Two years ago, I got my hands on a shiny new Blackberry 7100t and I made sure I signed up for TMobile's slower than dial-up GPRS data plan so I can be truly mobile and surf the web on the go. Because the data connection speed was slower than the claimed 33KB/s, surfing normal websites on that smartphone was as painful as getting a root canal. I set out to find as many PDA-friendly websites that are either formatted for the smaller screen or utilizing the WAP standard. After compiling a short list of websites, I have decided to host it on a website so I can share it with friends and not having to worry about exporting them in the future.The bookmark ended up having a dozen or so links and many of them were developed for old-school Palm devices. Majority of the news publishers, content providers and ecommerce stores at that time did not have a platform for the small screens.
Today, I have decided to give that old bookmark an update that is long overdue. To my suprise this time around, almost every publisher and vendor I can think of now have a WAP site dedicated to smartphones. Many of them are sharing the same URL strings as the main website (ie. www.USATODAY.com) so that you don't have to point your mobile web browser to a dedicated URL that contains "pda" or "wireless" (ie. wap.USATODAY.com). This, obviously, is a natural progression as the major wireless providers in the U.S. now offer some type of 3G data connection. Even though the need to gather a PDA friendly bookmark is not as important today, here is the most updated BOOKMARK for old times sake.
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