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335 lines
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
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<title>The Mobile Web</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="/People/Berners-Lee/general.css"
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type="text/css" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<p><a href="../"><img alt="W3" src="/Icons/WWW/w3c_home" width="72"
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height="48" /></a></p>
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<p><a href="summary.txt">(points)</a></p>
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<h1>The Mobile Web</h1>
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<p>Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here today. I must say I
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cannot claim to be an expert in the mobile phone technology, so I speak as a
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guest in this conference. My career for the last 20 years has unrolled in the
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context of the Internet. What I find exciting about being here now is that we
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are at an epic point in telecommunications history, when the mobile platforms
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discussed here, and the Internet platforms which have enabled such a
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spectacular growth and innovation, are poised, if we manage this well, to
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merge.</p>
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<p>In the few minutes we have together, I would like to explain to you the
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essence of an open Web platform — the things without which it would not
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deserve the name. I would like you to understand that there are plenty of
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ways in which we could fail to pull this off, and leave ourselves
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incapacitated, with innovation stifled. By 'we' here I mean the whole
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community of manufacturers, service providers, content providers, consumers,
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and to a limited extent, legislators. I'd like you also to feel with me the
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excitement about some of the incredible things we can aim for if we
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succeed.</p>
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<p>Let me tell you where I am coming from, to help you understand my point of
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view. Twenty years ago, or 52 Web years as we used to say, I was a software
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engineer at CERN, the particle physics lab in Geneva. CERN is a great place,
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full of people from across the world tackling the greatest current challenges
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in physics. It is a great place to work, with lots of very creative people
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who chat over coffee with views of the vineyards and the Alps.</p>
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<p>Now, this diversity of talent had brought with it a diversity of
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technology. This is pre-Web. Take your minds back — perhaps, younger
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ones, ask your parents. There are documents stored on computers —
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papers, manuals, help systems, letters, but each system works on one
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particular computer — minicomputer, mainframe or PC or Mac in those
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days — and runs on one particular operating system, VMS, VM-CMS, DOS,
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Mac OS, and many flavors of Unix. So finding a document involved finding out
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which computer it was on, knowing which program to run, and learning how to
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use that program. This was driving me crazy, and by 1989 I'd figured out that
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a networked hypertext system, a kind of Web, could be used to wrap up each
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system and make its screens, menus and documents be part of a globally
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interconnected space which could be viewed from any computer.</p>
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<p>Also, just at that point, a critical transition was occurring. Each
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computer had been connected to a different form of network: Decnet, Cernnet,
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Bitnet, Appletalk, and so on. The attempts to rationalize these using ISO
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standards was not doing well. However, the Internet was already connecting
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universities all over the US. Depending on who you talked to, it was just
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becoming respectable; it was also becoming possible to connect computers to
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it at CERN.</p>
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<p>I wanted to design the World Wide Web, as I decided to call it, to be
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usable for any data on any system. I had watched the failure of so many
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sophisticated documentation access systems which constrained their users to
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use one type of computer, or operating system. If really anything could be on
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the Web, then the Web technology should demand almost nothing of its
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users.</p>
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<p>The reason that I could just design the Web by myself and set it running
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on a couple of computers without asking anyone, was that the Internet in turn
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had been designed to be used for anything, constraining its users as little
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as possible. So this is one of the qualities of an open platform: it is built
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to enable, not to control, and it does not try to second guess the things
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which will be built using it.</p>
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<p>The Web is designed, in turn, to be <strong>universal</strong>: to include
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anything and anyone. This universality includes an independence of hardware
