Currently, iPhones account for 58% of mobile internet usage, and 17% come from iPads. . Furthermore, over 74% of the world population own mobile devices, which calculates to over 5 billion people worldwide!  Google also estimates that they have seen a 500% growth in mobile search from 2008 to 2010.

The statistics are borderline unbelievable, actually, but a great reminder as to why it is so important to make websites mobile friendly.  Operative word to this is, of course: Optimisation.

Optimisating mobile sites would include the following:

1. Content: Keep in mind that your computer has a bigger screen than a mobile; put only the necessary information on your mobile site.
2. Design: Try to avoid large images on your mobile site. Too many images can influence the amount of traffic to your website. The reason for this is large images takes longer to download on a mobile device and this can lead to a click away from your website.
3. Navigation: Put bigger buttons on your mobile website. Today, most of the smartphones are touch screens and bigger buttons makes it easier for a user to click on it and this will also make the navigation much easier.
4. Bigger: As discussed earlier, the screen of a mobile is smaller than a laptop screen, make your content, text, images bigger and put important links in big buttons.

After you have optimized your mobile website, make sure you test to see what the site will look like on all kinds of devices (Android, Iphone, Blackberry, Windows Device and an iPad) before you go live.

2011

One of the most exciting launches in 2011 was the launch of the iPhone 4S, officially launched in South Africa December 16th 2011. The new member of the iPhone family has a dual core processor, improved camera (8 megapixels) and improved video capturing capabilities. With this Apple set a new standard for the development of Super Phones.

After months of speculation Google launched their new attempt at Social Media. Google Plus (Google+) was launched in mid 2011. The platform seems to be a combination of features from existing social media platforms and is visually very plain and simple to understand. It remains to be seen if Google+ will play a big role in Social Media or will it come to an end like its predecessor Google Wave.

YouTube got a little renovation. In 2011 YouTube improved the user experience of their website. They changed the layout to make navigation and finding channels easier and also made it visually more appealing.
Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5B, a dedicated Android partner, which will enable Google to supercharge the android ecosystem.

2012

Mobile! I think a lot of tech companies will be focusing on building better and more functional mobile applications as the market for smart and super phones is exploding. Mobile penetration in Africa especially is higher than some European countries. I think we’ll see a lot of innovation in the mobile application sector especially in terms of location based services, social networking, mobile commerce and mobile banking. I think we’ll also see advances when it comes to mobile hardware especially battery life.

Social media should have a large impact on search engines delivering more personalized search results than ever before. I also think Google and other large search engines will take social media more in account when it comes to delivering organic search results using user generated information to establish whether a website is a good resource or not. See Marcel’s article: The Impact of Personalized Search on SEO

Android will probably increase their market share in mobile device operating systems with the purchase of Motorola Mobility.

Whatever is in store for us for the year 2012 – it will be an exciting year for technology. I am sure we’ll see great innovation in technology in general and especially in mobile devices.

After the 700MB+ download and some backup and restore issues, I got it installed, luckily with no loss of data, and I was good to go. I started playing around immediately to see what is new and how it will affect and improve my use of the phone.

Apple added over 200 new features in the IOS 5 and I will go over the major, more obvious ones as well as a couple of other features that I thought were pretty cool.

Notification System

The new IOS has a notification system that makes things easier to access than ever before. By just swiping your finger from the top down you will access this menu. It shows the weather, upcoming calendar events and any other apps that have unread notifications. The new notification also only shows a small alert while you are busy working on another application, so it is not as distracting as in the past. You can also open notifications from the lock screen by swiping your finger across it the same way you unlock your phone.

Newsstand

The Newsstand application automatically updates your subscriptions to newspapers and magazines. The newspaper store is also integrated into newsstand so it is easy to get access to subscriptions.

Reminders

You now have a built in reminders app that allows you to create reminders as well as lists of reminders. You can also set reminders to go off when arriving or leaving a certain location.

Twitter

Twitter is now integrated with a lot of Twitter enabled apps on the iPhone. With this, you can open up the ‘More options’ menu in the gallery, and tweet straight from there. The same applies when you are browsing the web and want to share something immediately.

