Sometimes in technology we can clearly see that the way ahead is going to pose significant challenges to the way things work currently. The rise of the mobile web is one of these trends.
As the mobile web becomes more important, the Internet returns from it current paradise of high bandwidth connections, ample screen real estate and exotic plug in support to a resource constrained & size constrained reality that is a Smartphone or a mobile internet device. Lets take a look at some of the factors influencing this and then discuss how we can deal with them.
Screen size
Obviously screen size plays an important role. You cannot assume someone will be able to successfully navigate your HD site on a screen 3.2” in diameter. There is just not enough room. So you are left with pinch zooming, if you are lucky. And that’s a chance you can’t take. You need to be able to offer service to those who do not have the latest and greatest. Therefore it’s a good idea to build sites in such a manner that they display a properly functioning site on mobile devices. There are some good Wordpress themes that do this. (of course used by many bloggers in the mobile sphere) Whether it is worth the investment depends on a particular business case but the fact remains, if you want to increase exposure, page views or even sales, make sure people can easily use your site on a smaller screen.
Data speed
So, we just finished this great flash based site for a luxury brand here at NOMOS Design, and I am looking at it on my flash enabled Smartphone (N900). Besides the fact that most Smartphones are not able to show flash properly (yet) it takes a LONG time to load. Even on Wifi it is slower than my desktop, 3G would mean waiting for at least 10 to 15 seconds to see anything, and 2G, well it’s a good thing there are mobile browsers that do data compression like Opera. The point is that users are slightly more forgiving to load times on mobiles than they are in desktop environments, but not that much. Critics say: “Well that is all going to change once we have 4G/LTE because that will be just as fast as landlines”. Our response is twofold.
A: If you are going to use the mobile web to further your interests, there is no point in targeting the bleeding edge technologists only. You have to select the common denominator. If you do not, you just replicate the desktop vs. mobile problem into the mobile space and create LTE vs. Non LTE.
B: Even though the connection might be quicker, your device may not. And even if we were sporting Moorestown processors, or dual core Cortex A9 processers, that’s still going to slower than that Core2Duo that is so ubiquitous now. Let alone Core i7. Speeds in the desktop environment keep growing, so the chasm stays.
Operating System & Apps
This is a prime difference between desktop and mobile computing, and a key reason for why we should create mobile sites. Unlike the monopoly of the desktop OS world that Microsoft holds, there is not a 90% plus market dominating Smartphone OS. The closest we get to that is Symbian, with over 40% globally. Currently Android is growing strongly, Symbian is growing and MeeGo & Bada are contenders while Apple’s iOS becomes less important (yes, less important). If you think about compatibility, and different form factors the problem becomes apparent. iOS apps don’t run on Android devices, Android apps for one version don’t run on newer versions, Symbian apps break compatibility between versions, at least until they are all made in Qt. The point is, there is a matrix of about 10 tot 12 operating systems, most of which run on differently shaped devices with differing screen sizes, which means in the end, there are hundreds of different real life combinations of OS & screen size. This does not even take into account hardware capabilities.
If you want to reach the largest audience, what do you target? What combination of OS & Form factor belongs to which demographic? How do I segment my customers based on the technology they use? The soup du jour in the Smartphone world is iOS. The Apple app store has the most apps. Customers ask us if we can build them an app. We ask them why. They say well our customers using iPhones can then download them. We ask what about your other customers? They say well can they download apps? We say yes. They realize they need to make 4 or 5 apps, then conveniently forget about our discussion, build an iPhone app and promote the heck out of it. Why?
Apps or Web based services
There is nothing wrong with trying to get some face time (no pun intended ) with your audience through use of an app. Its just that apps are almost never profitable and there is a much cheaper and in our view better way to do this. Building a mobile optimized site.
In technology, like the economy, we move in cycles. We go from small programs that execute parts of a factory system, to big ERP systems, back to Service Oriented Architecture where there are smaller services that communicate with each other through a predefined communication protocol. For the online world we have a similar thing. It is called the internet. We use the htt protocol. And any browser can find the information on it. Why have we gone back to apps? Because an app in native code can look nice easily. Because your ad agency knows someone who can make them. Because it is cool to put the “download our app” on your site.
But if you need an app, then why iOS, why not Android and more importantly Symbian? Why go out of your way giving your customers an app, so they can interact with your company more easily, and then leave out the vast majority of your users? Even in the most successful countries for apple, their share of the Smartphone space barely touches 30%. What about the others?
So, you either create apps for multiple platforms, iOS, Android, Symbian, or you go for a mobile optimized version of your site, so you can reach as many people as you can. If you need to create, for whatever reason, multiple apps, make sure you use tools like pinkelstar (www.pinkelstar.com , check them out) that take away the heavy lifting around connecting your app with social media.
Marketing & Selling via SMS
The big 800-pound gorilla in the mobile space, the one that isn’t acclaimed by the likes of Apple, is SMS. It is not lauded as the opportunity of a life time by tech companies because they do not profit from it. But rest assured, there is more money in SMS & SMS based marketing than in apps. Did you know America’s got talent scores about 500 Million in SMS revenues in one season? One season, one show, one country, makes more money than the most popular app store on the planet does in a year. Why not use it? Get in touch with us for more information, insight or advice.
Read more about why SMS is the big opportunity you have been waiting for at:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2009/03/3-billion-use-sms-what-does-that-mean.html
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written by Nike sunglasses sale, May 26, 2011
Read more about why SMS is the big opportunity you have been waiting for at:
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