Mobile Web

Mobile Web refers to Internet access from a mobile phone or smart phone, such as the iPhone. Mobile content publishing is fast becoming a must have. With more users accessing the web via mobile devices, every day your business delays is a day your business is at greater disadvantage.

Critical questions for your business: Do you really need a mobile presence for your website? Do you need to provide location based service information?

Until recently web developers enjoyed a generous amount of real estate in which to deliver content to web users. However a new phase is changing how we access the Internet. Mobile Web may be how most of us use the Internet in the very near future. The challenge is how to squeeze a website into a mobile phone interface.

There more than 4.5 billion mobile subscribers around the world. Mobile cellular subscriptions reached five billion during 2010 and global mobile broadband subscriptions exceed one billion during 2010. Web access by people on the move is likely to exceed web access from desktop computers within the next five years.

This means that mobile phones have rapidly become the most universal communication device in human history. This also means that the website owners must consider what this means for their customers, audience, and websites. Currently fewer than 1% of web pages are optimised for mobiles devices. Facebook via mobile browser has grown 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter has experienced a 347 percent jump.

Do you need a mobile presence for your website?

If your business provides any of the services below, the chances are you need a mobile presence for your company’s website.

• Make an online donation
• Request an appointment
• Purchase a product
• Fill out a request form
• Register for an event or program

Further, you should analyse your traffic - do you see mobile traffic accessing your website? Survey customers about the likelihood of accessing your website (and others) on their smartphones. Do you need to provide location-based services information to my customers - search, personalised weather services, parcel tracking, vehicle tracking services, and even location-based games or products?

Location-based services can include mobile eCommerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location. Examples are:

• Requesting the nearest business or service
• Navigation to any address
• Locating friends, customers, employees or resources on a map displayed on the mobile phone
• Receiving alerts, such as notification of a sale on petrol or warning of a traffic jam
• Location-based mobile advertising
• Asset recovery such as locating stolen assets in containers where GPS wouldn't work by using active RF.

What are the main differences between Mobile Web and your company website?

In repurposing existing content for the Mobile Web, you need to think carefully about how the Mobile Web audience wants to consume content—which is content that shows more, tells less.

• Simplified navigation
• Clearly distinguished selected items
• User input as simple as possible
• Mobile-friendly page layouts
• Auto detection and redirection to mobile site
• Simplicity
• W3C Best Practices