|
|
|
Autoresponders = Automatic Internet Marketing Success
Copyright 2005 Glenn McDonald
What if you could send out all the information that your potential customers have requested without checking your email or answering a phone? While this may seem impossible, it is becoming more and more popular among...
Do You Believe??
NO. This is not about religion, but more about one of the major pitfalls of many in business. And by ‘business’ – yes I include internet business…. especially the internet.
And I’m not talking about believing in the internet, but more about...
Five Point Plan for Promotion
There are no secrets: there are no magic formulas. Forget about making money fast while you sleep. Sure, you can automate processes so that your business continues to operate while you are snoring away, but there is no substitute for your initial...
How My Business Made $10,000 From My First Promotional Article
Shortly before I discovered the wonders of marketing online with
well-written articles, I read a book written by well-known
branding expert Al Ries and his daughter Laura Ries, titled 11
Immutable Laws of Internet Branding. Immutable law number 6...
THE ABCs OF SEO - Search Engine Optimization
If you want to be found in the search engines, it is important that you add search engine optimization to your action list. In a nutshell, search engine optimization--or SEO for short--is the process of making your web pages "search engine...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Are you Ready for WAP & WML?
Acronyms make the computer world go round. Things like HTML, DHTML, XHTML; it's enough to make a grown man cry. Well, look out! There's a new player in alphabet-town: "WAP." So what is it and why should you care? WAP stands for "Wireless Application Protocol" and it allows people to access the Net using wireless devices like mobile phones and other gadgets.
It's estimated that by the year 2002 there will be over 800 million wireless users around the world. Eventually all wireless tools will come equipped with WAP as standard issue. That's a lot of possible viewers for your website. The problem is that wireless net-surfers will not be able to access your HTML-driven site. Their devices can only read sites built in (get ready for another acronym!) WML.
WML stands for "Wireless Markup Language." (Are you taking notes here?) So if you presently have a website built in HTML and you want mobile users to be able to view it, you'll need to make another version of it in WML. The good news is that WML is not hard to learn and can be picked up easily. Plus, there are plenty of sites online that will teach you everything you'll ever want to know about this new technology. Some of the better ones are:
http://www.wapdrive.net Learn what WAP is (and isn't), how to write WAP "cards" (not "pages"), and best of all, you'll find some free software you can download to make your own WAP site. Free.
http://www.wapuseek.com Contains Wap articles, links, tools and more. Make sure you stop in the developers area for all kinds of webmaster tools for creating your own WAP pages.
http://www.gelon.net/dev/ A ton of helpful information here: leaning WML, books, where you can host your new WAP sites and more.
http://www.anywhereyougo.com 100% wireless application development: archives, news, books, and more. Sign up for their helpful newsletter to keep abreast of what's going on in this new field.
As far as building your WAP site you can download free software or use an online editor available at some websites.
http://www.wapmine.com WAPPage 1.0 is an extensive and powerful design tool for WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) Sites.
http://mobphone.com WAP publishing tool for cellular mobile WAP phones.
Nokia has jumped into the arena by offering "The Nokia WML Studio". A free download that adds on to Dreamweaver to create WML content from within Dreamweaver's interface. Get it at http://dynamic.macromedia.com/bin/exchange/dreamweaver/main.jsp
For hosting your new wireless-enabled site, check out:
http://www.hoiley.com/ Offering a variety of free services
http://www.tagtag.com/ Build and host your site free
http://wappy.to The first online WAPsite builder complete with hosting.
Keep in mind that the viewing area on a mobile device is a whole lot smaller than that of a computer monitor. So you need to be short and concise. Plan on about 10 text lines per WAP "card" (instead of "page.") Due to slow transmission speeds typically 14.4 to 19.6 Kbps you need to keep text and graphics down to bare minimum.
Wireless phones use "microbrowsers" to surf the web so you need to make sure the web cards in WML look good on a wireless device. But what if you don't have that kind of luxury? No problem, hop over to http://www.wapdrive.net and you'll find something called "The Wapalizer" that will allow you to look at any WAP site using your regular browser. Just type in the URL and a new window opens up that imitates a mobile phones interface. You can browse through the entire site to make sure everything will be viewed correctly by your mobile guests.
So there you have it. WAP and WML, two good things that just naturally go together. If you presently have an HTML site you might want to consider making a version of it in WML as a sidekick, thus opening yourself up to a whole new audience; a mobile one.
After all, we're a society on the move... and you'd better keep up!
About the Author
Merle's Cyber Promotions http://www.mcpromotions.com/ "Creating Visibility Online for Small Businesses" Subscribe to MC Promotions Press by sending mailto:subscribe@mcpromotions.com New Service just added "Get Ready to Market Package" For details go to http://www.mcpromotions.com/getreadytomarket.htm To find out more about the products and services offered by MC Promotions send mailto:mcservices-ar@automagical.net
|
|
|
|
|
|