Mobilizing the mobile Web

Suzanne Choney • E-mail

Flipping around the 9,000 channels we have on our TV, I was looking for something good to watch. By my side, as always, my cell phone.

I paused for a moment at one show when I saw a name I recognized. “What has she been doing for the last few years?” I wondered, and picked up the phone.

No, I didn’t call her. I looked her name up on the Internet, using Google search on the mobile Web of my smartphone (a Treo). I’ve come to rely on the mobile Web more and more, to compare prices when I’m out shopping, to check directions and e-mail, to get a quick news fill.

That's the case for more and more users whose smartphones have Web access. But it's Apple’s iPhone that may be mobilizing the mobile Web in the same way the company’s iPod made digital music a reality for mainstream users.

“What the iPod did was not only sell a whole bunch of iPods, but it helped really activate and catalyze the digital music industry,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst for M:Metrics research firm.

Now, Apple has “catalyzed the telecommunications industry to think more creatively about devices and mobile Web experiences. They’ve demonstrated that if you put the right mix of a (data) plan and the right device in people’s hands, they really will use this stuff.”

M:Metrics, which has been researching the mobile market since 2004, found that the iPhone is “the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web,” with 85 percent of iPhone users doing so in the month of January.

That contrasted with 58.2 percent of other smartphone owners, and 13.1 percent of the total mobile market.

“It hands-down has become the device that is driving the most people to the mobile Web,” said Donovan.

“It’s creating buzz among consumers that it can be pleasant and useful accessing the Web from your mobile phone,” said Greg Sheppard, chief development officer of iSuppli Corp. market research firm.

“There’s interest growing, that hey, you can keep up with social networking sites, you can do mobile banking,” from your phone, he said.

“These are things that are nice to do during the day, maybe when you don’t want to use the office computer, so you slip into another room and do something real quick on your phone, and then get back to work.”

Note Sheppard’s wording: “You… do something…” on your phone, vs. use it to make a call.

Unlimited data plan a draw
AT&T is the exclusive carrier of the iPhone, and offers an unlimited data plan as part of its voice and data package, starting at $59.99 month. The iPhone also has Wi-Fi Net access. Both the flat rate data plan and Wi-Fi are incentives to using the mobile Web.

“Users don’t have to worry about getting nickel-and-dimed” for Net access, or facing “crazy phone bills,” Donovan said. “With that, you begin to look at the mobile Web as a utility that you can access whenever you want, for whatever you want.”

Douglas Brown, Bank of America senior vice president in charge of e-product development, said more than 25 percent of the bank’s 625,000 active mobile users are iPhone owners.

The bank designed a mobile Web application to work with the iPhone before it launched last June. It also provides mobile Web access for other phones, including smartphones such as Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and HTC touchscreen phones which are similar to the iPhone.

Bank of America Bank of America's icon is shown on a BlackBerry, one of the the phones that can take advantage of the bank's mobile Web access.

“What the iPhone has done is to awaken the industry and the consumer demand for a mobile Web experience,” Brown said.

“We’re now seeing in the wireless industry where consumers are buying a package — not just the voice service, but data services as well. Then there’s the issue of the device itself, and what drives and improves that experience.”

Newspapers, struggling in part because of the gravitation of readers to the Web, are among the industries viewing the mobile screen as key.

“The mobile Web is another important channel for consumers to engage with our journalism,” said Michael Zimbalist, The New York Times’ vice president of research & development operations, in an e-mail interview.

“We expect that in the future, it may become the very first touchpoint for our brand with new readers.”

He noted that in the past year, “we’ve witnessed extraordinary growth in our mobile page views,” with The Times’ mobile site having 14 million page views in February, 2008.

“At the beginning of 2007, it was only 500,000,” he said.

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