I've gone back and forth on the concept of a mobile version of my site for years. I'm at a point where I think I should build a smaller mobile version of my site. My regular site looks okay on the iphone, etc but it has a lot of stuff that just isn't going to be used much by people on a phone. I do have a couple unique sections that are very useful by mobile users. No one else does anything like it and it gets many natural links to it. I even hear about it frequently in feedback..."this would be better on my phone if..."

I've looked at and tested things that serve a different version of the same pages but it usually looks like crap or is slowed down by things that don't really display.

The best version, but more work, seems to be a fast loading stripped down version of key features would do well. If people love the mobile stuff, they may use the regular site at home.

Thinking out loud now. Part of me says just a m.mysite type sub domain would work great. I think there is a risk of duplicate content if I allow it just to be indexed as normal. The pages would be structured totally different in size, formatting, even the text presentation with more focus on mobile usability so it may not look like duplicate stuff...but I also suspect that a clean fast stripped down version could very well outrank my own bloat and other sites in search, which could have it's benefits. So do I take that risk and see what happens? Do I take on more maintenance work to get ahead of other competitors that are still unusable on mobile devices?