The iPhone is getting more and more popular around the world, and soon we will see mobile phones implementing Googles mobile platform Android. For years we have been waiting for the mobile revolution on the web, but the revolution has been more like a breeze with 3G-enabled services for small screens and the Blackberry-concept. In order to make the revolution speed up we need molotov-cocktails such as usable services, standardized platforms, large user base and a change in behaviour. With iPhone and Android, this is what is about to happen.
In this article we have choose to focus on four areas of the web that will change when the mobile revolution starts.
Technical
Anyone who has ever built or run a web serving platform, knows that multiple platforms are a bad thing and adds to complexity and maintenance time and money. In order to serve both traditional web and web for iPhone and Android, changes to the platform will be necessary (Of course, there are always someone who “took aim” for this in their platform when building it). The biggest changes we will se is an even stricter separation of the presentation layer from the business layer. In order to make a platform able to serve x number of types of devices, we need to make sure that nothing in the business layer makes any assumption on what type of presentation device it will be serving the generated content. The presentation layer must be able to choose the correct presentation resources and device-specific services such as payment methods, social bookmarking tools etc.
Usability
When moving services to a mobile platform, focus tends to move to ease of use and effective use of the service, trying to maximize the usability of the service. It is not as convinient to type on a mobile phone as it is on a keyboard, even if iPhone has wonderful mechanisms for scrolling, zooming and changing viewport orientation, it is still far more difficult to navigate the web via an iPhone then it is with a fully featured web browser on your desktop OS. In order to minimize the effects of these short comings, focus on easier and more focused services will be the case. This will of course effect the services we use daily on the desktop web as well, why should I stick with a semi-usable product on the web, when I know the service provider can do better.
Advertising
There are two things with mobility and platforms such as iPhone and Android that will revolutionize the advertising possibilities on the web.
The first and most obvious is of course mobility itself. With positioning it will be easy to target your advertising on the mobile web geographically making conversions more likely and advertising space bigger. Of course geographical targeting is available today as well, but not to the level of detail possible with mobiles using GPS. I believe this will help to increase advertisers and publishers revenue from ads greatly if implemented correctly.
The second possibility opening up is ease of payment. Often when a transaction take place on the traditional web, credit cards or solutions such as paypal are used, adding to the complexity of making a buy, sometimes even customers bounce due to the fact that they feel it is to much hassle to grab the VISA-card or finding the password for your online bank solution. With platforms such as iPhone and Android implementing transparent payment solutions will make conversion rates pop due to the fact it will be easier for the user to actually make a buy, the integration of the purse into the platform makes a buy more like an ordinary buy in a store. On top of platform solutions for payment, mobile phone operators may implement solutions where they charge the user on the next bill. This is a win-win situation for the operators and the users, operators can start charge percentage on credits not payed within 30 days, and the users get a free payment option, as long as they pay within 30 days. I believe this is where mobile web will revolutionize the web the most.
User Expectations
As soon as the iPhone and Android-enabled web services have grown in numbers, user base and revenue people using these services will start to expect all good services they learnt to like on the desktop web will be available and mobile enhanced. This change in expectations will effect market shares in the long run, as the web services able to adapt and serve mobile services as well as the old plain web services will get more users and bigger revenue.
Conclusion
iPhone and Android will change the way we build, use and monetize web based services. The mobile revolution has just begun, and it is important for companies acting on competitive markets online to implement solutions for their customers, because they will start to expect that mobile services are a natural complement to their traditional web service. These days are interesting times.
