When thinking of how to position a solution in mobile, often people focus on the unique attribute of mobile phones - the fact they are mobile.
Hence the ideal location based service is something like "find me a resturant near here"
Yet how many people get lost, then wonder where they are going to eat? Isn't it more common for people to research where they are going first (via google on their PC at home or work) and research where they might want to meet up with their friends?
What if the majority of mobile usage is not actually mobile?
This has long been the case for voice and text messages - operators have long known that over 50% of calls made on phones are from two locations - the customer's home or workplace.
They even experimented with "discounted home calling" plans to compete with land lines - before they all decided to become quadplay providers and own both landline and mobile aspects.
Nielsen have recently published some research (sorry, no link - if someone from Nielsen wants to contact me with a link I'll update the posting) that shows in Europe 52% of mobile internet usage is within the home.
So maybe the "mobile web" isn't mobile at all. Maybe it's the "sat on the sofa and can't be bothered to turn the PC on unless I can find something interesting enough to make it worthwhile me bothering to stand up and move to my PC web" which isn't as snappy. So I'll coin the term "Small Screen Web" - the successes are going to be the solutions that work really well on a small screen - in fact better than on a large screen from a PC.
Let's mourn the death of the mobile web (nee WAP) and celebrate the birth of the small screen web.
I remember that great story you told me about MobileTV viewing habits, they found that most people were watching it on their sofa.
Similarly I've just watched iPlayer on my laptop because I can't be bothered to find the TV remote :-)
Would I watch the Apprentice on my phone, no I'll find the remote!
Mark
Posted by: Mark Doherty | March 26, 2009 at 10:41 PM