MobileWebsiteWatch

According to a study realeased on the 4th by the Kelesy Group, about 19% of cellphone-owning

Americans now have a smartphone and, shockingly, 49.2% plan on getting one within one year. The study goes on to disect the things people use the mobiel web for which include: searching for products, getting maps and directions, getting info about movies and entertainment and accessing social networking sites.  All of these areas clocked in double digit growth year over year and with half the cell phone owners out there who plan on upgrading to a smartphone in 1 year, that should accellerate more in 2009.

As this surge of mobile users comes online, you can be almost certain that once they are shelling out for new phones with advanced data services, a seamless and successful mobile web experience on any company’s web site will pretty much be a basic customer expectation.  As we’ve posted here, smart companies like Sears, Gamefly, American Airlines, and Victoria’s Secret have already implemented an optimized mobile web view of thier sites and are building up market share.  Getting mobile should be top priority for anyone not yet there as everyday customers who try and interact with you on mobile are frustrated and lost.

In the Sears Mobile press release (from Women’s Wear Daily here), Sears mobile innovations team leader Thomas Emmons says it best:

“If you’re marketing to people who read 85 percent of their e-mails on a BlackBerry, and you don’t have a good mobile site, you’re losing that customer,”

Sears is a great example of mobile best practices and others will have to either follow suit or get out of the way.

While m-commerce continues to grow in many areas, tickets is probably the fastest moving and the easiest

for people to grasp and adopt.  In the USA, tickets for movies, travel and performances are more and more commonplace on mobile.  On Nov 12th, Tickets.com made a major step that gives it a serious competitive edge over even big competitors like Ticketmaster by offering it new service, ProVenueMobile.

ProVenueMobile is really the mobile version of tickets.com regular site.  It is the 1st full complete mobile web commerce solution of its kind, that allows the user to fully complete the ticket purchase transaction from the mobile web, and does not require any click-to-call or telephone use.  This is not only a major convenience and time saver for the user, but also a big cost saver for tickets.com, relieveing the need for 24/7 phone sales staff.  Tickets.com notes to the press:

“We are excited about this technology, and view it as a major breakthrough for our company and for our clients,” said Larry Witherspoon, CEO, Tickets.com. “Staying ahead of the curve through industry-leading innovation, as well as delivering unparalleled customer support, is our chief mission. Offering this versatile and convenient mobile platform gives Tickets.com the opportunity to reach new milestones in both areas. We are delighted to be able to introduce a green, paperless technology into the marketplace. In early 2009 we look forward to offering website mobilization services to our clients.”

By extending the functionality and services of Tickets.com — including full e-commerce — to the mobile web platform http://mobile.tickets.com, full- circle ticket purchases can be made 24/7 on any handheld mobile device. Missing an on-sale time, waiting in line and being put on hold will be things of the past. The Usablenet Mobile-supported site integrates seamlessly with all web-enabled devices from smart phones (Blackberry, iPhone, Treo, etc.) to basic cell phones with web access. It supports all browsers, file formats, carriers and other technologies, so that Tickets.com customers can shop for and purchase tickets from anywhere, anytime.

The ticketing boom is not only limited to concert and movie tickets.  Most major airlines now not only offer full mobile sites, but are extending mobile boarding pass functionality to thier passengers.  This technology, being implemented at airlines like American Airlines and Northwest Airlines allows mobile users to use their phone as their boarding pass without any special software or hardware and regardless of what carrier they are using.

With mobile on the rise to buy more and more things, any company not allowing its customers to access them on the device they have on them at all times and look at the most for both personal and business purposes is outright loosing ground.

In a fantastic and comprehensive article in the Wall Street Journal today, reporter Nick Wingfield illuminates a very prescient analogy of the mobile world today: in the same way that companies were once eager to deploy laptops to executives and technicians to increase mobility, today smart phones are stepping up to take over that role thanks to the significant advantages they have in power and portability.

This is not to say that the laptop will got eh way of the dodo, but the truth is, more often than not business travelers leave their laptops in hotel rooms and rental cars while going to meetings and about routine business activities armed only with their lighter, and more portable smart phones. These souped-up cousins of ordinary cellphones, with email and other Internet functions, have become much more powerful in the past year.

