I was at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas recently. I got the impression that the wireless industry could well use an explosion in mobile content creation to come along. It hasn’t happened yet, and here are three reasons why:

1) The mobile Web. People are not crashing the gates to redo their existing websites, or create new ones, in mobile-friendly WAP format. Maybe it’s because of the unpredictability of WAP’s display on different platforms and devices. Maybe it’s because they are waiting for easier and more universal standards to come along. Maybe it’s because WAP just seems so 90s.

2) Mobile apps. Imagine that instead of just authoring content into Web pages, every site was in its own custom browser which you installed on your computer. That’s a bit the logic behind mobile apps, and this is justified when rich content, like games and video, is concerned. But there is a hefty price tag for their initial development, for porting them to different devices and for updating them regularly. Plus the store-based distribution model (find-it, download-it, install-it) is very restrictive. All this means that this will never be an online publishing option for the vast majority of us.

3) Frogans technology is not yet launched. Frogans technology will basically fill that enormous gap between the mobile Web and mobile apps. This will be the only format which simply allows you to author once and have the same online content display securely and identically on all supported devices. Plus, it’s a format that is perfectly adapted for touchscreen phones. Frogans sites are looked-up for navigation via their frogans addresses, so once your Frogans Player is installed, the (exploding number of) frogans sites of the Universe will be at your fingertips.

What’s really funny is that these same frogans sites will also be navigated on desktop computers using the same technology. That’s really funny.

Have a stratospheric one!

Frogans has been leading a double life. I’ve been itching to come clean for weeks, but didn’t quite know how to put it. Here goes: It’s not just for the desktop anymore!

That’s right. Frogans has always been intended to also work on mobile phones and other tiny-screened devices. For crying out loud, isn’t it obvious? With a 320 by 240 pixel maximum display size, you can’t say that the writing wasn’t on the wall!

That’s not to say that I haven’t been sincere about how cool frogans mini-sites will be on the desktop. It’s still as true as ever. No other format for online content goes so far for enabling harmony between browsing and other applications. The resulting visual and interactive persistence with frogans mini-sites is unprecedented. And don’t forget the benefits for security and end-user privacy.

And then there’s mobile. Even though frogans for desktop devices (running Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) has the lead on the roadmap, getting frogans on mobile has always been a key objective.

Mobile phone and PDA technology is now at a point where these devices can do a lot of the browsing that used to be reserved for personal computers only. Even so, the Web is largely a hostile place for these little devices. Content has to either be specifically authored for them (e.g. WAP) or some kind of adaptation has to take place – proxy server rendering (skyfire), content adaptation, zoomable pages (iPhone, Opera Mini). Plus, unless you’re using WiFi, it’s often SLOW.

Frogans mini-sites, on the other hand, will be equally friendly to both desktop and mobile devices. There will be no need for authors to adapt their content for one platform or the other. They’re cool in both worlds.

The very same principals for making Frogans technology universal for the desktop – secure, standard, lightweight content, easy on device resources – make it ideal for mobile. This is nothing new. Check out this post from last year.

At the end of the day, the frogans mini-site format is simply universal. Although frogans mini-sites will first be seen on desktop devices, the same mini-sites can be visited from mobile devices as the Frogans Player versions for those devices become available. Think of it as a way of jumping ahead of the mobile Web game, or as leaping across the desktop-mobile divide.

Update Jan 5, 2009 – Parts of this post are now outdated. In particular, STG Interactive S.A. is interested in operating a .frogans gTLD, but not for distributing domain names to the public, even if they have frogans addresses. We see a .frogans gTLD as being a great asset to the security and stability in operating the Main Frogans Network on the Internet. I’ll have more details on this subject once ICANN finalizes its Guidebook for new gTLD applicants.

I’ve been spending time at the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) 32nd International Public Meeting here in Paris last week. For me it has been a chance to learn more about current Internet addressing issues, but also to talk face-to-face with domain name registrars about Frogans technology.

And it’s been a real eye-opener on the subject of generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Right now, twenty one gTLDs exist. These include “.com,” “.biz” and “.edu”. TLDs include also those of the country code flavor (ccTLDs) like “.au” for Australia and “.cn” for China.

Thanks to the New gTLD Program, the number of gTLDs is expected to explode. While the policy details are still being worked out by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), we can expect within the next few years a huge proliferation of domain name registries. The result will be that instead of registering “burger-and-fries.net”, it might be “burger-and-fries.fast-food”, where “.fast-food” has replaced “.net”, or “.com” or “.org”.

