sites which should work on any device

WAP browsers and Web browsers look the same but what they display is completely different. One generates revenue for Operators and Content Providers and the other provides end users the ability to search and browse the Web. That’s why most end users don’t know the difference between a WAP site and a Web site. However, it’s not good enough to assume that they don’t care. It’s also wrong to assume they don’t want a choice.

In more detail
WAP sites are sites which have been built specifically to work on mobile phones. They do not work on desktop computers. This means if you come across a WAP site on your phone and wish to email the URL to a friend so they can see it at home, they can’t unless they’re using a mobile.

I used to own an LG Chocolate phone to demonstrate this point when giving presentations at conferences. I’d ask someone for the URL of their company Web site and then explain that it was impossible for me to view it on my new cool phone because it didn’t have a Web browser capable of displaying it.

Not all mobiles have browsers capable of displaying Web sites. Some phones come with a Web browser but it’s sometimes removed or hidden down the menu system by the Operator (not the manufacturer). Operators have always been extremely keen to keep it this way as they make money from WAP through revenue share deals with content providers.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Content Providers to which Luca and TechCrunch refer, are not likely to want users to access the Web (as invented by Tim Berners-Lee and harmonized by the W3C), as you do on a desktop computer. Otherwise they’ll stop making money through their commercial agreements with Operators. This means end users get whatever WAP sites Operators believe will generate the most revenue. This is not in the best interest of end users today.

It made sense to only offer WAP sites when mobiles were unable to display Web sites. It also makes sense to continue building WAP sites while mobile devices continue to improve, standards are adopted, prices come down, speeds improve and developers build Web sites so they work better on mobile devices.

In my opinion, we’re almost there. You only have to look at the recent launch of the iPhone to see what’s possible. It won’t be long before this capability is more widespread across more devices and the above points are addressed. As I keep saying, I’ve heard all the same arguments whilst at AOL in the mid 90’s. People use to say that online marketing would never take off because the Web was too slow, yada yada yada. The same type of people used to say that TV would never take off because it was so much smaller than the cinema screen.

End users do care about the difference between the two, or at least they would if told they were restricted to what the Operator wants them to see. Mobile stake holders make too many assumptions about what users want. That’s why the industry is so crap at getting it right.

So, can you see the difference between the two? If you had a mobile which stopped you from accessing the Web, would you care? Would you be happy to only view the WAP sites that your Operator forces upon you?

Please stop referring to WAP as mobile Web, it’s not. Just call it WAP.

From a customer point of view, you buy a mobile so you can surf the Web as you do from your desktop computer. Would you be happy to learn that you’re only able to use iMode, Live or other WAP sites?

I’ve written many blog posts and articles for magazines about the mobile Web. It’s a subject that I’m quite passionate about and one that Segala invests heavily in by helping to create W3C standards. We’re also investing heavily in testing and certification products for mobile Web standards compliance, which help our partners to deliver services in this area.

This post has two messages.

1. Why I think the Web is likely to become more readily available with the launch of Apple’s iPhone as it acts as a new benchmark for the industry.
2. Why I’ve now got second thoughts about buying an iPhone.

End users now realising the difference between WAP (premium content created specifically for mobile phones) and the open Web is the main reason I think the iPhone will act as a new benchmark for the industry.

Take a look at the comments on an older post if you want to read what some very qualified people think. Be warned, the comments alone total more than 17,000 words, but as I said, they’re very qualified sources and people I respect from companies such as Microsoft, Google, .mobi, MobileAware and Opera.

Until now, I’ve been hearing the same argument against small screens, standard-less browsers, speeds and price points, as I did during my AOL days in the mid 90’s. People need to look forward. The growth rate of Mobile technology improvements in particular, is far greater than any other major landscape change in IT.

I also had a run in with the CTO of Mozilla (owner of Firefox) on the BIMA blog that I edit, but I was proved right when Mozilla canned it’s mobile browser just weeks after my post. Interestingly, I used the iPhone back then to demonstrate how the Web will appear on phones.

I also believe the iPhone will help the Web become more accessible to people in developing countries. I’m not saying people in India will now access the Web through an iPhone. What I am saying is that mobile vendors will now need to wake up and start designing phones are are more supportive of Web browsing and are extremely easy to use. Mobile networks are cheaper than fixed line networks, so users are more likely to use a mobile than a PC. As Bill Gates once said (either that or I had a dream and came up with a great quote):

If I had a choice, I’d put a mobile phone in the hands of every customer, not a PC.

BANGALORE, India (AFP) - Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton G. Cerf has predicted that mobile phones, not personal computers, will fuel growth of the worldwide web as countries like India snap up millions of handsets monthly.

From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion, Cerf, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet, said Tuesday.

Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world’s population, Cerf told reporters during a visit to this southern city, known as India’s Silicon Valley, where Google has a research and development facility.

