This article was originally written and published for Mobile Design
Monday, January 16, 2006
10 Reasons to Publish to Mobile
With the mobile product lifecycle is moving twice as fast as computers at their peak ten years ago, mobile publishing will soon be a requirement of doing business. Hype aside, there are really good reasons why you should be looking at your mobile publishing strategy… now.
There are 1.5 billion mobile devices in the world today, more than three times the number of PCs. As the devices increase capabilities and networks get faster, consumers are using mobile devices more and more for common computing and information gathering tasks.
Here are just a few reasons why I believe every publisher should be considering their mobile strategy:
1. Empower your reader
Publishers often what to control the experience, but the web has changed how we collect and share information. The Reader is in control, always. They want information that is relevant to their interests, when it is convenient to them and however they choose to interact with it.
For example, RSS empowers the reader to watch websites and be notified when they are updated. It separates content from the presentation. The reader can choose to go to the website or simply read the feed.
Mobile provides the reader with a similar tool, but with even more freedom as they can read your content where ever they are, while waiting for someone, riding the bus, or even sitting on the couch.
2. Have your content available anytime anywhere
Imagine you have a client coming to your office. But they forgot their notebook with your address. Why not have your address and other contact information on a mobile site?
Word-of-mouth advertising has always been the best way to reach new customers. But how many times has someone told you about something you were interested in at a party or while having drinks, but forgot about it later?
Mobile enables the publisher to have that information available to potential customers at the moment they want to see it.
3. Create a better experience for your mobile users
Recently there has been a lot of talk about transforming web content to mobile devices by simply removing images. This is not publishing mobile content, it’s looking at a webpage on a phone.
Mobile is another medium, like TV, Radio, Print or web. By designing for the medium with that audience goals in mind, you can create a better experience and leave a lasting impression.
4. Widen your audience
Not everybody uses computers to access information. Teens heavily rely on mobile devices to retrieve and share information. Elsewhere in the world, phones are used just as much for information as communication.
By publishing to mobile, you broaden the scope of your audience, providing your content the way they prefer to see it.
5. Add a new level of interactivity
From notifications to user generated content, you can provide your readers a new level of interactivity. You can use mobile as a way to inform and stay connected with your readers.
Mobile can be the bridge that connects all your communication channels together. The phone is the ubiquitous device that connects us to everything, that we don’t leave home without.
6. Give your content new context
Limited location-based services are here today and are increasing fast. Other location-based technologies like GPS, RFID, Bluetooth are converging with devices quickly. As a publisher this opens the door for providing a new context to content.
Today, traditional business can connect with potential customers when they are simply in the neighborhood. Tomorrow, imagine being able to “tag” content with locations? Providing users relevant and valuable information based on their location.
7. Have someplace for them to go
Mobile enables immediate thought to action, meaning when the reader sees, hears or even thinks about your product, there is an immediate action available to them.
But when they think of you, you need to have someplace for them to go. Creating and maintaining a mobile version of your site is becoming increasingly important. Google launched a feature on their mobile search site to search only mobile-friendly sites.
Will you be on that list when your potential customers search for you?
8. Interact with the real world
Today it is possible to link the real world and the digital world. There are several technologies available today using camera phones to capture and request information.
The reader takes a picture of what they are interested in and they can receive information, web links, digital business cards, even an application or a ringtone.
9. It’s easy
Publishing to the mobile web isn’t difficult, expensive or that time consuming, in fact it’s pretty easy. The mobile web uses similar standards as the regular web does. The learning curve is pretty minimal to get a simple mobile-friendly site up and running.
It only took a weekend to publish over 50 mobile versions of popular sites. With a little bit of thought and research, you can be publishing true mobile-friendly content by the end of the week.
10. Be a part of the future
Mobile is one of the greatest technological and cultural transformations in history. It has revolutionized communication as we know it, and will have equal impact on how and when we gather and send information.
In my mind it is a very logical extension of the Internet and just part of it’s evolution. Today we think of them as separate, but one day I think that will change.
Authors Note: This article was originally published on Mobile Design which is now part of Blue Flavor. Future mobile articles will be published in the mobile section of Blue Flavor’s blog
This article was written by Brian Fling. Brian and his wife Cyndi run Fling Media, a small studio based in the garage of their Seattle home. As well as providing web and mobile design services, they are currently endeavoring to create six products in one year. If you like what you’ve just read, try working with us. (Photo by Kris Krug)