Forrester's vice president and principal analyst Julie Ask just published a report on “How to Build a Mobile Web Site" and identified 5 ways of appraching the task. Here are some excerpts from an article by Mobile Marketer and the link to the related page on Forrester's website.
According to the report, daily mobile Internet usage among United States adult mobile phone users grew from 7 percent at the end of 2008 to 10 percent in mid-2009 and to 15 percent in mid-2010.“The browser-based mobile Web experience is more important than ever, with dramatic growth in the usage of the mobile Internet — especially from smartphones — in the past 24 months,” said Julie Ask in the report. “In 2009, consumer brands built iPhone applications: they are now asking what’s next. “The answer for many is to improve the quality of their mobile Web site,” she said.
According to the Forrester report, brands that are looking to build a mobile Web site have five types of services available to them:
- Fully managed services: This is basically outsourcing mobile Web development, hosting and maintenance. Taking advantage of our leading mobile publishing technology Netbiscuits implements managed services for many mayor brands.
- Licensed technology platforms – or mobile enablement services – involves licensing a technology platform for device detection, content hosting and optimization. Providing the world's best mobile developement and publishing platform is Netbiscuits' core business. In fact, many brands aim for a smooth transition from managed services to in-house production based on our powerful technology.
- Existing solutions providers, such as ecommerce platforms, are another option for brands. Think of eBay as an example. Their mobile Web solutions are based on Netbiscuits technology which thereby enables also eBay sellers for the mobile channel.
- Agencies are great for end-to-end mobile Web site development. They work on the creation, design, development and maintenance of a site. Again, Netbiscuits is in the game as many agencies mentioned in Forrester's report already create mobile solutions based on Netbiscuits.
- In-house builds can use all or just some of the approaches listed in the report. The company builds its own site in this case.
The choice is based mostly on budgets and the type of experience they are looking to deliver. Here are the Pro's and Con's for each approach as Forrester sees them. Let me see if I find the time to discuss them in a later post.