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device and operating system, as I mentioned, and clearly this includes the
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mobile platform. It also has to allow links between data from any form of
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life, academic, commercial, private or government. It can't censor: it must
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allow scribbled ideas and learned journals, and leave it to others to
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distinguish these. It has to be independent of language and of culture. It
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has to provide as good an access as it can for people with disabilities.</p>
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<p>The Web worked because of a number of technical and social reasons. It
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worked because there was no central bottleneck for traffic, no central link
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database to be kept consistent, no central place to go and register a new
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page or a new Web site.</p>
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<p>It worked because it was valuable, in a novel way. The value added by the
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Web is the <strong>unexpected re-use</strong> of information. People learned
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that if they went to the trouble of putting something on the Web for some
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reason, that others would benefit later in ways they never anticipated. The
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experience of <em>surfing the Web</em>, which blew some of the early users
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away for days and nights, was of discovering things you never knew
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existed.</p>
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<p>So the Web worked. How many projects do we start which have a bright start
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and fizzle out over time? So many that it is worth celebrating that the Web
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worked. It is worth noting why. A lot of that has to do with the open
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Internet platform.</p>
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<p>Let me mention one important aspect of the platform. The serendipitous
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re-use of information happens because when I buy an Internet connection, I
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don't specify the Web sites I am going to connect to. If you buy an Internet
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connection, and you run a Web server, then I can connect to your site. I
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don't find my ISP saying that it wants to be my supplier of music, and so it
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will block access to any site I try to load music from.</p>
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<p>This is of course different from the model which the cable companies have
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had. The relatively recent ability of the Internet to carry video promises to
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really open up the movie delivery options, and provide an exciting new world
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of anything on demand any time, and not just anything we currently get from a
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few large companies, but the <strong>long tail</strong>, the seething mass of
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individual and independent films which are waiting to entertain someone out
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there. When a US cable company threatens to attempt to stifle this aspect of
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the open Internet platform, we have defended it as <strong>Net
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Neutrality</strong>. Net Neutrality was so much of an obvious technical and
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social prerequisite of the Internet world, that it never needed a name until
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now. It is a tension of convergence, where different business models and
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cultures may clash. I am confident that Net Neutrality will be preserved, for
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the good of us all. But I would urge you to support it whenever you get the
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chance.</p>
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<p>So what else does it take to make an open Internet platform?</p>
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<p>What does it take?</p>
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<p>It takes, mainly, common standards. The innovation of the WWW was possible
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because the standards for TCP/IP were already implemented in an interoperable
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way all over the planet, in advance of the innovation. TCP/IP wasn't designed
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with networked hypertext in mind. But it wasn't designed to prohibit it
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either — it was and is an open platform.</p>
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<p>Web 2.0 community Web sites, eBay, and Flickr are possible because the Web
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standards, in turn, were widely implemented in an interoperable way, before
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those innovations. The same for the wikis, like Wikipedia, and blogs, and so
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on. The Web is a huge platform for innovation because of those standards. Any
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new genre of communication, any new social networking idea, immediately can
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gain the value of unexpected re-use by people across the world.</p>
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<p>There is a very important difference in attitude between a foundation
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technology and — well — let's call it a <em><strong>ceiling
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technology</strong></em>. A foundation technology is designed to enable
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innovation, to be the base which will support other even more powerful things
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to come. A ceiling technology is not. It is designed to provide a value, and
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for its provider to cash in and cash out. Proprietary music download systems
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are ceiling technologies to the extent that the technologists design to be
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also being the only store in town, rather than creating an open market.
