From the Wall Street Journal:
With half of the total U.S. population already accessing the Web through smart phones and tablets, a mobile platform is a necessity.
Web 3.0 isn’t coming—it’s already here. And it’s all about mobile interaction. If your company doesn’t have a mobile website—a site specifically designed and coded for each mobile platform—you’re already seriously behind the times. The marketplace demands content and the available delivery pipelines are exponentially more diverse and interactive than ever before.
Our businesses compete in a technological environment in which information is coming and going from every direction in all conceivable digital forms. Suddenly, the ability to explore a fully interactive website or a full-length video doesn’t require anything more than a small hand-held device. Wireless data delivery is faster and easier than ever, and consumers want what they want right now—whether they are sitting in front of a desktop, riding on a train holding a tablet, or walking down the street, smartphone in hand.
All of these factors make the development and implementation of dedicated mobile websites absolutely critical to success. According to a 2011 report by comScore, fully half of the total population of the U.S. uses mobile media—an incredible 20% increase in a single year.
World-wide, there are 1.2 billion mobile Web users. In the U.S. alone, 25% of users access the Web exclusively through mobile devices, and that number is significantly higher in many other parts of the world, such as 70% in Egypt and 59% in India.
Mobile Web growth stats aren’t slowing down either. They’ll continue to balloon, just as network availability, access speed, software and hardware devices will continue to revolutionize mobile interaction and ease of use.
So how can a global company survive without a great mobile website? With stats and trends as they are, I’d rather not wait around to find out.
Case in point: A mobile Web solution was recently shown to me by a friend in charge of marketing at a major record label. He had contracted the development of mobile sites for several of their acts, and has been impressed at the potential for a Web platform that is simple, appealing and intuitive. In the not-too-distant past, fans performing a mobile search for their favorite music artist would find themselves on a traditional website that was barely viewable on their hand-held device, slow to load, and nearly impossible to navigate—much less interact with.
