Operator portals were doomed to disappear when the walled gardens opened up about two years ago, but after the rise of the smartphone and introduction of unlimited data packages they are doing better than ever. Still, most of the mobile internet use takes place within the borders of these portals. The predicted growth of off portal inventory goes much slower than predicted.
Smart mobile start-ups
However, it must be noted that a couple of smart mobile startups did a great job filling up this new space. Mobile-only communities like Itsmy.com, myGamma, and Flirtomatic are growing rapidly these days. Their big advantage is the painful absence of the bigger brands on mobile Internet, which results in most of the off portal advertising budget ending up in their pockets.
No mobile versions
On the other hand, this is exactly what’s withholding mobile media buyers to spend more budget off portal. Most established websites do simply not offer a mobile version of their successful online product. This is why media buyers who represent big consumer brands don’t want to spend budget off portal. Brands attract brands. Simple as that.
Be ahead of the pack
So why are these online brands still not available on the mobile Internet? I guess they’re simply waiting when the time is right, but they should be ahead of the pack because they are the main drivers behind the availability of premium off portal inventory. Their motivation might be that it’s still hard to drive traffic to a mobile site. While using their phone, people are often too lazy to enter a URL.
So all the traffic derives from really motivated people that are dedicated to find a certain mobile site and Google Mobile (which seldom directs you to a mobile site). Well, what about directing people to your mobile site from your online site? Offering an on-the-go version of your brand? Enhancing your site with an extra service because you like your users so much and want to offer them your content whenever they want to?
Best place to start? What about right here? That picture is how our mobile presence looks like at the moment, as the brand new mobile editor this is definitely the first challenge ahead of me. We’re going mobile! Keep you posted.
Dutchman Peter Evers works as Business Development Manager at yoMedia, where he is responsible for conceptualizing mobile applications and sales. He writes about his view on the latest developments in mobile technology and mobile marketing.
The Next Web looks fine on the iPhone… :p
But yeah, you’re right, let’s find a mobile developer!
Tell me one thing that doesn’t look good on the iPhone? :p
Still, on the iPhone it takes ages as well. It’s not only about the looks, but also about the time it takes to load all the data. That speed is up to the network, your type of phone won’t help you there.
My n82 broke down 2 weeks ago and i’ve been using an old Nokia ever since. I only miss the internal GPS and some applications that utilize it’s data. The rest i can live without i guess.
This leads me to think that surfing on the mobile web is just 1 component of using mobile networking tech. And knowing that, creating great user experiences will ask more from a brand than just getting on the mobile web.
The medium is the message. Yet we have still to unfold all the charactaristics of this medium. At the same time it’s developing faster than any other type. Let development stabilize and then brands will jump on the bandwagon, i think.
Just my 2 cents.
Sure, mobile can be so much more than just a gateway to the internet. If you can tie in sms, mms, gps and of course the ultimate killer app: calls, than the mobile medium can expand to be a great media channel on it’s own. But who has to get the budget into mobile advertising? Media buyers! Do they understand the medium? No! Mobile is perfect to engage with people, so maybe we should move to a CPE (Cost per Engagement) model. But media buyers think in CPM, maybe CPC, but they’d never go for an accounting model that’s different from these ones. So they should get familiar with this new models first. You should know how media buyers think, you’ve been one yourself! ;)
In my days as a buyer I was on the pioneering team that was working on a CPL basis on some accounts. ;) Leads or engagements could be, I have to agree, mobile’s most valuable accounting model.
I reckon you probably know this already…and if not we’ll be at Blog08 next week so i can really drill it home, but if you’re looking at going mobile then worth checking out our http://www.mippin.com/mobilizer solution too! It’s the quick and easy solution to mobilizing blogs, among other things, and will publish your mobilized site to a large community of existing mobile content consumers at http://mippin.com (via a mobile browser). We do a really good iphone version too!!
Thanks Justin. I have indeed heard of you. I’ll definitely look into your mobilizer tool. And if I experience any issues I’ll talk to you at Blog08 next week ;)
Update: Alexandre Mars, CEO of mobile media agency Phonevalley and Head of Mobile at Publicis has the same point of view: http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=2901
[...] How online brands stay away from mobile and give operators even more power [...]