Sunday’s New York Times had a slightly odd piece about the mobile web. I struggled a little bit to figure out exactly what the author’s point was, though I guess his closing sentence settles it up somewhat: “For now, widespread use of the mobile Web remains both far off and inevitable.” Feel free to agree or disagree, or wonder along with me what the relevance of the failure of WAP has to do with the ground he covers.
Russell Beattie had an excellent take on the piece, and the reaction to it across the web-centric blogosphere:
Pictured above is the latest Techmeme news cluster (-fuck) set off by some moron at the NYT.
I love it that people who six months ago never once gave a moment’s thought to mobile usability or functionality are suddenly experts at The Right and True Way of Mobility (and you’ll have to pry their iPhones from their cold dead fingers to convince them otherwise). And I also love the sounds of apoplectic rage emanating from the old-skool mobile heads who want to defend their high tower of mobile industry expertise from the hoards of mobile newbies.
That’s the biggest point to take from this if you’re in the mobile industry or a mobile content publisher: like never before, tons of people are paying attention. Maybe they’re not on the right track, or can’t see past the iPhone, but they’re aware of the mobile internet. That means the opportunity has grown, and if nothing else, a basic awareness and understanding is there. And that’s a good thing for all of us.
Something is happening-at least in the numbers of new visits, and the number of people clicking on mobile ads for our site.
As more attention is paid to the mobile web and mobile apps, the more traditional web players are going to want an easy way to get on board. But how to do that is pretty confusing to them. And the fact that they can’t really exploit the technology themselves doesn’t help (i.e. “I can’t get this mobile browser to work! Who’s ever going to use this stuff!!?). So they just stay away from the platform when it comes to putting their own businesses there. Once folks get up the learning curve, however, and various suppliers start catering and marketing to their needs, the market will start a new phase of growth.
[…] de las respuestas acaloradas del ambiente, entre las que cito a Mob Happy y Mobile Mentalism y las criticas más sútiles de algunos de los Guru Bloggers, entre las que […]