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Wireless: Beyond the Hype By Alexis Gutzman March 21, 2000 The WAP The key word here is protocol. A protocol is an agreed standard for communicating. You''ve probably used or read the expression IP (as in IP address), that''s the Internet protocol. HTTP is the hypertext transfer protocol. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a standard for having a server talk to wireless devices. The wireless devices expect the data to appear in a certain format. The WAP (see www.wap.net for more information, including the protocol) specifies two different languages that the wireless data provider can send to the wireless devices (via the WAP). Those are: HDML and WML. HDML is the standard in the U.S., WML overseas. The analogy here is to HTTP being the protocol and HTML being the language for all things Web. The good news is that you, as the merchant, don''t need to know about that. The Wireless Data Providers Wireless data providers are to wireless what Ariba is to B2B: They own the marketplace. Most e-commerce that takes place via wireless will have to go through the wireless data providers because they''ve already negotiated for the best menu placement on the service providers'' menus or have an alternate solution to being easily accessed by their customers. A site doesn''t have to be on the menu of the wireless device to be accessible from the device, but since typing via wireless (especially digital phone) is so arduous, the most accessed sites will be those on the menu. A perfect example of this was given to me by Scott Moeller, CEO of MobileShift: "Schwab is my broker, but I have Sprint, which has Ameritrade as the broker on their menu. Schwab is on GTE. I can get to Schwab through Sprint, but I have to type it all in www.schwab.com/hdml. Who wants to do that?" How It Looks to Customers Since typing is slow, customers create shopping profiles via wired Web sites, then once a customer is in the system, he can shop with one-click ordering via his wireless device. MobileShift is the only wireless data provider I talked with who is live in e-commerce right now (as usual, if you know of others, please let me know for a possible follow-up article). Visit their site www.mobileshift.com to see how this works for the customer. The difference between shopping with, for example, MobileShift, and shopping on a typical aggregator or portal site is that on the wired Web, once the customer finds the product he wants, he clicks through to the merchant site and makes the purchase. With the wireless aggregators, the purchase is made directly with them, then fulfillment and customer service issues are handled by the merchant. How Merchants Work with Data Providers Most of the wireless data providers seem to be taking all comers. They''re signing up merchants in the same way that shopping engines (like MySimon, Deja, or PriceScan) do. They''ll list your products without any exclusive arrangements. You, as the merchant, can either provide a product file to them, provide access to your database for them to pull out the data they need, or have them spider your site for product information (worst of the three options). You have to be able to accept orders via XML, 832 EDI, or API in real time. Resources MobileShift (www.mobileshift.com) is live on all wireless networks that permit Web access. Contact mark@mobileshift.com for more information. IQOrder (www.iqorder.com) will be live in the wireless arena in April. They have a shopping engine on the wired Web today. Contact eileen.proctor@iqorder.com for more information. I3Mobile (www.i3mobile.com) will translate your content for delivery via WAP-enabled devices, but implementing e-commerce via voice at this point. Contact ebaryluk@intelligentinfo.com for more information. Alexis D. Gutzman is an E-commerce Technology Author and Consultant and author of The HTML 4 Bible, FrontPage 2000 Answers!, and ColdFusion 4 for Dummies. She can be reached at agutzman@internet.com

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