For years, mobile workers have been ditching their desktop computers for laptops that they can take wherever they go. Now road warriors are starting to realize that they can get even more portability — and lots of computing punch — from smart phones…The result: Many travelers are now using smart phones the way they once used laptops — and laptops the way they once used desktop computers. Mobile workers rely on their laptops to create PowerPoint presentations and do other heavy-duty computing. But then they leave the laptops in their offices, homes or hotel rooms and take their smart phones out into the world.

Many are going even further opting to leave the laptop behind entirely and the demand for mobile devices that can handle more heavy duty business specific applications is huge.  In a report published in January by research firm In-Stat based on a survey of 1,402 technology users, roughly 52% of respondents to the In-Stat survey said they could envision using a smart phone in the future as their sole computing device.

The overall result of this shift toward mobile has obvious implications on the need for mobile web optimization.  For many Software as a Service (SaaS) companies such as Salesforce.com and Netsuite, mobile optimization has become a pressing and urgent need as well as a massive revenue driver.  Salesforce.com offers business people access to its cloud CRM software from their mobile devices with a hefty price tag, starting at about $600 per user/year–almost twice the price of a copy of Micrsoft Office.

When deployed effectively (note keyword “when”), many companies are discovering that these costs are actually a real bargain price for the massive boost in efficiency and employee accessibility to work data.  A study released by the Aberdeen Group highlights some of the advantages and audit-able improvements in efficiency and cost realized by the Salesforce solution. The supporting factor that makes mobile web optimization from both the customer and company standpoint is the explosive growth and demand for services in the mobile market.  THis growth is occurring at a breakneck pace and both has not only executives and emplyee clamouring for more and more services they can access right from their phone but from customers, investors, and interested parties of all types the world throughout.  After all, isn’t each road warrior exec who depends on their Blackberry for everything just another human who also wants: to order food, buy gifts online, book hotels and travel deals, check in on investor relations areas of compaines in their porfolios, get movie/concert tickets, or any of the million other things we all do on the Internet everyday?
Today, smartphone sales well outpace laptops, and that trend is rising faster than the switch from desktop to laptop occurred.  See graph.

With this kind of growth coupled with the rapidly increasing adoption or inclusion of data plans in most mobile contracts (many smartphones like the iPhone and the G1 cannot be used without an unlimited data plan) companies of all sizes can no longer afford not to embrace mobile both internally and externally if they hope to be competitive and in touch with their customer, consumers, employees most importantly, their competitors.

In a June press release by Cisco, the company talks about the results of its third annual e-commerce study.  The results?  Mobile commerce is charging to the forefront and is, in fact, already a large revenue driver with massive upside potential. Dick Cantwell, vice president of IBSG’s Retail / CPG Practice said of the findings

“Mobile presents a revenue opportunity for retailers and opens up a new era of multichannel retail.  Multichannel retailing has morphed into a web of shopper touchpoints across stores, catalogs, mobile devices, and the Internet. Retailers must start offering shoppers an ‘interconnected shop’ if they are to take advantage of the mobile opportunity.”

The study notes that companies that are already executing the basics of e-commerce well can gain the trust, and the repeat business, of customers who want a fast, reliable and hassle-free and seamless mobile experience. Adding a mobile channel will be a key aspect in allowing customers to execute their transactions whenever they are so inclined and wherever they may be.

What this means in practice

As retailers already well know, customer loyalty and product familiarity are key factors in driving sales.  Let’s consider a hypothetical example: a shrewd but longtime customer in the current economy will be comparing prices online and in brick and mortar stores across retailers.  Imagine a customer shopping for a kitchen table.  She looks at prices online.  Then goes to Store A to see the product up close.  She gets back into the car and drives to Store B to see if there is anything there that might be a better value or that she likes better.  While in Store B, she pulls out her mobile device and goes to the mobile web site of Store A and calls up the product information of the first table.  She decides the Store A’s table is superior, and now can complete the transaction right on the phone and either pick up the product or have it delivered.  If Store A did not have a mobile site, they would be betting that that customer would actually return to the store, or return home and order the product from the Web site.  But the time to close the sale may be lost.  When the shopper return home to the internet, she may look for another product before completing the purchase.  She may change her mind about buying a table at all.  The ability to allow the customer a transactional experience on demand is paramount.

