The iPhone application of Marktplaats had almost 900 thousand visits last month, there are currently about 180 thousand users who are regularly using this application and all users generate over 17 million page views a month; this makes the Marktplaats application one of the most popular of lifestyle apps in the Netherlands. These figures are revealed by MobileMetrics in cooperation with Marktplaats.

Mobile is a very popular medium among Markplaats users. Currently about 2% of the traffic is originating from a mobile device. Marktplaats also noted that the mobile traffic is growing this year with about 30 – 50% a month. It is observed that from 08:00 hours people start using the iPhone app, while the traffic peaks between 20:00 and 22:00. Apparently the use of a mobile is also very popular on the couch.

Geographical use:

The use of the Markplaats iPhone app in the 25 biggest cities in the Netherlands (More than 100 thousands residents) is studied, it is concluded that Leiden is relatively the biggest orgin of visits in this app. In the period between February until March Leiden counted relatively 0.28 visits per resident. Followed by Amsterdam and Utrecht with 0.22 visits per resident. Rotterdam and The Hague both scored 0.17 visits per resident. Emmen is found the least busy city, registering only 0.03 visits per resident. In the study both residents and people using the Markplaats app while visiting the city were counted.

Devices:

41.1% of the users is using an iPhone 4, 28.4% the iPhone 3GS and only 10% is using the older iPhone 3G. The application is also being used on iPod’s and iPad’s.

Finally your regular site is user friendly, your conversion rate is increasing and there you have the mobile website trend. So you can start all over again. Mobile websites have been around for some time, but since the introduction of the iPhone mobile internet is getting past the early adapter stage. Creating a mobile website is not just translating the one you have into something similar but smaller. Compressing a complete website into the size of a mobile phone screen is like compressing your car into the size of a dinky toy and expecting you can actually drive it. Not going to happen. The screen of a mobile phone is getting bigger with the introduction of the touch screen, but even then it’s just a fraction of the size of your screen at home.

To make your content accessible on all mobile phones you first have to choose whether you create an application or a whole mobile website. This decision still depends a lot on the functionalities you would like to offer.

Choose a mobile website if your content consists of many short articles, some pictures and sometimes a small video. For a newspaper or blog this kind of mobile website works excellent. But you have to keep it basic. Make use of the standards and conventions out there. If you would like to show your mobile website on as many phones as possible it must be scalable for different screen sizes, use only hyperlinks for navigation and make proper use of CSS for mobile devices. Key is to label your categories in a good way. If nobody understands them, navigation will be difficult for your users. Getting advice from an information architect won’t be a waste of money if there is a lot of content to choose from. When you’re not sure about the understandability of your links it is also possible to do a card sorting session. This is a common research method for regular websites, but equally effective for mobile websites.

Advantage of an application above a website is that you can ask money for it. A lot of apps are a bit disappointing after installing so paying for it can be a hurdle. That’s why many applications are also available in a light version to trigger the potential consumer. They can get used to the app and then decide to pay for the extra functionality if it’s worth it.

So choosing web or app really depends on the type of content you have to offer. If it is for content browsing like a newspaper a mobile website suits best. You can reach a lot of different mobile phones and are more flexible. If you need more interaction for your application, want to use more functionality of the phone or would like to offer a better integrated user experience then create an app.