Our Blog

Looking back over the last year, we can see the mobile web’s potential.

Neilsen conducted a study of people surfing the web via their mobile phones.  Neilsen states that there were 42.6 million mobile web users in July 2008, and in July 2009 there were 56.9 million. They saw a 34% increase year-over-year.

The graph also shows a growth in the women on the mobile web.  It is said to be ‘dominated by men,’ but here we see a bigger increase in female usage than men.  43% of female growth compared to 26% growth for men in the year-over-year category.

I believe we can expect to see another big leap in number of mobile users by July 2010.

One thing I found really interesting from this graph was the 67% growth ages 65+ saw in the last year. This may just be proof that we will be able to reach this demographic on mobile pretty soon.

What do you think the future holds for mobile?

Today Mobilemarketer.com had an article about the future of mobile marketing from their “Mobile Outlook 2009″ catalogue.

I couldn’t have agreed more with the things that this article states.  In my opinion, it may seem as though, only young teens and young adults surf the web, but in reality, there are so many different aged people using their mobile phones to access the web.

The future is only bright for mobile marketing.  It is said to be one of the fastest growing industries in marketing right now and 2010 looks promising from everything that we are seeing.  ComScore , an internet marketing research company, stated that the mobile web audience was 63 million Americans back in January, 2009 and we predict that this has grown at least 20% during the past year.   They also stated that they have seen an increasing amount of mobile web usage grow from being an occasional activity to a daily activity. We think this proves how rapidly the mobile web in growing!

Though most might think that the mobile web is a lot like the PC web. It’s not!  They are vastly different and there are many reasons for this. One example is an obvious one.  The screens are smaller on mobile devices!  Everything can be very detailed and complex on the PC web, but the mobile web things need to be much simpler.

Mobile Marketer also stated that the economy surprisingly isn’t effecting the mobile web from expanding quickly.  You’d think that consumers aren’t spending the money, but that really just isn’t the case.  People are still making the move into mobile. People are still out purchasing new SmartPhones, iPhones and other expensive devices! Including making the monthly data plan payments.

The mobile web is becoming increasingly popular and as far as marketing on the mobile web, this is the time to get into it.  There is so much potential and mobilemarketer.com says, “Smart marketers and agencies will think like smart fishermen: fish where the fish are. Consumers have already moved to mobile, and are staying there for a long time.” And later they also mentioned how important it is for companies to start looking into mobile because in 2010 these companies may find themselves losing customers to competitors that made early mobile efforts.

So, all in all if you aren’t on mobile…rethink your reasoning and make the move!

Sources: mobilemarketer.com, Mobile Outlook 2009, comScore.com

Jakob Nielsen has a great post about Mobile Usability.  I completely agree that companies need a dedicated mobile site.  The performance characteristics of the mobile device are so different from a PC that you really need to create a distinct site.  Our mobile site platform follows all of the best practices that he describes including: fast download times, low page weight and distinct versions for feature phones, smartphones and iphones.

Silicon Valley has pulled far ahead of Boston in terms of PC based consumer internet companies. Except for TripAdvisor and Lycos Boston has almost no major consumer sites.

In mobile, however, I think that you could argue that Boston is considerably ahead of Silicon Valley. The mobile monday event last night made this poin clear. Four prominent entrepreneurs were featured:

• Shikhar Ghosh, Skyhook Wireless
• Jeremy Wright, Enpocket
• Dan Roth, VoiceSignal
• Stephen Randall, LocaModa

In addition boston is home to the following Mobile heavyweights:

• Quattro Wireless
• Jumptap
• Third Screen
• MocoSpace
• m-Qube

I’m happy to found my company in Boston’s great mobile ecosystem.