Return on Intention

I used to have a windows mobile phone. I was on Tmobile, and that was the most powerful phone at the time. Then the iPhone came along and I decided I had to have it (its no secret that I’m an apple fan ). As soon as my contract was up with Tmobile I immediately bought an iPhone. Boy am I much happier. There are some really cool features, but the by far the most important one is the fact that it browses the real internet and looks good while doing it. Many phones in mobile-internet-past browsed a different version of the web then you would see from your desktop computer. This version of the web  was much more restrictive and less useful, but now with the iPhone that web is gone.

On my old windows mobile phone I could browse the real web, but it couldn’t handle the display of it very well, making most of the web pages useless and unusable. I have been able to browse the web from my phone for about 3 years now, but it wasn’t until now that it has become usable, and that makes me use it even more. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so, there are now more iPhones in use than Windows Mobile phones.

The iPhone isn’t the only phone that browses the real web, most new smart phones are doing the same. This has some pretty big implications for the web, but it also has a really big one for brands. The web has just gotten more important because people can go see a website about a company they are considering doing business with from their phone right before a purchase. There are a few minor points related to this, like make sure that your website looks better than your competitors, and your website should still be usable on a small screen, but as the apps available on the iPhone remind us, the real point is to make sure your website is worth going to. Make sure it does something. There needs to be a reason for people to go to your website, and reading corporate speak isn’t a good reason.

So many businesses don’t even have a good digital strategy much less a good mobile one. With these new versions of smart phones and other mobile devices that can browse the web (ebook readers, ipods … cars) the webs importance will only grow greater. Give coupons, special content, up to the minute news or an experience that is worth the effort, and make sure it looks good on a small screen.

NOTE: As I was finishing this post, I had to go look for the ReadWriteWeb post I read yesterday to make the above car link point to the right place. As I was going through my Google Reader account to find the post, I ran across a post from Mitch Joel entitled What A Website Will Be… And Never Be that talks about the mobile web. It’s definitely worth the read.

Tags: iphone, mobile web, smart phone

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Doin' it right, The Wild Wild Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.