Safari Reader

The Safari reader functionality lets you save a website article to read later in the ibooks format that allows for easy reading. You can also change the font sizes in the reader.

Camera

You can now double tap your Home button to get into the camera application and then take pictures by pressing the up volume button. You can also select to view a grid in your camera and swipe to view your album instead of pressing the preview button.

iMessage

iMessage allows you to communicate between IOS 5 users. It automatically picks up if you have IOS 5 and use iMessage and is integrated with your normal messages app.

Wi-fi Sync

With iOS 5 your device can now automatically sync when it is connected to wi-fi and plugged in to power. You can carry on working while it is syncing in the background.

iCloud

iCloud stores your music, documents, photos, calendar and more. It can then wirelessly push that to all your other devices.
These are some of the more known changes. The next couple of features are ones that were not shown in Apple’s intro videos of the IOS 5.

Dictionary

IOS 5 defines any word that you type in any application after you have selected it and tapped on it.

Usage

You can now see usage per application under the general settings menu. In the past you were not always sure how much space an app is taking up, but now you don’t have a problem with that anymore.

Custom vibrations

There are a few new options under the accessibility options menu in settings. One of these features is Custom vibrations. There are a couple pre programmed ones but you can also create your own ones under the contacts section of the OS. You can then give each of the contacts that you want their own unique vibration, so by the way the phone is vibrating you will be able to know who it is.

LED flash alerts

You can also enable LED flash alerts that will activate the LED whenever an alert goes off.
Triple-click home touch
The triple-click home can be assigned a couple of functions such as activating the Voiceover, white on black, zoom or assistive touch.

Emoji

Emoji is now a keyboard you can add, it is built in and you don’t need to install the app anymore.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts allow you to predefine any phrase that you often use and give it a shorter abbreviation. For example for “on my way” you only have to type “omw” then it will suggest the whole phrase to you. This can be found in the Keyboard menu.

Weather

The weather feature gives you hourly updates if you click on the current day.
I am thoroughly enjoying this new Operating System – and have especially enjoyed playing with it to get to know all the features. I think it’s well worth continuously learning more.

Arriving there I immediately felt that the event had grown since its premiere event hosted the year before and the venue (Turbine Hall) was an excellent choice for hosting an event such as this.

I attended day 2, a day for the geeks (software developers) on the 4th. It started off with Nelson Mattos giving a keynote presentation themed around key opportunities and challenges in South Africa, Google’s mission to South Africa and Umbono.

Some of the key opportunities and challenges he mentioned was that South Africa is among the most prosperous countries in Africa (with a GDP of over $500bn) and has an impressive mobile penetration rate. Unique challenges we face are: still very expensive internet access (with infrastructure still very poor), lack of quality content, low penetration of businesses online and very limited general awareness of the internet in some of the regions.

Google’s mission in South Africa is to continue serving advertisers, businesses and general internet users. They also want to get others online by enabling an accessible, relevant and sustainable internet ecosystem.

Google strengthens South Africa’s start-up ecosystem with Umbono. A six month incubation project to help technology entrepreneurs in South Africa get their products off the ground – basically to jump start their ideas.

The Umbono project includes the following (if selected):

• $25 to $50k in funding
• Angel investors and networks
• Google mentorship
• Space and internet
• Visibility

You can learn more about the Umbono project by visiting the website.

Google on Mobile…

In the last couple of years there has been a lot of focus on mobile technology worldwide, and especially in Africa where the cost of other technologies is far higher than that of mobile devices. Entry level phones account for 40% of all mobile devices in Africa, however, drastically limiting mobile development because of the levels of content (and limitations of content) it can serve.

Bruno Albuquerque had an interesting presentation on mobile development and gives the following reasons for developing for mobile going forward:

• Fast growing market worldwide
• Different ways of monetizing
• Location-based targeting
• Low cost – high volumes
• 52 million activated SIM Cards in South Africa
• 14 million mobile internet users in South Africa
• 6.5 million smartphone users in South Africa (Nokia, Blackberry)

Market segments:

• Mobile web (browser based)
• Native applications (Specific for each device/OS)

Other categories touched on at the conference were Android development, Google Web kit, Web performance, Google+ (G+) and a couple of API’s, e.g. the YouTube API.

