Will 2008 Be The Year of Mobile Media?
There’s no doubt 2007 will be remembered as the year social media exploded. Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Flickr and quite a few other social media sites entered the mainstream as companies scrambled to figure out how to approach this new form of marketing. There’s no doubt 2008 will see continued growth of social media, but you have to wonder what the “big” explosion for 2008 will be. Logic + Emotion’s David Armano thinks 2008 may be the year of mobile media.
David writes:
I’ll admit, I’ve always been rather skeptical of “mobile search” and the “mobile web.” After all, who wants to surf web sites on a tiny phone when they could simply login with their laptop? The user experience is cumbersome, download times are slow and very few sites are created so they’ll run well on a cell phone. That said the last month has seen my skepticism about the value of the mobile web changing to raving fandom.
What sparked the change?
I got an iPhone.
The iPhone doesn’t use the way-lame mobile browsers I’d tried on other cell phones. It uses Safari. In fact, 95 times out of 100, I don’t even need to use the “mobile” version of a site. I simply type in the URLs I want and head there to do some surfing. My pop3 email accounts are integrated as well, giving me full access to my inbox no matter where I am.
Admittedly, I got the iPhone because I thought it would be a fun toy. I really didn’t think it would be practical in terms of surfing the web. I was so very wrong.
I now send about 40% of my email from my phone and do about half of my surfing on it. Yes, I use it while I’m out and about, but I also find myself using it around the house pretty often. I have two toddlers, one of which is still at the age where my laptop is the most fascinating toy ever. Trying to work in a room while watching two kids, one of whom is obsessed with my laptop hasn’t been easy. The iPhone? Well, that fits in one hand and can easily be raised out of reach. If the kids aren’t napping or watching cartoons, I work via my iPhone instead of my laptop now.
And it works. It’s not a compromise I came up with to try and get something done. It’s actually practical. In fact, I find myself surfing the web in the evenings on it rather than my laptop because the user interface is that good. It’s been practical in every day life too.
On Black Thursday I was out shopping with the hoards. I found myself in Radio Shack eyeing a GPS unit as the salesman told me they’d “slashed the price” and the units were selling so fast they only had two left. As he went to check on another customer, I pulled out my iPhone, logged on to Google and ran a price check. Sure enough, Linens and Things had it for the same price and we had a 20% off coupon. Then I spotted it on Buy.com for $100 less than I could get it at Linens and Things. The salesman came back over as I was finishing up.
“You’re checking prices on your phone, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“You found it cheaper, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
And off I went, having saved about $150.
Just last week I found myself stuck on the tarmac in Chicago during a snowstorm. While we waited I logged on to Amazon.com and ordered a few gifts for my husband and kids. The packages arrived at my house the day I came home from my trip. (Message to Wal-Mart: if you didn’t rely on flash, I’d have bought things from you too.)
Suddenly, the mobile web didn’t seem like such a dumb idea anymore.
David has noticed this too and credits products like the iPhone for next year’s probable boom.
Of course it’s not just phones. In my house, I can now get online with my choice of two desktops, a laptop, a Wii, my iPhone, my husband’s Nintendo DS or my iPod Touch. Those last three are all “mobile” options. As more and more affordable, wi-fi enabled “non-computer” gadgets show up, the mobile market will continue to expand.
You may have ignored mobile search and the mobile web this year and gotten away with it. Are you sure you can ignore it again next year?
Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, the Social Media Faculty Chair for MarketMotive and offers small business social media strategy & consulting. Jennifer enjoys the challenge of finding unique and creative ways to connect with consumers without spending a fortune in marketing dollars. Though she now prefers to work with small businesses, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children.
I’ve also been dubious of mobile search.
You ask, “Are you sure you can ignore it again next year?” But earlier in the article you say, “95 times out of 100, I don’t even need to use the ‘mobile’ version of a site.”
Am I missing something? It sounds like you’ve given me a good excuse to continue ignoring mobile search…and continue to focus on plain ol’ SEO instead.
Fair enough Caleb, but perhaps not the entire story.
While nearly all sites are usable on my iPhone, not all are EASY to use.
For example, the iPhone’s “touch and zoom” feature is designed to let users tap an area of a web site and zoom in for a closer view. If the site is properly built using CSS, the iPhone will zoom to the div containing the content you’ve tapped on. On a well designed site, I can easily zoom in to the exact section of content I want.
