Brick by Brick

As a sports fan and iPhone user, one of the sites I frequently access on my phone is ESPN.com.  ESPN recently launched a new mobile site for iPhones, which is more robust and app-like than just about any mobile site I’ve seen.  As a reference point, below are screenshots of the ESPN mobile site in 2008 and today.

While they may not look that different superficially, the site today is much more sophisticated and user friendly than it was in 2008.  It is all about the details:

• The new ESPN mobile site has become much more video-focused the last few years.  As you browse the site just about every section has the option to play video on your phone.
• In 2008, the ESPN site just featured one top story.  Now the mobile site has a Top Story slider that allows you to cycle through articles in a manner similar to the experience on www.espn.com. 
• The mobile sites navigation system has been optimized to work really well for touch screens.  In 2008 it was a bit mysterious.
• The search is featured prominently on the site today, and the results you get when searching by topic focus on delivering the most timely information first.
• The MyESPN area allows you to customize the headlines you see by team/sport, allowing easy access to the topics you care about.

ESPN has worked hard to create a thoughtful mobile experience that focuses on getting users to the content they need without any tension.  For me, the simplicity and focus on content of the ESPN mobile site is a not reprieve from the clutter that you find on ESPN.com and other news sites. 

We’ve all seen the stats about the explosion of the mobile web.

There are four billion mobile phones in use globally.  One billion of these are smart phones.  By 2014, more people globally will access the Internet from a mobile device than a desktop computer. 

Depending on who you talk to, mobile is either the next big thing or the big thing right now. 

Given all this, I’ve fully expected the 2012 Presidential candidates to break some ground in their use of mobile.  It is still really, really early -  many candidates haven’t launched version one of their full websites yet and mobile is a technology that lends itself to the ground game.  The cool stuff will come later. 

But taking an early look at the state of things, the situation is pretty bleak, with most candidates not even doing the basics well at this point. 

I analyzed the mobile programs of the fourteen candidates who have either formally announced or launched formal exploratory committees.  Here are the key takeaways:

• Only three of fifteen candidates (Newt Gingrich, Roy Moore and Barack Obama) have a version of their website that is optimized for mobile.  And frankly the Roy Moore mobile site is so poorly done they would have been better off not doing it (screenshot at the bottom of the page).
• Only four of fifteen candidates (Gary Johnson, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney) offer ways for users to sign up to receive updates via text message. 
• Only one candidate (Barack Obama) has built an official campaign app that is available for the iPhone. 
• Barack Obama is the only candidate deploying all three of these strategies.  No other candidate is using more than one. 
• On the Republican side I expected the well funded candidate to have much more robust mobile strategies than the long shots.  This isn’t the case at this point, as none of them are really doing that much at this point.

Below is a full table showing all the relevant data, as of June 20, 2011.

*Michelle Bachmann has an app for her most recent Congressional race.
**Various candidates had apps created for them by supporters or companies seeking to capitalize on their popularity. 

Like I said, it could be too early to be looking at this stuff.  Great things may be on the horizon. 

But at this point it is hard not be underwhelmed by the strategies being deployed by every candidate, with the notable exception of Barack Obama. 

Note: If I missed anything, please let me know in the comments.  I’ll update the table periodically as new candidates announce and new versions of the sites are launched.

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I’m not breaking any news when I write that mobile Internet usage is exploding.  This move towards mobile has a direct impact on our work here at The Bivings Group, so I’ve been following the trend very closely.   In the spirit of sharing, I figured I’d write a quick (lazy?) post highlighting some key facts about mobile I’ve come across the last few months.

• There are  4 billion mobile phones in use globally. Of these, over one billion are smart phones.  Source 

• Sales of smart phones grew by 96% in 2010.  Source

• It is estimated that by 2014, more people will access the Internet via mobile phones than via desktop computers. Source

• There are 48 million people in the world who have mobile phones, even though they do not have electricity at home. Source 

• Estimates suggest that there will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users by 2015. Source 

• Global mobile data traffic is projected to increase by a factor of 26 by 2015. Source 

• What exactly are all these smart phone users doing?   81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone.

• The most popular websites for smart phone users are search engines, social networks, retail and video sharing websites.   Source  

• 72% of smart phone owners use their phones while consuming other media.  1/3 use their phones while watching TV. Source   

• The average American mobile Internet user spends 2.7 hours a day socializing on their mobile device.  Source 

• The number of videos delivered by YouTube to mobile devices tripled in 2010.  YouTube now delivers 200 millions video views each day on mobile devices.  Source

• Starbucks reports that more than 3 million people have paid for coffee using the Starbucks Card Mobile App.  Source

• Over 1/3 of Facebook’s 600 million user base access the site form a mobile devices. Source

• Half of Twitter’s 150 million users access the site from a mobile device. Source

I have been watching the mobile space carefully the last few months, so as candidates have announced their interest in running for President  I’ve paid close attention to their mobile strategies.   So far, there really hasn’t been much to see as far as I can tell.

Enter Barack Obama, who announced his candidacy for President and launched version one of his campaign website yesterday. Obama’s new website is purposefully spartan, focusing exclusively on building his email list, Facebook fan page and campaign war chest.   I have no doubt Team Obama will be rolling out a robust new toolset for the website in the coming weeks and months.  Based on this early version of the site, it is clear mobile is going to be a big part of the 2012 strategy.

If you visit www.barackobama.com on a mobile phone or iPad you are automatically taken to a version of his site optimized for mobile use.  You can access the site directly from your browser at www.barackobama.com/m.

Beyond simply working well on a phone, a number of other steps have been taken to make the site mobile-friendly:

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We’ve all seen the stats.  Globally, there are 4 billion mobile phones – 1.08 billion of which are smart phones.  On average, Americans spend 2.7 hours a day socializing on their mobile devices.  By 2014, more people globally will access the Internet via a mobile device than a desktop computer.  Mobile is exploding and it will change everything.

As a firm whose primary business is building and managing online programs, it goes without saying that we need to stay on top of these trends.  To that end, we recently took a detailed look at how mobile usage of the traditional websites we manage (50+ sites in a variety of sectors) is evolving.  We did this by comparing accesses from mobiles devices in February 2010 to February 2011.  We did not look at the impact of mobile apps or SMS in this research.

While we can’t publicly release all of our findings, we did want to share some aggregate data.

Overall Findings

Not surprisingly, accesses from mobile devices has increased in the last year, although not as dramatically as I would have thought.  In February 2010, just 1.7% of users accessing the sites we looked at were using mobile devices.  By February 2011, that number had climbed to 4.4%. 

The percentage of people accessing via mobile varied wildly from site to site.  We saw percentages ranging anywhere from 0.5% to 20%.  The frequency of updates and topic of the site dramatically impacted whether people visited via a mobile device.  Generally speaking, news-oriented sites attracted more mobile visitors than sites with more static content.  Further, sites with a focus on technology tended to attract a higher percentage of mobile visitors than sites on other topics. 

We also found that sites for which we had created a mobile-friendly version attracted more mobile visitors than sites that hadn’t been optimized.  Makes sense.

Most Popular Browsers

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