Not everybody thinks that this is good news. For existing registries it must be like scaling Mt Everest for a quiet summit picnic, only to find a new ski-lift bringing up folks by the twelve-pack. Not only do hard-earned gTLDs like “.eu” and “.jobs” risk losing some of their distinctiveness and meaning, but there are technical limitations to consider and administrative issues to untangle.

But it could also be a necessary evolutionary step for assuring a continued high level of innovation on the Internet. At STG Interactive, we see in this policy a reflection of our own point of view: that there must always be room for innovation on the Internet, even at the expense of “business as usual.”

It could even be a good thing for the Frogansphere. For instance, once the New gTLD program goes into effect, STG Interactive could apply to register the “.frogans” gTLD with ICANN. Imagine that for every one of your frogans addresses, STG Interactive could provide you with a free corresponding domain name. So with “frogans*burger-and-fries”, your corresponding domain name would be “burger-and-fries.frogans”.

This free domain name would be tied to a Web page for accessing your frogans. For instance, if you were to go to “http://burger-and-fries.frogans/” in a Web browser, a page could come up that contained a LeapToFrogans link to “frogans*burger-and-fries”. Here, the “.frogans” gTLD serves as a springboard between the Web and the Frogans layers of the Internet.

This idea sprung up after attending the Workshop meeting on New gTLDs. But in fact, STG Interactive could still move ahead with a similar idea if, for some reason, it were not possible to obtain a “.frogans” gTLD. STG Interactive might still provide each frogans address registrant with a free subdomain name under “frogansphere.net”, for example, “burger-and-fries.frogansphere.net”, and it would work the same way (even though it creates a dependancy on the “.net” registry). It’s longer to type, but still looks good enough to byte (pun intended).

…or, “Froggy goes to Mountain View.”

I wasn’t blogging from the Greater Silicon Valley Area from the 18th to the 25th of May, nor was I blogging in the weeks preceding. I wasn’t blogging the week after I got back, either. That’s a lot of not blogging.

The trip to the “Valley,” which included participation in the French Tech Tour 2008 was principally for evangelizing Frogans technology through presentations on the corporate level. It was also my first stint evangelizing in person, rather than on the keyboard. The main objective was to give others in the IT world a fifteen-minute overview (over the course of an hour) of Frogans technology and to give them reasons for finding out more.

To that end, things went pretty darned well.

Next up: FSDL C Libraries and easy frogans authoring.

Before investing time, energy and maybe money into developing a frogans, you might look for comparable models existing on the Web. And you’re going to look at Web widgets.

(You might look at desktop widgets also, but I’m not going to discuss them here. While they may look more like frogans, they’re even less interactive than Web widgets. Functionally they have less in common with frogans.)

Web widgets are small; frogans are small. You might get your feet wet in the Frogansphere authoring a frogans based on a Facebook widget model (for example).

Above and Beyond the Web

Widgets, like those you see on Facebook, are presented within Web pages, physically and contextually. Web widget visibility is subject to Web browsing behavior, since they are available only as long as the end-user has their page on screen.

Imagine that widgets are on pages in a magazine. Close the magazine – no more widget. Frogans are more like (browsable) pictures on a wall.

So, instead of putting a widget on my Facebook profile page, I could put in a link to a frogans, which can be browsed on the frogans layer at the same time as my profile on the Web. If the end-user goes to another page, or closes their browser altogether, they can still continue to navigate that frogans (up there on the wall).

And the same frogans can be accessed from any kind of Web page, not just a Social Web platform. So, you know that you don’t need to cater to only the 18 – 35 crowd.

More than social

Widgets not made for the Social Web are few and far between. Why is this? It’s because of the Social Web’s viral nature. Widgets are meant to be installed on a maximum number of pages, often by the grace of their fad appeal (I think of them as being pseudo-ads disguised as toys). Rather than pay for their placement like real ads, they proliferate by being fun. Where else but on the Social Web can this idea work?

While a frogans might function very well within a social context, it doesn’t necessarily have to be fun and superficial to get traffic. Frogans have that magic ingredient of persistence which means that they don’t have to play the same game that Widgets, imprisoned in Web pages, must do.

Where to go from here

Now you know that 1) isn’t doomed to being a pure phenomenon of the Social Web, and 2) is persistent beyond the confines of your Web browser. So much for models that don’t apply; what about those that do?

