Don't buck the smartphone trend

I wanted to discuss some of the latest trends in web development.  In reality, I want to recap what Mary Meeks said during her annual Internet trends address with my readers.  Mary has been at this for a while and is considered the source for internet metrics. What she illustrates is what I have been saying for some time.  If you ignore the mobile web, you are taking a massive risk with your business.

If you want to see the report, you can view all slides here.  Here is my take from the discussion.  First, the total amount of time we spend on the internet is 22% of our media viewing time.  Additionally, we spend 12% of our free time on the mobile web.   This means we spend roughly a third of our free time on the internet via a browser or the mobile web.  This market share is growing and has the potential for 20 Billion dollars in advertising revenue.  That is only on slide five.

The next major slide is number 32, which shows that current internet traffic is on mobile devices, about 15% of all web requests.  That number is expected to double to 30% by 2014.  This means that a third of your corporate web traffic in the next year is going to reach your website via a mobile device.  If your website cannot adapt to this new form of traffic, it is like turning away a third of your customers.  As a small or medium-sized business, do you really want to turn away a third of your customers?

The final trend you need to be aware of is that the adoption of smartphones continues to grow at a scary pace.  The percentage of smart phones currently in circulation represents about 58% of the total market for cellular phones.  The growth of smartphone adoption is also fairly significant at 28%.  So, smartphones already eclipse ordinary cellular phones, and the adoption rate remains high. This means that as a business you are going to have to adjust to more consumers learning about your business via a mobile device.

Already, we are seeing this internet usage cause some problems in the business world.  Zynga, the online game company, is going through a second round of layoffs, cutting 18% of its staff.  The reason why is that they are not growing quickly enough in their mobile gaming offerings while traffic for their on-line games is decreasing.  Salon magazine noted that companies like Viggle are attempting to capture the second screen phenomenon where people surf the net and watch television at the same time.  Why is there a company like Viggle?  I claim that it is because of the rise of mobile computing.

So, as a small and medium-sized business, you have two choices: you can ignore these trends and hope for the best, or attempt to modify your web presence to take advantage of these trends.  At E₃ Systems, we did a major site revision to account for these trends.  We can help you do the same.  Contact us today , and we will show you how.

The web is never a static thing and this year’s state of the web speech shows some pretty serious trends.  To ignore them is to put your business at risk, and you wouldn't want to do that, would you?

Until next time.