I was planning to do a bit of a recce around a few mobile news sites to do a compare and contrast job in relation to something I'm doing for a client. So having heard a month or so ago via MocoNews that CNN was doing an all-singing all-dancing wap site with help from Ericsson, I thought it was worth a look. And I was also reminded about it in the latest CNN email newsletter which popped into my inbox yesterday.Anyhoo, I head off to CNN on my 'puter to see what the service consisted of. It seems there's breaking news, video and also the wapsite which was the bit I was interested in. I type in the address http://m.cnn.com on my phone browser (Opera Mini) and get 'Forbidden. Your client is not allowed to access the requested object.' So I try again on my operator browser (T-zones) and get the same message. And indeed the same message on my PC. Hmm, maybe they're updating the site or something?
Err, it seems not. It seems that unless you're on a network with one of CNN's preferred partners you don't get access. Except, that with Opera Mini, of course, I can just go to CNN.com and see everything I want to see, albeit in a not as nice format I expect as the made for mobile site. So much for CNN 'making mobile news easy'! So I have to agree with Denis at WapReview... CNN really doesn't 'get' mobile.
Doh!
The new WAP service can be previewed on mobile devices only at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnnmobile.com (for users in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America.)
Did you try that?
Didn't realise there was yet another URL to try so thanks for the tip off Heike!
ReplyDeleteI have tried it and it does work, but it's not brilliant - the BBC is definitely better.
But how confusing is that to promote one URL but make it inaccessible to most of the world and then have another URL that everyone can access and not promote it?!