Why the Mobile Internet is a Game-changer for Businesses

By Rajesh Reddy, CEO, July Systems

LOS ANGELES, CA March 17, 2011 –

Global mobile traffic is projected to grow at an astonishing 26X over the next five year.

As smartphone adoption increases exponentially, mobile usage is experiencing rapid growth, especially the use of the mobile Web and applications.

Everything mobile—including the adoption rates of smartphones, apps and mobile advertising—is growing much faster than the desktop Internet ever has.

Consumers are spending less and less time with traditional mediums ranging from TV, desktop computers and music players to newspapers and magazines. In contrast, they are spending increasing amounts of time on their mobile devices. In fact, most people are within an arm’s length of their mobile phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

People are using the mobile Web and applications to interact with friends and family through social media, as well as access, explore, buy and consume everything from content and services to information, entertainment and utilities—from anywhere at any time.

This shift in consumer behavior is causing the disruption of many traditional business models. Companies of all kinds must adjust to the new media landscape or risk getting left behind by competitors.

Businesses can use the various channels within the mobile medium to provide their consumers a personalized, real-time, interactive, context-sensitive service globally. To do this right, they must take into consideration mobile’s impact on the real-world behavior of the consumer, not just desktop behavior like browsing the PC Web.

In a world increasingly dominated by mobile devices, location and relevancy matter—context matters.

Businesses should aim to take advantage of the unique characteristics and benefits that mobile can provide them. They can use it to drive users to the point-of-sale, to remind them to take a pill and to deploy a time-sensitive offer that may only last an hour or two.

Mobile advertising and messaging are most effective when taking into account each consumer’s context through targeting location, time of the day and past behavior. Marketers should aim for personalization, relevance and enabling instant gratification.

Fifty percent of respondents to a survey by Chetan Sharma Consulting predicted that brand spend on mobile advertising would increase at least 200 percent from 2010 to 2011. http://www.chetansharma.com/MobilePredictions2011.htm

Challenges in Mobile

While the potential that mobile offers is immense, some challenges persist.

The mobile Web should not be thought of as a miniature version of the PC Internet, just a desktop Web site altered to fit a smaller mobile screen. It is about leveraging the fundamentally unique capabilities of the medium to create a game-changing new consumer interaction and monetization model for your business.

Mobile is a consumer device—not a computing device like the PC. Hence the consumer experience determines if a consumer will use your product or service—irrespective how big a brand is. It has to be fun to use, reward-driven and task-oriented, and it must appeal to consumers’ short attention spans.

The difference between a good and a bad experience is the difference between success and failure.
The mobile Internet is not restricted to just various types of smartphones. The new range of non-PC devices now include all kinds of connected devices, from ebook readers and tablets to connected TVs and vehicles, with new form factors and usage paradigms emerging every quarter.

Each of these devices targets a specific consumer need and a particular usage behavior. Hence the services delivered over them have to be tailored for that usage behavior. Many of our customers who have tried building their own mobile application or mobile web solution are now realizing that to deliver a rich experience across a multitude of mobile devices cost effectively, you need a robust mobile platform solution. The platform needs to be –

• Flexible in its architecture to allow for rapid deployment of mobile services across devices
• Rich in its functionality to allow building personalized, interactive mobile experiences
• Scalable
• Dynamic in its ability to continually innovate and keep abreast of the changes in the mobile ecosystem
• Cost effective for running continuous or bursty mobile services

Are you using a cross platform mobile solution for harnessing the power of the Mobile Internet?  How are you engaging with your consumers on mobile today?