Strangeloop launches mobile web optimization

Strangeloop, which offers web content optimization as a service or appliance, today announced a mobile version of its offering, dubbed Mobile Site Optimizer. The offering, which targets web site operators, aims to reduce the amount of time required to get content to mobile devices in response to user commands.

Even when web site operators create special sites for mobile users, content for those sites takes nearly 10 seconds, on average, to load, said Strangeloop President Joshua Bixby in an interview. Yet Bixby also noted that 74% of web users say they give up on a web site if they don’t receive a response within five seconds.

Bixby also pointed to research showing that when they have the option to use a web site operator’s complete site, rather than simply a mobile version, 30% of mobile users choose that option.

Popping the hood
To make web sites more responsive, Bixby explained, “We rewrite HTML as it flows through the network--our server generates HTML and sends back [the rewritten] HTML in real time.”

In developing Mobile Site Optimizer, Strangeloop carried over some of the capabilities developed for its traditional web acceleration offering and added others that take into account the unique characteristics of mobile web browsers.

One example of the latter comes into play with wireless devices that use touch commands. Web pages are looking for mouse clicks rather than touch events, creating a delayed response when touch commands are used, Bixby explained. To address that, he said, Strangeloop rewrote the HTML to look for touch, not click events.

Also hampering mobile web page performance is the tendency of mobile browser caches to clear themselves more frequently than the caches used with traditional browsers. Strangeloop has addressed that limitation by building its own cache—an achievement Bixby attributes to HTML5 (CP: Ericsson testing the boundaries of HTML5).

The Strangeloop solution also has the ability to recognize whether a command is coming from a 3G or WiFi device, enabling the web operator to offer simplified, less bit-intensive content to the 3G users to help minimize the amount of data consumed--and minimize the draw from the user’s monthly data plan, said Bixby.

The service provider opportunity
Strangeloop expects communications service providers to be one of the channels for marketing its technology. Bixby noted, for example, that Level 3 Communications offers Strangeloop web optimization as a cloud service to web page operator clients.

“They have their own proprietary web optimization platform and we’re embedded in it,” Bixby said.

Strangeloop does not currently target mobile operators with its offering, but Bixby didn’t rule out that possibility in the future. He noted, for example, that a mobile operator could benefit from Strangeloop’s touch conversion capability.