Growth of the Mobile Web

Smart Getting Smarter

Monday, May 17, 2010 by Annette Tonti

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.

eReader, iPad, PDA – Oh My

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 by Annette Tonti

Repurpose Or Die

For a long time we’ve talked about how digital frameworks will change the nature of how we get and consume media. Mobile has the potential to distribute content to many new, more personal frameworks.   Mobile Platforms such as the eReader are deemed ‘single purpose’. As they redefine what constitutes a “book”, anyone producing content should take note of the potential that various mobile devices deliver for readers . If you produce content, it is time to experiment and repurpose your publication for the many formats of mobile to come. Mobile web readers will expect it!

Zagat’s Got It

In 1979 Tim and Nina Zagat had a great idea – why should people looking for restaurant reviews be limited to get only the opinions of a very few paid, and frankly, unreliable restaurant reviewers that were available through limited newspaper sources.   Instead let 100’s of amateur critics tell the world their opinions about restaurants – publish and distribute this information far and wide. The ratings were more reliable and the information was easier to access. Today Zagat publishes in over 100 countries.

At the core of their success is their relentless pursuit to repurpose their content for many new devices.   Zagat To Go is one of the top downloaded iPhone apps in the world today.   You can also expect them to be at the head of the line when the Apple iPad launches early in April.   Repurposing for the eReader is also a key part of Zagat’smobile strategy. In January, Amazon announced a software development platform, a mobile web tool for their popular Kindle eReader.   Zagat is one of the first to sign up for this program to produce “active content” for the Kindle reader.

eReaders and other mobile devices are changing the way publishers think about content and certainly the way readers think about interacting with books. Zagat gets it – Be out there in these new mobile frontiers, experiment with your content, engage customers, gather results- tweak and evolve.

What It Means To Be A Book

Books have been about ink on paper.   Today many of us have experienced text and images on an eReader platform. One person I know read a book using both her eReader and her IPhone in combination. The mobile phone website of the book presented her with options to complete her book, anytime. In April the iPad will become available and define even a newer generation of what we will one day consider ‘book’. Mobile web readers will come in many forms, it will be important to develop sites for mobile devices.

Recently Wired Magazine revealed their new eReader – which will be available on the iPad. The experience is reported to be fundamentally “next generation publishing” in both the look and feel of the digital magazine as well as the level of interactive and dynamic content including video and 3D visuals.

Reality Check For Today

Today there are 6,000,000 eReaders sold worldwide and the prediction is that there will be 10 million units sold by end of 2010. Amazon Kindle own about 60% share of this market today. This post is prior to the launch of the iPad, but remember - the hype may not match the numbers. Most important - be aware of the growth of the mobile web and all of the options you have to delight your customers with your content - anywhere, anytime and anyplace. Today you must have a mobile web site that is optimized for the 4.2 billion handsets out there. MoFuse can help you get this done today!

What I Learned From The MO-lympics

Thursday, February 25, 2010 by Annette Tonti

The best is yet to come for mobile. This year’s winter Olympics have highlighted some of the most important aspects of why mobile media is different.

As someone who may be building or managing sites for mobile devices, you will want to learn the latest techniques for engaging your mobile web audience.

Key points here are mobile combined with real time and social

While the real estate is small; the compact nature of the mobile machine makes it easy to keep in our pocket all day. The cousin to our wallets, mobile is truly the really personal computer that no one leaves home without!

Mobile is now our extended personal broadcasting device and the best way to receive real time information about anything, anywhere. Nowhere has this been more apparent but then during this year’s winter Olympics.

The Games Gone Mobile

This is the first winter games where virtually every athlete has a twitter account and people are accessing those feeds very often on their mobile phones. For sure athletes and reporters alike, are posting to Twitter and Facebook in real time.

