Russell Beattie may have a point.

The mobile internet phenomena that has been happening with i-Mode and NTT has not been replicated beyond South Korea, despite expectations to that effect ever since, at least, year 2000.

It will happen, of course, everywhere, but not with mobile specific standards but though convergence of the wired and wireless worlds.

At least he cut his loses quickly ..

Gee. I don’t mean to be cruel, but if one must eat buttered macaroni to conserve cash… just let your company die. That’s just sad.

This is actually too bad since Mowser was pretty dang cool. When I first saw it I was amazed at how well it scaled normal pages. Although Beattie has soured on the mobile web, I hope that this experience hasn’t soured him from doing any more startups as that would be a serious loss to the startup community.

I wish him luck (and success) on whatever he does next…

Mobile internet service Mowser very good

There was a commercial a few years ago where a woman bought a soda out of a vending machine by pressing a few buttons on her cell phone. Still waiting on that.

Browsing the mobile web is just not that easy. Clunky navigation, inputing usernames/password and trying to get the cursor on links to click makes for a really slow experience even if we have faster wireless speeds.

It will happen, of course, everywhere, but not with mobile specific standards but though convergence of the wired and wireless worlds.
it is right

Mowser actually looks like a useful service, and well executed. Even as an Iphone user, I’d prefer slimmed-down versions of some pages. On the other hand, showing these sites without their advertising is questionable.

Still, sorry I just heard about it. Good luck.

thats life

“subsisting” ?

Before I got into mobile web, I learned a lot about mobile industry from Russell Beattie’s blog. So it’s sad that he is giving up on mobile web.

Well the whole idea of mowser was lame. As handsets are getting better browsers and some mobile sites are designed for small screens, who really needs a transcoder? Do we really think that mobile sites will never change to conform to smaller screens?

Mowser was a 1998 bad “wap” idea evolved from crappy handsets and dismal mobile bandwidth. As all these factors are currently changing in the US we will have better services and ideas evolve.

This is a pretty graphic depiction of something we don’t see much — the downside of bootstrapped start ups in terms anybody can appreciate.

I wish him the best.

All the coverage this is getting is certainly likely to spike the hell out of traffic for him and who knows may provide the traffic life he was looking for. I don’t know if it will pull it out of the deadpool but it seems like a good lightweight product. A shame a lot of people are only going to hear of it on the way down.

there really is no ‘mobile web’, I mean it’s just a matter of time before you can view normal sites on mobile devices.

lol - figuring the early adopters are tech guys, it’s no wonder 80% of that mobile traffic is being searched for porn

11
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/subsisting

@17

http://mowser.com/web/http%3A%.....subsisting

I hear stories like that a lot more often than I do stories about getting millions from venture capitalists. Those guys are the real entrepreneurs in my eyes, even if some of the endeavors don’t last.

eating buttered macaroni?

Ever heard of Get A Fricking Day Job? You can be a cool internet web2.0 entrepreneur that doesn’t earn any money in your spare time.

for those of you insensitive clods reading from your iPhone Safari browser here is this same post thru Mowser.. awww its soo pretty - http://mowser.com/web/http%3A%.....0387638%2F

It’s all just a matter of timing.

proper XHTML should make it so that any website can be viewed on a device without having to make a separate version for it.

Hang on here… mobile web “is limited at best, and dying at worst.”

Lets look at the strategy Mowser employed; firstly a product that was to become obsolete as mobile browsers and sites become “mobile friendly” and the wired web converged; secondly, a mobile “off-net” distribution strategy, you need marketing dollars to reach the consumer and create traffic; and thirdly a founder that has not stayed in the same organisation for more than two years… If you ask me Mowser was a Deadpool candidate from day one.

It sux I know and getting into debt to fund it sux too; but that’s start-ups, not for the weak.

“for those of you insensitive clods reading from your iPhone Safari browser”

LoL. When I looked at my site online through mowser, I thought cool, good job.Then I went through mowser on my iphone, and the site butchered my design…no wonder it deadpooled. It should have never been about trying to reconstruct the internet for mobile browsers, it should have been about reconstruction of the mobile browser for the internet…oh well, better luck next time.

One more thing, I do give him credit big time for taking his idea to the bitter end. Been there and still doing it…

I’m glad he finally realized what I told him when he started.

throwing away your savings for a web 2.0 company? I really hope this is a wake up call to people who are thinking about doing the same thing.

