It’s going to be a Mobile Christmas and you’ve missed it!
I could write a load of facts and figures, but really there is no need, because this is all just common sense when you think about it. This year for the first time we’re looking at a Mobile Christmas and I’ll try and explain why this is going to be the case.
In a nutshell people have stopped buying personal computers pretty much completely – I mean why bother, most people have no need, so much is done via the Internet and email – what can you do on a computer that cannot be done on a Mobile.
I always claimed that a computer was a glorified letter writing kit. Out with paper and pens – in with keyboards and mice… you could write your letters, print and send them, or better just send them by Email. The single biggest difference between a letting writing kit and a computer to ordinary people was that you could also shop on the Internet – in other words… not only did your letter writing kit cost a heck of a lot more than pen, paper and stamps, but you could also spend as much money you liked on it and people would send you parcels from Amazon and the like.
It’s a psychological momentous time in Human history when you consider computers in this way and plenty of people are correctly claiming life was a lot simpler and cheaper a few years ago.
The Mobiles arrived, or rather Smart Phones – now we had the next evolution in the process our personal computers became truly personal and of course much smaller and we could still write letters and buy things. It’s a great leap.
But the common sense aspect to it that we no longer need that box in the corner or the sitting room. It was quite good for watching films or YouTube, but we can get all through that through our TV, which can also surf the ‘Net. So there is really no need to have it take up al that space.
And that is just about it really…. people are not buying computers, an iPad or Surface, a Samsung phone, that’s all people need these days… and so that is what people are buying instead.
Your Website
So how does all the affect you and your websites: well again the logic is simple, you can no longer depend on consumer base to view your website on a Desktop is going to become the minority viewer as more and more people turn to Mobile.
My experience of this was seeing Google’s head of Travel give a talk and tell us that 50% of viewers would be from Mobile in 2014. I then relayed this news to a disbelieving client and 9 months ago, 25% of their traffic was Mobile – one month ago it was 32% and today it’s 35%… I can confidently predict this year it will hit 40% over Christmas.
Now if your website isn’t working for Mobile this Christmas you will effectively be dismissing 40% of your traffic. Never before in this history of computers has such a large audience being missed out and we remember the Browser Wars and Screen Sizes from the old days.
The Future
If you were hoping that people would instead use computers at work to look up your website, for example in the B2B context – then sadly that is going to change as well, certain things will happen. There will be in increase in control in what you can see on the Web at work, workplaces are much more savvy these days about how you use your computer at work.
But also the time available to ‘research’ and ‘exploring’ will be more limited in the future, as we move around more, ideas, research and general consuming of information is going to be done while commuting and travelling to and from meetings and that of course means Mobile.
As Mobile becomes a yet bigger force for computing, then indeed workplace computers will suffer to and we will see a return to fewer computers in the workplace. Or more accurately we will see a more specialised use for computers in the workplace. People who need one will get one and they will need to carry out their job on it.
I will leave you with a last thought… Realistically what do you do that you cannot do on a Mobile. Obviously some people will always have answers – but there is an alternative and it’s coming your way this Christmas