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Times of Oman & Al Shabeeba Mobile Portal

April 16th, 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized

The Times of Oman and Al Shabeeba newspapers launched their mobile phone portals yesterday, it is the first news mobile portal that we have in Oman.

I personally do not think that such mobile portals are as important these days because of RSS. I was already checking news headlines for months and months over my mobile phone via RSS. It is easier to track and to use – in theory at least, but in practice, the RSS feed of Times of Oman is very buggy, the same news item pop up twice every day, the first time is the right one when the news comes up, but the second time they just show up with dead links that do not lead anywhere. It is very annoying, but it works.

I has always been very much irritated by the Times of Oman RSS feed because they are partial. Many people think that partial RSS feeds are pointless. Because of the variety of RSS readers, there is a great chance that I will not be able to click on the read-link, and that is what happens when I am using my mobile reader. I understand that the Times of Oman wants people to visit their page so that they can put advertisements on them, but number 1, it is not working, and number 2, they can just put the advertisement in the freaking RSS feed itself!

Back to topic, I think that the web based portal of Times of Oman is not too bad, but I think that it is way too cluttered, people visit Times of Oman to check the news, not search for restaurants or check their horoscope. It takes forever to actually find and read a news item on this mobile portal.

I do not think that any of the graphics on the Times of Oman mobile portal are necessary whatsoever. I obviously KNOW that I am checking the wap portal for the newspaper, what matters is the Times of Oman brand, not the word MOBILE or the MOBILE LOGO. I also think that the HTML code is ineffective, there is no need for font tags on mobile phones, mobile phones do not usually have the same fonts as computers anyway.

I do not think that I will be visiting the Times of Oman wap portal anytime because I just do not visit websites anymore, I read RSS. I hate their partial fade, and obviously there won’t be an integration between it and the mobile portal. I think that the Times of Oman would offer its readers a better service if they simply made their RSS full and put advertisements on these.

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  • Blue Chi
    Hello Rash, I suggest that you contact Mohammed Al Asmar at alasmarc [at] hotmail [dot] com, he might be able to help you out.
  • Rash
    Are developing a portal for one of Muscat's organisation (finance). Would like to use the RSS feeds from MSM/ Times of Oman... etc..


    Any one any idea about either of these.

    What all RSS feeds are available , Whom to contact / is it worth etc etc
  • Mohammed Al-Asmar
    Yeah, Times of Oman & Shabiba are always on top :) and add WAP to this, it's magnificent !


    As i said, a lot of people are not aware of the latest in technology and whats happening in there, and many don't know the mobile version of Google reader or any other online rss reader, so where are giving the all options to the Times of Oman & Shabiba readers, they can access the web portal or read the ePaper or WAP portal, or they can read the normal newspaper !



    Regarding the Ykoon RSS Reader it is a temporary solution as it is the most famous free RSS Reader, google free rss reader and its there, but all this issues will be fixed when we release the cross-platform Times of Oman & Shabiba RSS Reader(any linux user here ?)



    So you got it first, TOO & Shabiba RSS Reader is coming !



    Thanks so much for concern, and i will keep you updated insha'allah
  • Blue Chi
    Mohammed, thanks for the great insider info. I think the Times of Oman is ahead of all the other English publications in Oman, it's the only one I'm following because it has RSS.


    I do not in fact use an application based RSS reader, I'm using the mobile version of Google Reader, which is simply a mobile website you visit to read your RSS. So if you have a mobile phone browser you can read your RSS without the need to install anything on your phone.



    I don't think that the compatibility with Ykoon is an issue, the feed does not work properly with any reader, not just mine. I am sure that it is buggy on Ykoon just as well.



    I honestly do not think that Ykoon is a good choice for an RSS reader, there are many web based ones including Google Reader which are free, do not require installation and run cross platform.



    Thanks for the insider info once again and good luck! Keep up the good work!
  • Mohammed Al-Asmar
    Hi BluChi


    It's really great that you are always up-to-date on what is happening in the city. Especially this technology related events.

    You opinion about the importance of the WAP Portal is really important and good you mentioned it here.



    A lot of people in Oman, and in middle east are not aware of the WAP service they have on their mobile phone and that’s because of one reason which is the lack of local portals .



    We need this portals that are offering an important services anyone can use in a glance in his mobile phone, such as Prayer Timings, City Guide and the most important is the daily news.



    And Times of Oman & Shabiba are aware of the RSS service, but as you know not all mobile phones offering this service in easy way, I mean in all mobile phones you can access the WAP, but in few of them you have the ready RSS application .



    About the graphics we made it simple as possible, and that mobile word & logo are the logo of Times & Shabiba WAP portals, and that font tag is the result of testing the portal on wide verity of mobile phones models (Actual & using emulators) which resulted a very bad result of font on some of the devices which led to use some of HTML tags to avoid such problems .



    And that RSS feeds issue what you are having on mobile it’s all because we made the RSS to be compatible with Ykoon RSS Reader which TimesofOman recommends in RSS page that one came after we launched the RSS Service a lot of people were not aware of what is RSS and what is RSS Reader so we suggested that one, but after doing some research we found that most of Times of Oman RSS readers are using Ykoon & Firefox RSS reader .



    And remember if you need to know which movies are rolling in local cinemas, go to Times of Oman or Shabiba WAP :)



    Welcome to the “news on the fly” era :D
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