The conference was great! I can’t wait for G South Africa 3.0 which will probably be back in Cape Town next year!

Yes it is extremely important to make sure the pages visitors land on when finding your website through one of your marketing campaigns is tailored to the audience and platforms. This could mean the difference between a successful marketing campaign and an unsuccessful one.

I’m going to look at specifically mobile traffic today. Now it comes without saying that you need to create a mobile version for your users who visit you on their mobile devices. This is because of the broad diversity of mobile platforms. There are hundreds if not thousands of variations of platforms being used in the mobile space. This means that you will need to make sure that your site works and is user-friendly on most of these platforms. Below are a few variations of the same site on different mobile platform.

A week ago some friends and I were talking about today’s technology and what we would have done if we were still living in the 1900’s. How did our parents manage without mobile phones? How did they know where their kids were, how did they manage to contact anyone during an emergency, just think of all the frustration they must have experienced by the lack of technology.  Now if you think back a little bit further, do you remember the old landline phone connected to the wall?  Yes that phone on the brown antique table with the Yellow Pages right next to it.  The old landline telephone was not very flexible in terms of providing privacy, for example when speaking to your boyfriend or girlfriend you would wish you could take the phone into your room. Sometimes you wished you could see the person you were speaking to.

Thanks to the technology of today we don’t have to struggle as people did in the 1900’s.  The mobile phone almost replaces the landline and most of you started to make use of Skype.

In today’s article I’m going to discuss the mobile phone and the usage of Skype with you.

As said earlier, the mobile phone has almost replaced the landline phone. Well, we all have a mobile phone.  There are some advantages and disadvantages of having a mobile phone.

Advantages:

• You can carry a mobile phone with you so you don’t miss important calls
• If you are lost, you can call for directions.
• If you are in an accident, you can call the police or ambulance – and if the phone has a camera, you can take pictures of the accident.
• You can use a mobile phone to call your customers or boss if you are running late to a meeting.
• You can surf Internet & Connect with the whole world by Mobile.
• You can chat & video conference.
• Keep in touch with friends and family
• Good for emergencies

Disadvantages:

• Mobile phones can be expensive
• They can cause damage to your ears
• Sometimes the reception is poor in some areas, limiting your connectivity (you can’t talk underground or on planes).
• People use the phone while they are driving, and this can cause accidents.
• They can limit your face to face time with friends and family
• They can get you in trouble at school

Okay, let’s t take it a step further.  You have a mobile phone but you live abroad and you struggle to keep in touch with your loved ones.  Let’s see how Skype can help you communicate with your loved ones.

According to Wikipedia Skype is a proprietary software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system.

The innovative and high-speed technology is quickly replacing cumbersome methods of communication. Skype is a method of online communication that allows users to speak and type as well as see one another.

You can use Skype from any phone; it doesn’t have to be from your computer.  All calls and video calls are free and with video calling you can talk to your loved ones face to face without traveling.

With Skype you can see if your loved ones are online or in a business the staff can see who is online anytime of the day – they can chat to each other, transfer very large files, start group conversations and set up conference calls.

Skype is very user-friendly, has no hassles and is easy to install. And the best of all, you don’t have to be a computer geek to set the program.  You can call somebody via Internet whether he or she is just a doorstep away or oceans apart, and this can be done either on mobile phones or on your computer.

Calls are free from Skype to Skype and while there is a fee charged to make calls from Skype to a phone, it is still relatively cheaper than a phone to phone call. You can also make video calls. This tool is ideal if people cannot make it to an event like a business meeting or job interview. Skype can also easily transfer files quickly from one person’s account to another’s computer.

The art of information and communication technology is set amid constant change, and its advances capture people’s interest as the tools of carrying messages evolve over time. The brilliant innovation of Skype has made communicating easier and has broken down a number of barriers such as distance, time, and money.

Well I think if it wasn’t for Alexander Graham Bell back in the 1870’2 who discovered the phone we would not be able to experience the technology as it is today.

People are on the move, using their handsets to quickly retrieve information where ever they are. They should be able to access your business’ information such as products/services as well.

