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I found that there are a whole bunch of articles shared by various people on Twitter that I wanted to comment on, but with more than 140 characters. Plus, I come across some pretty interesting posts on Google Reader every so often, and I often find I want to write a response. So this is going to be a semi-occasional roundup of various such articles.

1. Via @atmasphere comes Marketers salivating over smartphone potential: Actually I suspect the apparent willingness to see mobile has less to do with what they’ve identified and more to do with: (a) there’s no irritating, resource-intensive Flash ads on most phones, so people’s desire to tune them out hasn’t kicked in as strongly yet; and, (b) there’s no Adblock for most of these phones yet. Once these ads start slowing phones down and eating through the capped data plans causing overage and grief for users, this will change quickly.
2. Saw what is probably the definitive guide to available-in-the-US e-readers over at dealnews.com. While there are a ton more readers out there if you’re willing to look at importers, this is a pretty exhaustive comparison of the various options out there. The thing that I find most interesting about this is how all the screens are 6″ or larger (basically). I, for one, would welcome an e-book reader roughly the shape and size of a traditional mass-market paperback book.
3. Engadget is reporting on the Symbian app store, joining such stores as the Android, Apple, Blackberry and Nokia stores. And in the last of that list lies the nub: given that just about the only people who use Symbian extensively is Nokia, why is there such a duplication of effort? Let Symbian licence the Nokia store for use on any Symbian-powered devices, if the legalities are a problem. This is just a tremendous waste of resources.
4. Via @bperry comes Mobile first: I agree with the the author’s first two points. Mobile use is skyrocketing, and mobile screen real estate is limited and websites designed for mobile devices are often clearer and more function-oriented than their desktop-bound counterparts. But I disagree with the observation that mobile platforms are more functional; in fact, that’s the biggest challenge in designing for mobile devices has always been the huge disparities in device capabilities. Even if you look at the two platforms currently hogging mindshare – iPhone OS and Android – device capabilities are hugely different. The original iPhone doesn’t have a GPS at all; the 3G has a GPS, but no compass. The Android devices offer multiple resolutions. More to the point, these two platforms occupy a very small market share and if you expand your audience to the entire mobile spectrum – feature phones and smart phones – then good luck getting anything beyond the most minimal of pages up.