The Next Phase of Mobile Dominance is Just Starting

[engine]

We all know how smartphones and mobile have revolutionised the Internet as we knew it. The big questions are, where next, and how to capitalise on the power of a smartphone?
How are you making the best of the mobile evolution?

The next two decades, predicts Benedict Evans, a partner at venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, will be how smartphones redefine myriad industries from automobiles to ecommerce.
“The platform wars are over,” says Evans in an interview. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS run on roughly 2.4 billion phones and 700 million tablets. Now that the second stage of mobile development is starting, the question becomes: “What can we build with this?” The Next Phase of Mobile Dominance is Just Starting [qz.com]

[keyplyr]

How are you making the best of the mobile evolution?

I'm keeping up pretty well.

My sites are responsive, my brick'n mortar has good presence in local search, Google & Bing map locations, great ranking in the mobile index and have active accounts in most social media and their mobile apps.

I accept payment directly from iOS and Android devices, as well as Paypal Here.

What I've considered, but not initiated yet, is advertising my brick'n mortar via those mobile apps that use location for selecting audience.

AMP doesn't seem to be a good choice for my page architecture.

[toidi]

I have been concentrating on voice search. Verbal queries are different than text queries.

[engine]

@toidi how does the result compare? I mean, do you get exactly the same results?

[toidi]

@engine
I am not experimenting. The results might discourage me from continuing. Right now i am just compiling a library of articles based on questions my viewers typically ask me in person and questions i think they might ask. I am still trying to wrap my head around it so it is hard to describe. Instead of an article about blue widgets, i am trying a series of articles with questions about blue widgets. What would a novice ask, then i ask it and answer.

[keyplyr]

What would a novice ask, then i ask it and answer.

I have a FAQ that does just that.

[toidi]

I have a FAQ that does just that.

as do we all.

[blend27]

Not Sure about mobile Dominance, but mobile ISPs are better to be on lookout.

KievStar GSM(Ukraine) currently on all time high on referrer spamming, been going on for at-least 6 month.

[keyplyr]

@blend27 - From what I've seen, KievStar users have been doing that for several years but not sure what that has to do with Mobile or Mobile ISPs. I generally ignore refer spam unless accompanied by exploits.

[RedBar]

A fascinating broadcast however I'm going to have to listen to it again since he rattles on at a fair old pace and, quite simply, I didn't have time to digest a lot of what was being said ... that's probably my age doing that and the speed at which I work:-)

[blend27]

@keyplyr

Not to take it all the way off base...

I recently spent 11 days using hot-spot feature thru my Mobile ISP exclusively due to move to another flat.

7 GB of hotspot data at LTE speeds, video streaming works flawlessly, after that it slows down to 3G, still good enough do dev of any sort...

I can't write off 5-6 Megs of referrer spam on daily bases from Mobile ISP's from UA and RU on bunch SMB Sites that get 70-80 visitors a day otherwise. It looks like entire day's worth of IIS Logs is referrer spam. Literally, KievStar being the worst.

But anyway.

[nomis5]

Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS run on roughly 2.4 billion phones and 700 million tablets

For me that's a meaningless stat unless I know where the users are for the 2.4 billion phones. If the majority of them are from China, Russia, third world countries etc. I couldn't give a toss, nor should most people if they interested in earning money from their websites. If the majority of the tablet users (where's the stat for desktop?) are from my side of the world then I'm interested.

Top that with the other missing stat of what platform is the main source of actual purchases / clicks. It's all a meaningless statistical vacuum without those stats.

Personally I'm not convinced that mobiles are anywhere near the purchase nirvana claimed at the moment.

Yes I do have mobile friendly sites which gets lots of visits from mobile users, they just don't click too well at the moment.

[weeks]

Yes I do have mobile friendly sites which gets lots of visits from mobile users, they just don't click too well at the moment.

Nomis5, that is a telling comment. Why? It seems like there would be a lot of reasons why a smaller screen (vs a desktop) in a variety of environments (vs a home or office) would see fewer clicks. The technology has changed the game a great deal. Headlines, for example, have always been important, but even more so now. Short copy always got read more than long articles, but even more now.

engine asked "how to capitalize on the power of a smartphone?" Honestly, it's all defensive here. Make a page, then, "How does it looking on a smartphone?" Adjust. Publish. Move on. Capitalize on the power of a smartphone? Ha, ha, ha...

Simple images in clear context to what the user is seeking or reading was always best, but I would guess they are more important now? But, maybe not. I'm seeing more and more pretty pictures toss on a page that really don't contribute to my understanding of anything. So, images do seem to be more important than ever and I'm guessing that's due to mobile since images on the tiny screen communicate something quick.

My clients' website are b2b or very local small retail, mostly informational. So, little mobile activity, right? Wrong. On the b2b, over 30 percent of the users are on mobile. Small retailers, almost 50 percent.