This major revenue expanding opportunity is made evident in the study results.

Mobile access can help retailers provide a unique, satisfying e-commerce experience. Customers expect to use their mobile devices to find stores, research products, make purchases and manage their accounts. In anticipation of this market opportunity, retailers should allow customers to access retail product information anytime, from any device. In addition, with the rise of social networking, web-based multimedia, and mobile commerce, retailers can now select from a broad range of technologies to reach customers. Monitoring what innovative companies are doing in retail and in related industries will help retailers adapt best practices to their own circumstances and strategies.

Revenue is driven in multiple areas by mobile commerce channel

Let’s recall our previous scenario and consider it from a slightly different angle.  This time, our table buyer goes to her her favorite store, Store A.  She sees some tables and is close to deciding on one, but then thinks to herself, “Store B across town sells tables too, but do I want to go all the way over there, or is this one OK?”  She is not at home in front of the computer where she could check the retailers Web site and see what products they offered but she figures she still might be able to let her fingers do the walking by trying the retailer’s web site on her phone.  Store B has a mobile web site.  It loads up quickly and allows her to easily navigate to the product she is looking for.  Now our shopper sees a table she likes while standing in a competitors store.  Being the shrewd shopper she is, she is not going to buy it before seeing it in real life, so she goes to the store locator feature

on Store B’s mobile site and sees that a new location has opened up not so far away.  She drives to Store B, sees the table, likes it and buys it.

Conclusion: Simply by providing the customer access to your web site at their convenience, on the screen they look at the most, their mobile phone, traffic and and revenue in all areas: on the regular web site, on the mobile web site, and in brick and mortar locations will experience a positive lift.

The more your customer can interact with your brand, the more likely and often they are to purchase your products.

Below is a great article from Geek.com.  Feature writer Brian Osborne took upon himself the challenge of taking a trip using only his trusty Blackberry 8330 Curve to make ALL travel arrangements.

Challenge
Fly to Dallas by booking my airline ticket, checking in for my flight, reserving my hotel room, and checking-in for my hotel room using only my BlackBerry 8330 Curve by Verizon Wireless. 

Participants
Volunteering themselves as guinea pigs were American Airlines and Omni Hotels. Thanks to Brian Conway for helping to set this up.

Task 1: Find and book an American Airlines Flight using BlackBerry
Time: Under 5 minutes

I went to AA.com and was happy to see the website was actually setup to be used for a mobile device. I especially liked how options were split into sections including Day of Travel and Reservations. It made it really easy to find what I needed.

I searched for flights by clicking on Change Flights under the Reservations section. After inputting my departure airport, destination and travel dates, it quickly brought up my options. One nice feature was that I could even view the seats that were available on each flight. If the flight was nose-to-nose with passengers I then had the option to choose another flight.

After finding my flight I inputted my credit card information and soon received a confirmation via email confirming my flight was booked. Overall, performance of the website was very good. The only sense of information overload I had on the small BlackBerry screen was when I was browsing flights, but there is only so much the American Airlines folks can do.

Task 2: Reserve A Room With Omni Hotels
Time: Under 5 minutes

Much like the American Airlines website, I was happy to see that the Omni Hotels mobile website didn’t have a lot of fluff and got right to the options the typical traveler would need to quickly find a hotel, get a room, and get it reserved. After clicking on Make A Reservation I was able to find a local hotel and saw that luckily there was a room available.

I was able to quickly reserve the room and also later got an email confirming the reservation. I wanted to keep this email confirmation handy for when I did my check-in online as well.

Task 3: Check-In For American Airlines Flight
Time: Under 3 minutes

24 hours before my flight I just about went to my PC to get my boarding pass when I remembered that for this trip I was performing all tasks on the Blackberry. So I grabbed it and quickly got on the AA.com website to check-in for my flight. I looked at moving seats, but unfortunately it was a full flight.

Reluctantly, I went ahead and completed my check-in. Naturally, I was a little concerned that I didn’t have a piece of paper in front of me confirming my check-in, but when I went to the airport I simply printed out my passes at the American Airlines kiosk in less than a minute.

