Using Ovi to build a mobile site for Nokia phones

Ovi, which is run by Nokia, is designed to create mobile sites solely for Nokia phones.

Ovi actually uses a white-label version of Mippin, and if you create a site on Ovi, you’ll discover you also have an account at Mippin, where a mirror of the site you have created is automatically generated.

Hence, building on Ovi is the same as on Mippin. For a tutorial on that, go to this element of MMJ Masterclass 11: Going Mobile.

Your app is presented in the Nokia shop, where mine got 142 downloads in the first couple of days, which was satisfying.


One benefit that Ovi has over Mippin is that Ovi allows you to design a button that will appear along with the other apps you have on your phone’s home screen.

One downside of Ovi, apart from the fact it serves only Nokia phones, is that it takes them six working days to approve your site and publish it.

I couldn’t get the site on any non-Nokia phone. I tried to send it to a non-Nokia phone by creating an account at the Nokia store, and clicking on ‘send to a friend’, and inserting my own mobile number.
The site said it would send me a text enabling my app to download, but it never arrived, presumably because my number relates to a non-Nokia phone.
Full Masterclass here: http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/640

Building a full mobile website with Zinadoo

Here's a video overview of creating a site on Zinadoo. You'll find a good deal more information in the full Going Mobile Video Masterclass at www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk

Video not showing? Find it here
You'll find the rest of this masterclass at www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk or go directly via this link: http://bit.ly/9TWpDi

New video Masterclass: How to go mobile

Here's an introduction to the latest Video Masterclass on Multimedia Journalism: A Practical Guide.
The full course is free to air  for a week, then it goes behind the paywall.
How to create a mobile version of a blog, any RSS feed, or a substantial website


What this masterclass is about
This masterclass is about building a mobile, multimedia site to complement your static blog or website.
Why do you need a mobile presence?
The explosion in smart phone use means that many more people are now searching for information on mobile devices.
If you don’t have a mobile presence alongside your conventional website, users who discover you on their smart phones find your websites impossible to navigate, and you lose out.
What we’ll cover in this masterclass
This masterclass will give you practical demonstrations of how to create a mobile site from a blog or other RSS feed, and also how to create a full mobile website.
On video I’ll be demonstrating the use of two software packages: Mippin and Zinadoo. Several other packages are demonstrated in text and stills
What we won’t be doing: creating an iphone app.
We won’t be doing that for the simple reason that it’s not yet possible to use free software; software created for people who aren’t web builders with an intimate knowledge of coding – html, javascript and so on – to do so.
No doubt that will become possible, and as soon as it is we’ll have a masterclass on it.
What we will be doing
We are concentrating on what can be done on free, readily available web-based software by people with no coding skills.
And it’s worth stressing that you can create mobile content that gives readers a great experience on the iPhone without building an iPhone app.
The sites you create will still look good on the iPhone, and your readers can link to them from an icon on their phone’s home screen, just as they would with an app
The software packages we’ll be using don’t require any technical knowledge. And while the mobile sites they let you create don’t have the slickness of iphone apps, they do have the advantage of working on any mobile phone with a web browser.
Not all the masterclass is on video. There is a good deal of supporting text, and you’ll need to work through that to get the full picture.

How to create a mobile version of your site or blog in minutes

'In minutes' means without having to use any code, redesign it, create a new version or anything else.

There are free platforms that can automatically convert your existing site into a version that works very effectively on mobile phones. All you need is a site with a feed url.

I’ve used Mippin Mobilizer to create a mobile version of the blog that accompanies my multimedia journalism project www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk You can see the finished version my tapping http://mippin.com/multimediajournalism into your web-enabled mobile device.

Here’s what you do

First get your feed url. My blog is on blogger so I get it under settings, feeds and cut and paste it into Mippin where requested.

Immediately your site is pulled into the preview panel on Mippin.

Customise

Next step is to customise it. In particular, you need to create a logo that works in the tiny space available: 120x30 pixels.

I did that on Picnik. This is a very simple editing device, the use of which is covered in detail on pages 430-433 of the book version of Multimedia Journalism: A Practical Guide.

You have to keep things very simple. I took the branding on my website and accompanying blog, and adapted it, keeping the background, typeface and colour palette in line with them both.

You also choose the colours for your header, text, links and so on.

A very similar mobile builder, http://oviappwizard.com, also allows you to create a customised logo that will appear as a navigation button you can load into your mobile’s opening screen. (More on Ovi below)

Mippin gives you a generic one, but you do get to put your mobile site’s title beneath it

Publicise

Next step is to set your url. It comes in this form www..mippin.com/yoursitename.
You can add a button, which takes you to this mobile version, to your website, either by clicking on a button, for Typepad or Blogger, or by cutting and pasting a bit of code.

Things Mippin doesn't like
Pictures can confuse it, so keep them to a minimim, adn don't try running text aroudn them. The four images I originally had in this post all bunxched together above the text in the mobile version.

Mippin also won't replicte a link embedded in text, so you need to leave the full url visible in your text.


A bit of background

The first mobiliser platform I found was Ovi, which is run by Nokia and designed to create mobile sites for access from Nokia phones. It was simple to use but, two days later, I was still waiting for it to go through the pre-publication approval process and, because I wasn’t sure that the site I’d created could be viewed on phones not made by Nokia, I looked around for an alternative.

When I tried to register at Mippin it said I already was, and when I tried the same log-on details I’d set up fror Ovi, I found the mobile site I’d created. So I went ahead and published it on Mippin, just redesigning the logo which I discovered was not easily readable. That has yet to update at the tiem of writing.

Maybe Ovi will publish me too. I’ll update this if they do.