Mobile websites versus mobile applications

If you are one of the world’s 450 million mobile internet users, you’ll already know that are two primary methods of accessing online content from your mobile phone, smartphone or other wireless device – mobile websites and mobile applications.

Even if your business is not currently serving content specifically to this huge population of mobile data addicts, as estimated in analyst IDC’s recent Worldwide Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast report, it’s very likely you’ll want to before its number doubles by the end of 2013. So it’s important to understand the strengths and weakness of each of these approaches to content delivery, and where your own focus should be.

The mobile internet market is maturing rapidly and IDC isn’t alone in its bullish predictions. Forrester Research claims high-speed handsets with next-generation ‘3.5g’ integrated technology will be available within three years and that by 2014 one user in three in the Western European market will own an internet-centric phone, such as today’s iPhone or Android-equipped handsets.

So what do we usually mean by the mobile internet? Well it’s this blend of websites accessible through mobile web browsers, together with emerging bespoke mobile apps.

Accessing websites on mobile devices can be very effective or very frustrating. Too few businesses are prepared to put in the resources necessary to develop sites specifically optimised from the ground up for mobile browsers and instead just assume their primary website will render sufficiently for use. As a result, visitors often receive a very mixed experience, with problems ranging from complete incompatibility to broken plug-ins, random layouts and inaccessible content of varying degrees.

On other hand, mobile browser capabilities are evolving all the time as the developers of Safari, Symbian, Opera Mobile, IE Mobile, Android, Firefox for Mobile and numerous rivals, ramp up their enhancements to differentiate amid fierce competition. User experience will only improve with this competition driving unique features as well as cross-compatibility.

Mobile apps are of course the latest thing for mobile platforms, with adoption largely driven by Apple’s iPhone and AppStore, as well as emerging platforms including Android. Apps are trendy, popular, and offer seamless task-based access to the internet. One touch on an icon presents users with relevant functionality and content with no obvious browser interaction. Apps are intuitive and likeable, they can be rapidly developed and offer new business opportunities and fresh revenue streams. Users who would never pay for premium content on a website will use micropayments to buy apps on their mobile platform, and even upgrade for further services.

On the downside apps currently remain largely OS specific walled-garden experiences, and won’t always benefit from being perceived as such novel concepts.

So if you want to develop your mobile platform today, where should you focus? The answer is to have an open mind, look at the benefits of both approaches and decide precisely how they fit your individual business requirement. Apps are cheap, rapidly developed and easily marketed tools, but they are not browser substitutes for broad businesses without a single focused service to promote, and they require effort on behalf of the user to find and install. Creating or converting websites costs a great deal and takes time and expertise, but they offer more flexibility and are a more familiar and intuitive concept for most web users.

It may be that the majority of businesses take a dual approach at this stage, capturing the zeitgeist of the app while continuing to develop a mobile website strategy. But while the browsers-based will be around for some time to come, the app market will certainly saturate at some point. Apps cannot be ignored today at the risk of missing out on their marketing coup but business should not abandon their focus, or indeed their budget, for a standards-based optimised mobile website. The future, inevitably, will present integrated approaches that build on today’s web services approach and take the best elements of both existing content models.

Back to January newsletter - This post was originally posted by Xavier Klingenfus