Google modified search just to make sure if you are on mobile, you will get results in real time. All you need to do is enter your favorite sport into the search bar and back will come the latest results on your mobile device

People are searching for everything and anything related to the winter games – on their mobile devices. Searches on Yahoo mobile for "ice skating rinks" were up 607 percent last week – especially among teens. Searches for “red Olympic mittens,” were up 182 percent last week. As you might guess, Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White are hot topics. Her searches were up 1,446 percent this week and mobile searches for “Shaun White snowboarding” were up 1,921 percent.

According to Web analytics firm Omniture, the mobile version of NBC's Winter Olympics Web site has reached a 58.2 million page views, a growth of over two-thirds compared to the same statistic for 2008's Beijing games. Before the opening ceremony even began on February 12, more than one million hits had already been recorded. That one-day total alone eclipsed the number of mobile Web site views during the entire 2006 games.

Another interesting statistic is the growth in mobile video. More than 1.4 million Olympic videos have been streamed from NBC's mobile site. That's a 400%+ growth over the 2008 games NBC's mobile Olympics site, mobile.nbcolympics.com, provides a simple and instant view at the live medal counts and all the latest news headlines.

MoFuse joined Olympics coverage by hosting the Vancouver Observer site m.vancouverobserver.com. We are excited to be a small part of such an important global event.

Take aways: make your website mobile, add real time feeds from social platforms such as twitter to keep people up to date. If you are hosting an event, make sure you engage 'reporters' to your event by supplying mobile web tools to keep audiences up to date and engaged.

Mobile Web Traffic, Hitting the Accelerator to Your Site

Sunday, January 24, 2010 by Annette Tonti

If you could compare how many people visited your desktop website using a mobile phone last January versus this January, you would likely be very shocked.

How do you find that out? You’ll need to interpret the log files from your website or use a site analytics package like Google Analytics. Seeing the mobile traffic that is already trying to access your site is an enlightening experience. It will give you instant insight into the shifting habits of your site visitors.

Why should you care?
If you don't have a site specifically created for mobile, then their experience is likely very poor. If your current site has Flash, Java or other popular site technologies - the mobile experience will be bad. It is about your brand experience!

Traffic from mobile devices has taken a dramatic jump over the past year. Smartphones, better data plan pricing and available bandwidth are contributing factors to the increased activity. Just take a look at the newest statistics regarding mobile web traffic from Quantcast.

Web traffic from mobile devices increased 110% in North America over the past year and 148% globally, according to a new study by Quantcast. Putting it in to perspective, this is only a small fraction of overall Web traffic (1.3% of all North American page views in December 2009). Last August Admob reported that traffic doubled within that month from iPhone users alone!

The nature of that mobile traffic is changing too – hold on – iPhone is no longer the only platform you need to consider. The Quantcast study shows that the dominance of the iPhone is being eroded by emerging competitors like Android. Recently page views from the Droid in North America overtook RIM’s Blackberry. Gee, that was fast! Apparently Droid had over 12% of the North American page views helping Google's Android operating system surpass the BlackBerry OS.

In 2010, Quantcast expects growth of the mobile web's share of page views in North America to increase a full percentage point to 2.3%. Globally, mobile's share will increase from 0.95% to over 1.8%. A host of new devices from manufacturers Motorola, HTC and BlackBerry will fuel that growth this year.

So what does this mean for your business? You should be prepared for mobile visitors now. You need to build a mobile website - like the largest media companies have had for years now (for example: m.cnn.com, m.weather.com or m.espn.com). Developing a mobile website is easy and inexpensive with mobile platforms like MoFuse. You can do it yourself or have someone build it for you in no time.

Mobile Cambrian Era – Here We Come

Thursday, December 10, 2009 by Annette Tonti

If we had to pick our favorite geological era - it would be the Cambrian when there was a profound radical change of life on earth. The very rapid explosion of new animal and plant life on earth is a bit like what we are about to experience in the mobile era. Diversification of a great number of organisms occurred over a very short period of time. As we enter 2010 we are experiencing the launch of a huge number of new mobile devices. Some centered around a phone while others are more functionally focused on reading or gaming.

Every one of these devices will have the ability to connect to the Internet.
Get ready for your Internet based content to be seen on any of 1000’s of mobile platforms.
Hint: you’ll want to have a mobile site built and managed just so these devices can take advantage of your content.

