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.

• Visit time of mobile visits is 40% lower
• Number of page views of mobile visits is 47% lower
• Conversion of mobile visits is 83% lower

To complete a transaction on a e-commerce website, it’s usually required to enter a significant amount of personal and financial information. It is therefore understandable that the conversion rate from mobile devices is significantly lower. Entering data using a mobile device is simply not as easy as when using a laptop or pc.

The benchmark study shows that the iPhone (58%) and iPod (12%) are the most used mobile devices to visit e-commerce websites. Other operating systems that are frequently used include Windows, SymbianOS, Blackberry and Android.

In the benchmark study Netprofiler has analyzed the Google Analytics statistics from 10 Dutch e-commerce websites. Only visits with devices where the screen width was less than 700 pixels are included in the research. These are almost certainly mobile devices. The visits per operating system are based on the first two months of 2010.

The gaming platforms (Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3) are also used to visit websites. Their share in total numbers of visitors is still very limited (0.02%).

In the benchmark research Netprofiler has analyzed the Google Analytics statistics from 20 Dutch websites (news, e-commerce, travel, jobs, events). Only visits with browser width of less than 700 pixels are in the research. These are almost certainly mobile devices. The visits per operation system in the fourth quarter of 2009 are analyzed. Here is a weighted average determined.

OK, we have growth, a serious market. There is some healthy competition. Last summer 25% of all phones sold in the Netherlands were smartphones (or internet centric phones as this Dutch article states). We can agree that customers are enjoying internet on their phones. Whether it is through apps, email or the mobile web browser, having “the internet” always with you makes live a little easier. Whenever I advise companies on the use of the mobile channel I try to point out that focus: Make live easier for your customer!

Once you started advising companies on a developing channel you realize the need of good metrics. One of the most heard questions during any presentation or talk is: “How many of our customers are using smartphones? While this will always be a difficult question to answer it does bring up the obvious need for reliable intelligence. If you work for a major company I would always advise you to do your own research. Start with your own logfiles, measure clicks in your emails, include questions about mobile in your running surveys. And keep doing this with frequent intervals. Believe me, you are going to be happy with this data in a year. It will help you convince your managers that they need to invest in the mobile channel.

Nice. You have started with building up this reliable stream of information of your own mobile visitors. There is one more thing you might want to start gathering to include in your research and reporting. It is important to know what the entire market is doing. Globally and nationally! From operating system to firmware version! To top this it is interesting to know how your industry is faring compared to the mobile industry.

There are a few platforms where you can find (free) information. For a worldwide view with a very general perspective it is interesting to look at the metrics of AdMob. This mobile advertising company was recently acquired by Google. AdMob is receiving their data from the AdMob advertising network. This does mean that the statistics of a lot of mobile websites and applications that do not contain advertisements are not included. Comparable advertising networks like Mads and InMobi use the same technique for their metrics reports.

Forrester research or Gartner are interesting if there is a budget for general intelligence. Since you usually pay a pretty hefty fee for a research paper it is interesting to look at this free but very interesting presentation by Morgan Stanley.

If you have gathered your information it is important to interpret it right. Not just the general trends in the worldwide market. Focus on the area where your customers are. Western Europe metrics are not always representative of metrics in France.

On Mobile Metrics we will try to add value and be a resource for you by looking at more local results. We will use our network to gather our own metrics. We will look at small and undiscovered niches like mobile email metrics. And we will interpret it for you and give you personal insights in the market. Cheerio for now!