The key to determining a use for a frogans lies in how you tap the strength of its persistence. A successful frogans hangs out on your desktop, being all at once informative, decorative and captivating.

Maybe it’s a slideshow of the greatest National Park photos, containing links for all sorts of information on the subject like the latest news and upcoming events – all this within the same frogans.

Maybe it’s a magazine cover on its frogans home slide, with excerpts from the issue on the inside, complete with links to other frogans (or to Web pages) for supplemental information. At any rate, you think it’s a cool mag, and you like seeing it’s cover on your desktop.

Or maybe it’s your personal frogans for your friends, be they the ones you’ve met in person, or on MySpace. Maybe this is how the Social Frogansphere will operate.

The common thread here is in the end-user’s acceptance of a frogans as something with enough personal relevance and utility to merit an extended stay on their desktop. It’s kind of like that t-shirt sporting the logo of you favorite beer that you wear at barbecues. Or was that a tattoo?

A suggestion

Base your frogans on something people can identify with. It’s kind of a funny idea, but while you can express yourself through your frogans, the end-user also expresses his or herself when they decorate their desktop with it.

Frogans, with an “s”. For some reason, which nobody seems to remember, “frogans” is always spelled with an “s” at the end, whether we’re talking about one frogans or a whole flock of frogans.

It’s funny how this affects the way we talk about frogans. For instance, I could ambiguously say “Look at the frogans”, but it would have been better had I said “look at that frogans,” or “look at those frogans” and be more precise.

Now if I have a red frogans I can say: ” I sure like my frogans’ color.”

With fifty red frogans I say the exact same thing: “I sure like my frogans’ color.”

It’s impossible to know whether I’m talking about one or more frogans here. It might be better to say “I sure like the color of all my fifty frogans. They’re red, by the way.”

In the absence of any clear explanation of this entomological particularity, let’s just make something up:

There’s more to a frogans than meets the eye. Behind that humble home slide may burrow a plethora of amazingly diverse content just waiting to be explored. “Frogan” is so downright insufficient, you can hardly keep that “s” from ssssssslithering out. So rather than rewriting the laws of physics, we all just call them FROGANS, and the world is a happier place.

There you have it. The mystery is a mystery no more. Go home. Get a good night’s sleep, getting back to that excellent reoccurring dream about the upcoming release of Frogans technology.

We just call it the MFN for short.

My promise of a roadmap is turning up empty for now. Most of my time recently has been in finalizing the customer interface text for the upcoming frogans address registration service at frogans.com.

Background info

Key to Frogans Technology is the creation of frogans networks. The first of these is being put into place by STG Interactive.

The Main Frogans Network, which STG Interactive operates, and which is established on the Internet, is accessible free of charge and without restriction to anybody having an Internet connection, and having the Frogans Player (also free of charge) installed on their computer (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux).

To publish a frogans on the Main Frogans Network, one needs to have registered a frogans address ($12 per year, $20 for two years), and to author their frogans in FSDL, which is free to use and distribute.

On the Web, end-users employ Web browsers for hunting down pages, which are written in HTML, and bringing them up on-screen. Likewise, on the MFN, users employ the Frogans Player to track down frogans, written in FSDL, and bring them up on-screen. The Web and the MFN are both software layers, not to be confused with the Internet itself, which is a physical network.

To better understand how STG Interactive operates the MFN, let’s look at this frogans network in three, bite-sized chunks: its hardware and connectivity, its administrative applications, and its database server.

The hardware and connectivity

Servers used for frogans address lookups are called FNS (Frogans Network System) servers. Those for the MFN are clustered Linux servers hosted in a Telehouse data center facility in Paris, France, which is very convenient seeing that our offices are nearby. These servers are connected to the Internet backbone by two 1-GBps connections, one provided by Verizon Business, the other by Level 3 Communications.

To enable routing through these two different providers STG Interactive became a LIR (Local Internet Registry) at RIPE NCC, running its own Autonomous System (number AS39051).

This is already a heavyweight setup, but to be absolutely certain to be able to provide uninterrupted service world-wide at a high volume (that’s positive thinking!) a second data center location is being planned for 2008.

The administrative applications: frogans.com

Here’s where STG Interactive does business. Frogans.com will soon allow people to register frogans addresses of their choice (on a first come, first served basis), and to manage their accounts, including their address parameters for hosting and publishing their frogans on the Internet. (Every published frogans has its own frogans address.)

