Key mobile trends

I was asked at the Mobile Monday event at the Squace office in Stockholm yesterday what people read on this blog. Going through the statistics over the last year some conclusion may be drawn. If this says anything at all regarding general mobile trends could be debated. The top three posts discuss the importance of the mobile to developing countries, as a new marketing channel and as a way to distribute long-tail content. Reflecting key industry trends? Yes, I think they do.

Below the top 10 blog posts are ranked based on popularity:

The importance of the mobile phone to developing countries

Key considerations when choosing mobile marketing platform

The Reversed Long Tail – Key to the success of mobile Internet

The first ever true UMI is born!

Why companies should do mobile versions of their web sites

Will the business models of web 2.0 services work when expanded to the mobile?

Why search will not be as powerful when accessing Internet through the mobile

Cloud computing – a key enabler for mobile service development

Microsoft moves into the Universal Mobile Interface space launching OneApp

The operating system forest may turn into a jungle

Why search will not be as powerful when accessing Internet through the mobile

The new digital era has made the vast range of content available and just a few clicks away. This has resulted in that the end user has so much to chose from that it becomes hard to find what you really look for and that it’s very difficult for a publisher to become visible. This issue is addressed by search engines, such as Google, but as we all experience it is still a challenge to find what you look for and for those publishing it’s not really obvious why competing sites are ranked high by the search algorithms. There’s today a growing business in advising companies in how to optimise the sites to get a better score.

For many of us we start a session at the PC with search, and most of us use search every day and for sites that we visit regularly we don’t even save bookmarks as it is so easy to just type in a few search words or many times the URL directly. Many have predicted a similar behaviour on the mobile but this has not been the case and will most probably not be the case. The mobile is different; it is used in another context and has obvious limitations when it comes to screen size and keyboard.

When using the computer you usually click through for instance a news site from the start main page, then to for instance sports and from there to the specific results you’re interested in. Many take this path to what they are interested in even though they could have saved a bookmark for the specific pages of interest to gain direct access. On the mobile it is much more probable that you save bookmarks to the relevant information, as clicking through less relevant pages is painful.
The mobile is neither well suited to run an ordinary search as it is not easy to type in words and as the long lists of results are hard to digest and select from. In addition, the mobile is used in situations where you need specific information fast and you are not expected to have long sessions surfing around. There’s a need to get more or less direct access to the specific content of your choice based on your needs on the move. There will still be a need for search when using the mobile, but it will most probably be less important compared to other means to explore new content.

So now when companies eventually have learned about the importance of search engine optimisation etc. there is unfortunately some bad news, this will not be sufficient for gaining visibility and presence in the mobile. Should then those publishing on the web bother about this? They should, as been discussed in a previous contribution to this blog, all trends show that the mobile will become an increasingly important media over time. In addition, there are also extreme differences between developed and developing countries when it comes to the ratio between PC and mobile penetration. So how to combine the very personal need for specific individual “long tail” choice of information and that search is not the primary tool to explore new content?

Key to visibility in the mobile is to get a link on pages visited by the user. As the user can’t be expected to use search to a large extent, other means such as recommendations etc. will be used to find new links to save into the individual collection of bookmarks. The following ways to get new links can be expected to grow in importance:

• Recommendation of sites by trusted parties such as friends
• Links promoted on specific and trusted niche sites and portals
• Preinstalled links on new browsers/portals/UMIs
• Links down loaded directly from web pages used on the PC
• To some extent non intrusive opt-in high quality recommendations and sponsored links

Ads may also be important and can target quite well defined segments utilising the user profiling available by different mobile platforms. The number of ads will be limited due to the small mobile screen and as general surfing will be less frequent compared to the PC. The possibility to target specific segments and as the number of ads are limited, will make the advertising space quite valuable and expensive, but most probably a good investment when used correctly.

I recommend publishers the following to gain visibility in the mobile:

• Use existing digital channels to promote and download links to the mobile
• Don’t waste money on search engine optimisation etc. for mobile search
• If possible, be visible on link start packages when new browsers/portals/UMIs are downloaded
• Use advertising and sponsored link investments wisely and very well targeted
• Make it easy for the mobile users to share your links
• Incentivise users to share links and support viral distribution of your services
• Be directly visible in services, such as maps, travel information etc.
• Be visible on trusted niche sites/portals to reach the correct segment directly

On average a user can be expected to have about 20 bookmarks where maybe half are very personal (micro communities etc.) and all are saved to get direct fast access when on the move. The individual link collection thereby represents a significant value to the user, giving her direct access to really valuable content. And not to lose her own collection of bookmarks when changing phone or operator becomes very important. All these features are key strengths of the UMI concept. The significance of the link collection to the individual results in a collective quality control of all links saved. This will further strengthen the peer to peer exploration of new content but may also create a barrier for new content to find an initial audience.

The Reversed Long Tail – Key to the success of mobile Internet

Let’s give a though to what’s really valuable to you when it comes to content accessed trough your mobile phone. And your explicit and immediate needs in different every day situations.

Analysing what content people really value and want immediate access to, independently of were they are, can be divided into two main categories: broadcasted live streams such as sports, news etc. and on the other hand micro community or very personal stuff, such as your own contacts, photos, messages etc. Radio, television as well as to some extent the web, all with their merits and drawbacks, are utilised to broadcast content to a wide audience. Television is the dominating media for broadcasted live sports, while all three media are more equally important for the distribution of the latest or live news. The mobile can act as a complement for the distribution of both sports and news, but so far the additional value having access to these services through the mobile has been perceived as limited. For the majority the incentive has not been large enough to overcome the initial obstacles to get started and become a regular user of Internet services through the mobile phone.

What has shown to get people started to use Internet services through their mobile phone is rather the very personal need for unique information, information that is extremely valuable for the individual or a very small community and in a very specific situation when other media are not available. What type of information are we then talking about?
This is information such as: your own travel schedule; when and where your kids have their next football training; the phone number to your kids’ friends’ parents etc. Information needed when on the move and that facilitates a normal everyday life. These types of services are many but each one is used by quite few and they thereby belong to the Long Tail of mobile services, borrowing the term first introduction by Chris Anderson in 2004.

In a trial with a number of day care centres in Stockholm, done in cooperation between Squace, SICS ,Vinnova, the possibility to get schedules, contact information etc. has been very well received by the parents and resulted in that many now use the mobile Internet for the first time and regularly. The same effect has been seen as a result of mobile extensions of web sites for kids’ sport teams, school sites, local communities etc. The value of the content to the individual is not a function how many that value that specific piece of content but rather how unique and difficult the content is to substitute and access. The entry point to the mobile Internet services thereby seems to be the end of the long tail and not as was seen in the early days of the web where we started with the most popular services and then found niche content. It’s now time to turn the picture around; the success of the mobile Internet comes from starting with small services. This phenomenon is called the Reversed Long Tail. The users will gradually explore more services and probably the usage pattern will eventually be similar to the PC.

To improve the value of mobile access to the Internet, and to get people starting to use the services, niche content thereby has to be available. And as we all are interested and value different things in life the whole Internet and the long tail of content thereby needs to be accessible and in a user friendly way. Key to this development is that all micro communities and sites with a very limited number of users can distribute their content to the mobile in a very convenient and cost efficient way without bothering about all the messy technical complexity that we unfortunately presently have. They also need to rely on technologies that can deliver the content independently of what device the user has. The best example of a UMI that presently deliver this is Squace, that now also are just about to release their new version of the UMI Squace service.