The World of Mobile Surfing

To no surprise over the last several years, the PC’s role as the primary computing device has been declining, and by all signs, will eventually drop down to nothing. More and more individuals are switching their primary Internet surfing time to mobile and portable devices, and, based on the latest analysis, most of that market is currently captured by Apple devices. Surprise!

Since January of 2010, 43% of page views by mobile devices was captured by iPhone, 30.5% by iPad and only 7.2% of online page views was captured by Motorola’s Droid. Apple has always designed user oriented interfaces that facilitate a convenient, pleasing and elementary use of their devices—so much so that even our 3-year-old son can use an iPad without any difficulty. I know this sounds like a sermon to “buy Apple”; I’m not trying to make it that way.

From a business marketing standpoint, whether you’re a business owner, an application developer or a marketing consultant, understanding the primary online functionality of your target market is key. If the future of online browsing will be dominated by mobile devices, ask yourself, is your website designed for a mobile platforms? Since iPhone and iPad clearly lead the market for mobile searches, is your website running solely or relying heavily flash, which is not supported by the iOS?

Destination driven businesses such as restaurants, clubs, and attractions are prime candidates for mobile searches, despite being notorious for having Flash driven sites. Even though all the Flash looks fantastic on a desktop, it is completely wasted on a high quality potential customer when it doesn’t work on their mobile device and prevents them from viewing the website.

In the ever-changing online world, there is always a new product, app or software being announced. Lately, and for the foreseeable future, that direction is toward mobile. Even though it’s difficult to always keep track of the latest and greatest, the goal is to always be designing with the future in mind.