Mobile Web Servers, a good thing?
I'd seen a similar project to this before (also by Nokia) but this new release makes it a lot easier for end-users. Is it a good thing though?
After reading Darla and Tommi's reviews/notices about the new Nokia Mobile Web Server, I thought I'd write my view on the whole concept of serving a website from a mobile phone, rather than talking in-depth about the application (both Darla and Tommi have done a great job in doing that).
I've been trying to think of some use cases where having a mobile web server would be useful/the best way to publish content. Having a web server on a mobile phone doesn't bother me in theory, what bothers me is whether it's being misused
- Is it just 'interactive' content that you'd want to publish, or standard Internet content? Similar to Jaiku or IM status 'lights', which would only be useful/relevant when the person is 'online'.
- Are you expecting a lot of traffic?
- Are you going to host large files (eg. photos/videos)?
- Is this just a way to communicate without using SMS/MMS?
I like the idea (and have wanted to do it before) of having your presence information retrievable from the phone (not publishing on a schedule), and think that is a valid use, providing caching is also used to stop too much traffic.
If this is also usable via ad-hoc mobile wifi (purely between phones) this might also be a way to resurrect Nokia Sensor, that I loved, and enable people in the same location to share things.
For people wanting to use it for sharing the photos/videos/blog entries on their phone, rather than uploading to Flickr/YouTube/Vox I'd suggest that this isn't a good thing to promote. If some enthusiastic (but not technical) users see this software as an opportunity to not need to upload their content, they may be in for a shock when they see their data charges and also when people can't connect to their phone because it's out of coverage.
If you're thinking of putting a 'badge' on your blog showing your current phone status, a la Jaiku, or the last photo you took, I would suggest always having it go through a proxy of some sort (a server-side script) so that you can take other actions if the mobile isn't available. This proxy script could also first communicate with a mobile-side script, using a small amount of text, to determine whether a new version of the content actually needs to be downloaded.
I think the main thing to note is that it should be used responsibly and in moderation and should not be hosting your main homepage/blog.
