dotMobi Loves Mowser

At long last we can announce some great news! dotMobi is acquiring the well-known Mowser service that provides content adaptation services for mobile.

We're very excited about this. Russell Beattie and Mike Rowehl are both very talented mobile gurus and they'll be joining the dotMobi team to help us do cool things with their technology. We did this deal because Mowser fits really well into lots of our current projects.

Firstly, the Mowser directory, search and listings will be integrated straight into our newly launched find.mobi service.

Secondly, the mobile formatting technology will help us provide more ways in which you can use DeviceAtlas for creating device-adapted content.

And finally, we want to be able to help people mobilise legacy web sites so they can quickly dip their toes into the burgeoning world of the mobile web.

Now, we've often spoken about the hot "transcoding" topic. We're definitely not critical of content adaptation as a technology, but yes: of course we have been concerned about "blind" transcoding solutions outside of the control of the site owner.

Personally, I've always wanted to make sure we empower site owners and content developers. So we plan to use Mowser's technology in ways that help primarily to do that.

In particular, our adaptation services will be "opt-in" for site owners who know their sites are not yet made-for-mobile, but who nevertheless want to get started quickly with a mobile site.

We'll also make sure that Mowser is compliant with the W3C recommendations for Content Transformation and behaves according to Luca Passani's well-supported Manifesto for Responsible Reformatting.

And finally, we'll make sure that the content that is produced scores a perfect 5-out-of-5 on the ready.mobi test service and is .mobi compliant: these technical aspects of what make a good mobile site are as important as ever.

Anyway, stay tuned for more details over the coming weeks as we get these various shows on the road. And welcome Russ and Mike!