The Internet is Dead!
I was poking around this morning and was surprised to find a reference to that thought dating all the way back to 2001. And it was pretty smart, too; the idea wasn’t that we had outgrown the usefulness of a global interconnected network of computers, but merely that we’d find new, better ways to use the Internet.
Got a SmartPhone? Or an iPad?
Über Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson has something to say on this subject, and he’s right on. If you don’t develop your mobile platform strategy as part of your Internet strategy, you’re letting the biggest business change in decades pass you by.
Let’s face it: there are things you just don’t want to do on your SmartPhone, and no matter how much I like my Droid that darned screen just isn’t big enough. I also carry a Netbook most of the time and have anywhere-access to the Internet, but even that doesn’t feel big enough to me because I’m still looking at a shrunken version of the Internet and the software that I use and looks great on my desktop computer isn’t much fun on the smaller, lower-resolution screen. Sometimes, it won’t even work correctly.
Apps solve that problem. Apps are developed for a specific mobile platform and display. And if “there’s an app for that” I’d rather use it than a web site viewed in a smaller-than-intended format.
Is it an iPad App? Android for my Droid . . . or a bigger Android device? iPhone? The answer isn’t which . . . it’s “yes”. And so you can download an iPhone App for Answer Guy Central, or an Android Version of Answer Guy Central. And if you visit us using most SmartPhones but no app you get a special down-scaled version of Answer Guy Central.
This drives me nuts, of course. I want to complain about how much easier it was to be “out there” in the good old days of plain web browsers. But then I remember that it’s never been easy; Internet Explorer works a little different from Firefox, which works a little different from Safari . . . etc.
It’s REAL business change. Your customers may not stay your customers, based on nothing more than whether you’re smart enough to stay ahead of what they want to see.
Contact The Answer Guy if you need help with your mobile strategy. It’s why we’re here.