You will get those other 5.5 billion people only when affordability increases and the cost of communication goes down,” said Cerf, 63, who joined Google in 2005. “The mobile phone has become an important factor in the Internet revolution.

I can’t help but feel that Operators will soon be forced into providing lower data tariffs when customers demand and consume more data through surfing the Web also. The iPhone demonstrates that it is feasible to browse the Web from a small screen. It’s not just about the weather and train timetables as I’ve previously stated when debating with my colleagues in the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (where I’m a member of the Steering Council and Segala is a founding sponsor and co-editor of the conformance document).

So, will you buy an iPhone? Steve Clayton says he’s not interested. After reading his post, I was reminded of how much I really hated the LG Chocolate device, which also has a touch screen. In fact, his opinion persuaded me to rethink my position on the iPhone. The LG was so annoying that I still have marks on the wall where it received a well deserved bashing every other week. The trouble is, it took a while before I grew to hate it. I wonder if the same will be said for the iPhone.

Carly Taylor from mobile operator Three made a similar statement to Steve regarding the slow response of text messaging. In an email to the Mobile Monday list, Carl wrote

One point that takes away some of the shine for the cool types who will buy it for its looks:

• My experience was that the touch UI is poor for texting.
• No feel, and fingernails get in the way (bad for most women).
• For volume text addicts this will turn them off quickly.

This has also got me thinking, as it’s something that would bug the hell out of me. In fact, I think this issue alone would turn me off the iPhone.

So, my verdict is to wait for feedback from people who have used it as their daily lifestyle device for a few months. I’d like to hear what users think about the slow texting and annoying touch screen quirks when the novelty has worn off.

Are you going to buy one?

I’m reading more and more reports coming in that O2 is going to sell the Apple iPhone in the UK. However, this doesn’t make sense to me because it’ll mean users will have open access to the Web and quickly realise that iMode (premium content which makes up for most of O2’s data revenue) isn’t what they want. What they’re looking for is the ability to access whatever Web site they want and not just what O2 want them (you) to see.

Then again, if O2 is to ship the all singing and all dancing device, they’re likely to either remove the Web browser altogether, or make it difficult to find. This approach isn’t unusual for Operators when installing their own ‘variant software’ before distribution to retail outlets. Just because mobile vendors include specific applications, it doens’t mean Operators will include them when selling on to customers.

O2 is certainly not likely to place the Web and iMode browsers where they have equal prominence. Or are they? Perhaps they productised iMode to make it’s proposition more attractive to Telefonica and now realise it’s time to offer off-portal content.

The last time I wrote about the Mobile Web vs the Mobile Internet (cough; premium WAP stuff) I received a stunning word count of more than 17,000 words in comments alone. That’s a small book. To add to this, they were from very qualified people I trust at organisations such as Google, MobileAware, .mobi, WURFL and Opera. As a founding member of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative Steering Council, this is a subject close to my heart. It’s an area which attracts a lot of much needed debate too, which I quite like.

In short, I haven’t seen the iPhone yet, but I’ve always believed (before Apple announced its launch) that it will revolutionise how people perceive, consume and create content for small devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. It will demonstrate that the Mobile Web is not only about train timetables and weather information for business people traveling from Slough to London, as most mobile specific experts seem to believe.

There are more people in the world without access to the Web than there are who do. Most of these people live in developing countries. They’re likely to use mobile devices as their primary access point to the Web as it’s cheaper to roll out mobile networks than it is fixed line. Don’t be fooled into thinking users in developing countries don’t use the latest devices either, because they do. They’re fantastic early adopters.

If we were to sneeze in the European mobile market today, the US would catch a cold 2 to 3 years later. However, this may soon change with the release of the iPhone if the yanks finally realise the full potential of mobile devices and how they can engage consumers. As I see it, the iPhone is on par with the release of the first Intel Pentium chip, which helped to revolutionise our thought process regarding the capabilities of personal computers and the applications that could run on them.

If you decide to take a look at my original post about Mobile Web vs Mobile Internet, make sure to read the comments as they splintered off into a separate conversation to the original post. Even the original title is a little different to the main conversation.

The Sunday Tribune dedicated a full page to the “Irish who’ve made it into London’s marketing elite”. I was one of 5 people featured alongside Lorraine Twohill, Head of Google EMEA and 3 others.

Last week I learned that Revolution Magazine mentioned me (in August 2006) as one of 4 people to watch in 2007.

The clincher

Last week I received my personal copy of Digital Marketing for DUMMIES from one of its editors, Gregory Brooks. Thanks Gregory, what exactly are you trying to tell me? Should I study more carefully, the section on blogs?

