The prediction that there will be "a billion Internet users" in the next three years, is trotted out regularly by Internet industry pundits and prognosticators alike. But how we reach that enormous user base has less to do with today's dominant computing device (the PC) and more to do with the increasing popularity of mobile, Internet-connected devices.

One of the key areas of Internet usage growth is supposed to come from so-called WAP-enabled phones. WAP, which stands for Wireless Application Protocol, is a technical specification that allows users to access information instantly via handheld wireless devices, such as mobile phones, using a micro-browser to navigate.

But user interface guru Jakob Nielsen had blunt words for anyone who might think WAP represents a huge untapped market for content providers and application developers: "Do not include WAP in your Internet strategy," says Nielsen. "Wait for the next generation of devices."

Nielsen comments were especially relevant to the audience of developers he addressed Monday in San Francisco as part of the combined AllNetDevices.com and Web Developer.com 2000 Conference owned by internet.com, the parent company of this Web site. Nielsen, a principal and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Web consulting firm insists the small screens and other limitations inherent to the current generation of WAP phones makes them too hard to use productively for Internet use.

Citing preliminary results of a study his company is doing in England where consumers were given WAP phones to use for a week, Nielsen says it took, on average, over two minutes for users to find a restaurant's phone number and a minute and forty seconds to find the previous day's soccer scores. "The usability is miserable," says Nielsen. "These are impoverished, unpleasant devices."

Nielsen's only concession was to acknowledge that "for some special applications where people really need the information they will go through the torture (of using a WAP phone)." He says the phone itself is the major culprit, in that it's too hard too improve. Earlier in his career, Nielsen was one of numerous researchers and human factors experts at Bell Labs who tried to improve the phone's usability. Nielsen points to such additional features as 'call forwarding' and 'call waiting' that have been around for twenty years, but that most people still find too hard to use.

"I think he (Nielsen) is absolutely right," says Barry Cinnamon, CEO of San Jose-based Andalay Inc. "I've seen plenty of cool WAP demos, but it's really for enthusiasts. People will only use what they can easily learn, that's why we're focused on voice." Andalay provides service and product recommendations to mobile users. The company supports voice as well as the Short Message Service (SMS) standard which allows for the transmission of short text messages to and from a mobile phone, fax and/or IP address. Messages must be no longer than 160 alpha-numeric characters and contain no images or graphics.

Nielsen believes the answer to truly better mobile Net access will come from the integration of mobile phone calling capability into larger screen devices like the Palm Pilot. "The phone has been nice for a hundred years," says Nielsen. "Now it's time for it to go."

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