By checking-in online I saved a lot of time in front of the kiosk even if I ended up having to print my boarding pass. Hopefully one day I’ll just be able to show the electronic boarding pass on my phone.

Before completing the booking process I was also able to sign-up for a mobile alert which would send me flight status and gate information two hours before my flight’s departure. There’s nothing better than being on your way to the airport, knowing what gate your flight is at and appreciating the fact that it is still on time.

Task 4: Check-In For Omni Hotels Room
Time: Under 3 minutes

So what’s the advantage of checking in for your hotel through your mobile phone? Well, the beautiful thing is that you won’t have to worry about your room being given to someone else. Also, when you get to the hotel the key will be waiting for you since you’ve already given the hotel all of your personal information.

When you have been on a plane for over two hours, trust me when I say that the sooner you get to your room the better. Sure enough, when I got to the hotel the room keys were waiting for me.

Summary
It’s amazing to think we have reached the point at which we no longer need to sit in front of a computer to make travel arrangements. That’s got to be some pretty sobering news for travel agents since it empowers people to book an itinerary on their own. Naturally I don’t expect Ma or Pa who travels once a year to use their mobile phone to book reservations, but you can bet the business traveler will appreciate it and that’s exactly why American Airlines and Omni Hotels have made the investment to support the mobile traveler.

Absolutely terriffic footwork, Brian!  Thanks a million!

From MocoNews via BBC: the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has ruled that original Apple iPhone television advertisement is misleading for consumers BBC reports. The ad, which says that “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone”, omits the fact that the iPhone does not support Flash or Java - two programs that “form part of many online sites”, the authority says. Apple, while not issuing an official statement in its defense, claims that the ad referred to the availability of Web pages, rather than their specific appearance.

The ASA said the ad “gave a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone”, and should not be aired again.

The ruling states: “We noted Apples argument that the ad was about site availability rather than technical detail, but considered that the claims “You’ll never know which part of the internet youll need” and “all parts of the internet are on the iPhone” implied users would be able to access all websites and see them in their entirety. We considered that, because the ad had not explained the limitations, viewers were likely to expect to be able to see all the content on a website normally accessible through a PC rather than just having the ability to reach the Web site.”

This turn of event really goes to back up many of the points brought up in one of my earlier posts: “iPhone Proves Bigger Not Always Better.”  All of the companies that are featured in the ad now have mobile Web sites and/or iPhone optimized sites.  This is about all the proof you need to see that even with the newest technology both network and hardware, the desktop Internet as we know it is never coming to mobile.  Even as this technology improves, the public demand for optimized and streamlined content is not going away but rather growing. The screen is just not big enough to hope to avoid mobile view optimization.

The way the world gets its news is changing yet again.  Leading the charge, standard flying high is the New York Times.  FierceMobile reports:

The New York Times announced its mobile news site drew 19 million page views in May, up from 10 million hits in December 2007 and 500,000 views in January 2007. According to Robert Samuels, the Old Gray Lady’s director of mobile products, mobile web, messaging, games and alternative platforms, most of the mobile web views derive from high-end devices like the iPhone, BlackBerry and Treo–generally speaking, mobile consumption habits mirror online user behaviors, with articles focusing on business and politics as well as blogs and most-emailed stories generating the most reader interest. Samuels adds the NYT plans to introduce mobile showtime listings, weather services and restaurant listings before the year is out.

Similarly, a new research report from PEW reveals that nearly 1/3 of smart phone users get their news from their mobile device and that this trend is on the rise.  The study describes this section of new-net news consumers as “Integrators”

Integrators (23% of the population) are much younger and more affluent than the Traditionalists (median age: 44). Politically, they are not much different than the public as a whole – 38% identify themselves as Democrats, 29% as Republicans, and 26% as independents. They are highly connected: 93% have internet access at home, 45% go online from work, and 24% have smart phones (iPhones/Blackberries).

This is the fastest growing segment of news consumers.  New media is a terms thrown around a lot these days, but when the data keeps pouring in that this is the way that media is going to be consume in the very very near future, the topic of new media and mobile internet cannot be dismissed.  Dismissal is simply in affordable.

