Mobile Phone Web Page

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.

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.

The mobile phone has become so important to our everyday existence that we feel lost without it!  

It is truly a personal digital tool that has transcended it’s “phone-i-ness”.  The killer app started simply as the “voice phone” – imagine you could connect live with any person – from anywhere and any time of day.  Next, and building this past year, it has been about connecting this device to the Internet – The Mobile Web.

By connecting the mobile device to the Internet, the “phone” has become a personal web enabled information machine.  You can get to a portable website, and handle any web based application – anywhere you are. Suddenly it is in fashion to make your website mobile friendly.

Today we are standing at the forefront of the next evolutionary chapter – and retailers need to listen up!

That ‘oh-so-indispensible’ device is about to give your wallet a run for its money. 

By linking our personal mobile device to everyday transactions, enter the next “can’t do without”  – mobile commerce.   Purchase anything, anywhere – and use the device to move currency! 

There are 3 formats most often used for mobile commerce today:


With all of this focus on new mobile payment formats,   every retailer needs to have mobile commerce on their radar now.  Mobile web readers will soon become mobile web buyers.

How will mobile payments help to ease transactions between buyers and sellers?  What do you need to do now to prepare for this inevitable future?

We present the top 10 things every retailer should know now about mobile commerce:

1. Mobile Internet usage continues to grow – US mobile web usage alone grew over 110% in 2009.  Retailers that do not have a mobile commerce site will be behind the curve in 2010 as more people conduct transactions on mobile.

2. Mobile Drives In- Store Commerce – Mobile search for a retail locations will become among the number one uses for the device.  Store locators on mobile sites are a quick way to assure that the mobile consumer will find you when they are out and about. 

3. Shopping All The Time – Further breaking the ‘bricks & mortar’ boundaries, mobile retail allows customers to make transactions even when they aren’t in front of the computer.

4. Powering the Impulse  – The mobile Internet is great for impulse shopping. Mobile couponing and in store discounts really help to create excitement for buying.

5. Comparison shopping  – Mobile sites help customers to comparison-shop while they are out and about – further in store comparison shopping will be huge! 

6. Inventory management– Consumers can check in-store availability via a retailer’s mobile site the ultimate great experience for your customers.

7. Marketing  – Retailers can ask consumers to opt-in to receive coupons, special offers and ongoing mobile “just in time” specials. 

8. Check order status wherever, whenever – A mobile site also serves as a 24/7 customer service representative. Consumers can check their order status right from the retailer’s mobile site.

9. Location-based services – Retailers can use mobile to target consumers who have opted-in and are close to their retail locations. Special promotions by geography will be  welcomed by those who choose to receive them.

10. True Multichannel and Brand Alignment – Be there or be square - that's right- your teenagers will get it immediately.  The mobile channel needs to be a part of any retail brands offering.


The Top 10 adapted  from information provided byGiselle Tsirulnik, Article from The Mobile Marketer

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.

Are people afraid to visit your website on a mobile phone browser?

Right now your mobile web readers are trying to get to your desktop site on a mobile phone only to find:

• It doesn’t load at all and they get an "http" error
• Load time from hell - Your site loads extremely slow and if they don’t absolutely love you, they are gone
• They can’t find what they are looking for, and if they do, links don’t work, the text is a mess!

With very little time and effort, you can put a site together that will knock their socks off!
MoFuse can tell you how to build a mobile website that isn't a horror show!

When designing sites for mobile devices you will need to think differently than you do for the desktop web.


Consider there are 3 essential driving forces for mobile design:

• Your viewers have limited and hugely variable display capabilities
• They have awkward and difficult input mechanisms (keys are not good, scrolling, pinching etc)
• The mode or context of the User when they are mobile, is completely different

 

MoFuse is here to help- we’ve developed some quick and easy principles to consider when building your mobile site.

The Guiding Principles for Mobile Design:

 
Design for “Getting to the Point”: 
Mobile people have little time to find information.  They will be impatient if you put many slow loading pictures or graphics or if they can’t figure out where to find information on your site- in an instance. You don’t want too much downloading  before they can get to your information.

Design for Efficiency:  
Mobile viewers are often going for something specific, a function or bit of information from you. Rarely are they meandering or surfing the way someone might on the desktop web.  As you think about the most likely items that they will want to access from you in a mobile context, you should consider putting those functions at the top of the site.


Design for Easy: 
Mobile devices have difficult input (tiny keys, small touch screen for example), don’t make your visitors struggle.  If you can give them 1 click to call you- do it.   Avoid convoluted paths to get to essential information (don’t nest pages of information unnecessarily).  If you can manage it, don’t make them scroll down more than 3 times, this is a good rule of thumb when designing mobile.

Design for Widest Reach: 
Although Smart Phone usage is on the rise and eventually will dominate the market, you really want to make sure even the smallest mobile devices can use your mobile site and have a great experience.

Don’t Annoy: 
Mobile devices have limited navigation.  For example consider most phones only have up and down scrolling,not side to side.  Because you are dealing with such small real estate, you’ll want to get to the point, being concise is extremely important.  Don’t make people “weed” through a lot of unnecessary text.

 

The mobile version of your website is an additional source of revenue for your company!

It's early in the mobile ad game, but not too early to be testing out how to make a return on your mobile media.

When you have a mobile site and it is a good experience, you will build a mobile audience and get people to repeat visit.   You can make money on those eyeballs just like the desktop web.   A mobile phone website will help you to  build a viable audience with a strong demographic base in a new channel.   Mobile web traffic will deliver both new customers who are looking for your site ‘on the go’ (maybe using a search engine) as well as mobile viewers who enter your desktop URL (autodetection will send them to the mobile site). 

