Forum Moderators: phranque
@Iamlost did you do any radical changes to accommodate mobile traffic?
"We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage," Matt Waddell, a product manager for Google Mobile, said in an interview. "We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating.
...
"Faster is better than slow, especially on a mobile device, where fast is much better than slow," Waddell said. "Not only are we are seeing increased user satisfaction but also greater usage."
...
Waddell said Google had seen iPhone users perform as many as 50 times more Web searches on these computer-phone devices as users of standard mobile feature phones typically do.
And I went YES!
It just made so much sense. Even before I thought about mobile, which was still only 3-or-4-years (smartphone) old. Initially in my mind context was demographic, was marketing segments. Within a month of research I understood clearly that context (in all it's myriad conglomerations and permutations) was the foundation on which content should be built/delivered.
Instead of thinking: structure/semantics -> content -> presentation/behaviour for each target also remove structure/semantics from the 'page' such that a given URL is totally amorphous. Think instead: context -> content -> structure/semantics -> presentation/behaviour.
And... let me tell you that context delivery is neither simple nor easy.
* identify kinds and degrees of user context awareness in specific scenarios.
Think personas on steroids.
* develop from the above a context awareness system that is replicable, reusable, and scalable.
* know and build within existing technical constraints while watching to see where they might be eased in n-time.
To add to the difficulty remember that context is not static but a dynamic process with a history. In fact much of what is termed 'context' is in reality a snapshot of a specific moment in context or context state; remember that context is a process, a flow, a series of context states over time. And that history, the previous context states influence future ones. Having fun yet? :)
Now one must collect specified user context information or metadata, within a framework build a (semi-)unique awareness of user context, match against user request, i.e. URL, considering referer(s), excluding extraneous, ranking remaining, and outputting a customised contextual result, i.e. page.
There are other considerations too :) The more I think I've got my head wrapped around what I'm doing the more I find that needs to be addressed.
I've talked about what follows a number of times but only as disconnected bits; now I'm going to describe the forest rather than the trees. Some of what follows has already been implemented by a number of sites, some is in testing, some in research; however, it all is real and it all works if not as a whole live reality, not yet, quite.
Important Note: the following is simplified and limited, the reality is complex and far far more reaching.
You are warned.
A visitor arrives on site for the (apparent) first time and the default format for that landing page is served. Simultaneously the visitor is being 'fingerprinted' and entered into a database.
As the visitor scrolls, moves mouse, etc. reading speed and interests, individual on page track and multiple page click tracks are logged, entered into DB, and associated with fingerprint id.
Visitor leaves.
Visitor returns, is identified by 'fingerprint', prior site interests are checked against landing page content... and a personalised (rather than the default) format based on context of person, device, history, etc.
Mine are pure info sites; what others with eCom sites are doing is taking personal ID from orders and mining SM for additional data to better pinpoint offers. This for your mother's birthday, that for your anniversary, your nephews high school grad... all apparently serendipitous but in reality your web shared personal information leveraged. With nary a cookie or registration on site.
I know which books or movies or media devices or what-have-you I sold you through affiliation and which ones you were checking out on my presell pages that you didn't. So, I can better target you each time you return. I know which ad pages for which products interested you the most over time so I know which coupons and offers to suggest first and second on given days in given seasons.
Back to the beginning: a visitor arrives on site for the (apparent) first time from a back link aka not via SE and that referrer is checked against a DB. If not there, the default format... (and is logged to be added)... however, if already there I already know the context of what brought the visitor: the referring page's title, heading, description, link's anchor/surrounding text and subheading... and a semi-custom context driven page format and content is delivered and visitor is fingerprinted for future reference.
Yes, there is a fly (possibly - still too early to say definitively) in the ointment for those that live and die via Google: not every visitor sees the same page at a given URL; there is a default and then there are the personalised. It is using context to change content - remember how innovative was CSS? - this is a similar shift. The page is becoming a recombination of URIs under an overarching URL.
In time (still in research stage) a site may become a recombination of URIs packaged according to personalised requirements. Rather than move from formal page to page one would move through information chunks (I don't have the computer power to go more granular in real time).
The web is still wild and increasingly weird and loads of fun...
And the revenue rivers overflow with goodness and money. :)
