I found a free tool that help businesses create mobile sites. http://www.gomo.io Its cheap and it works. They have a cool tool that allows you to see how it looks on a mobile phone before it goes live.

Many of the mobile web companies are embrancing separate CMS’s that are like native Apps. There is a role to play with those solutions but for the non-tech media industry….. the the simple thought of an App has cleared the way.  Things are going to get more messier with Apps ( Compatibility hell and costs) for developers as we have new Win7, new Blackberries and Android and iPhone battling it out.  

The best thought is to think 3 years in the future and think when browsers catch-up to the API stack as they are today.  That should help answer the question.

Warm Regards,
Matthew Snyder,
Founder/CEO 
ADObjects, Inc ( ADO)   http://www.adobjects-inc.com
*Just launched http://ADO.cm

There is a real design challenge in not leaving users of smaller screens feeling short changed or like they are using a lesser version. They are not second class citizens after all. The idea is to optimize for such users; meeting there needs. Not to just remove things because they are in way.

Is it possible for users of each device to feel special?

I completely agree about tablets, and I mentioned them in my blog above as an argument *against* RWD ;-) They are so good at showing desktop sites that it largely negates the need for responsive sites. When iPad users are shown sites optimised for the device, they usually react negatively because the UI is different (sometimes radically so) and things not where they expect, missing and so forth. There is a danger of us forgetting consistency is a foundation stone of UI design, and unless there is compelling reasons to the contrary, should not also be between devices as well as pages?  

We do need to take each situation on its merits and there are areas of grey where the best solution doesn’t immediately present itself, but I would also be wary of not taking an approach because of the support of tools; whether that’s heatmaps or anything else. The tools will catch-up and this does not stop RWD being the correct solution; if it is the correct solution.

As for what approach in what circumstance, sorry to cop out, but it would really depend on the specific project. I like your distinction between task and content based sites as a rule of thumb, but I fear the distinction is often not so clear. I’d say there is a much larger grey area than this lumping and splitting allows. What you call a Web App, I’d may call a mobile site with a different focus.  In other cases, the Information Architecture of the site – even a content based site – needs to be different based on the goals of the user. 

I think we’re perhaps a little too trigger happy to use RWD because its cool and new and all the grown ups tell us to do it. But I think we haven’t thought it through in some cases. For instance, this week it occurred to me that Responsive sites do not play well with Heatmap analytics (the software I am aware of at least), hobbling refinement of UX on any version of the site, desktop or mobile.