Some impressions, in no particular order, from the day:

1. There was friction between some of the vendors represented; you could detect this particularly between the content-adaptation guys and the browser guys. The former offer a server-side solution, the latter client-side, and obviously each believe their approach to be superior.

2. The underlying idea of all this is to grow usage of the mobile Internet - that's a very worthy aim, and one worth remembering when we get mired in the inevitable politics of an effort like this. Despite differences in emphasis and opinion, every speaker and panelist was obviously getting behind this.

3. Chris Yanda gave some fantastic stats. 28% of WAP users only use the BBC WAP site - they don't visit the web site. That's 250,000 exclusive mobile users - most impressive. And the graph he showed of BBC WAP usage growing was interesting too... That said, the cynic in me is wondering how much effort is required to grow usage of the mobile Internet if we're at such a steep gradient in the curve right now. I'm looking forward to seeing the consumer research which .mobi are conducting and putting into the public domain too.

4. It is clearly compulsory to have one slide in any presentation referencing the "long tail".

5. After an initial gut reaction against .mobi which involve no small amount of retching (DNS does that to me - commercially, politically and technically), I'm actually not so against the idea now. It seems to me to be more of a marketing effort than anything else; as Jo Rabin said, it's about trust challenges not technical challenges. And I can't see what the downside of providing standards and support for mobile and web developers is: if it doesn't work out, doesn't get used, or isn't worthwhile then it won't have pissed on anyone elses chips.

6. I still don't understand what "one web" means.

7. I'd like to understand a little more more how the working group which may end up building an open database of handset capabilities will work alongside the existing, successful and well-deployed WURFL project. There wasn't much mention of the WURFL (though admittedly they only touched on the notion briefly) from speakers or panelists, which surprised me - because "in the wild" it's an valued tool for all sorts of folks... many of whom were in attendance at MWI.

3G TV big hit with Vodafoners: "VODAFONE UK customers have accessed one million streams of mobile TV in 14 days. This follows the launch of Sky Mobile TV on the Vodafone 3G network but does include some viewing of Channel 4 too."

Thailand enforces PAYG registration (via Dave): "From midnight all unregistered phones will have their signals blocked, a move Thai officials hope will prevent their use as improvised bomb detonators."

Vision and ambition for the mobile web, Philipp Hoschka

WAP 1.0 was the result of the first W3C event: not massively successful (he says).
Today mobile services focus on messaging, ringtones, music, TV... not web access.
What's changed:
- diversity of handsets
- large installed base: 1.1b web-capable handsets worldwide: 63% of all handsets
- installed base growing!
- but disappointing usage: 50% of web-capable phones not set up to use web; 24% only used once for web access
Positive signs:
- Browsing is #1 data packet generating service, especially for 3G users (source: Nokia study, 2005)
Another change: web has become a mass medium.
Want to make mobile web as easy as desktop
MWI approach:
- Solve interop and usability issues for content providers and end users
- developer program: explaining how to use existing tech and improving implementations, not introducing new tech
Many sponsors

Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group
Audience: content providers/web developers
Making web content work on mobile: guidelines and pitfalls
Chair: Dan Applequist
Best practices: first draft
Studies tips and tricks (from W3C accessibility, iMode, Opera, Openwave, Nokia etc.)
Distilled these into a single document
Is a work in progress: feedback is sought!
- Best practices say you should identify the cost of following a link.

Device Description working group
Needed for content adaptation
Mission: how to improve quality and sharing of device info
Ongoing work:
- survey of existing technologies
- understand who does what and why
Potential future work: shared, open device description database
Sounds like they're planning to reinvent the wheel WURFL-wise

Future work for MWI
MobileOK validator
Device description database
Test suites
Training
... all still under discussion

Mobile web feels like web 1995: Philipp draws analogies:
- too slow
- lack of interop
- child protection
- not accessible (handicapped etc)

But there are differences:
- mobile web has more users than web95
- lots of potential mobile content
- there is an industry around the mobile web, supporting it

"When will we party like it's 1999?"

The Long Tail, Franklin Davis of Nokia

We recognise that most of the long tail of content won't bother adapting their content.
HDML -> WAP 1.0 -> WAP hype -> WAP crash -> I-Mode success -> I-mode non-replication -> WAP 2.0 -> Walled gardens
(but this isn't actually accurate; WAP 1.0 and I-mode launched near-simultaneously, not consecutively)

If I have 5, 10, 15% of my traffic coming from mobile devices, then I will have users complaining that my site doesn't work, and it's then in *my* interest to fix my site. There's no motivation for content providers to do this until they have traffic.

Mobile browsing vision: "By 2015 most people will have access to most of human knowledge wherever they are all the time"

Key browsing use cases:
- LBS
- Subscriptions
- Infotainment (top one, filling odd moments of time or meeting spontaneous information needs)
- Content discovery.download (portals)
- Personal publishing
- Image galleries (how does this differ from PP)

Mobile browsers are stuck "before the chasm" - it's an early aadopter thing

New S60 web browser based on same core as Safari: KDE Konqueror
Based on zooming in and out of web pages
"People understand web pages"
Making it possible to use the full web. The idea being that once these sites are getting mobile visitors they'll start following W3C recommendations.
Has an RSS reader; right now doesn't do updating of feeds (future versions will do this)

I'm not massively impressed by the browser; if it's any good then why will anyone want to have content adapted for it. If it's bad, then why will anyone use it to browse sites in the first place? Seems to rely on a groundswell of users who are prepared to use it to have a poor experience.