Every view of your mobile site is an opportunity to monetize your new media.

What is Mobile Advertising? 

It is similar to online advertising but the reach potential is far greater.  Start with the opportunity to reach 4 billion people (compare to 1 billion on your desktop computer).

How can you get a ROI for mobile advertising or marketing when using the MoFuse platform?

Here are the most direct ways today to get started:

1.    Sell a sponsorship to a local advertiser in your area or a company partner-  for a flat fee that would have a specific duration.  For example, perhaps you get a partner to sponsor all of your mobile views for 6 months for a fee of $3000.00.  You will be surprised to find how many of your partners will want to advertise on mobile - if you can deliver the valuable mobile eyeballs!

2.    Use one of the standard mobile ad networks to put ads on your site.  You can easily do this through the MoFuse interface “Monetize” button.  You can also use MoFuse Ad Network where we optimize about 6 mobile networks to provide the best ad for your site.

Every view of your mobile site is an opportunity to monetize your new media.

The forms of mobile advertising have been emerging for a number of years and are as follows:

Mobile banner ads – small graphical ads that are very similar in nature to desktop website banner ads.  They present a call to action (albeit smaller), placed top or bottom of the mobile web page.  When clicked, they take you to a mobile landing page (easily built on the MoFuse platform by the way).

Text links – similar to banner ads, except they are a text call to action link, when clicked take you to a landing page.

SMS - Text messaging – more like email marketing than advertising -  this is where you get to use the texting ability available on 100% of mobile phones worldwide.  That is some reach potential!  Like email,  a person must  opt-in to receive messages from you.   They will give you their mobile phone number and select perhaps some message category that you will send them (ie, sports scores, weather alerts, coupons or specials).   You may send short text messages to them of 160 characters.  Virtually every mobile phone in the world supports SMS so it is ubiquitous in its reach.

MMS -  multimedia messaging – is just like SMS but you get to send very fancy messages!   MMS is a rich messaging capability that allows for sending messages that include video, audio, photos and text.  MMS is not yet universally supported throughout the world via carriers.  But it is something you should know about and watch as it becomes more
prevalent throughout the coming years.  MMS is a significant advertising opportunity in the future!

Mobile TV advertising – OK just like TV advertising but done on the tiny screen.  The mobile ad will be a still or video ad place before, during or after a streaming mobile video.

Mobile applications – You can actually display ads inside of mobile apps.  Generally these are banners or ‘interstitials’ that show up between app actions.

For a comprehensive view  of mobile advertising guidelines you will want to check out the Mobile Marketing Association's (MMA)  guide
 
Every view of your mobile site is an opportunity to monetize your new media!

A lot of people think that the mobile web is just a “mini” version of the desktop web. That iPhone made it possible to simply miniaturize your desktop site so it works just the same on a mobile device.

That’s just not the case today nor will it be the case in the future.  You need to have a mobile friendly site, one that is designed with the mobile web readers front and center.

Why? 

The first reason is real estate- that's a no brainer.  Smaller screen, you need to be more effective at getting the essential messages out there.

Second is – well – how will the mobile web audience find you?  Search of course!
You've probably already been to Google and other search engines on the mobile web.
When you put a term in that search engine on a mobile device, do you think they use the same search algorithms and rankings as on the desktop web?

No, actually they use very different rankings when they know that a search is being done from a mobile device!

About a year ago  Google was awarded a patent for mobile search.  Their mobile search patent explains that…

"The mobile search result quality scores and the generic search result quality scores were generated according to different scoring formulas. Based on one or more terms in the search query, the search query is classified as a mobile query. As a consequence, one or more search result quality scores are modified to improve the sorting of search results that include both mobile and generic search results."   You can read up more on this patent here at SEO Principle.com.

In March of this year Google announced that their mobile traffic had quintupled since 2007.  It’s no secret that iPhone also has helped mobile search grow exponentially. It got more people interested in using the mobile web - and when we went there, we hurried right to our old habits: Search.

And the types of searches we do on mobile are different.  According to Google Mobile ad sales director Diana Pouliot, Local search on the mobile device indexes higher than the desktop by about two to three times.  So what does that mean?  It means as people are getting very comfortable using the mobile internet – they are doing what you might expect- searching for things, companies, entertainment, restaurant and more. 

No surprise, Google dominates mobile search  but there are a lot of mobile search engines out there.



So will a mobile search engine really be different?

Yes. 

First it will recognize the searcher is mobile and therefore the ranking algorithm will be different.   It is looking for a mobile version of your website.  Also Mobile search engines will offer relevant information based on location (and that is one reason why local mobile search will be important).

So once again you need a mobile web site built for the mobile web.  If you use a provider like MoFuse we enable your mobile site to automatically be entered into all of the mobile search engines.  You will be ready for SEO the minute you use our mobile web tools.

You need to add a mobile sitemap. Search engines such as Google discover information about your site by employing software known as "spiders" to crawl the web. Once the spiders find a site, they follow links within the site to gather information about all the pages. The spiders periodically revisit sites to find new or changed content. Google Mobile Web Search crawls and indexes sites that have been specifically designed for mobile phones and devices. By using Mobile Sitemaps to inform and direct their crawlers, they continuously expand their coverage of the mobile web and speed up the discovery and addition of pages to their mobile indexes.

The first step is realizing people will be searching for you on the mobile web - but most important you need to be ready with a mobile web enabled site- set up for Search!