Time To Get With The Mobile Program

Another sign that mobile is increasingly the way more people access the internet, bypassing traditional computers in their hunt for information, comes in a post on GigaOM highlighting the growth is usage of mobile devices notably the iPad and Android smartphones.

While GigaOM’s post quotes much detail from a report by US cloud networking provider Meraki about the findings, you have only to glance at these two charts from the post to see the dramatic state of a market clearly dominated by two platforms – iPad/ iPhone and Android.

As you can see, iPhone jumped from 25 percent to 32 percent from 2010 to 2011; iPad from zero to 4 percent; Android one percent to 11 percent. Nokia and Blackberry don’t even get a mention, and Windows is declining as is Mac OS X. And just look at the huge data consumption gap between users of iPads and other platforms.

Overall, the numbers might not seem that significant and they’re about usage patterns and trends in the US so there will be some variances in other markets. Yet it seems clear to me that we are seeing a visible and sustained shift in the ways in which people are interacting with content, etc, online, no matter where in the world you are.

And this comes just six months after reports citing IDC research saying that shipments of smartphones, tablets and other app-enabled mobile devices will overtake PC shipments in the next 18 months, an event that may signify the end of the PC-centric era. Which is a good moment to highlight the concluding comment in GigaOM’s post, one with which I strongly agree:

[...] It’s also another reminder that content owners and publishers should be preparing for more people using mobile devices to consume their content. Right now, many sites are still not optimized for mobile, which can be a lost monetization opportunity. Make no mistake; the world is turning mobile, and it’s happening right now. Better to get with the program than get left behind.

I use my mobile devices a lot when out, including accessing websites from searches, click-throughs from news items, etc. At a rough guess, I’d say that for every ten companies’ websites I visit from a mobile device, eight simply serve up the standard desktop website, not one that is optimized for mobile. That’s a miserable state of affairs.

Are you ready yet?

Originally published on NevilleHobson.com