In the second of a recent two part article on MocoNews, the major Olympic mobile WAP sites are reviewed and rated.  Credit has to be given to the writer for taking note that the sites reviewed in this part of the article were not up to the standard of mobile site that can be found outside of the realm of WAP, the elephaont in the room remains ‘why are these sub-par WAP sites the mobile homepages of these major news organizations if such better experinces can be put together for one event?’

In our second of a series (first is here) of reviews on mobile content from the Olympics, we took a look at the major sports news sites – ESPN (NYSE: DIS), NBC Sports, CBS (NYSE: CBS) Sports and Fox Sports – to see which is providing the best mobile experience on their mobile site’s homepages. Using a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E71 and Nokia’s web browser, we compared each of the companies’ mobile WAP sites to determine which gave more credence to the global competition and how each presented Olympics-related content on a mobile phone. Albeit richer experiences can be had outside the constraints of WAP, results we encountered for purposes of this review were disappointing.

Two specific areas that were particularly bemoaned were:

1. The lack or video content available, and;
2. Poor mobile search architecture and content structure within the site

While the lack of streaming video content is not particulary suprising, since it is probably not offered anyway and also the Nokia E71 browser does not support video output when in WAP mode.  The more relevant gripe tot he world of mobile web enthusiasts at large is the issues about search performance and overall organization.

In the first installment of this article, the “medals” awarded to the mobile sites lay out their overall performance and all the top performers were all noted for intuitive layout and releveant content.  In fact, some of the sites were even noted as offering more content and still not ranked as highly.  This is just a simple fact of the mobile world, it doesn’t take much content before the user experience gets messy.

As far as getting bad results on these sites search pages on the phone for detecting mobile optimized content goes, the soltuion is to do something othe than WAP.   Namely, build a site ethat outputs to WAP only if it has to.  By optimizing the pages that already exist, you can be assured that the search box will not call content that the browser can’t display.

The worst performer was CBS, according to the review. “Not a single mention of the Olympics on CBS Sports Mobile main page and nothing under its menus and categories. Only after clicking on ‘more headlines’ did we pull up a few Olympics-related stories. After searching specifically for ‘Olympics,’ the site returned more than 100 links to news articles aggregated from various news outlets.”

That highlights a persistent problem across many WAP sites: the fact that many search boxes doesn’t seem at all tuned for mobile use. It’s painful to discover that on the go, when suddenly your handset freezes up because it’s trying to download and digest a huge desktop site that it can’t even render properly.

A good example of a website that truly employs best practices and avoids all these WAP woes is one like American Airlines.  If you go http://aa.com on a Nokia N70, for example, you will be automatically redirected to mobile.aa.com and will see a WAP view.

Now take an iPhone and also go to http://aa.com.  You are, again, detected and automatically redirected to http://mobile.aa.com, but this time you see a special view for the iPhone.  If you use a Blackberry, same thing, it always looks perfect.

The platform that spits this view back to you is much more intelligent than a simple WAP site.  Ideally this is the way that all mobile Web sites should be designed.  WAP site are cluncky and need a lot of maintenence to keep them up to date.  CMS sites that are just smaller versions of content are even worse.

Luckily, the tide is turning and major brands, like American Airlines, are making the appropriate adjustments to properly support the rapidly growing number of people who simply won’t accept a WAP-experience.

In a study released this May by design agency AKQA and dotMobi, a lot of illuminating data is brought to light. While the overall tenor of the “study” is slightly muddied by the blatant commercial interests of its sponsors, there are nonetheless, over 2,000 respondents, fairly selected by independent third party research agency, Research Now. The study, which focuses on the US and UK, and is notable for highlighting the similarities and contrasting trends in the two nations, has its data broken down in many many ways. The free PDF download contains over 80 pages, most of which are charts or graphs about niched subject matter surrounding mobile web use. Below are few of the more enlightening points:

• Approximately 90% of the 2,000 respondents are interested in learning about the mobile Web, demonstrating a need for brands to make their mobile properties findable via mobile search, marketing and advertising campaigns.

• 50% of respondents were unaware that there are mobile sites optimized for use on mobile phones and;

• The vast majority - 86% of participants - said they were interested in knowing which sites are easily accessible on a mobile phone.

• Nearly 50% of respondents said that a poor experience on their initial use of the mobile Web made them “reluctant to access” either the site - or the Internet in general - on their mobile phones again.

