It was opening day this past weekend for Little League baseball here in Boca Raton, FL, the weather cooperated and we had a great weekend of games. We were treated to a very close hard fought game with lots of strike outs on each side. A few of the pre-season practices had to be cancelled due to weather, so I was not surprised by the high number of strikeouts. As the teams get more at bats, the hits will begin to ramp up as the strikeouts decrease. I thought it was interesting that a parent was utilizing an iPhone app to perform the score keeping for the home team, no more worries if you break your pencil lead. Smart phones and their apps are everywhere and as they continue to grow in number so too will the advertising opportunities.
Mobile advertising will also be ramping up rapidly and 2010 should be the year you begin laying your foundation by getting a .mobi or using a sub-domain for your mobile friendly site. We here at MoreVisibility have the experts and experience to accomplish this task, freeing you up to manage your day to day schedule, visit our “going mobile” content today if you need assistance. The reason we will experience rapid advances in mobile advertising is due to the advances in network speed and infrastructure, the cloud and the maturity of the devices and their adoption in our daily lives. Smart phones are a very personal piece of ones life and store loads of information; we have all our contacts and our appointments as well as pictures and music in them and we always have them with us. The location of your phone is also known and available to the mobile advertisers, which will better aid them in providing the correct content at the right time.
We know Google is putting resources and emphasis toward mobile advertising via Eric Schmidt’s comments from Mobile World Congress 2010 keynote speech this past February, where he proclaimed “Mobile first”. Google will be assisting the mobile consumers to locate goods or services, via voice recognized search and image search, Google Goggles . The potential for success with your mobile advertising dollars has never looked better.
I continue to keep my eye on the recovery of my 401K and Roth IRA. I realize it can only happen if we chip away at our nation’s unemployment rate. I had a chance to listen to our President’s speech and learn how he envisioned the recovery in jobs in the near term as well as long term guidance. He made it clear that primary and secondary education and affordable college education are the keys to our nation’s future job growth. So for all the teenagers keep studying math and science, and for mom and dad you will see tax breaks for paying for juniors’ college. Your children’s college professors will also be happy to know that grant money is once again flowing. You can bet it will be targeted to alternative green energy research in order to catch and surpass China, India and other nations that have heavily subsidized green energy.
The other Jobs in the news announced the iPad, and demonstrated how Apples’ latest creation can enhance how we experience the web and other multimedia. Mobile advertising has been in a wait and see pattern since deployment of 3G, WiMax and WiFi networks, the prerequisites for mobile advertising. Now Apple and Google are in a battle for mobile advertising dominance. I’m pretty sure Nexus One from Google and the iPhone/iPad from Apple are the initial troop deployments in this battle. Quattro from Apple and AdMob from Google, both newly acquired due to their leadership in the mobile advertising platform are ready for deployment.
Web sites must be ready and have their ducks in a row if they want to participate in the growth in this market segment. Do you have a mobile version of your website, if not you should make this a high priority for 2010. Going mobile alone may be out of your comfort zone; we are here to assistance in this complex process. Once you have your mobile site, you have eliminated a prerequisite and are in a position to quickly participate in the second generation of mobile ads. We are watching the evolution of mobile advertising and anticipate Google has plans for their $750 million acquisition of AdMob, and hear that they too will have an announcement this week concerning a launch of a new type of mobile ad. It will be an eventful year and one we hope brings prosperity and returns on your on-line advertising initiatives. Call us and let us explain how we can assist you.
More and more people are using mobile devices to access the internet. With the advent of the Blackberry, iPhone and iPod touch, surfing the web on the go has become better and easier. As technology improves and prices of these devices become even more affordable, there is no doubt that more people will be search the mobile web for information. The mobile web is extremely beneficial to search for store hours, price comparisons and other information that is needed when on the go.
I personally have noticed that when searching from a Blackberry or other phones that are internet ready, some websites do not even show up. Searching from an iPhone is a little better, but websites that are flash are still not compatible. You would make sure that your website can be accessed from any device.
A mobile website does not have to be a complete website with all of your information available. Create your mobile website to include the most relevant information for the traveling user. Here are a couple of examples of some mobile sites, giving only the info that someone on the go might need.
Movietickets.com offers information and online ticket sales for the latest movies. Their mobile site allows users to explore show times, get news and buy tickets. This is great for someone who is out and about and only needs the basic info. What time is the movie? Where is it playing? And, how can I get tickets so that I don’t have to stand in line? You can get all of that from their mobile website. Mobile.movietickets.com
Over the past weekend, I had to pick up some friends at one airport and my wife at another. Unfortunately for me, their plans were landing at the same time. Like most people, I was checking their flight status from home waiting to see which flight was delayed and who was going to land first. When the time came that I had to pick them up, I grabbed my iPhone. Waiting in the cell phone area, I was able to access AirTran’s iPhone ready website. This version was exactly what I needed. The options were limited so I didn’t have to do a lot of searching. They incorporated only the most important features of their website. It made my mobile searching experience easy. Below is a side by side comparison of the mobile website compared to their main website.
The important thing to remember when creating your mobile site to is incorporate the information that will benefit your user the most. For some sites, just having the phone number and an address will be sufficient, while others might need multiple store locations, and increased functionality.
There is no doubt that the number of mobile users is increasing, so you will want to make sure that your website is functional, no matter where they are searching from.
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