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Though putting a lid on further innovation, they are still providing a
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service, and making sure they profit from it.</p>
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<p>Ceiling technologies are the end of the road for innovation.</p>
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<p>When you want to make a foundation technology, you need to look ahead. You
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need to put aside the short term return on investment questions and look at
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the long term.</p>
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<p>A great example of this is the patent question. In 1989 my colleagues in
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the Internet community would not have dreamed of patenting the ideas in the
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Internet protocols. We worked together to figure out new ideas, and implement
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them as common standards. As the Web grew, we realised we needed to establish
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a structure for developing common Web technical standards. In 1994 we formed
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the W3C as a meeting place for this process.</p>
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<p>In 1998, we had launched a project to help with the issue of user privacy
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on the Web. It was a protocol (P3P) to allow a Web browser to automatically
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read and check a machine-readable version of a Web site's privacy policy. It
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was not a very exciting new technology, but it was an important innovation as
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electronic commerce was being held back in some cases by user fears in this
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area. At the time when we should have been engaged in deployment and testing,
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a small company announced that everyone who wished to make a P3P
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implementation would have to pay royalties. They claimed to have a patent on
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something to do with information being communicated and stored and affecting
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future communication.</p>
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<p>This has a devastating effect. Anyone working for a large company was told
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by lawyers never to read anything to do with the work. Anyone working as a
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volunteer in their garage dropped their work on these tools as they didn't
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want to work for free for this company. The mid-sized companies who were
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running a business specifically around the technology ran into serious
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trouble. It took us 18 months and $150k to get a legal opinion that royalties
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were not in fact payable, but that was 4 Web years, during the boom, and that
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was too long. P3P lost its momentum. The world lost an enabling
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technology.</p>
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<p>How does a company think about standards then if following them may
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involve losing that short-term ceiling technology return?</p>
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<p>It is a game. In the mathematical sense. Here is the payoff matrix: You
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commit to working on a standard, or not. The standard may take off or it may
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not.</p>
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<p>If you don't commit to the standard, and it doesn't work, (which of course
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it won't if no one else does) then life, and your proprietary ceiling
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technology, continues. No innovation.</p>
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<p>If you do commit to it and it it does work, then a whole new market is
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enabled: This is the disruptive case. There is some effort involved moving
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the company to the standard, and often to help build the standard. You might
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join W3C to help make it happen. A certain amount of effort. There is a major
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long term return.</p>
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<p>One of the most difficult things for some companies to learn is that this
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is not a zero-sum game. We are so used to battling over a fixed market, or
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battling over fixed resources, that we tend to assume everything is such that
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we can only win what our competitors lose. But when we make a whole new
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market space, like the Web, or like GSM actually, then we are in fact
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together battling the human condition such as inefficiency, poverty and
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ignorance.</p>
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<p>Now, what about the corner cases? The fear seems to be of going for the
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standard and it not taking off. Well, the loss in this case is the
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engineering time to tool up for the standard, which could have been saved.
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But it is a very finite loss.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, what if you decide not to go for the standard and it
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does take off? Everything happens, the new market appears, and you are not
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there. The pace of everything ramps up dramatically, and you are left
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standing still. The costs of retooling to a standard get much bigger as time
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passes. In this conference we all can see the stresses on phone companies,
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and we know the dis-empowerment of all travelers from the fact that the GSM
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standards and frequencies are not quite global — and we know the
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benefits from the fact that are becoming so. Other cases spring to mind. On
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the Internet, for example, streaming media are available in many incompatible
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formats.</p>
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<p>Often this is due to companies wanting to profit from ceiling
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technologies. This involves making a high income from the technology itself
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rather than letting it take off. This in turn requires patents, and of course
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that the owned technology dominates. Hence the battles over VHS and Betamax,
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HD DVD and Blu-Ray, and so on.</p>
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<p>So as the Web platform and the mobile phone converge — what do we
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want the result to be? A foundation or a ceiling technology? Clearly, a
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foundation. A mobile phone — or whatever device we carry around which uses
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GSM technology and its successors — is going to be everywhere, and everyone
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will have one. It has do be designed to be universal. So that everyone can
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use it. So that you can do anything with it.</p>
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<p>The choice is the new platform being a privately owned walled garden, or a
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competitive open platform. Both models can work in the medium term. But the
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open model opens up new things which we can only try to imagine.</p>
