Like I have said for the last 3+ years, mobile functionality’s future is in mobile web, not in native app installs.
HTML5 makes sense here of course. You still need to consider browser compatibility however, which too many people skip right over.
Give me a ring today and we can discuss how to make your next iPad/Iphone/Android project full interoperable over the widest array of devices and marketable to audiences both old and new.
Over the last 6 months, I have created a JanRain social login tool for two of my biggest clients, even extending the tool to the mobile version of Simple Foodie. The results were good, and I have been recommending it since to any client that has a registration requirement.
Over the last few weeks however, the question has expanded beyond the value of expediting registration and login, to the more direct value of having key social “hooks” on your website. The ‘like’ button is fine, the share buttons are great too, but in terms of seeking to make your site a trusted destination, having a social login anchor point is the best. People have a strong anchor in Facebook now. It’s use is no longer a phenomena, but standard practice. The novelty has worn off, and in its place there is a growing desire for its practicality in what I call its ‘anchor window’ value. An anchor window is a window or tab you keep open on your browser while others come and go. Facebook is tops here. So while your potential users are opening closing various windows as they research new companies to do business with, which ones are they going to remember and come back to? The ones most closely associated with their anchor window of course.
So even if you don’t have an integrated database or application centered website, wouldn’t it be valuable to lay your social ‘hooks’ into your site visitors? We can put JanRain right into your contact forms. To your customers, it is an easy way to send more contact info with less effort. For you, it opens the door for more detailed, in-depth interaction. For longevity, if we build the right tools in for future visits, it creates shortcuts for your clients to streamline repeat business with you.
Isn’t that what you want?
Bolstered by an article showing that 400 million smartphones will be shipped and active in 2011, the smart money is starting to drift in the right direction of building sites to succeed on the mobile web.
The rapidly increasing number of web-enabled smartphones makes them an attractive alternative to PCs. Consumers are proving to be more willing to forego upgrading their existing PCs in favor of upgrading to the new generation of mobile devices. Even with the new, lower-priced netbooks increasing in popularity, subsidized smartphones are often more economical, not to mention more portable and personal.
We have placed a strategic bet in this area ourselves, and plan to announce the launch of HomeSafari.us, a web based mobile real estate portal next month, right as the awareness of the mobile web starts to hit a flood of new verizon droid owners. Home Safari is a partnership of CGI with Realty Pro of Vancouver Washington.
Now, what does this mean to you? Or, as I like to say, “What does this spark in your imagination?” It should spark a sense of opportunity in having your website ready now. You can web enable your field personnel to report over the mobile web on task completion, GPS based location tracking, etc. You can have your customers ping you regarding their needs on a customized app WITHOUT having to build a native iPhone or Android app. You can be THE go to source for mobile video and information in your industry and market, and we can help you in both the production and marketing needed to establish your business in a leadership position here.
If your imagination is not sparked by this, then imagine the dread of ignoring yet another key market/technology trend. If you wait two years, your web presence will in the minority of sites that is not optimized for today’s smartphones. Smartphone users will have already passed you by and bookmarked your competitors. Google and other search engines will marginalize you for not keeping up in this area. Smartphones are indeed going to outsell PC’s in two years, and this is not a fad, it is a movement toward a more personal and portable online experience.
Contact us today about ways to prepare you for the future. Now is the time to have your site optimized for the new screen, and it does not have to be as expensive as you might think.