06/25/08 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
We know that every day more people are using their iphones, blackberries, and other mobile devices to surf the web. In the past few years, one of the biggest areas of change has been the amount of Internet users who are accessing websites via phones and mobile devices. As a result, Web designers have a growing need to be educated in this area and ready to design websites that accommodate this audience.
So here are some trends that you will find in 2009 in mobile web design:
- Simple Options – Nobody wants to be scrolling through pages and pages of unnecessary info. When it comes to mobile websites, simplicity is key. Make it easy for the user to navigate on your mobile website
- White Space – White space is an important part of any design, and it’s something that’s usually a challenge in Web design because there is a desire to get as much as possible in front of the visitor. But in mobile design the screen is much smaller the white space becomes more of a necessity in mobile design
- Lack of Images – On a regular laptop or desktop images are encourage to help spark the visitor’s interest to a website but on the other hand it can be harmful for mobile websites. Because the screen is so small it will be hard for visitors to see the image and also harder for them to read the content. Again, less is more.
- Sub-domains instead of .mobi or separate domains – It is becoming more common that companies have a serparate url for they mobile websites. For example m.twitter.com, mobile.washingtonpost.com and netflix.com/mobile/.
- Prioritized content – Make sure that the content is prioritized towards the visitor, unlike websites they are full of banner ads and advertisement. Most mobile websites are ad-free, therefore mobile websites are more focused toward the visitor.
05/19/08 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
Remember when cellphones were huge, brick-like objects, with no video, mobile web, or even text-messaging? Mobile phones have certainly come a long way in the last 23 years, and this VIDEO shows just how rapid the progress of cellular technology has been.
01/21/08 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
In belated appreciation of the dawning of another new year, we have compiled several indicators which point to the awe-inspiring growth of mobile adoption and the role of SMS as the most popular application for mobile subscribers.
PHONES FOR EVERYONE, ALMOST.
Figures released by industry analyst Informa Telecoms & Media reveal that worldwide mobile penetration hit 50 per cent – or around 3.3 billion subscriptions – on November 26, 2007, just over 26 years since the first cellular network was launched. This is all the more impressive when it is revealed that global penetration was 10% , with only 500 million subscriptions, in the year 2000 and took another 5 years to reach 30%, but only two more after that to reach 50%!
As of the end of September there were operational networks in 224 countries around the globe, a figure that has increased from 192 in 1997 and 35 in 1987. Informa estimates that mobile networks covered 90 per cent of the global population by mid-2007.
A large number of more mature markets worldwide already have in excess of 100 per cent mobile penetration, as users increasingly sign up for more than one subscription. As of the end of September, 59 countries had mobile penetration of over 100 per cent.
WHAT’S A LANDLINE?
More than one in eight U.S. households have cell phones but lack traditional landline telephones, according to a federal study that tracks the country’s growing dependence on wireless phones. The report showed that for the first half of 2007, 14 percent of households had cell phone service but no landline telephones.
Nearly one in five Hispanic adults (18 percent) have cell phones but no landline phones, the survey showed.
In addition for the first half of 2007,
11 percent of white adults and 14 percent of black adults had only cell phone service.
Roughly three in 10 people age 18 to 29 had only wireless telephones — more than double the portion of those aged 30 and older who rely only on cell phones.
14 percent of males and 12 percent of females only had cell phone service.
The National Health Interview Survey, conducted by the CDC, involved in-person interviews with people in 15,996 households conducted from January through June of this year.
Researchers found that more than 55% of all adults living with unrelated roommates relied solely on cellphones, and noted that this is the “highest prevalence rate among the population subgroups examined.”
With Americans cutting the cord to their land lines, 2007 is likely to be the first calendar year in which U.S. households spend more on cell phone services, industry and government officials say.
While there are roughly 170 million land lines in use nationwide, industry officials estimate there are close to 250 million cell phones. (These figures include residential and corporate use.)
SMS = SO MANY SUBSCRIBERS!
As the popularity of SMS continues to grow, Gartner forecasts 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008, a 19.6 percent increase from the 2007 total of 1.9 trillion messages. Mobile messaging revenue across major markets will grow 15.7 percent in 2008 to $60.2 billion, up from $52 billion in 2007.
Gartner estimated that there were 189 billion mobile messages sent in 2007 in North America, and this is forecast to reach 301 billion in 2008.
10/11/07 by David Wachs | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
My how the times are changing.
Verizon, historically one of the most “closed” carrier networks in the United States, announced at the end of November that by the end of 2008, it will allow an “any device” policy, enabling users to use nearly any phone on the Verizon network, accessing nearly any application via the network. Perhaps more notably, this announcement was followed-up by the company stating that they will be switching from their CDMA network to a GSM one, further enabling the ease of transport of phones across networks. (GSM networks, the most common in the world, use the SIM card interface to easily switch carriers.) Switching to GSM from the closed CDMA architecture is by definition a move towards a more open network, so by announcing open access strategy first, Verizon avoids looking internally conflicted.
AT&T, the #1 mobile carrier in the US, followed up by announcing to the world that it too would be embracing the “open explosion”. In reality, you could always bring an unlocked GSM handset to AT&T and use it on its network. The real big news here is that when you’re contract’s up, AT&T will unlock your phone (unless of course, you have the coveted iPhone).
So what does this mean for mobile marketing?
The big PR blitz was actually initiated by a little company called Google, with its effort to “open” the carrier networks to allow for “any app” on “any phone” on “any network.” What they really mean is “any app” on “any GOOGLE phone” on “any network”. And Google’s PR tantrum worked; Sprint and T-Mobile signed up to be Google partners (with rumors that Verizon is next).
The Google platform will allow for ease of development of rich mobile applications that can run cross-network, adding yet another standard to the mix, on top of J2ME, BREW, Windows Mobile, and the ever-so-sexy-yet-ever-so-closed iPhone.
If Google has it’s way, and the world goes “gPhone”, our job as mobile marketers will be easier. Cool new apps (mobile catalogs of products, custom-branded games, and more) will be easier to develop and have a higher likelihood of working on more phones. More likely, however, we will be left with one more “standard” on top of J2ME, BREW, Windows Mobile and iPhone. It will be up to companies like Cellit to make solutions that work no matter what “standard” you’re on.
The first phones sporting the Google technology (named “Android”) aren’t expected to hit the market until the end of next year. That’s still a long way and the show-down for “mobile platform dominance” is far from over.
The “end” of closed networks marks the very early start of a new age of delivering more powerful applications into the hands of the end-users. This end was predicted and prayed for. (In fact, I did it back in September of 2006.) We will just have to see how quickly the “open factor” affects our abilities to deliver richer, more compelling content to the consumer.
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