Web-enabling the world of business

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.

I am usually just a safe little tad behind the bleeding edge of advocating new site tools to our clients, so I can make sure the tools works for their business goals instead of just being another shiny object to clutter up their site. Google Wave is different. I just watched the 1 hour 20 min video (so you don’t have to) and I can safely declare even before this is available for testing, that using it will give all our clients a solid leg up.

I am going to prioritize 30 minute strategic sessions with each of you, recommending we acclimate you to waving, twaving and embedding these tools into the apps we have created for you.

Call me!

Here is the 10 minute version…

Hello. This is a rough representation of what our iphone web app for SimpleFoodie looks like. I wish there were more established ways for iPhone apps to demo on the general web, but this method works great to demonstrate a mobile web app, provided you are not on IE.

If you are using Safari or Firefox to see this, all the rough functionality of the app should work just fine. Of course, you should just go to http://simplefoodie.com on your iphone or android phone to get it installed instantly and you will see it styled with the webkit extentions for CSS3. Take the quick tour of the app here and watch for more iPhone / android webkit safari apps for real estate and cellecast in the very near future.

If you are on MSIE, run away now, or if you are a fellow developer, give me some tips on how to make this work smoothly on all browsers, as one goal is to make future single apps we created that have iPhone usage at the core, also have most of their web functionality piped into blog posts like this. Any advice is appreciated.