Brave New Code

November 4, 2010

BraveNewCode Inc. is run by two Canadian gentlemen, who define themselves as “not only good looking folks, but with skills and abilities too”. However, do not allow yourself to be misguided by the sight of their pictures. They actually do have skills and abilities, apart from a great sense of humor. What began in 2007 as a simple design and development portfolio for the work of Dale, evolved into its present form in early 2008, when Duane climbed aboard contributing his extensive web programming skills to this Canadian top-notch venture.

Dale Mugford is from Ontario and has been designing and developing XHTML, CSS, Javascript and multimedia web projects since 1994. His love for all things CSS and web standards ensures high-quality, cross-browser compatible sites. Duane Storey is from British Columbia, and has been developing software applications and web-based architectures nearly since birth. He has built novel web applications, Facebook applications, and even contributed to the voice engine that was once in Yahoo! Messenger.

The BraveNewCode team is responsible for the development of one of the most popular WordPress plugins, WPtouch, that magically transforms a WordPress blog into a basic iPhone application-style theme, complete with AJAX-loading articles and effects, that can be viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini, Palm Pre, Samsung touch and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile devices. The basic package can be further customized by tweaking its CSS style, sheets to meet  branding requirements. A commercial version offers more advanced options, such as Web-App mode.

To understand why such a piece of code is so relevant, you could read the dotMobi 2010 “Mobile Web Progress” study that demonstrates that the mobile Web is continuing its explosive global growth. While the 2008 study showed 150,000 mobile-ready websites, the 2010 study showed approximately 3.01 million sites, representing an incredible two-year growth of more than 2,000 percent. And that growth level significantly outpaces early desktop growth.

Web analysts Netcraft found that, between 1996 and 1998, the size of the desktop Web grew from 150,000 sites to 2.0 million sites, a growth rate of only 1,333 percent compared to the mobile Web’s 2,000 percent growth in the equivalent timeframe.

The end result is that “many brands and businesses are seeing that mobile is a vital, unique channel and not just a smaller desktop Web. Big brands are now adopting mobile Web strategies, but we still have a long way to go, given the ubiquity of mobile phones compared to computers,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi. “A recent Morgan Stanley report noted that the ‘mobile internet is ramping faster than desktop internet did and will be bigger than most think’. Businesses of all sizes need to prepare for the change in how people will access content by embracing the mobile Web.”

Small business owners must engage their growing mobile audience as large brands have. Developments like WPtouch, together with others such as jQuery Mobile, DeviceAtlas and goMobi are making this happen for the mobile Web.

RackNine can help you adapt your website for viewing on any kind of mobile device.

For more information on this and other compatibility issues, please Contact Us.