Information has a way to get in your face. Now it'll get in you pocket too – as long as you are carrying a phone.
A language originally designed to create Web-based content for the diminutive screens of cellular phones is getting a face lift Tuesday as it is enhanced with push and security features that could actually make Web phones useful.
With version 2.0 handheld-device markup language, users will be able to receive news headlines, stock quotes, and email alerts on their cell phones, said Ben Linder, vice president of marketing for Unwired Planet, the Redwood Shores, California, company that created HDML and submitted it to the W3C, an Internet standards group, for approval.
Already, AT&T, GTE, and Bell Atlantic Nynex, provide services that let Web-phone users retrieve information from a handful of content providers. But with the push model - which has long driven wireless devices such as pagers - and support for HDML being provided by an increasing number of key phone manufacturers, the number of applications available to Web-phone users is poised to grow dramatically, Linder said. "It will mean tens of Web sites will be HDML-enabled in the next few months and hundreds in the next year," he added.
Clearly, the phones and their four-line, 20-character screens are not going to become the preferred medium for reading magazine articles.
But they could deliver a number of useful services, said Naveen Jain, president and CEO of InfoSpace, a company that is developing content in HDML 2.0. After reading an interesting headline on the phone screen, a user may use the same phone to ask for directions to the nearest Kinko's and request that a full copy of the article be delivered to the store's fax machine, Jain explained. His company also delivers "enhanced" yellow pages – such as restaurant listings accompanied by menus and reviews – white pages, and a variety of other content via HDML.
RSA Data Security encryption features, embedded in the language's new version, could also bring electronic commerce capabilities to Web phones, Linder said. Although no commerce applications have been announced yet, Linder said that future Web phones could be used to trade stocks or purchase movie tickets.
For the time being, however, Web phones are targeted at "mobile professionals," such as salespeople. Rather than enable commerce, HDML's encryption features are likely to make corporations more comfortable with the idea of sending information from a corporate intranet, and even email, over a wireless network.
"Encryption is crucial, because a lot of corporations do not trust the security of the Internet, particularly in the wireless environment," said Alan Reiter, editor of the Wireless Internet and Mobile Computing newsletter.
Along with InfoSpace, other content providers, including Bloomberg, News Alert, One-on-One Sports' Statszone, StockTIPS and The Weather Underground have also jumped onto the HDML bandwagon in recent months.
Yet, some analysts remain skeptical about whether cell phones will become a viable tool for Web access.
"I'm hesitant about how useful a couple of 20-character lines on a phone can be," said Andrew Seybold, an industry analyst. "There are going to be a lot of options." Consumers will have to decide whether they prefer to carry a phone, a pager, one of a plethora of small computing devices that are flooding the market, or a combination of those. In any of those scenarios, the most useful application may not be a connection to the Internet but a connection to one's own desktop, Seybold said. "My belief is that the killer application will be connectivity to your own local area network, your own desktop, and your own resources."
