News | 20/01/2012

The ‘Spotlight on Mobile Web’ Supper

Posted by Lawrence Greenlee

On Wednesday night I spoke at The ‘Spotlight on Mobile Web’ Supper for Brightons Chamber of Commerce. There we’re 3 speakers including myself, Gary Peters from BrightonandHovejobs.com and Nick Lazar. We were all asked 3 questions about mobile and I thought that I would lost my responses here:

What are your mobile predictions for 2012 and beyond?

  • Nokia fight back with windows 8 – and a possible buy out of Nokia from Microsoft
  • mCommerce will grow massively and with NFC it will start to change the mindset of people accepting phones as a wallet
  • mCoupons will rise and help push coupon offerings – possible though QR codes
  • Mobile Artificial Intelligence ( MAI ) with grow in popularity. Siri is a great start but its just the beginning.
  • Mobile PA
  • RIM (Blackberry) move onto Android platform
  • Augmented reality starts to emerge

The standards for HTML5 are still in motion so native apps will continue to be stronger than web-based apps. But as in 2011, many of the native apps on smartphones will use HTML5 as a base with a native wrapper around them. With the number of HTML5 compatible handsets expected by 2013, we’ll see momentum grow for true web apps on low-end phones.

A mobile website is similar to any other website in that it consists of browser-based HTML pages that are linked together and accessed over the Internet (for mobile typically WiFi or 3G or 4G networks). The obvious characteristic that distinguishes a mobile website from a standard website is the fact that it is designed for the smaller handheld display and touch-screen interface.Like any website, mobile websites can display text content, data, images and video. They can also access mobile-specific features such as click-to-call (to dial a phone number) or location-based mapping.Apps are actual applications that are downloaded and installed on your mobile device, rather than being rendered within a browser. Users visit device-specific portals such as Apple’s App Store, Android Market, or Blackberry App World in order to find and download apps for a given operating system. The app may pull content and data from the Internet, in similar fashion to a website, or it may download the content so that it can be accessed without an Internet connection.
What content is better for apps and what is better as a mobile website (and why)
The benefits of Mobile Sites
Immediacy – Mobile Websites Are Instantly Available
Compatibility – Mobile Websites are Compatible Across Devices
Upgradability – Mobile Websites Can Be Updated Instantly
Findability – Mobile Websites Can be Found Easily
Shareability – Mobile Websites Can be Shared Easily by Publishers, and Between Users
Reach – Mobile Websites Have Broader Reach
LifeCycle – Mobile Websites Can’t be Deleted
A Mobile Website Can be an App!
Time and Cost – Mobile Websites are Easier and Less Expensive
Support and Sustainability
The benefits of Mobile Apps
Interactivity/
Regular Usage/Personalisation
Complex Calculations or Reporting
Native Functionality or Processing Required
No connection Required
Ref.
What evidence is there that people are spending more time using their mobiles for e-commerce?
M-commerce is set to see growth of 55% over the next five years and will grow more quickly than any retail channel
Paypal record $4bn using mobile
Square up app
People comparing prices on phones before purchasing thing – shops are becoming show rooms for the big online sites like Amazon
8% ok UK adults by via mobile phones
The evening, from what I hear was a great success and I want to thank the Brighton Chamber for the invitation to speak.