For now frogans.com’s front end is going to be in English only, but it has been developed to accommodate its translation into other languages to better address Internet community needs as its activity grows.

The database: FDB server

A scalable, high-volume, high performance database server capable of meeting the MFN’s needs did not exist, so STG Interactive invented the Frogans Database (FDB) server.

The FDB server backs both STG Interactive’s administrative applications and the FNS servers on the MFN, for continuous world-wide frogans address lookup service.

Today STG Interactive is capable of storing and looking-up one hundred million (100,000,000!) frogans addresses on the MFN. For comparison, there exist around 146,000,000 Web domain names worldwide (source: The VeriSign Domain Report).

STG Interactive looks ready to deliver the goods for well past the first growth-spurt of the Frogansphere.

Like I’ve said before, despite several visual and functional similarities, frogans and widgets are not the same thing. I like to imply that we live in a happy universe where frogans and widgets can peacefully coexist. Like Rodney King said, “Can’t we all… just… get along?”

Well, wouldn’t that be nice. But can you really, really trust a widget?

According to the Q3 2007 Web Security Trends Report from the Finjan Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC), you can never be too sure if a widget is as cute and cuddly on the inside as it is on the outside:

“Our findings suggest that new attacks that exploit the insecurities of widgets and gadgets are imminent, and that a revised security model should be explored in order to keep users protected from such attacks.
All types of widget environments (OS, 3rd party applications, and web widgets) were found to be plagued with inadequate security models that allowed malicious widgets to run.”

What? Next, they’re going to tell us not to let them get wet; nor to feed them after midnight!

It’s not as if the writing wasn’t already on the wall. All these proliferating mini-apps, cruising the Info-way to and from your computer, often accessing your system resources and running JavaScript of unbeknown intent. Yikes!

Among other things, the MCRC suggests that organizations limit the internal use of widgets, and even go so far as blocking the downloading widget and gadget file types at corporate network gateways.

Is there any hope for those of us wanting an interactive, online desktop pal without fearing that it might stab us in the back?

Frogans, like widgets, have a knack for being cute and cuddly and for displaying content in a small, unobtrusive format. (For a look at their major differences, see “Frogans vs.Widgets”.)

However, in Frogans Technology development, and apparently unlike with widget engines, end-user security has been a major consideration from the start. While not impossible, a malicious attack from a frogans, is really, really improbable. Here are a few reasons why:

• FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language) – Written in XML this is the only language in which a frogans can be authored. No Flash, no JavaScript. FSDL provides no references to end-user system resources.
• No disc cache – Frogans slides are loaded into active memory only (and they don’t take up very much of that) – never onto your hard drive.
• Image and FSDL parsing – Here the Frogans Player trades off a bit of speed for iron-clad parsing security.(Given the size limitation requirements for frogans resources, this is a minimal speed issue). The Frogans Player simply rejects corrupt files and corrupt images.
• Fonts – The FSDL specifications (v.3.0) permit only certain typographic fonts to be used in a frogans slide. These fonts are integrated into the Frogans Player which has exclusive access to them. Principally implemented as an access and compatibility feature this is also an insurance against corrupted fonts which could eventually be used in an exploit attempt.
• The frogans address – Each frogans publisher on the Main Frogans Network obtains their frogans address at frogans.com and agrees to the terms therein. This allows STG Interactive to suspend a frogans address (and consequently the frogans concerned) should an FSDL document or an image at that address be used in an attempt to exploit a possible Frogans Player security flaw.
  Moreover, frogans addresses are secured by means of digital signatures.
• We encourage the developer community to go looking for any security flaws they can find in the Frogans Player. Anybody who informs us of one will be cited the release notes of patched Frogans Player upgrades. What more could you ask for? A free frogans address with a cool name like “frogans*DemonHacker”? We’re open to suggestions on that front.
• All the above points apply to all three of the principal platforms for Internet end-users. Linux users won’t be left to fall by the wayside. Mac OS X users won’t be out in the cold. Windows users won’t be left blowing in the wind.

We’re pretty sure that Frogans Technology is going to be a hit in corporate environments because of its clear advantages in terms of security, and what’s good enough for them should well do for the rest of us.

So if you happen to come across a cute and cuddly widget, take heed that looks can be deceiving. On the other hand, your favorite frogans can look like Dracula’s nightmare and still be the perfect pet. I’d like to know what the MCRC will have to say about that.