If you’re curious why we here at thinks take such a bullish outlook on the mobile, social, local web, here’s a simple answer. Clive Thompson points to a technology survey from Amherst College that shows 1% of first-year students have landlines while 99% have Facebook accounts. Sure, the folks in Thompson’s article are college freshman and may not reflect your customers today. But, their behaviors represent what we’re likely to see from this demographic throughout their lives, and also how those around them likely will change.
One example:
“Students in the class of 2012 who registered computers, IPhones, game consoles, etc. on the campus network by the end of the day on August 24th, the day they moved into their dorm rooms: 370 students registered 443 devices.”
That’s 85% of the students registering about 1.2 devices each to connect to the Internet. Laptops, iPhones, game consoles. And 99% of these kids had Facebook accounts. They live their lives on the web. And they have the tools to do it.
What does this mean? For one thing, it means your customers increasingly won’t be looking up your business in the (print) Yellow Pages. In the spirit of being “fair and balanced,” it’s worth looking at the comments in Chris Silver Smith’s critique of Yellow Pages usage stats and Ed Reese’s excellent SuperPages case study at Mihmorandum before deciding what to do about online Yellow Pages advertising. Still, notice how Idearc (publisher of SuperPages) has bought domains like Localsearch.com and Switchboard.com. They’re convinced something’s changing. Given their past connection to Verizon, it seems like they’d know.
The point here is that the ways your customers find you and reach you have are changing. First it was the phone book. Then the PC-based web. And now the mobile web is on the horizon. The great thing is you can account for those last two by following a series of best practices.
So. What are you waiting for?
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Apart from the U.S. financial system melting down, the big news this week was all about mobile. Mashable thinks the Google G1 is a game-changer. We’re confident they’re right. For one thing, this is as close to a computer (as an extensible platform) we’ve seen in a phone so far. So, has Google’s G1 broken the last barrier? Will the mobile web explode next week? Probably not. But it’s not so far off for many folks, either. Here’s what has to happen:
- First, bandwidth has to get cheaper. And that’s not likely to happen. Not right away, anyway. Judy Breck at Smart Mobs notes,
“the spectacular increase of data use on smartphones — the industry’s “dream come true” — is creating a need to moderate consumer use”
- Om Malik picks up the ball with insightful reasons why mobile networks cost more for less
- Second, more applications have to appear. Customers increasingly use their phones for data access, music and other services. And some truly useful services are on the way. Things like mobile payment services from Billing Revolution, Zong, and Opobay. Never heard of them? That’s OK. Visa and Chase are testing mobile payment, too. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Once customers have easier ways to pay for things (like Amazon’s TextBuyIt), expect a big jump in adoption of the mobile web.
- Other applications that may spur usage include mobile barcode readers within phones. But, as Frommer rightly points out,
“Getting something like mobile barcodes to work requires buy-in from a lot of parties.”
- Finally, we need mobile-friendly pages. David at mobiThinking.com offers suggestions on how to build them. Worth a look.
That’s it for this week folks. Hope your mattress is sufficiently lined with small bills as we wait out another week of Wall Street whiplash (or, better yet, large bills). But, as the saying goes, that which doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. So, get strong. Get ready. And go get ‘em.
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Hmm… let’s see… any big stories in the news this week? Lots? And all about the mobile web? Cool. What’s going on?
First, we had the release of Google’s first mobile phone earlier this week. Now Opera has released its latest State of the Mobile Web report. The most interesting stat for me:
“Mobile Web users spend a significant amount of time browsing less popular Web pages in addition to the most popular ones…in general… they are accessing the full Web, including niche sites that do not individually generate massive amounts of traffic.”
The report continues,
“This is in direct contrast to WAP browsers, where the content available to users is limited by the confines of the “walled gardens” within which users are forced to stay. As users get more comfortable with the idea of browsing the full Web on their handsets, we expect that the Long Tail of the Web visited by Opera Mini users will continue to grow, both in each country and globally.”
Admittedly, in down economies (what, you thought mobile news was the only thing going on this week?), you’re best playing to your core strengths, avoiding short-lived fashions, generally not taking big risks. At the same time, ensuring you have a presence on the web – and increasingly that means the mobile web – must be a core strength.
How do you know you’re ready for the mobile web? Check out thinks’ past coverage of the mobile web and e-commerce, for one.
Tip o’ the hat (thinks-ing cap?) to ReadWriteWeb for the original link to the story.
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