Smart Phones on the Rise

This recent IDC Press release tells the story: Nokia, Research In Motion, Apple and Android based "converged" devices continue to rise quickly.

According to Wikipedia there is no industry standard about what exactly constitutes a smart phone. We know one when we see one. Truth is “Phone” will only be a slice of what this device will come to mean to the human race. Why not a “Smart Camera” or a “superintelligent music player”? A smart phone can do a lot and they are built very differently than the more single focused ‘feature phone’, which was really built to make phone calls on the go. One thing we know for sure, the Smart Phone penetration is on the rise globally.

The combination of readily available big bandwidth (3G and above) and these ‘smart’ devices make a compelling reason for people to move to the full featured device. The smart phone market will climb to 37 percent of global handset sales in 2014 with emerging markets as the key growth engine, according to a new report from Pyramid Research. Cambridge-based Pyramid estimates that smart phones will account for a 16-percent share of total handset sales in 2009. Also everyone expects that 2010 will be the year China takes top spot for Smart Phone sales – as iPhone will enter that market. Also from Pyramid, they forecast that Brazil, Turkey, India and Nigeria will be the fastest growing market for smart phones over the next 5 years.

But something else is going on- as smart phones rise in the market – so do a number of other functionally focused mobile devices. For example, this holiday season we've kicked the launch of a number of ebooks into high gear. Like game consoles, these are single purpose mobile devices and the early success of Kindle proves we are more than willing to own a few mobile devices to do everyday things. Nooks, Kindles, the Sony eBook or any mobile web readers all have a chance to own a piece of this rapidly advancing market.

Growth of the mobile web has reached a Cambrian-like level of diversification of devices. You’ll want to think about the state of your business content as it will most certainly be accessed by these mobile organisms. If you develop a mobile website you will be in the best position to capture the market that are already accessing the Internet anywhere they can! Today MoFuse optimizes your mobile content on nearly 5,000 different mobile devices worldwide including Sony Playstations, Kindle and any smart or feature phone. We can help you win in this new era.

Google Buys AdMob - Does It Matter?

Sunday, November 15, 2009 by Annette Tonti

Oh yes- it matters very much.

It’s happening before our eyes, the mobile web is growing up. Exactly one week ago Google announced that it was acquiring mobile advertising industry leader, AdMob.

What does this mean?

The mobile web really is (as we’ve said 100 times before) a separate and important digital medium that you can no longer ignore. Google knows that mobile devices represent the largest penetration of any technology on the planet.   There are about 1 Billion desktop computers in the world and nearly 1 Billion Automobiles, but there are 4 Billion mobile devices! With all of that reach (and attention) somebody will make money monetizing the mobile real estate that is accessed on all of those devices. The growth of the mobile web is just beginning.

We will look back on this event as a defining moment for the industry.

This strategic acquisition by Google sends a strong signal that the mobile web is ready for prime time.    It signals that Google understands that traffic on the mobile web will no longer be guided by the carrier's initial landing page ('on deck' as it is termed in the industry). Google has seen a 5X mobile search growth over the past 2 years. Usage patterns of the mobile web have evolved significantly and are proof that people will seach, find destinations and link to mobile web pages directly- the same behaviors as the desktop web. This movement 'off deck', away from the carriers 'guiding' you to the sports, news, weather or any sites THEY want you to see, is a key change.   With more eyeballs, going to more mobile sites on their own -   more publishers will be able to make money on mobile advertising.

AdMob is a leader in mobile advertising and supplies superior services for serving mobile ads and equally as important, for reporting on mobile web analytics. Ad analytics give you insight into your mobile web readers or visitors, and include data such as: how many clicked, what kind of device were they using, what carrier, where were they on the globe when they responded, etc. Serving ads to mobile devices is more complex than on the desktop web. There are a relative handful of device types and web browsers on the desktop, but for mobile there are nearly 5,000 different devices worldwide.

