The fingers that will do the talking

Yang Yongzhi, who came up with the idea for the gesture-based Dolphin Browser, says mobile browsers will play a key role in mobile Internet. Provided to China Daily

A computer engineer and a dolphin give internet users new power to tell their mobile where to go

Yang Yongzhi looks much like your average IT geek, and would not be out of place in Silicon Valley. For him the work uniform is a T-shirt or an open-necked shirt, jeans and a light blue jacket, and when he talks, he speaks softly but at lightning speed.

And like one or two of his IT peers, he has had his eureka moment: he invented what is said to be the world's first Web browser that takes its commands from human gestures.

Now all that remains to be done is to make money.

Since its launch in March 2010, the Dolphin browser has gained about 20 million users, 60 percent of whom are in Europe and the United States.

The global computer magazine PC World last year rated it the best iPhone and iPad app.

Dolphin allows users to access websites with certain gestures on the screens of smartphones. For instance, users can draw a "G" on the screen with their fingertips and the browser will access Google.com. They can also create their own gestures to represent specific actions.

Yang came up with the idea by chance. While dining at a restaurant, he met a foreigner who could not speak Chinese, but successfully ordered a dish by drawing a fish on the menu.

But unlike many other local companies that have expanded their businesses overseas after becoming established in China, MoboTap launched its product in the US.

With only 20,000 yuan ($3,170, 2,390 euros) and seven team members, the company set up its first office in Silicon Valley about two years ago. It has since opened three additional offices in Beijing, Wuhan and Shenzhen.

Yang says that in developed countries such as the US and Japan, users' behavior, mobile terminals and Internet infrastructure are more mature than in China. They provide a better environment for a startup company such as MoboTap.

After its success overseas, the company shifted its focus to China, where there are more than 210 million mobile browser users.

"There have been too many C2C (Copy to China) in the Internet industry," says Yang, founder and CEO of MoboTap Inc, the company behind the app Dolphin Browser.

"What we are doing is C2U or C2J (Copy to the United States or Japan)."

Yang says that his company would like to take business innovations in China overseas. "We would like to be this kind of bridge."

In July the company received a $10 million (7.5 million euros) venture investment from Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners of Shanghai, which allowed it to launch the Chinese version of Dolphin.

However, in the domestic market competition is fierce. Data from the Beijing Internet consulting firm Analysys International shows that by the fourth quarter of last year, the browsers QQ and UC together made up 78 percent of the market share. Dolphin was fourth with 2.2 percent, behind Opera at 11.4 percent.

Meanwhile, many other companies, such as Google and Qihoo 360, have also developed their own browsers.

"Gesture control will give Dolphin certain advantages, but it cannot form a technology barrier," says Liu Peng, an analyst with Analysys International.

Liu says that these local companies have accumulated loyal users, and Dolphin has to raise its brand awareness first and develop products more suitable for Chinese Internet users.

To cope with this demand, MoboTap launched Dolphin 8.0 on March 14 for the Android system. It hopes to narrow the gap between Chinese users and Dolphin with more localized and customized features.

"Compared with Western users, one big characteristic of Chinese users is that they do not have a clear aim when starting their browser," says Yu Zhou, head of products with MoboTap. "They prefer a complete list of websites and a toolbar from which they can choose what to do next. But overseas users prefer to create a customized list themselves."

The newest version offers a center that serves as a launching point for apps and websites.

Yu says that in future his team will develop more apps for the center, such as a print screen, note-taking and a music player. It will also include more third-party apps.

Dolphin, which offers enhanced search capabilities versus a simplified web browser, has been criticized for its large amount of Internet traffic. But Liu Tiefeng, chief technology officer of the company, says that saving traffic and enhancing user experience is a dilemma. Dolphin values the latter more.

"In the 3G era, saving traffic is no longer necessary," Liu says.

As the cost of using the Internet via a smartphone becomes cheaper, users will be more demanding about a better Internet surfing experience, instead of just being satisfied with simplified Web pages, Liu says.

A recent survey by Pew Research Center, a think tank in Washington, shows that more technology experts agree that by 2020 the Web will dominate apps when it comes to Internet delivery.

More than 1,000 experts were asked about the future of apps and the Web. About 60 percent said they think that the Web will become more important than apps and will become more useful for accessing information.

Yang, who used to work for Microsoft's Advanced Technology Center as an engineer, agrees.

He says there are two trends in the mobile Internet industry: developing apps based on HTML5, the latest version of the HyperText Markup Language used to create Web pages, and websites presented as an app in a browser.

Google Chrome and Safari from Apple already support HTML5, as do many domestic browsers.

"We believe that right now, apps still dominate the mobile Internet, and users' time is fragmented and spent on different apps. But in the future, as HTML5 language becomes more stable, more websites on personal computers will develop their apps for smart phones and integrate them into mobile browsers," Yang says.

By then, users will not need to install so many apps on their phones or tablets and frequently update them one by one; one mobile browser will solve all problems, he says.

The company, though not yet in the black, expects to gain its major source of income from advertising. It is searching for an innovative way to integrate ads into content and present them to users without spoiling their experience.

Yang says that mobile browsers will play a key role in the future of mobile Internet. The future role for mobile browsers is an open platform, integrating social networking, entertainment and business apps.

As a platform of Web apps and the entrance of mobile Internet traffic, Dolphin expects more collaboration with various parties.

"In the mobile Internet industry there is huge room for imagination."

linjingcd@chinadaily.com.cn