On a site that doesn’t make proper use of CSS, I have to fiddle around a little to get things sized just right for reading them.
iPhone’s and other mobile browsers (including my iPod and our DS) do not run Flash. That means sites relying on Flash navigation are again throwing up barriers to an entire segment of users. You may notice the line about Wal-Mart in my article.
I had planned on buying a few things from Wal-mart that day I ended up ordering from Amazon but I wasn’t able to navigate their site very easily because it relies so heavily on Flash.
So Wal-Mart lost the sale and Amazon got it.
I’ve seen this happen on other sites as well. (That 5%) I’ve been researching a trip overseas next year and keep running into B&B and hotel sites that use Flash, rendering them useless to me unless I’m at home on my laptop.
Having booked both hotel rooms and flights via my iPhone, I know these companies have lost my business.
You’re right when you say you should focus on SEO, but it goes beyond that. The companies who are building good, usable, search friendly sites that are properly coded are good to go in terms of mobile devices that use real browsers.
The sites that don’t do these things? Well, the shift toward mobile is going to hurt them.
Last year I bought half my kids toys from the Wal-Mart site because they had free shipping.
This year, most of my Christmas shopping was done via my phone. Wal-mart lost, Amazon won.
Jennifer,
You sound just like me. Listen, have you heard of Peanut Butter PC (the PC is for parental control)? It’s a life saver. It not only reduces the time needed to “prep” your computer for a game or website(saving files, closing apps, etc.), it also protects the computer from the wandering mouse clicks of your children. Best of all, my kids love it. I believe the company is www.PeanutButterSoftware.com
Thanks for a great blog.
-Liz
Liz,
My issue is more than I have a one year old and a three year old who want to push buttons while *I* work. 😉 My one year old has noticed that the power button on the top of my laptop glows. He likes to push it. It turns my computer off. This is not something that makes me happy when I’m in the middle of writing an article. 😉
Now I tend to write while they sleep and to plan to do my email and my feed reading while I’m keeping an eye on them. I often end up surfing the web on my phone in the evenings though as I can take it up to bed and check on a few things before going to sleep while leaving my laptop plugged in and waiting for me downstairs.
Hi Jennifer – I think mobile is the way to go too. I have not gotten an iPhone yet. Our company apps work on MS OS mobile phones. I hope to be able to raise some money in 2008 to make a mobile UI web version and build a Blackberry version, etc. New parents tend to be very close to their phones. 🙂
Aruni
i have a iphone and i have never need to use the mobile web! for one important reason it safari it only big up actually websites that find on your pc and laptop and good thing is it connects to anything and has a highspeed internet connection to the phone, most time it faster then my pc.
Jennifer,
Great article! We feel like Apple nudged the door open last year with the iPhone and Google is standing right behind them like a SWAT team ready to kick it in. 2008 WILL be the year of mobility as it will further enhance the year of social networking. GPS will break the barriers for advertising and networking with others.
Shameless plug: http://AndroidGuys.com
Interesting article. I don’t have an iPhone, but I hear they are amazing. I got a Razr not even a year ago, and already it seems old fashioned. 2008, in my opinion, will blow 2007 out of the water with more social networking and communicating.
I have an iPhone, and I am enjoying it!Really The iPhone isn’t the world’s smallest phone, but its sleek design and particularly its thickness make this an easy phone to pocket.
Read by small business people, our newsletter delivers a digest of articles from the top search engine marketing experts. You will learn about:
Our newsletter is the perfect way to stay up to date with all of the latest trends, events and techniques in using search engines to grow your business and make more sales. Subscribe here. Your email address will NOT be given to third parties.
FreeFind Site Search Engine – FreeFind adds a “search this site” feature to your website, making your site easier to use. FreeFind also gives you reports showing what your visitors are searching for, enabling you to improve your site. FreeFind’s advanced site search engine and automatic site map technology can be added to your website for free.
Buy UPC Codes
Get your products listed online!
Search marketing information for small business owners.
Fetching the best small business news.
A friendly place to share small business ideas and knowledge.
Small business support through education, resources and community
The directory of the best small business sites and tools.
Copyright © 1998 – 2018 Search Engine Guide All Rights Reserved. Privacy
Research & References of Will 2008 Be The Year of Mobile Media?|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks