Some useful links for mobile development:

• Very Useful Table of Mobile Browser Compatability
• PhoneGap - Develop Apps for iPhone, Blackberry & Android with Javascript

We have finally launched a new version of our own site. Check out markerstudio.com.

Computerworld have published an article today on the InfoConnect project I worked on for NZ Transport Agency.

I have previously posted about this on the Marker Blog.

Technorati Tags: infoconnect, nzta

The Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox and Firebug are essential tools for web development. However, did you know that you can get similar functionality in Apple’s Safari browser now?

To turn this on, go the Advanced tab in the Preferences menu (Apple + ,) and check the Show Develop menu in menu bar.

You will now see a Menu bar item along the top.

Choose Show Web Inspector to get a similar tool to Firebug. The Network module is particularly useful for determining what elements on your page are taking a long time to load.

Technorati Tags: safari

I was somewhat astounded to watch an interview with the founder of a New Zealand search engine called Searchii, which they believe will compete directly with Google and Microsoft Live.

Bro, I respect your entrepreneurial passion, however, if you are going to invest time, energy and money in a start up business, please, please, please make sure it has a sound chance of success. Whilst I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, here are the challenges you face:

Google has 90% market share
You are trying to compete with what is essentially a monopoly. Google have come into this market and obliterated Yahoo! and Microsoft Live (formerly MSN). These companies have far greater resources than you guys.

Search Engines Are About Scale
As a standalone market, not one of the major players would invest in building a New Zealand only search engine. The reason that Google makes money in NZ, aside from their massive market share, is the fact that they don’t need any infrastructure or operations in this country. They can leverage everything from their US, Sydney, Ireland and other international operating units. Effectively in NZ they have sales. The other aspect of scale is that you must have a critical mass of traffic for me to even consider this as an advertising option for our clients. We don’t even bother with Yahoo! Search Marketing because the numbers are too small to warrant the cost of setting up and running a campaign. Do you think you can easily beat Yahoo!’s market share in a short space of time? If I want to spend $500 per day on an average cost per click of $1.50, for example, can you deliver this much targeted traffic?

Google already has a solution
I’m not saying that niche search has no value, in fact I believe it does, however, so does Google. This is why they have launched Google Custom Search Engine which allows you to apply your own filters to the Google index, for example, to create a NZ only search engine. You can then just plug in to their AdSense advertising revenue model, removing the need for you to worry about building your own ad serving, reporting and sales operation. You can rebrand it and still build your own audience, but without the underlying technology issues.

New Zealand Owned Doesn’t Mean Success
You said in your interview that you believe New Zealander’s will support and get behind your site because it is a New Zealand business. I’m sorry, but that is just not going to happen. All the numbers and research show that New Zealander’s are far from loyal to local brands and companies.

You Think Your Point of Difference is Relevancy?
Are you serious? For this to be a factor, Google would have to be not good at relevancy. They are.

New Zealand Only Search Engines Are Not New
SearchNZ existed before Google. Who? I hear you ask. Exactly. This was at one point the most popular search engine in New Zealand. We’re talking way back in the ’90’s.

You obviously have a capable team, as launching something like this is not an inconsiderable project. However, you need to rethink your plans. If the guys behind Wikipedia are struggling to make their search engine a success, with all the leverage they had, you need to consider what a massive challenge you have taken on.

Am I just being cynical? What do you think of Searchii’s chances?

My friend John Ballinger has submitted a heart monitor application for the iPhone to the iTunes App Store that lets you use the mic in the headphones or built in to the base of the phone to get an accurate heart rate.

iPhone App - Heart Monitor from John Ballinger on Vimeo.

This is extremely innovative and really starts to show the potential of the iPhone as a development platform. Nice one John, I hope you are an App Store Millionaire soon.

Technorati Tags: iphone heart monitor

Chrome is Google’s own browser project. When I first heard that Google were doing this, my own reaction, and that of my colleagues, was “What the…?”. The last thing the web development industry needs is another browser to deal with. I had a conversation with a fellow web developer friend not long ago about how we were pretty much heading back to the situation of the late 90’s where the individual vendors starting going so far away from the agreed W3C standards, that as a web developer you had a make a choice of which browsers you could realistically support. Back then, getting a site to work in all the different browsers was incredibly time consuming and most clients weren’t prepared to pay the extra cost involved.

Now, I think I counted by the end of the year we would have 10 major browsers, that we would realistically have to support in all our web applications and site. That is before you start looking at mobile browsers, and the smaller guys who are still hanging around, like Opera in the Nintendo Wii and a few other devices.

Then you’ve got Apple’s WebKit project going completely away from even the next planned version of HTML/CSS standards, developing powerful, advanced features that will only work in WebKit. This browser is literally changing every day, they do a nightly build with new code. Incidentally, Google are using WebKit for the base of their browser.

That said, this article on TechCrunch puts the Google strategy in perspective. They already have their Gears technology that allows web applications to run whilst disconnected from the Internet, they have an alternative to the Microsoft Office suite, they are partnered with Salesforce.com for CRM and business applications, Instant Messenger, email, wikis, blogs, social networks…etc, etc. If they can wrap all of this into a Google browser that can also run offline, why would you need an operating system really? You don’t need lots of hardware like high capacity hard drives, you can store everything in the Google “cloud” and retrieve what you want, when you need it.

It is interesting and could well be the plan that Google had all along. At times it had been difficult to understand how they would bring all these disparate applications and services together, but obviously their own browser would do just that. What I find even more interesting is I have just downloaded an application called GMDesk, which is an Adobe AIR application (not developed by Google) that allows you run all your main Google applications in a single interface.

There is obviously the demand for the concept, and I have to say I’m finding it really useful. I’ll continue watching the progress of Chrome with interest.

Technorati Tags: chrome, google, gmdesk, webkit

• Disturbing airline cost saving measures: http://tinyurl.com/5uhqtj #
• Very upset I didn’t think of this idea: http://tinyurl.com/6k8uo6 #

• In London until 6th August #

Here are the links from my presentation today at the inaugural V Club event in Wellington.

• Lime - Automatic Bicycle
• Apple Design Awards Winners
• Remember the Milk
• iPhone Browser Market Share
• Xobni

Thanks for your time today and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like a copy of the presentation.