Hi all

coming back from the latest exhibitions on mobile and media, we can see some interesting trends emerge. First of all every business now has a clear commitment to launch a mobile website very soon. There is a strong increase of requests from mobile commerce and travel. So soon we all will be able to book our tickets for train and flights, rent cars and "go shopping" via the mobile phone on an optimized mobile website.

In Mobile Advertising the questions changes from "how and if I can make money" to "how do I find somebody who can make money with my traffic. The established web ad networks are still too slow in covering the needs of publishers in mobile advertising which is the big chance for Mobile Adnetworks such as Admob to win a bigger piece of the cake. Thats why Netbiscuits allows all its publishers to connect its sites to ad networks such as Admob to monetize fast.

The CTIA exhibition was smaller, but more focussed. Less startups where present, but the crowd of people was high quality and people know what they want: mobile websites. Biggest anoucement was the new product of Yahoo called OneConnect which is virtually a socially connected addressbook on your phone, which aggregrates data from different social networks such as Facebook to your contacts in your addressbook. Also "Open Platforms" was a big topic and people speculated of carriers will embrace open platforms such as Google Android.

The OMD in Germany develops to one of the leading shows in Europe on advertising, media and mobile. The showfloor was crowed by people accross Europe. So if you wanna meet people and vendors from the European industry, this is your must have show for next year.

Cheers BiscuitMonster

Hi all

we can all see traffic increase on the mobile web steadily and fast. TNS Infratest did research and found out that already 16% of all Germans surf the Mobile Web, which is a strong increase from 8% in 2007.

http://www.telespiegel.de/news/08/1209-mobiles-internet-unfrage.html

Biggest prohibitor of usage is still high data pricing, most Germans are still afraid to use mobile Websites, since access cost is too high. You can see many good examples which are battling this problem. Most famous example is BILD mobil of Axelspringer in Germany. The biggest German daily newspaper launched an MVNO product where you can surf the mobile website of BILD for free (wap.bild.de). That made them the highest traffic mobile website in Germany within 3 months and shows the direct correlation of access cost pricing and mobile usage!

Cheers BiscuitMonster

Last year everybody asked us how to make money with mobile websites. The simplest and easiest answer to that question is certainly mobile advertising, with text and banner ads still hugely dominant. Netbiscuits helps its publishers in this sector to easily connect to existing ad networks of Google, Admob, Buzzcity and many others.

But at the same time many of our publishers still have to solve the question how to drive traffic to their mobile sites.

The easiest way to do this for small to big size companies today is mobile search (SEM & SEO). According to m:metrics mobile search traffic has increased by 36% in Europe and 52% in the U.S. from 2007 to 2008. This shows that more and more people use a search engine to find content in the mobile web fast and efficient. Mobile network operator portals are gradually becoming less important.

Also a very successful way of generating traffic is to redirect your users from www.-domain to your mobile website. Netbiscuits metrics shows that 81% of mobile users of our publishers prefer to access a mobile optimized version of the website instead of accessing the PC-website. Still special domain names such as m., mobile, or .mobi are used by publishers, which have never proven to be adopted by users too well.

If you are a medium to large size business its important to realize that you need to properly promote your service. Many businesses make the error to believe that just giving access by providing a mobile site is enough. But if you want to become hugely successful you should consider a full 360 degree marketing & media mix including on pack promotion, real world connection to user, outdoor and print ads, TV ads, mobile crm, advertising, POS and brand building.

Cheers
Biscuitmonster

There is no doubt that mobile users everywhere are hitting their Internet buttons more frequently. The question is how to get the right content up on the Mobile Web in order to market to them effectively?

With the latest smart phones soon hitting the market – such as the iPhone and the Samsung Instinct – coupled with recent unlimited data plans, the Mobile Internet is seeing an exponential increase in use with no sight in slowing down in the near future. In fact, most recently Gartner predicted there would be more than two billion mobile Internet users by 2012.

The issue that arises is that the Internet, as we know it, has been optimized and created specifically for use on a PC.Mobile phones, regardless of the latest device screen size or technology, are innately different and need content tailored for them rather than PCs. 

So then, how do marketers go about developing for the mobile Web? Currently, companies seem to have two clear paths leading to mobile Web: mobile clients and mobile sites.The decision as to which is the best approach depends on what the company needs to accomplish and, most importantly, how big the audience is that they want to reach. Enter the battle of client applications vs. mobile websites!

The main advantages of client based mobile Web applications are that they provide very good possibilities for graphic design of user interfaces and keep content available even offline.Furthermore, they often show faster reaction times and are sometimes easier to link to other telephone functions such as directories, camera and etcetera.The main disadvantage of every client-based solution is that they initially need to be downloaded by the user and installed on the mobile – a practice that will need to be repeated for every new release.Many users are prevented from taking this step due to technical problems, security issues and a lack of clarity concerning costs involved.Furthermore clients are always dependent on the mobile phone operating system and must often undergo costly adjustments for each individual terminal.

Mobile sites, on the other hand, do not require any installation.They are immediately available over the browser and the sites’ content and software are continuously updated unobtrusively to the mobile user.Mobile sites also provide a greater scope of outreach than clients do, as nowadays practically all mobile phones have a browser. Adjusting mobile sites and rich media content to various mobile terminals can be made 100 percent automatic. This means a massive reduction in development and testing expenses. User interface design is also no longer an obstacle. Modern mobile phone browsers enable use of AJAX and Flash, thus creating a user experience similar to that of PC Web. If a company is looking for a larger audience reach with as little hassle as possible, the mobile site is the clear winner.

Mobile site creation however, is not without its flaws. And, since mobile users expect to have a similar Web experience on their phone as they would on their computer, developing these sites for the variety of phones that are in the market becomes a daunting task without the proper tools.

Cheers Biscuitmonster

Mobile browsing surged 89% in the past year, with mobile page views increasing by 127%, according to researcher Mmetrics. This is mainly influenced by better data plans and phones such as the iPhone. Currently the top sites in the US are:

Using eBay's special mobile site, people can monitor auctions and track bids. They can also place bids and browse for items on the go. The site also will send an alert when an auction is coming to a close or when a rival has just placed a higher bid. Related applications can even place a call to alert a user when an auction is about to end.

News Corp.'s MySpace has long been the most popular application on AT&T's network, and one of the top sites at nearly every other wireless service provider. Created with the mobile phone in mind, MySpace Mobile Web lets users receive alerts whenever someone sends them a MySpace message or comments on their profile. Users can also view friends' posts and pictures via cell phone.

While no rival tops Google in Web search from a computer, many analysts say Yahoo! is giving Google a run for its money when it comes to mobile search. Yahoo is striking deals with carriers around the world, including Rogers Wireless in Canada, to ensure its OneSearch ends up on as many phones as possible. OneSearch provides location-specific information, including weather and places to eat. Yahoo's Search Assist feature, introduced in March, automatically suggests words as a user types into a phone. In April, Yahoo also integrated voice search into its mobile offering.

Find out more at:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/05/0529_mobile_web/index_01.htm