• Only 2% of participants in the survey who have purchased a phone in the past six months chose an iPhone. This indicates that brands that don’t optimize their mobile services for a variety of mobile phones will provide a substandard mobile Internet experiences for a vast majority of consumers.

• Poor site display and layout remain top reasons for mobile Web dissatisfaction among consumers.

• Almost two-thirds of participants stated that they would consider purchasing theater tickets, take-out food and travel tickets via a mobile phone.

• Finally, 63% of survey respondents said they would be more likely to give up their money than their mobile “smart phone” if they were mugged.

This study really showed a lot of things that are common misconceptions about the size and reach of the mobile internet today. For example, it is commonly though that the only people using the Internet on their phones are teens and young adults and an optimized mobile web experience will appeal most to them alone, yet this study finds that even in the higher age range brackets, the desire to know what is accessible from the user’s phone is remarkably high:

The take-away from survey graph like this is perhaps not immediately clear. While it is easy to see that interest in mobile web accessibility tilts more (although less than one might expect) toward the younger generations, the strong interest in accessing optimized content across all age groups really rives home an underlying, but indisputable and often overlooked fact: mobile users are a much more devoted and committed audience than desktop users.

Mobile users are purposeful internet users. They are not likely to be browsing idly and are by definition: on the go, needing information right away and, expecting to get it on their phone. Furthermore, there numbers are much higher than many think. This study concludes that, already, about 1 in 5 people access the Web on their mobile devices daily. However, if you add in all those who report using the mobile web at least weekly, you’re looking at more than 50% or users who access the internertt on their phones at least once a week!

If you’ve been reading avidly you’ll recall that in our previous post on Neilsen’s mobile web market report, it was revealed that there were 95 million mobile web subscribers in May 2008 in USA.  So lets do some quick math here:

OK, so if AT LEAST this many users are browsing on their phones today and want optimized content, how many are your customers? More importantly, how many do you stand to lose to a competitor that does offer a mobile Web site.

Or best of all, how many do you stand to gain at your competitor’s expense by providing an optimized view of your Web site? Couple that with the year over year growth rate of mobile web use and the answers require less than back of the envelope arithmetic to become apparent.

All retailers take note: Ralph Lauren is leading the way in innovation of more than just clothes. The visionary luxury brand has taken some big and bold steps into the mobile realm, including a new mobile e-commerce site. The site, (http://m.ralphlauren.com or just ralphlauren.com if you’re on a mobile device) allows you to do a number of things including shop for, and buy apparel right from your phone. There are also sections about tennis and style and about the brand in general.

One oddity that was noted was the rendering of different site sections. The home pages and informational pages about tennis and other stuff seem to just be plain old CSS and, although heavily designed a and well put together still a little dumb. When the home page renders on a hi res screen (like an iPhone) the entire site is crammed into the upper left-hand corner of the screen, forcing the user to zoom and peck and basically defeating the purpose of the mobile site.

The shopping area, on the other hand, has a much more robust interface. We tested it on 3 different devices and it resizes for all of them perfectly with zero distortion. On an iPhone, the pictures even resize when you rotate the view. Strange why they didn’t do this for the rest of the site.

Another big move is the major push for the QR code campaign. MobileWebsiteWatch caught this clip on Good Morning America on Wednesday. In the video you can see how easy it is to get to a product right from the camera on the phone. While this application is not yet widespread here in the US, the idea is very solid and it seems that Polo is making big strides to get out in front of the market which I expect will pay off pretty big. According to a Reuters interview with David Lauren, SVP of Advertising:

The apparel maker will begin placing special codes in print ads, mailings and store windows along with its sponsorship of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, which begins later this month.

Shoppers can download special software to camera-phones to scan the codes and be directed to a phone-friendly version of a Ralph Lauren website, where they can shop, watch tennis videos and read company content…

Cell phones with preinstalled code-readers should come to market within a year, Lauren said.

Polo Ralph Lauren is a sponsor of the US Tennis Open Tennis Championship and is expected to release the marketing blitz with the commencement of the tournament on August 25th, 2008. Lots of print material is already floating around, like the full back cover of New York Magazine this month (the issue with “Race” on the front)