Just like in normal website development, mobile websites also have standards which are endorsed by the W3C.

In developing a mobile website, the number one factor you should keep in mind is size. When connecting to the internet via a phone connection speeds are normally slow with technologies such as GPRS. Large mobile sites will load frustratingly slow and might result in a high bounce rate.

Developing a mobile website can be done in either CHTML (Compact HTML) or XHTML – MP(Extensible Hypertext Markup Language Mobile Profile).

CHTML is a pared down version of normal HTML and does not support all elements found In HTML. For instance one cannot use a JPEG image when constructing a mobile webpage with CHTML and is defined that all/most operations can be done with four buttons.

Some of the features excluded from CHTML are:

• Background image
• Image map
• Stylesheets
• Multiple fonts and styles
• Tables

XHTML is defined by the Open Mobile Alliance and is derived from XHTML 1.0 Basic and since XHTML-MP (XHTML Mobile Profile) 1.2 the following modules are supported

• Texts
• Hypertext
• List
• Forms
• Basic Tables
• Images
• Objects
• Meta information
• Scripting
• Style Sheet
• Style Attribute
• Link

In developing a mobile website, keep in mind size, colours and functionality. Quick access to important parts of your website is vital

Also remember, that not all phones support Javascript so when developing mobile websites you should not use Javascript to render important information.

Keep your mobile website as simple as possible, if you keep it simple it is more likely to work on most mobile browsers.

Happy Programming

There are a couple of ways how marketers can reach customers by using mobile devices, SMS and MMS is the simplest examples of this. An SMS will only allow for text advertising, where as a MMS will be able to use video, images and sound. The nice thing about a smartphone is you can install applications, why not use these applications as an advertising medium?

One way is by using in-game mobile marketing, where you deliver promotional messages within a mobile game. Certain brands also sponsor complete games to encourage interactivity with them. These types of games or applications should be easy to use. If the learning curve is to big it might not be as effective as a form of marketing.

Another application used for marketing is MXit. MXit is a free instant messaging application developed in South Africa and can run on most phones that have access to the internet and you can also run it from a pc.

MXit has a user database of over 18 million, at times the amount of messages that pass through it is enormous, reaching  35 000 messages per second in peak times. A lot of companies make use of MXit as a marketing tool. Each time MXit starts up it shows a splash screen for a couple of seconds, companies place their advertising on this splash screen. MXit receives about 20 million user logons per day, allowing advertisers to receive considerable exposure for their ads.

There are more people using mobile phones to access the internet than those accessing the internet via their computer. I want to encourage you to start looking at ways to advertise on mobile devices as part of your overall marketing strategy.

So why aren’t we seeing big returns in the mobile space yet? Well my opinion is that it’s because we as organisations haven’t been offering mobile users the right tools to make mobile big yet. If you look at the development of the Internet you would notice that in the early stages it was pretty useless. Since those days, tools have developed that allows us to harness the power of the Internet to such an extend that most of us won’t be able to survive without it anymore.

Mobile computing is still in the early stages and because we haven’t grown a culture of using our mobile devices to interact with organisations, other than by calling them, things like buying groceries is still only used by a small market. However in 5 years time this could be totally different.

World Wide Worx recently did a study on Internet users in South Africa and found that the average user needs to have 5 years exposure to the Internet before they would buy something online. This stands to reason that users need to get use to doing things before they will make use of its full power. Mobile could very well be in the same position in the sense that within 5 years time it will replace your computer to do your grocery shopping.

Things like the iPad, Apple Inc. has made tablet computing very mobile. This could be the way people read their newspaper in the future. I for one already read my daily newspaper on my iPhone.

Whichever way you look at it mobile computing is definitely here to stay and will be advancing tremendously in the future. It’s your job to make sure your company stays ahead so users can get accustomed to interacting with your company using this platform.

So start investing in this now. Taking simple steps such as rerouting visitors to your site, which are using mobile devices, to a mobile friendly version. This could show your clients that you are ready to interact with them using this platform.

This is why we decide to dedicate this week to mobile computing. We will be posting blog entries to help you develop your mobile strategy. So please check back this week to see what we have in store for you.