Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Can't call it the web if it's not HTTP

Author:Bob Frankston
Posted:12/19/1999; 7:41:18 PM
Topic:How to start WAPping
Msg #:13739 (In response to 13717)
Prev/Next:13738 / 13740

There are lots of problems with the WAP world. One is, of course, that it is arbitrarily different from HTML. There are rationalizations for this but the real reason is that it is an old effort that started as HDML for handheld computers. No need to go through them one by one to refute them. Fundamentally they posit that the wireless world is different than the wired world because of purely accidental properties.

But the real problem with WAP is not the language but in that it is an anti-Internet play reminiscent of the old dead world of Interactive TV. The WAP world is focused on companies that want to extract additional value out of their content by publishing it to users with dumb terminals.

Wireless is just a medium. Even by sending data over circuits (as with GSM) it is feasible to use straight HTML to a programmable device. And these devices exist as PCs and as PDAs with wireless connections.

Of course, the wireless world is going to fall short of its potential as long as we are stuck in the assumptions of the early 1900’s which assume that the wireless must be managed by assigning exclusive ownership of frequencies. It’s as if we had a telecommunications system that assigned some people control over voice wires, others got video wires and, well, that’s too absurd a concept to even think about. After all, we know how simple it is to share a chaotic packet medium without having to predetermine that uses.

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