Taking stock

dotmobi — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:23:06 +0000

With the dust settled on Mobile World Congress and the current ramp up to CTIA, the mobile world is in a good place to take stock and make sense of the many predictions, hopes and realities of the mobile web.

In Europe 2008 has been widely tipped as the year where we finally see mass adoption of the mobile internet. We’ve been promised better phones, better browsing experiences, better network access, easier development platforms and stronger mobile marketing prospects.

And finally we’re seeing them. There are four big signs that mobile internet has become mainstream:

1. We’re seeing month on month growth in mobile advertising as companies figure out how to monetise mobile internet and use this one-on-one B2C channel to extend their brand and increase sales. AdMob (the mobile advertising network) now serves over 2 billion targeted ads globally each month. Requests for mobile ads has increased 2.5% this month (2,562,527,510 for February vs. 2,500,424,720 for January) and UK requests grew by almost a quarter (23.9%) in February over January to outpace network growth. The UK is now the third biggest market for mobile advertising behind the US and India, seeing 188,143,437 ad requests in February.

2. Developer platforms and consolidated information repositories, which a number of companies revealed at MWC, will address the increasing fragmentation in device platforms such as Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Opera, Adobe and Yahoo Go.

3. The growth in mobile web sites is another key indicator. dotMobi has seen the number of mobile websites grow phenomenally from 25,000 active sites in November last year to around 150,000 today and over 800,000 mobile specific (.mobi) domains have been sold.

4. As mobile content is now exploding, mobile search is the next big thing. Search directories will help consumers find new sites but it has to be done right. If a mobile search pulls up .com sites that crash your mobile, what is the point? Mobile directories and search engines built specifically for browsing the mobile internet that only return mobile capable results, are the clear way forward.

Paul Nerger, VP of Advanced Services and Applications, dotMobi

2008: The year of the mobile web

dotmobi — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:30:55 +0000

With the start of the New Year, the industry is full of predictions about what developments 2008 will bring. The telecoms industry faces an exciting year ahead as the mobile web finally comes together with the tools and incentives to spur adoption – just like the PC-based web did a decade ago. In the same way that we moved on from sitting in a group around the radio, it will soon be considered antiquarian to have to sit at a desk to use the internet.

Previously, issues such as small handset screens, slow connection and expensive tariffs put off users. Over the past year, the industry has overcome these issues with flat-rate tariffs, fast HSDPA / HSUPA connections, ubiquitous and low-cost developer tools (like those found at dotMobi’s http://dev.mobi) and phones designed specifically with the mobile internet in mind.

There is also more engaging content than ever before. 2007 saw hundreds of “first ever” mobile sites for travel (sas.mobi), hotels (hilton.mobi), banking (barclays.mobi), dining (zagat.mobi) entertainment (smirnoff.mobi), estate agents (locationlocation.mobi) and voters outreach (votescotland.mobi).

This year, mobile internet sites will be even more dynamic and interactive. Mobile sites where we can upload images, post comment, and interact in real time will encourage adoption, particularly among young people. We already saw a surge of these towards the latter end of 2007 with moblogs (cityclickers.mobi), social networking (winksite.mobi), mobile video (blueapple.mobi) and Skype (3skype.mobi).

We’ll also see transactional sites increase with m-commerce and mobile advertising, which will encourage companies to develop mobile sites as people become more aware of the importance of a mobile presence.

Paul Nerger, vice president of advanced services and applications, dotMobi