Professional Mobile Web Development with WordPress®, Joomla!®, and Drupal®

Chapter 1. Introducing the Mobile Web

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Your first introduction into the magical world of the mobile web

• Learning about the background and heritage of today's mobile web

• Thinking about how you should treat this new medium differently to the way you treat desktop web users

• Some of the philosophical themes that will underpin much of your work throughout this book

Welcome to your journey into the mobile web. The goal of this book is to equip you with the tools, designs, and ideas that you need to bring websites that have been build with Content Management Systems into the hands of mobile users.

To get started, it is worth understanding exactly what is meant when we talk about "the mobile web." The huge increase in mobile phone usage worldwide over the last decade means that most of the human species is already familiar with the concept of communicating without wires. And if you are reading this book, you are probably already extremely familiar with the principle of the Internet and Web! But combining these words together — mobile web — suddenly describes a whole new concept: the idea that you can access the vast resources of the Web, whenever you want, and from wherever you are, via a small consumer electronics device that you can keep in a pocket.

Think about it for a moment. This is an invention that was likely beyond the wildest dreams of your forebears. The Web represents a significant portion of the sum of all human knowledge, and you are on the cusp of having this ...