Cell Phone Web Site

QR Code hung in large format over Madison Square Garden, June 2010.  Finally the "Code" is getting some traction here in the US.

Linking  the physical world with digital information is a fundamentally exciting aspect of being mobile.  Within a few short years augmented reality will become main stream as businesses begin to push new applications using a mobile device to overlay the physical world with digital information such as names of places, store info, and real-time information.  Meanwhile there is an easy link between physical and mobile and it doesn't cost anything to use it!

One very early connector of the mobile web and the physical world is the QR code.  QR stands for “quick response”.  It was developed by Japanese corporation Densu-Wave in 1994.  QR codes are very popular in Japan and by now you’ve  likely seen this square box with the black and white blocks inside, as they are used more frequently every day.  The picture at the top of this post shows a QR code prominently draped over Madison Square Garden in New York.  UPS and Fedex use them as do many manufacturers.  They simply carry much more information than an 'old time' bar code.

                              

Old Time Bar Code                            Very Smart QR Code
Not Much Information                       Contains lots of information



Basically QR codes work like this –  The phone must have QR reading software installed (takes less than a minute to install and is free).  Using the camera of the mobile device, the phone software will translate the QR code and deliver back to the user whatever you want–a mobile website, video, pricing information or actually even kick off an application like charging for a product.  

The cell phone needs a QR code reader to work, and in Japan phones come with this software already installed.  Google's mobile Android operatingsystem supports the use of QR codes by natively including the barcode scanner (ZXing) on some models.

Today MoFuse has many clients who use QR codes in interesting ways.  One publisher adds them to magazine articles to drive people from the physical pages of a publication to their mobile phone web page that carries a special offer.  Another publishes QR codes on the jackets of books and when translated, brings people to a mobile web page with more information about the author and book.

Marketers take note, when you use QR in advertising you can find out a lot about your mobile web audience.  People who translate a QR code are delivered to your mobile site - which  is fired up when the QR code is read.  Your mobile web analytics will then give you insight into who is interacting with your brand via the QR code.

If you want to try them out you can go to qrcode.mofuse.com to create your code.  Just fill in the URL that you want your customers to go to when the QR is read.  We’ll give you the 2D bar code to copy and publish anywhere.  You can also select from many sizes of QR code depending on the use.  Place the QR code on physical locations to connect people to your mobile URL.   QR is just one of many exciting mobile web tools that will help you integrate physical and mobile.

What makes a smart phone so smart?

By now you know that a ‘smart phone’ really is a computer that fits in your hand. It allows you to make phone calls but at this point, phone calls are somewhat of a side show.  Smart phones give us the ability to use applications that take advantage of our physical location and that is a major sea change for computing for years to come.  From ‘augmented reality’ to a digital compass, from restarant locators to favorite bar recipes – we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what these small computers will do to enhance our lives.

Phase 1: Populating the Planet with Smart Phones

As I was planning this post (for about a month now), I was going to predict that 2010 would be the year of the first ‘free’ give-away smartphone.  Meaning – the cost of manufacturing these devices continues to decrease while and their popularity increases.   Their ubiquity is hastened by the give-away.  Before I could post – it has actually already happened.
Verizon Wireless recently expanded its buy-one-get-one offer to include all of its smartphones.  The situation is as follows:  all phones are very quickly, trending towards “smart”.  

What will that mean?  

Assume that eventually everyone will have a “smart” phone – this has wide implications about how people will consume media.  The data shows people with touchscreen mobile phones are more likely to download video, interact with apps and use the mobile web.  This means you can no longer lay back and let your mobile website experience be driven by the more than 30 (and growing) different mobile web browsers.    On the contrary, Smartphones give people much higher expectations of what they should be able to experience from your brand.

Your desktop website was designed for a 10 – 15 inch experience and on a device (a PC or Mac) that can handle complex technologies like Flash or  Java.  Not so on the mobile web. Cell phone websites cannot deal with complex, 'heavy' technologies such as Flash.  Further you need to design the media experience for someone who is in a ‘mobile mode’ – far different that sitting behind a desk and browsing your site in detail.  Even if it loads, people do not like to poke, zoom, pinch their way around your site! You need to make your website mobile friendly.

A growing number of smartphone users really does bode well for the Mobile Web!
More smartphones helps to redefine how we consume media – and it moves people into new habits of access and producing media.    A recent study in the UK found that 65% of smartphone users access the mobile web regularly.  Accessing mobile websites is
fast becoming a part of our daily lives.

Android handsets have been shipping 65,000 smartphones each day and with the recent TapTu report the number of mobile-friendly websites is increasing faster than expected. The growth of the mobile web is happening before our eyes.  Smartphones are driving mobile web traffic and usage. It is time to get in front of the global smartphone "user-sphere" and develop a mobile website that will work especially for the smartphone user where ever they are.

Do You Need A Separate Mobile Website? – Revisited

Yes - because people don't want to wait for your heavy desktop site to load on their mobile phone.  That is if that big ol' desktop site loads at all!

InsightExpress released a study in September about the levels of engagement among
various smart phone users.  They also compared ‘feature phones’ (basic non-smart phones) and desktop sites. 

When mobile Internet users were asked to identify the top three elements that most influence their decision to return to a mobile Internet site, they reported:


So we know that your audience will be truly engaged with your cell phone website, the study proves that.  It's up to you to take the stress out the experience by building a new mobile site that will load in about 1/10th of the time.

When you build a mobile site – you assure:  Very fast load time  (compare 36 seconds typical of a desktop website loading on a mobile device vs. 3 seconds for the majority of MoFuse mobile sites).

You design good, easy navigation into the site by making relevant content easily available – up front – without a lot of scrolling.

You get to select the content ensuring that is relevant to the mobile audience which means it will be high quality.   To read more about the study check out Mobile Marketing Magazine.