2011 – The Year of Mobile

by Scott Brandon
on 12/21/2010

Did you know that there are more mobile phones on planet Earth than there are toothbrushes? That’s right. Today, there are 4.6 billion humans connected through a mobile phone (4 out of 5 adults). But there are only an estimated 4.2 billion people who have a toothbrush. It’s crazy when you really think about it.

There are more mobile users in China alone than there are people in the US. In the US, 91% of adults have a mobile phone and 40% of then now use the Internet on their mobile phone. A January 2010 study by Forrester showed that only 17% of US adults used a Smartphone. But we can expect that number to increase rapidly as the price of these devices and the cost of data service continue to decline.

Computing over mobile devices will skyrocket in the coming years. The proliferation of cloud computing and the applications that make it easy to manage your files and projects via the web using multiple devices. It is predicted that by 2015, mobile computing will be more prolific than desktop and laptop computing combined.

Today, the most popular activities among mobile Internet users are search, reading news, downloading music, email and IM. This will change as people become more interested in using their mobile device to make purchases, engage in social networking and blogging.

With mobile growing so rapidly, you would think that business would be on top of this trend. However, a recent study showed that 80% of online retailers say they do not have a mobile strategy. Incredible.

In the future, we will see mobile consumers use their device for money transfer, location based services, health monitoring, payment, etc. Businesses need to get up to speed. First, they should develop a strong mobile website. A good mobile website has a clean, minimalistic user interface, is compatible with all mobile devices, uses images sparingly, has a small download size and effective navigation.

A good example of an effective mobile site is one we just built for Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday. Go to www.golfholiday.com on your mobile device and check it out.

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Comments

by Justin U. on 12/21/2010 at 10:00

Scott,

Great article. Wanted to comment on your last full paragraph that included:

“A good mobile website has a clean, minimalistic user interface, is compatible with all mobile devices, uses images sparingly, has a small download size and effective navigation.”

I think the major focus here needs to be overall USABILITY.

I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the mobile site that you provided in your article.

Note: I viewed the mobile site on an iPhone. My opinions are solely based on my experience while using this specific phone. (One of the top selling phones in America)

Two main things that I think were overlooked during the creation of Golf Holiday’s mobile site was ergonomics and readability.

I’m not sure if they are using an auto-detect useragent and swapping out the css for the mobile version or a completely dedicated mobile site, but:

1) The text was extremely small. Don’t make me “work” to use the site. I shouldn’t have to zoom in to be able to easily read what’s presented. Especially since our most dominant demographic that travels to the Carolinas for golf is men in their 50’s, I would have chosen to make the text larger and more readable without any user action.

2) Almost too minimalistic. I’m all for minimalism, but you have to design accordingly. I thought that the designer/developer could have thrown in some vibrant color variations other than a pale green. There was no hierarchy of importance suggested with color.

3) LOVED the setup of the individual course pages. Excellent, easily-viewable pictures that loaded quickly.

4) Input Boxes were too small. Trying to join the newsletter I accidentally hit the “Zip Code” input 3 times before finally getting it right. Instances like this lead to user frustration, which can/will lead to page abandonment.

5) Regarding the “Quick Quote” form, overall I found it difficult to use. Sure, once I tapped the appropriate field it zoomed in so I could make a choice, but in that process I couldn’t see any surrounding content related to what exactly it was that I was choosing.

I want to applaud Golf Holiday for leading the effort to accommodate mobile users. A Mobile strategy for almost any business is becoming a “must have”. I look forward to seeing more mobile sites developed by The Brandon Agency.

Thanks for sharing a great article.

by Matthew Snyder, CEO, ADObjects-Inc on 12/23/2010 at 9:18

Scott, for those of us in the mobile industry there has been this running debate over the year of mobile. Many have said it was 2010. It is more of a transition of SMARTPHONES from 2008~2013 and if look at the middle of that it is 2010 was the mid-transition year. Yes- 2011 is going to be another big year of convergence.

Please check out my blog as well. Lots of stuff on smart-phone transition.
http://www.adostrategies.com/blog
http://www.adostrategies.com/?s=smart+phone+penetration&x=11&y=8
http://www.adostrategies.com/?s=Mobile+statistics&x=16&y=9

Warm Regards,
Matthew

by Dolly on 05/29/2011 at 10:10

Kudos to you! I hadn’t thuhgot of that!