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<p>What are the standards? Basically, the same standards as the current Web
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uses. That is the most important point. It is one Web. The Web works on
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phones. There are effective browsers which can give you access to the same
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information which you could see from any laptop or desktop. Of course,
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looking ahead, small devices will get smarter and displays will get more and
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more pixels, so mobile devices are taking the same track which larger
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computers did a few years before.</p>
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<p>That said, there are ways of making a Web site work much better with a
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mobile device. The W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) is a group of mobile
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technology companies within the World Wide Web Consortium which realize the
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importance of this convergence and are working hard to make the Mobile Web a
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reality.</p>
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<p>MWI defines best practices for authoring content. It defines what sort of
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facilities that you should expect to find on a mobile device. It gives best
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practices for serving data in the most device-independent way. It recommends
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finding out what device you are talking to if you can, and sending
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appropriately formatted content. Some phone browsers set out to be able to
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provide access to virtually any Web page, but technical limitation on other
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phones make this impossible. To encourage Web sites to become easily
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browsable by mobile devices, there is a "mobileOK" mark which may be used by
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content providers adhering to guidelines.</p>
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<p>Designing for the "mobileOK" mark, designing Web sites which are browsable
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by many different sorts of devices also has important spin-offs. Many of the
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MWI best practices are in fact good Web design principles, so the whole site
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will be easier to use for anyone. There is a also a lot of overlap with
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accessibility. Making a "mobileOK" site and making one which is easily used
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by people with disabilities involves the same sort of work.</p>
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<p>From the beginning, The W3C has fought the "best viewed with 800x600
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screen" buttons, and any design patterns which disenfranchise different
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devices. This was difficult when everyone seemed to have the same sort of
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laptop, but easier as it became obvious that screens vary a lot. The Mobile
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Web Initiative is the work we have to do now. It is timely, it is part of a
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historic convergence of technologies. But it is part of a general strategic
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principle of keeping the information which is such a huge form of capital in
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the world in as powerful, and reusable from as we can, for the future
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generations and people who don't currently have access.</p>
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<p>It isn't just about making the Web you know today work on mobile phones.
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We are talking about innovation. The innovations which will really count are
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the things which I can't imagine now. They may include new applications built
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using the familiar AJAX technologies used cross-platform now, well known by
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developers, and increasingly available on mobile devices. These new
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applications may also operate across multiple devices. This is where we talk
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of the <em>Ubiquitous Web</em>. Have you noticed the price of LEDs is coming
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down, and more and more surfaces are covered with them? Not just at rock
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concerts and Times Square, but coming soon to all kinds of surfaces near you.
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Your phone could use these displays, and the abstract task you are doing can
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really rise above individual devices. Imagine that my phone or my wristwatch
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has details of a flight I am booking, and I walk into a room where it
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negotiates to project a map on the wall. And so on. Imagine yourself.
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Innovate on the mobile Web platform.</p>
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<p>Among other things, many of us are hoping that a low-cost open platform
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will have a much greater penetration in what we currently call the developing
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world. I personally believe that it is important to humanity to connect
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peoples across the world as widely as possible. I think we must preserve the
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diversity of cultures and ideas. But also I think we must connect people to
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give more global harmony. We should not add connectivity to the long list
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that the richer countries have and the poorer ones do not, a list which of
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course has clean water, health care and peace pretty near the top.</p>
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<p>As part of the Mobile Web Initiative, W3C held a <a
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href="http://www.w3.org/2006/07/MWI-EC/cfp">workshop</a> on the Mobile Web in
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Developing Countries. One of the concerns is that some of the new phones
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aimed at the lower cost bracket don't all have Web browsers. The area is very
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exciting, and the figures for coverage — <a
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href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone">80%</a> of the world's
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population I have heard (World Bank, according to Wikipedia), and for market
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growth in developing countries seem very positive.</p>
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<p>So when we look at the choices for the mobile devices, it is clear that
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they must continue on the path to an open Web platform. That is what the
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Mobile Web Initiative is about. Huge new markets, and huge opportunities for
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humanity, depend on this. We know in general how to do it. But there is a lot
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to do. It has been my pleasure to take a tour of these issues with you, you
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who are the companies and individuals who are making it happen.</p>
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<hr />
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<address>
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Tim Berners-Lee
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</address>
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</body>
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</html>
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