It’s been about six months since we’ve done a 4cast post specifically about mobile computing, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about it. OPLIN has just finished the process of building mobile versions of all our library Dynamic Website Kits, so mobile has been very much on our minds. But while we had our heads down working on mobile, we missed seeing an interesting whitepaper [pdf] Yahoo! did a few months ago about “Mobile modes: How to connect with mobile consumers.” It contains some enlightening insights into how people actually use mobile devices.
- Infographic: The top things people do on mobile (Yahoo! Advertising Blog) “Not surprisingly, the most popular mobile mode, representing 38% of mobile activity time per day, is Connect which includes the ubiquitous social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as email and instant messaging. People spend roughly 18 minutes each day connecting with family, friends and associates via their mobile phone. The next most popular mobile modes were Search and Entertain at approximately 15 percent of mobile time each, followed by Manage and Inform at around 10 percent apiece. Shopping and Navigate represent the two lowest activity modes with single digit time allotments.”
- Understanding consumer mobile usage (Smart Insights/Dave Chaffey) “We all know from our personal use of mobiles that, if we have a smartphone, we’ll prefer apps for some tasks and browsers for others. This research gives a nice clear statement on what these mobile tasks are.”
- Yahoo! looks at how users consume the mobile web (GoMo News/Tony Dennis) “The company has made a number of key discoveries. One of these being that time of day matters. The highest proportion of ad recall is during the hours of 6am to 12pm. Another is that mobile isn’t always on the go – many people are simply using their mobile phones in down times. One third of total time spent on the mobile device is spent while at home.”
- Yahoo! study reveals much on mobile Internet usage (Digital Agency) “With mobile users spending 16% of their online hours searching the mobile web to find specific information, whether that be directions to a nearby restaurant or a word definition, the point is that leveraging your business’ mobile sites is a must. The need for a mobile version of websites is now past argument, with businesses who do not offer a mobile version of their site obviously missing out on an big opportunity. This also means that just having a mobile site is not enough, but you also have to optimise your mobile site to do well in search.”
Survey fact:
The survey gathered mobile usage data and attitudes of 3,844 consumers aged 13-54.
