Not bad, you say?  How about an average of 7 minutes looking at content? How about the fact that visitors spent 2 more minutes on the mobile website on average than the wired website?

Maybe that’s because the mobile site is made “little” and gives users the info they need without a massive information overload?  I’m speculating here.

Naturally, peak mobile traffic occurred during the SEC Championship game and the Texas vs. Texas Tech rivalry.

Click here to read more.

Tom Henriksson of Nokia, who handled the advertising campaign for Dolce & Gabbana, discusses how mobile speaks to the “language of youth in a metropolitan world without borders.”  He then goes on to talk about how mobile advertising is a great way to target both loyal customers and reach new ones.

“The strategy was to reach young consumers on the medium they bring almost everywhere, almost all the time – their mobile handset,” Mr. Henrilsson said. “D&G wanted to create a fun campaign that would encourage consumers to spend time with the brand, as well as forward it on to their friends.”

According to this article, the standard CTR is 2-4% on mobile, and 10% was achieved based on the placement on the Nokia Media Network.

I think this really enforces the concept that your mobile presence and customer experience is crucial to your brand image, and no one knows about brand image like Dolce & Gabbana.

The business traveler is clearly a huge mobile web user and many travel companies have adopted mobile websites.  Another interesting fact from this article is that almost a third of the mobile bookings were done the same day.

In addition to this additional revenue channel, the article goes on to say that Marriott Mobile plays a key role in customer relationship marketing.

I expect to see even more companies launching mobile websites in 2009 than ever before.  For retailers and travel related businesses, the chance to improve the customer experience and brand image while also collecting sales that might have otherwise gone to a competitor is a win-win.

“Connecting with busy shoppers through their mobile phones “is even more important right now” for retailers, given the tough economic climate, says Brad Beasley, president of CrossLink Media, a mobile-marketing firm.”

Amazon, Target and Gap have released various iPhone apps of differing capabilities.  Amazon’s is one of the most robust shopping apps for iPhone.  The Gap application lets users mix and match clothing to create an outfit.

Other retailers like Sears have launched mobile e-commerce solutions from multiple devices, while Buy.com is sending out daily specials using Twitter.

Wal-Mart is focusing on promotions and specials being delivered to handsets, whereas Sears has embraced m-commerce with their launch of Sears2Go.com, where shoppers can shop on their phone in a view optimized for their device and pick up their order without waiting on line.

Amazon has a new iPhone app that allows users to take a photo of a product and Amazon will scan their database of products to try to find a match, an addition to it’s first offering, TextBuyIt.  And, in this article in Retail Industry/About.com, Zappos is said to be embracing m-commerce through socialization, which may or may not be relevant.

This article goes on to say that “m-commerce” is here to stay…I agree.

Gotta have that new smartphone!!!

In a recent study by ChangeWave Research, it was revealed that despite the economic downturn that has hurt companies both large and small, consumers remain bullish on smartphone purchases.  Of those polled, 12% reported planning to buy a new smartphone as soon as 90 days!

The data continues the string of reports suggesting that the market for high-end mobile phones — which typically offer Internet access, music, video and application features — continues growing despite the economic climate. IDC reported similar findings in April, while Gartner saw continued strength in the market last month.

With many of the newest smartphones that users are eager to shell out big bucks for, such and the iPhone and Blackberry Storm, an unlimited mobile web data plan is REQUIRED for service on the device.  That translates to no stopping in the increasing demand growth for mobile optimized web content for those hungry little babys!

Its no secret that American’s increasingly rely on their mobile devices for web access, and a new study by M:Metrics shows that they browse the web a lot, and the number is growing fast.  Highlights of the report include:

• American smartphone owners browse mobile web an average of 4 hours 39 minutes per month.  That’s a half a workday!
• About 11% of smartphone users have an unlimited data plan
• 9 out of the top 10 most popular smartphones in the USA offer a QWERTY keyboard, allowing robust interaction with all types of web functionalities on mobile.
• Sizable data pool used for highly accurate results, n=3500.

In a similar non-shocker, top domains included mostly web sites that offer sophisicated mobile optimized views, such as eBay and Facebook.  This shoudl serve as a pretty strong indicator that mobile web optimization a must for getting in front of your customers when and where it counts most–connecting with them on a more intimate level via their mobile device whcih they use for business, shopping, and organizing their social lives.

This is just a guilty favorite of mine.  Gamefly, the online service that rents video games through the mail, in the same way that Netflix rents DVDs, has launched a full mobile version of its web site.  This is a really great example of best practices for mobile web.  The user has access to almost 100% of the features and functionality available on the regular site and it is presented in a view that is specialized for mobile.  The interface is sleek and easy to use,  Users can add games to their queue, organize the list of games they have coming, look up games and get info an cheats, even purchase games right from their phones.  Another best practice point: no new URL.  All you have to do is go to gamefly.com on any phone and you get the specialized view automatically.  It even detects what kind of device you have and sets it up especially for that.  I have tried it on both a Nokia and an iPhone and got a custom interface.  Pretty slick.

The benefit here is that a service like Gamefly needs to keep it users engaged to keep them paying their subscriptions month after month.  Allowing gamers to add a game to their queue wherver they may be (at a store or on the schoolbus getting a reccomendation from a friend) increases the level of interaction customers have with the service, and makes it personal since the interaction is occuring on their personal device.

Smartphones offered by Verizon

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.