State of Mobile Technology Pt. 3

Many of these pioneering mobile companies have found that the hardest part about succeeding in the mobile world is getting the phone companies to sign on.  Google’s Android failed with Verizon and AT&T and even T-mobile, which produced the first Google phone, recently jumped ship in favor of Yahoo.  One of the only browsers that has been able to find success with multiple services has been the aforementioned Opera Mini browser but even it doesn’t work on a variety of Microsoft Mobile phones.  This is one dilemma that has begun to rear its head in the .mobi world and will have to be remedied if we are ever to see the true potential of mobile browsing achieved.  Another problem that has arisen has been the concern over basically creating two completely separate Webs, one PC-based and the other mobile-based.  This essentially means more work and more maintenance for web site owners and could eventually lead to superfluous content running parallel on both sites.

One industry that is primed to explode in the near future due to the rapid expansion of mobile technology is that of mobile advertising.  The mobile advertising market is one that is still in its infancy and has yet to even begin to realize its true potential.  In fact, the pace at which advertisers are able to fully utilize the mobile platform will correlate directly with the increased development of the mobile industry itself.  Advertising brings in money and money spawns development.   But because it is largely still an untapped and immature market, marketers remain skeptical in how they want to approach it.  The past five years have shown the interest and potential the market for mobile technology and advertising wields.  The next five could see that potential be reached.

Filed under: mobile, advertising, mobile, Technology

State of Mobile Technology Pt. 2

 

The fact that more and more people around the globe are using the mobile web every day only gives one a nominal or quantitative view of how rapidly and efficiently it is actually developing.  To find out more, one has to look at how people are browsing the mobile web.  Only several years ago, in fact, mobile browsing was basically akin to searching the web as a text document.  It simply did not have the capability it now does to provide the visual stimulation and interaction we so crave.  One can now basically do, see and experience everything they could on a laptop or desktop right from the palm of their hand (of course there is far less memory and space on mobile devices).

 Due to the efforts of .mobi and the development of these numerous mobile web browsers, many designers have taken upon the challenge to focus on mobile design and make this particular platform a more appealing and capable place for users.  In fact, mobile design is quickly becoming one of the hottest career choices in the field today.  Not only are there opportunities in mobile site design but especially in mobile application design.  Think about how much money Apple has made off just the Iphone Application Store alone.

A majority of top companies and brands already offer .mobi sites such as espn.mobi, live.mobi, NBA.mobi and Nokia.mobi.  Of course, google.mobi and yahoo.mobi are among the leaders along with Wikipedia’s wapedia.mobi and businessweek.mobi ranking highly, as well.  Though many people consider Yahoo’s mobile platform to be superior in functionality to that of Google’s Android, Google still dominates the market with a 62% reach on the mobile world (Yahoo is at 30%).

Filed under: mobile, .mobi, Google, mobile, mobile browsing, mobile design, Yahoo

The State of Mobile Technology pt. 1

In the fall of 2006 a new top-level domain name was made available to the public called dotmobi.  This extension tailors itself to delivering a connection to the Internet through mobile devices such as smartphones, PDA’s and other handheld devices.  One might ask what the need is for an entire new extension when pre-existing ones like .com, .net and .org could readily accommodate requirements for mobile browsing.  The answer is that they simply do not do so.
The mobile technology industry is growing at an exponential rate right now.  With an estimated 4.1 billion mobile subscribers throughout the world, the fastest growing segment surprisingly being those living in developing countries, it becomes clear that mobile has become the new medium of choice.  In the fast-paced, multi-tasked, speed and efficiency-enamored society we live in today, the embracement of the mobile medium was inevitable.  It just took technology time to catch up.
One way it did so was through the development of mobile or “mini-browsers” such as Opera Mini, Internet Explorer Mobile and Google’s Android browser.  These platforms optimize the Web for viewing on small, portable devices and are becoming increasingly more capable and powerful.  At first they were, at best, dialed-down web browsers with limited capability (all they could process was basic HTML, WAP 2.0 and WML code) but now some of the newer microbrowsers can accommodate a variety of new coding technologies such as CSS, Ajax and Javascript.  This all makes for a more involving mobile browsing experience in addition to closing the gap between itself and traditional computer browsing.
Take Opera Mini, for example, which has become one of the most popular mobile browsers.  In January 2009 alone, they have already seen a 12.1% increase in usage from the previous month which is up to 20 million users.  They also had an 18.3% increase in total page views during that same span with 7.6 billion pages.  This is enormous growth for a market especially in a downturn economy where most everything else is seeing significant decline.

Filed under: mobile, .mobi, mobile browsing, mobile technology

Social Media Integration on Skyfire

For Windows Mobile and Symbian users, such as myself, the mobile browser Skyfire is beginning to integrate social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.  This lifehacker.com article explains how the most important feature in new browser, though is the upgraded RSS feed support it boasts.

Filed under: mobile, mobile, RSS, Skyfire, Social Networks, Symbian, Windows Mobile