Desktop internet vs mobile internet: Where are you going?
Just last week my tech-savvy lawyer friend Simon Halberstam posed me the following question: “Will the mobile phone replace the PC as main interface to the internet?” A question I have been recently asking myself, so here are a few musings on the topic.
First, a little history. Back in the heady days of WAP, there was a company called phone.com, which was later renamed as Unwired Planet, and then to Openwave. They were one of the first to evangelise the notion that mobiles would become internet devices and indeed the predominant internet devices.
Many others were caught up in the excitement, pouring hundreds of millions into building mobile portals. Remember the Vizavvi debacle? Zed and Genie? These grand ambitions were radically downsized as the internet bubble burst and the cold light of day set in: more and more phones sported microbrowsers but very worryingly, few people were using them – except in Japan. 
A Jan 2007 ICM Omnibus Survey of the Mobile Internet showed that 21% of UK adults access the Mobile Internet to search for music, ringtones, mobile games or other forms of entertainment. Which means that 79% of people don’t. Not-so-different results have been observed in the US and in European studies.
I’m as sad a mobile geek as anybody, but I can’t see myself using my mobile (Nokia N95) as my main interface to the internet when I’m at work. Why would I, when I have a broadband-connected MacBook Pro right in front of me? If you’re poring through 82 unread blog posts like I am now, a 17 inch MacBook screen sure beats a 2.5 inch N95.
What I can see myself doing is using my mobile internet device as my main interface to my social network. I’m a recent convert to Facebook, and their mobile service works surprisingly well. And I’m not alone in liking it.
According to M:Metrics, 12.3 million consumers in the US and Western Europe accessed a social networking site with their mobile in June this year MySpace attracted 3.7 million US and 440,000 UK mobile users. In America, Facebook’s mobile audience is about 2 million, and in Britain, about 307,000. Rounding out the top three is YouTube in the U.S., with 901,000 mobile visitors and Bebo in the UK, with 288,000.
Where do I see all this going? In ten years time, the desktop internet will still be the optimum device for office-bound knowledge workers. The destiny of the mobile internet is to be the natural place you go (several times a day or more) for social connection. It will also be the way to seek out the myriad tiny snippets of information (people, time, places) which spin out of this context.
[tags]Mobile devices, social network, community, Facebook, MySpace, M:Metrics, mobile phone, technology, gadgets, Taptu, Taptology, Steve Ives[/tags]
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October 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Interesting article Steve.
I couldn’t agree more. In my humble opinion, mobile internet usage will only ever increase if services are provided that enhance a user’s ability to perform tasks they would ordinarily perform on their mobile phone.
Like you said, the main tool people use for social connection is their mobile. I see the popularity of mobile applications that enhance a persons ability to connect to and share information with peers increasing dramatically in the next few years.