Google’s acquisition of AdMob clears up the question- Is Mobile A Separate Channel?– it is.

They acquired this mobile ad leader so they can "bring new innovation and competition to mobile advertising, and will lead to more effective tools for creating, serving, and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats."    They see it as a new channel and you should too.

What Does This Mean To You?

Often people ask us – why can’t I just use the ads that are being served on my desktop website, or why won't my ads from the desktop show up on mobile? Mobile is a separate channel and there is a distinct audience with a specific demographic profile that you will want to understand and address.   Why only get ad revenue from your desktop site when you can also design and host a mobile website that will give you advertising revenue for a new class of customers – your mobile audience.

It is time to make your site mobile and discover the newest channel for reaching a global audience - ready to experience mobile ads!

Mobile App or Mobile Website? (Hint: You Need One Of These For Sure!)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Annette Tonti

If you believe that mobile is a strong medium to reach your customers – you need to be thinking about how your brand will evolve on the mobile web. Today you have a few interesting options and they are not mutually exclusive.

As consumers wake up to the idea that they can actually reach the internet on their phone, we are about to see an explosion of new mobile devices; ITouch, Kindle, “netbooks” and even Sony Playstation Portable already are rapidly changing the ‘connection’ landscape.

What is a marketer to do?

First and foremost, every marketing executive should do a quick experiment and look at how their current “desktop” website looks on various mobile devices. Not great? We thought so. Though iPhone may deliver a version of your current desktop site – it is likely not an optimal experience either (too much pinch & zoom is not good) and certainly won’t cover most of the mobile internet user base.

Next question: Do you really need a separate mobile site?

Yes you need a mobile site… Why? One of the fastest growing activities people are doing on the mobile web today is search. The growth of mobile search is soaring! Further Google’s mobile traffic has quintupled since 2007 that growth will continue as smart phone penetration rises around the globe! They are looking for you and it will be important to be there with a great mobile site experience for your mobile viewers.

The good news is that it is easy to make your website mobile friendly. There are a few ways to do this, some require custom work others leverage mobile web tools. At MoFuse we aim to help speed your way to a mobile site. We also take the pain out of managing and editing that site over time. Check us out at: www.mofusepremium.com .

Well then, what about Apps?

The iPhone changed the game for the downloadable application or “App”. Apple got the storefront right and helped to ignite the mobile app as a standard in the mobile ecosystem. Today over 1 billion apps have been downloaded from the Apple iPhone app store alone! Everyone else has followed- so consumers can also buy downloadable apps from carriers like Verizon or newer storefronts just for phones such as Google’s Android or Nokia’s new Ovi. Apps are cool, often fun, and useful - those are the key elements you will want to architect into your app if you go that way. Today about 25 million people tap into apps, Cnet reports that the number of users who will tap into the App store will be at 100 million by 2013!

While having a mobile site is ‘table stakes’, deciding to go with an app requires another level of consideration. The growing number of mobile app options is staggering. Today Apple offers over 40,000 apps in their store. Nokia is about to release their app store, Ovi with over 20,000 apps. The Android store is built to grow apps even more quickly as they offer an ‘open’ environment for programmers. Don’t forget the Blackberry app store… Wheeew! So the first question is where do you fit in? Should you build an app for each individual device (store)? Just for iPhone or Blackberry?

Second consider how will people find your app? Finding a brand’s mobile app will continue to be a challenge as apps multiply quickly. Standing out in the app crowd is a key issue for marketers.

Third, what should your app do? You’ll want to consider how to get the most brand engagement as the data shows that apps with practical use work best at long term, continued usage.

That said – is an app right for every brand? The answer is no- not every brand or storefront needs an app. Today they are the “new” thing but longer term the mobile ecosystem will evolve.

We believe the pattern of usage of the mobile web today makes it imperative to have a user-friendly mobile site that works on every phone (like you can build at MoFuse). Depending on your business objectives you should consider apps carefully and of course SMS messaging.

Check out mobile web tools that can help you get a new mobile site in a hurry.