I wonder how the Koolaid tastes with his Mac and butter.

I found it a little odd that Russell’s post didn’t mention iPhone. Speaking from personal experience, my time on the mobile web increased about 500% when I got my iPhone. Russell, if you’re reading this, did the iPhone have any impact, positive or negative, on Mowser?

The mobile web is dead! (Shut up, Scoble!)

Long live the iPhone!

and Android!

and Twitter!

and moblogging!

and lifecasting!

and GPS!

and music and media viewing and listing and buying and sharing!

and walking tours and tourism!

and gaming!

and hiking and biking and protest technology!

and just about everything useful and new and creative you might ever want to do in your life - all being done with your mobile phone!

Buttered macaroni is _so_ Web1.0.

p.s. props to the dude for trying.

Too bad, mowser wat pretty good, now i’ll have to go back to http://www.baresite.com and squeezer.com. why not just leave the site online?

I am actually friends with the Mowser guys. I also understand the frustration when something you have worked very hard on doesn’t work out as you hoped. So I won’t be too hard on Russ when he writes:

“I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time.”

I just want to say that the fact that someone has failed to succeed with the mobile web does not mean everyone else will. In fact, there are companies that bet on mobile and are actually successful.
Of course, it takes a lot more to creating a successful start-up than being a good blogger. I would go as far as saying that being a blogger may actually be counter-productive: one may end up living in a virtual world of their own which is very disconnected from day-to-day reality.

Luca

Do not lose hope!
I started http://Free.TV eight years ago, and due to the dot Com Bomb, I had to call it quits. I did not lose it all live most internet companies, but we did not eat steak for quite a while.
The good news: Tivoization of the web has finally happened
The bad news: I did not make any money. I still believe that it will a LONG time before it actually pays off. Yes, some VCs are smart and sold YouTube, but it is not a revenue model for Google (yet)
My advice to mowser: Get back in the saddle. Learn the hard lessons and next time you will make it

Why I nearly never used the mowser? Because I didn’t need to.

Most of mobile websites I read through Google’s mobile RSS feedreader. It also strips away the unnecessary information and loads pages very fast. Or I use Opera Mini.

Why should I make a detour over the Mowser website?

18: clever

I think that the mistake most of the mobile startups make is that they apply the same business and ecosystem model from the desktop web to mobile web. Mobile web is NOT dead and continues to grow but unfortunately as a small startup, it is very difficult to generate a profit and stay in business. One of the previous commenters listed a number of startups “doing well” but we have to be reminded that none of them are actually making any significant money from mobile. Most of them are able to sustain themselves and fight to stay relevant from the investment they raised.

I am convinced that for the time being, there only 2 kinds of companies that’ll succeed in the mobile web space:
1. A big desktop web company who can cover the losses with rev from the desktop or
2. A startup that raises lots of money to cover their burn for the next 3 to 5 years.

There’s a lot of activity in this space but I do not believe that mobile web, in its current form, is in a state that can support lots of startups; especially those that depend on traffic. Therefore, I believe that it is the big companies that will first see some success from monetizing the mobile web. They will find that the mobile web will prove to be a business on its own or at least help their desktop business.

Only then will startups have a chance to thrive which is why they need to raise lots of money now. If their current business plan calls for generating enough traffic in the next 2 years to stay in business, might as well close shop early because I do not believe this will happen.

Mr. Beattie has had an extraordinarily weak appreciation of tech developments and trends.

A classic example is when he declared ‘game over’ for MS PlaysForSure *competitors* in 2005:

“I’ve been watching Microsoft’s moves over the past few weeks and I can pretty much say that it’s game over for a lot of Microsoft competitors, though they may not realize it yet.”

http://www.russellbeattie.com/.....08231.html

Another one is the leading comment he left at my blog recently, dismissing the impact of the iPhone:

“The mobile market is huge and worldwide, and Apple is a minnow swimming among the sharks”

Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
http://counternotions.com/2008.....ompetitors

It’s always sad to see someone down at a personal level, but I always found the attention paid to his tech punditry inexplicable.

http://tinyurl.com/6yjw7v

Interesting comments ^

It’s a shame to hear Mowser is going down the pan but it’s not the mobile web, limited connections and small screens that’s responsible for the demise of Mowser. I feel the business model and decision to not fully ad-support the service is the reason it doesn’t reap the rewards expected.