Perhaps this is why New Media Age (NMA) rarely asks me to comment on subjects that I’m particularly qualified in and which they write a lot about regularly – namely Web accessibility, mobile web and Web 2.0 (because they think I’m a dummy). However, I look forward to their piece on the Semantic Web, as Greg did ask me to comment on it last week (for tomorrow’s publication).

So, am I amongst the elite, or am I just a dummy? Ahem, feel free not to comment

Greg, seriously, congratulations on the book and thank you very much for sending me a copy. I’ve been told a number of times by journalists that I should write a book, but I wouldn’t know where to start, wouldn’t have the time and certainly wouldn’t have the skill to write properly. Suggestions welcome!

Yesterday I wrote a post about how Mozilla’s CTO is way off the mark with his view of the mobile web (in my opinion). Mozilla has since responded to my post over on the BIMA blog, where I decided to duplicate the post.

A (somewhat heated) debate appears to be forming so why not post a comment on the BIMA blog, so we keep it going in one place.

OR

I was astonished to read (on Dan’s blog) that Mozilla doesn’t think users want to access the Web on mobile devices. Hence my picture above of what Mozilla must have in mind when it comes to the Web on the move, anytime, anywhere.

Dan was commentating on the Browser Panel at SXSW which was run by Arun from AOL (a colleague of mine from the W3C MWI). My buddy Charles from Opera took part too.

Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla is the reason for this post though. According to Dan, Brendan said

I don’t believe people are going to browse the Web on their phone. I don’t believe people want to use Wikipedia from their phone.

I’m absolutely amazed by Brendan’s view and I sincerely hope it’s his personal view and not Mozilla’s. Otherwise this $300m business faces the prospect of ending up in the bin alongside it’s parent, Netscape. For a guy who’s incredibly smart working for an organisation that has gained a market share of 10% to 12% of desktop browsers within 2 years, his comments are a little surprising to say the least. Brendan’s comments in my opinion, lack vision. Hell, they lack logic.

I couldn’t disagree more with Brendan. There are more people in the world who don’t have access to the Web than there are people who do. Of those people, most of them are in developing countries. The vast majority of them are extremely likely to use a mobile devices as their primary access point to the Web as it’s more difficult and more expensive to roll out fix lined networks than it is mobile.

Google announced some statistics recently that back up my view. BANGALORE, India (AFP) - Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton G. Cerf has predicted that mobile phones, not personal computers, will fuel growth of the worldwide web as countries like India snap up millions of handsets monthly.

From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion, Cerf, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet, said Tuesday.

Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world’s population, Cerf told reporters during a visit to this southern city, known as India’s Silicon Valley, where Google has a research and development facility.

Worldwide there are 2.5 billion mobile-phone users, whose numbers are growing rapidly in developing countries led by China and India, the world’s most populous countries, Cerf said in his presentation.

India, a country of 1.1 billion people, alone is adding seven million mobile-phone users a month, a powerful enough lure for British telecom giant Vodafone to pay 11.1 billion dollars for a controlling stake in local mobile firm Hutch-Essar this month. Read the original new article.

I feel so strongly about helping to bring the Web to more people, I decided to become a founding sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI). One of the goals of the MWI is to create best practice guidelines to help developers build Web sites that will work on desktop computers, but importantly, work better on mobile devices too.

Other founding sponsors include Vodafone Group, Nokia, HP, Opera, MobileAware, ftgroup and Volantis. Other active participants within the initiative include companies such as AOL, .mobi, Google and Telefonica.

One of my recent posts amassed a staggering word count that exceeded 17,000, with comments from Google, .mobi, Opera, WURFL and more. I had to splinter the conversation into a different post which is still ongoing and awaiting a response from me.

The mobile web is a hot topic and there’s always room for disagreement. However, I’m still amazed to hear the fastest growing desktop browser say that it doesn’t think people will want to use a mobile to browse the Web. Perhaps they should have a chat with Apple.

Mozilla, I love what you’re doing. Hell, we’ve got a cool Firefox extension ourselves. However, please pull your head out of the sand if you really believe mobile is only for calling your granny.

Thanks to Keith Waters (France Telecom) for the picture above.

Some of our posts have witnessed some great debate! You can either take part in a debate, or have a bit of fun with our viral blog game.

London mashup* Semantic Web or Web 3.0?
There’s an interesting debate going on about Content Labels following my keynote presentation at the London mashup* (24 comments)

W3C backs Search Thresher
The newly formed W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach specialist interest group has announced that Search Thresher is 1 of 6 projects that will get its formal backing

Viral blog game
There’s still time to take part in this fun viral game and a chance for you to give an iPod to one of your readers.

Add a voice to your blog post using Talkr
We explain in plain English how you can make it easier for visitors to read (well, listen to) your blog

Mobile Web or Mobile Internet (WAP)?
Striking up a steaming debate (17 comments), this is a splinter group from a post which has 60 comments with a staggering word count of 16,000 words! It’s still going on so why not have your say!